The Princess and the Phantom

Chapter 2: What Ram Dass and Emily Saw

Sara's health and strength did not return as the days grew shorter and the air grew colder. When she was not in the schoolroom teaching lessons to the little ones, she was running errands for the cook.

True to her word, Sara never failed to pause for a moment before the gate of the mysterious gentleman's house and smile up at the darkened window. Once in a great while, Sara thought she could make out the slightest movement behind the glass, like a dark coat sleeve or a shoulder. Then she would hurry on, not wanting to draw the cook's ire for being late with the parsley or rabbit, or whatever was in her basket.

"Perhaps he is in hiding," she mused to herself as she passed by his window. "Perhaps he is very ill or has had his heart broken. How I wish he could be happy. I would like to see his face smiling in the window sometime."

One night, she was making her way through the square in the icy rain that had started to fall. She struggled along the slippery sidewalk, clamping her bedraggled hat to her head with a red, raw hand that was too numb to feel any more cold. But careful as she was, she could not help slipping and falling hard to her hands and knees on the sidewalk, the contents of her basket flying everywhere.

For a moment, Sara was too dazed from the pain to realize that her precious bundles were slowly getting soaked in the rain. As it was, she hardly noticed that a pair of hands had encircled her waist and had effortlessly lifted her back up to her feet.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was like warm velvet, and the owner of the voice was standing very close to her. Sara shivered, but it was not from the cold, nor was it from any sense or feeling that she had ever experienced before.

"Y-yes, thank you," she said softly, half turning in the man's supportive embrace to look up at him. Her grey-green eyes widened in surprise when she saw that half of the man's face was concealed by a mask. Completely puzzled, Sara studied him with open fascination, only realizing what she was doing when the man's expression hardened, and he drew himself as far back from her as he could without letting go.

Sara smiled at the man, wanting to put him at ease.

"If you are a princess," she thought. "You must always think of others first and try to put them at ease in your presence."

She nodded to him, a friendly little expression on her thin face.

"Thank you for helping me just now," she said in her quaintly polite way. "It is so slippery on the ground, and I-" her words ended abruptly as she turned and finally saw the ruination of all her parcels, with the drenched paper slowly disintegrating and the bread growing soggy in the rain.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed and tried to lunge forward to collect them. Unfortunately, her bruised knees gave way, and she would have crumpled to the ground but for the man's firm grip on her waist as he pulled her back, bringing her right up against him.

"Cook will be so cross," she whispered, almost to herself, her face crumpling with distress. No tears welled in her eyes, for Sara rarely cried. But her heart was pounding, and she dreaded returning without the packages intact, for she knew it would mean no supper.

"Never mind the cook," the man said, his voice close by her ear. Sara froze at the sound of it, a strange shiver running through her. It was like a thrill, but it was almost frightening in its beauty. She again turned in the man's grip and faced him.

"It is all very well to say that, you know," she replied with a shadow of a smile. "But you have not met Cook."

"Nor do I intend to," the man replied curtly, his expression closed and watchful.