Come Away

Chapter 18 - Unrecognizable

The ladies-in-waiting showed up soon after Orla left. Four girls--who I can tell aren't mortal because their ears are pointed and their skin has a subtle but constant glow--come gliding into the room in a line, their skirts floating around their ankles. All of them are wearing little slip-on shoes. In fact, everyone seems to wear shoes in the castle. I guess Lena was right about it being a privilege for upperclass faeries only.

As they file into the room, I hastily wipe at the tears, knowing there's no way to hide the fact that I've been crying. One of the girls touches my arm, her heart-shaped lips pulling into a small frown.

"The poor dear." She says, and then starts to tug on my dress. "We will make you feel beautiful and then there will be no more tears."

I want to laugh at her and tell her that, in comparison with all the other crap going on right now, my looks are on the bottom of the list. But I doubt these seemingly perfect beings could understand. When your world revolves around beauty, my ugly appearance is probably the only clear explanation for my unhappiness.

Getting up off the bed, I let the girl pull the dress over my head. She uses two fingers to carry it out the door and drops it in the hallway like a smelly bag of garbage. The other three girls have been carrying in buckets of water from the hall and pouring them into a silver basin beside the bed. It's like an old bathtub on four legs, but it's covered in intricate flowers molded into the metal frame. I stand there watching in my white slip until the girl with heart lips tugs that off of me too. Now I'm naked with nowhere to hide except behind my own arms. Another girl with butterfly eyelashes takes pity on me and tells me I can get in the bathtub now. I step inside and slide into the water up to my shoulders. It's warm and soothing to my tense muscles. Heart-lip girl smiles at me while butterfly-eyes starts to detangle my hair with a silver comb.

"I think I know just what you need." Heart-lips says to me. Then she turns to another girl. "Bring the Ura petals."

The girl nods and disappears out the door. I'm trying to hold still while butterfly-eyes tugs on my ponytail. I guess her comb got stuck in my mess of a hairdo. The other girl comes back holding a cloth bag, and she dumps the contents into the water. I'm now surrounded by dried, purple flowers that smell like heaven. The water starts to bubble and froth, and the purple scent wafts over me until I'm practically giddy. Despite butterfly girl's protests as she tries to extract her comb, I sink further into the bath until my head goes under. When I pop back up, four pairs of eyes are blinking widely at me.

"So you really were beautiful underneath all that dirt." Heart-lips says.

I know it's not the sweetest compliment a girl can get, but coming from her, I'll take it.

<<—————>>

I wake up the next morning cocooned in the nicest sheets I've ever slept in. The smell of the flower petals still clings to my still damp hair. I feel ridiculously clean and soft, like the feather of a newborn baby duckling.

And that's when I remember where I am. I jolt up, my bleary vision trying to put the room together again. There's a tray of food on the edge of my bed. I must have fallen asleep before eating any dinner. My stomach is doing somersaults I'm so starved. I pull the tray onto my lap and start shoveling everything in, not caring that the bread is slightly stale or the soup is cold. It all tastes amazing to me, especially since the last thing I ate was a dirty carrot.

The bedroom door creaks open, and heart-lips girl peeks in at me. I barely acknowledge her as I lift the bowl and start chugging the rest of the soup.