A Winter's Tale

Chapter 13:

Chapter 13:
EMERY'S POV:

Days flew like seconds. I began to lose track of time, only aware of the motions I was going through. Wake up, eat, sit in the gardens, eat, talk with Alice, eat, write Lucy another letter, read, and sleep. It was the same thing every day. The estate was finally starting to settle back into a routine where everyone knew their part, and no one questioned it. Lucy enjoyed my letters- she thought my life was now some mysterious, sensual, love story. I disagreed wholeheartedly with her.

She's gotten betrothed too since I'd left. A man named Alan who Lucy called unfortunately boring. He was a gentleman, nice, sweet, rich, and he had her parents approval. Yet, Lucy always longed to be free, but she would start to love her husband at some point. She would have at least five little golden haired children who will be as spoiled as their mother was. However, when my letters started to become devoid of any drama, Lucy began to ask me if I was feeling alright, if everything there was going on well. I supposed she could tell something was wrong.

These routine days didn't just come out of random. No, they all started in the middle of the night, days ago. It was a frigid night, but the sound of someone readying a horse yanked me from my sleep. I was worried. Who was beginning a trip in the late hours of an especially cold night? It'd even started to snow, which it'd do for the next few months. I'd threw on my cloak, and tried to slip out of my door, only to find it locked. I'd stepped back, completely shocked. Only one person would want to prevent me from going outside: the Count. That meant that he was the one leaving, and he'd wanted to make sure I didn't try and catch a glimpse of him as he prepared for his trip.

The next morning, William confirmed my suspicions. The Count had gone. Not permanently, but he'd gone somewhere to handle some business, urgent business. He hadn't been back for several days, and Alice said he often did this. He would leave, not returning for a while. So, surely out of pure boredom, the estate fell into a non-significant routine. I think by the time the snow was falling the hardest, covering the entire ground, everyone had grown tired of this pitiful routine we'd built.

"Let's go to the cemetery," Alice said one day, before lunch. We were sitting in the garden. I was reading, and she was working on making a reef for her mother. I looked up from my book, "the cemetery? There's one here?" She nodded, "just down the path there. It's a little of a walk, but we should go. Father surely won't mind you going there." I arched my eyebrow at her. I'd never heard of the cemetery, not even in Alice's chatters about the estate. But, anything was better than doing what we were doing, which was the same thing we'd done yesterday, and will probably be the same thing we do tomorrow. "Okay," I put my book down, "we'll do that." Alice ran off to find her father to ask if it was alright that we went there. When she came back, I knew we could go by the brilliant smile on her face.

We walked arm and arm down the path that was twisted with tree roots, stumps, and snow. It wasn't too cold, the snow had stopped falling for a few hours. With cloaks wrapped tight around our bodies, we made our way stepping over tree branches, side stepping holes in the snow, and pushing aside long hanging branches. Alice was right. The cemetery was a nice walk from the gardens. But, it was worth the wait because the cemetery was simply beautiful. The snow made it look like a winter wonderland. The gravestones and mausoleums were all covered in snow, willow trees without any leaves encompassed the whole thing. It was creepily beautiful, something otherworldly. "Wow," I whispered, separating myself from Alice, so I could go look at the names. It was all the Count's family, generations upon generations were all buried here.

         The older generations had mausoleums while the newer generations had smooth, cold marble gravestones. I took in the names and years eagerly. This was my betrothed's family. Every once in a while, I would ask Alice if she knew the people. Some she did, some she did not. All of them died before she was born, so she learned from her parents. Every name all ended in Dubois, every member who'd ever died was buried right here, in this macabre yet strikingly beautiful cemetery. I found myself right by the forest line, where, amongst the snow, and fallen branches, a gravestone sat almost unnoticed.

   It wasn't as nice as the other ones, it was rough, cut choppily and hurriedly. The elements had weathered the writing down to being almost unrecognizable. I stared at the twisted letters for several moments before I finally made out what they said. The name shocked me. It was the only one in the cemetery that wasn't part of the Count's family. "Alice," I called out, "who is Janine Michelson?" I heard her make her way over to the spot I was at. She gasped at the grave in front of us, pushing some of the branches out of the way with her foot, "I-I don't know. I've never seen this before." We were both quiet as we stared at the forgotten gravestone. "She didn't die too long ago," Alice bent down to get a better look at the dates, "just about six years ago. Why, that's the same time as...." Alice trailed off, casting a worried glance at me.

   I narrowed my eyes, "same time as what?" "Nothing," she stood up, looping her arm through mine, "we should head back now." She didn't wait for my response, just started pulling me away from the cemetery. I glanced back at the poor, unkempt grave before the trees blocked my line of vision. Alice was keeping something from me too. Something big, something that had to do with Janine Michelson. She passed right at the time as something else significant at the estate. I needed to know why she was at the estate when she died, why she was buried in an uncared for patch of grass, and why she was buried in the family cemetery if she was not a Dubois. Obviously, she had some part to play in a much bigger mystery. She was a clue. The year she died was a clue.

         My mind we back to the Count again. What was he working on that was so secretive? That he felt as if he had to push everyone else away, and shroud himself in darkness to complete it? The Count was working on something dangerous; his project would make some people very unhappy. It suddenly donned on me. That was why he was so exclusive. He was on a suicide mission, and he wanted as few people as possible to get hurt. I studied Alice again. All she'd ever known was this estate. How would she adjust to King James' court? How would Miriam and William? I shook my head, trying to push my thoughts to more positive ones.

I would not be sad anymore. I would come to the cemetery more often, I would read every book in the library, I would start to plant, I would help Miriam make the meals. Alice broke our routine when she asked if we could go to the cemetery, and I wasn't planning on going back to it. We reached the house just in time for lunch. The warmth from the fireplace in the kitchen greeted me as soon as I came in, and I sighed contently, unwrapping my cloak from around me. Alice took it, hanging it on the hook by the door, "come, lunch is ready." We sat in our seats, grabbing a bowl of broth on the way. Lunch was relatively quiet. William had to hurry back somewhere I wasn't allowed to do something for the man I wasn't allowed to see, so he ate quickly. The vegetable broth warmed me up more than the fire did.

We would have a meat for dinner, maybe a roast. Of, if Miriam did not have enough time to prepare a roast, we'd have another broth featuring beef. I finished my broth quickly, telling Miriam I did not need another bowl to put meat on my bones for winter. Alice giggled at her mother's antics, discreetly slipping her bowl into the pile of dishes across the room.

It wasn't until everything was settled, Miriam cleaning the kitchen, Alice and I bundled by the fire. It'd started snowing again, so we decided not to go outside until it stopped. Instead, we were all talking about dinner, the flowers that would bloom in the spring, and better days. It was a quiet moment, after a fit of laughter, when all of us were thinking of something else to say. "Miriam," I asked cautiously, "who's Janine Michelson." I'd barely gotten the name out when Miriam dropped the bowl she was cleaning, causing it to shatter all over the floor. I expected her to clean it up immediately, but she didn't.

No, she continued to stare in my direction. I went to ask her why when a deep, booming voice from behind me asked me a question, "how do you know about her?"