AN ENCHANTER'S FORETELLING. [NARNIA]

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | VISITS

NOTE - brief mentions of blood.
happy reading!

✧✧✧

CHAPTER NINE
VISITS

✧✧✧

The following morning after Anne's unanticipated arrival, one morning in April, a certain Lady made her way along the many hallways toward the Hospital wing, located almost on the other end of the castle.

With a basket stashed with a great variety of fruit, various delicacies, and drinks Rose had managed to snatch from the kitchens, she headed to the wing. She had brought the older girl one of the books that'd caught her attention during her previous visit to Narnia, and a few of her own crocheting materials. Perhaps she would not run out of things to do if she brought them. And as she crossed through the rather somber gardens, she picked out one of the slowly blooming flowers adorning the neatly-trimmed bushes in myriad shades of reds and pinks.

Perhaps it would even cheer her up during her stay. Hopefully.

Ever since the incident in the courtyard, which had occurred just the day before, Rose and Edmund had wondered what had been the cause to Anne's sickly appearance. She had ridden a fragile horse all the way from her homeland to the castle amidst a raging thunderstorm. She'd come drenched in blood, staining the blonde of her hair, and tattered dress blemished with splattered mud from puddles, and her skin pale. Nearly purple even. Truthfully, she looked like a corpse – even if neither of them didn't want to admit, or even describe what she'd looked like using that word.

They tried asking the High King, who had stayed with her for quite a long while in the wing, but it was to no avail; he would not say. Not even when Edmund had made countless of bribes just to know. This had caused the opposite of what had been intended to stir within the lady and Just King: curiosity. Or even nosiness, as Edmund had said earlier that morning during a rather silent breakfast.

So, that was where Rose had found herself now, heading to the wing with the awfully heavy basket, book, and a sole flower slipping between her fingers; and her inquisitiveness swirling within her head as she neared. Her short-length heels clapping against the marble of the floors, and her brown coat billowing behind her with the blowing wind. Only a few were around the hospital wing that time of day, in exception of the head physician tending to Anne's wounds, and slowly-healing bruises covering her body.

Rose grimaced when the image raced through her mind again. The image of the previous morning haunted her, seeing the kind older girl under the lightening of the storm: helpless, wounded. But, as she pushed the wide double-doors of the wing open, revealing a vast room with many lumpy beds pressed to the sides, the thought instantly dissipated as if it was never there.