The Memory Keeper

Chapter 10

They were taken to a large dining room, its gilded walls and window frames glistening under chandeliers dripping with diamonds. The room was empty save for a round table with stiff, high-backed chairs, and a handsome black piano in the corner. High heels clattered noisily across the marble floor as everyone was led to their appointed seats. A butler helped to tuck Colette's chair in after she was seated. Natalie's chair made an unattractive sound across the floor as she took her own seat, and looked up at the tall arched windows filled with the deep blue of dusk. A candelabra adorned the middle of the table, the red and silver candles lit, matching the red and silver place mats. Colette noticed the color scheme and smiled, pleased.

Tin dome plates gleamed in the candlelight, arranged artistically on the revolving center piece. Goblets of Coldton's best white wine were being filled for everyone at the table, a maid moving from one guest to the other, hesitating when she approached Piper. The lord waved his approval only because he could not be quite that rude in front of the queen. Colette housed witches, honored them, in fact. To continue to be so discourteous would surely, Natalie knew, end in awkward silence or severe disagreement.

"A lovely set up, your majesty," Colette said, picking the goblet up by the stem and sloshing the wine around the rim a little. "You definitely know how to welcome your guests."

He smiled, thanking Colette for gracing everyone with her surprise visit. The queen rested her elbows on the table, cupping her cheeks in her palms. "I am here to visit my newest mind weaver, Natalie Gorman."

All eyes shifted to said Natalie, who tried not to look like she wanted to sink low into her seat and disappear under the table. It was not long, thankfully, before they moved on, everyone talking about Coldton's sudden weather condition, shared concerns with middle people abusing unprescribed medicines in Coldton, which resulted in the lord's wrinkled brow, and then their plans for new street lamps and restoration projects. Natalie watched Piper. Her friend sniffed the wine and took a few sips. The mind weaver looked down to fiddle with her napkin, and when she looked back up, she saw that Peter was watching her. A small smile appeared on his lips, and he turned away when the man and woman next to him leaned over to ask him a question.

The maids made another round with the wine bottle, and then lifted the lids from the plates. Steam roiled off a bowls of white rice, a baked duck, fresh broccoli, clam and seaweed soup, pork pies, fried potatoes, and creamy spinach. Natalie wanted to stab her fork into everything, not realizing until now how empty her stomach felt. Everything smelled delicious.

Colette sliced off a generous portion of duck for herself. The center piece revolved around the table, and when it was Piper's turn, the lord watched, trying not to look like he had just witnessed a rat scampering across the dinner table. Natalie was perhaps the only person who noticed. Not even Piper bothered looking up from her plate of food.

Once everyone's plate was full, they ate and chatted, ladies leaning toward Colette with Coldton's latest gossip, never taking their eyes from her hair, her face. The queen mind weaver pretended to listen, interested, but the true interest resided in the fried potatoes, which she took a third helping of. Natalie watched, amused. She did not know Colette could eat so much, would eat so much. She did not know why she never considered that the queen mind weaver ate, slept, and put on her clothes one piece at a time, just like Natalie. Colette was not a painting. She did not exist only to be beautiful, delicate, and impacting.

A maid wandered around the table, checking to see if anyone needed a new napkin or their goblet refilled. Piper, unnoticed by everyone at this point, nearly inhaled her second serving of wine, and watched a little impatiently as the maid poured her a third one.

Natalie shook her head, biting down a smile. The lord and lady turned toward the mind weaver at that moment, and she straightened in her seat. They asked her many questions about her job, which she answered as professionally as she could, Colette watching from a few chairs down, her eyes like rose quartz in the candelabra's bouncy light. Natalie was very much aware of Peter's stare as well. She felt it like feathers in her heart.