Out Cold

Chapter 1

The first sight that hit my eyes when I opened them was a strange woman, dressed in deep greens and blues, a golden pin sitting towards her heart, the unmistakable sign of being, as the people of the castle would call it, the 'head maid'.

The strange woman was on a finely carved wooden stool, sitting very ladylike about two meters away, staring at me so intently that I could've easily been a languorously made jewel rather than the typical maid I was.

She straightened her back even more than it already was. Her eyes met mine and I revoked my gaze. “Oh my, you finally woke up,” she quipped, fingering the lace hem of her dress. Rolling her eyes, she detached the golden pin and strutted towards me, still lying on my noisy bed, fixing the pin on my ruffled nightgown, right on my heart.

"The new head maid!" she announced, gesturing wildly with her manicured fingers. Her voice was high and nasally, and I came to notice that she had trouble enunciating the letter M, pronouncing maid as aid instead. 

The disraught silence was spontaneously clouded with more voices. The maids were about the same age, all with their hair braided so carefully without a single loose strand of hair sticking out; along with plain but elegant makeup that made them all look the same, irrelevant to the fact that they were all differing in age.

A woman, presumably in her thirties judging from the small wrinkles that had built up beside her large blue eyes turned to her colleague. “She is so ugly! Her hair is worse than the unmade beds in the boys' chamber rooms!"

She, not realizing that I could hear every word clear as bells, continued to exchange equally offending insults about my physical appearance and my 'disabilities to maid properly'. My gaze fell upon my pin, and I picked at it, feeling shameful and redundant.

The woman who gave me the pin nudged me, giving me a smile that let all the wrinkles around her eyes to deepen. “See why you are the head maid, my lovely child. The Lady needs to be taken care of by pure minds, rather than ones filled with poisonous thoughts.” 

Her voice rises as she addresses the small crowd. "Audrene will now be your head maid; anyone who argues, differs in thinking will be punished with a... reward,” she says, her original authority returning. Her eyes landed on the aged woman who was talking about me earlier, along with her colleague. They averted their gazes to the splintered ceiling, suddenly finding it a lot more interesting than me.

After the crowd was dispersed, she turned to me with an unsettling glint in her eyes. “Time to begin your training, young one. You will need to know much in able to lead.”

Of course, all I wanted to do was yell why choose me out of all people? I'm not ready! to her and to whoever helped her think of the brilliant idea of naming me as the one to command the line of job that I wasn't even that devoted to, but with the look in the ex-maid's eye, I knew to hold my tongue. I nodded, trying to understand and concentrate on what she was saying only when she taught me about the aspects of being a proper head maid – how to braid my hair, how to dress, how the pin was done, and most importantly, as she put, 'helping the guards to steer your trade in the right direction'. Time seemed to pass with no end, and I found that my eyelids were slowly glazing over when the lady announced our lesson being 'polished to a gleam'.

“Now,” she said, clapping her worn hands together happily as if she was a child being rewarded with a bag of sweets from the shop. “I shall introduce you to The Lady.”

If she was expecting some sort of reaction from me, I did not give one. All I did was nod, somewhat tiredly, as she pursed her thin red lips and motioned for me to go to my new dormitory room, which she'd assigned me.

“Your father speaks highly of your memory; I hope you will put them to use,” she quipped, her tone rising and suggestive. She did not leave me a sliver of room to reply before she continued. “Please wash, dress, and comb out your hair the way I showed you. The Lady deserves your utmost respect, and I fully expect you to show it that way.”

My head cranked up and down in the robotic motion that I've been practising for the time she was lecturing, correcting, and floundering about. As I turned to leave, she skipped forward and snatched my arm. “Oh yes,” she said, her warm breath making my cold face rosy. “One more thing – this is a one-time thing, Audrene. You cannot mess up, as this is your first and final test. The lady will decide whether she wants you or not, despite my urging, she will have to see for herself. The most I could to is record your preparation results and send them in; the rest is up to her opinions on you. I would like you to try your best. You must.”

I swallowed, my tongue thick and dry. Why was I so afraid? I didn't even want to be head maid. My increasing anxiety almost overwhelmed me as the woman regarded my being, showing no signs of emotion on her face towards my hair or dress; no scorn towards the smell that I was sure to have been giving off. At last, she flicked her hand dismissively in the air.

“You may go.”