10 years later.
I scurried about, quick on my feet. I had her routine imprinted on my mind, everything down to the finest detail.Prepare breakfast, get the fire roaring, clean the draperies. I rubbed my fingers against the coarse fabric as I frowned at the stubborn stains. Not that
I minded but...he would see me.Nonsense! I shook her head to clear my messy thoughts. Tucking every last wisp of hair under the linen, I diverted my eyes to the ground;a picture of a subservient princess cast to servitude. Lucinda, stands with marble perfection and Ignifex strolling after her, hands in his pockets. From his careless posture, the easy way he walks, everything about him proclaims a lordly unconcern. My stomach flips, something that happens more often when I see him .I set the plates down. Lucinda spears the eggs and sniffs it, trying to demonstrate her refined taste, in truth, she looks more like a pampered dog trying to find out which leftover dinner scrap is better to eat.
"Anastasia, come here." Lucinda's voice resonates through my mind. Ignifex's head snaps up, we can both detect an edge of cruelty to her voice. His narrowed eyes rove about me, sometimes I forget just how much I am seen by him. I remember the times he applied salve to my bruise lined face and hands , I remember him looking away, feeling sick to the stomach as Lucinda treated me as her punch bag. I mold my body in perfect submission, shoulders slumped and eyes demurely lowered, and I think myself out of existence. I am wallpaper and curtains and the draperies.I am not real, I am not here, so there is nothing for her to get angry at.
Tears still threaten to spring in my eyes as she melds her fingers into the soft spot at the back of my neck. As she grins triumphantly, hidden behind her gentle facade lurks poison. Forcing my head onto the table and my knees on the floor as her fingers crawl like a spider on my neck. The suspense is like ice cold water filling my lungs, my overtaxed heart is pounding, as I lock eyes with the only living entity in this room ; Ignifex. His eyes remind me of sunshine in the rain and darkness, of a cool drink on a sultry day, they dispel the looming darkness. I feel kinder, braver , happier in his eyes. He was the one who cajoled me whenever I broke down after what Lucinda had robbed from me. "People cry not because they are weak, but because they have been strong for too long." His mouth at my ear as he hugged me while I sobbed.
I hear a crack and pain forces my knees to crumple at her feet. I loll on the floor, knowing hook or by crook I will have to get up. Lucinda's punishments have tested my endurance over and over again, since I grew up to look like a splitting image of my wrenched mother. Hiding my hair in linen and deliberately squinting my eyes as she comes closer no longer works. It is a irrefutable fact. I am my mother's daughter. Bile rises in my throat as she deals another blow in my stomach. Her fingers of veins and warts and leathery skin packs a great deal of power. "That's for you, Anastasia." Lucinda says as she goes back to sip sip sipping her tea, as nothing has happened. " You may be dismissed." She says, her red lips still skimming the rim of her cup.
My smiles feel like a heavy porcelain mask; just aching to drop. To reveal my turmoil and emotions. My expressions are always tugging against it,trying to break free.Trying to speak the truth.
