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24 March 1665

"And your name is..."

"Mae." The girl nodded as if unsure that she had answered correctly. She wiped her sweaty hair to the side and smoothed out her unruly hair.

"Mae." The woman agreed as she carried a heavy basket filled with flour.

"Yes, yes." Mae responded, stumbling after the servant. She carried with her a blanket filled with her belongings; it was thrown over her right shoulder, and the weight of it seemed to crush her as she walked, lopsided. "Yes...I'm here to be a queen's maid to replace, uh, the last girl." Mae added awkwardly with a scratch of her head.

"Go through those doors and ask for Abby." The woman grunted as she readjusted the basket and nodded toward the wooden doors in front of them. Mae mumbled a thanks and scurried towards the door. She had to put some weight behind them, and when she finally burst them open, she was overwhelmed by the smell of pork and by the steam from the giant kitchen stove that enveloped the entire room. Workers were rushing back and forth, orders were being shouted into the air, and Mae stood dumbstruck at the hustle and bustle of the castle kitchen. The ceiling was low and there were four girls by the door sorting through silver cutlery. After gathering her senses, Mae approached them.

"I was told to ask for Abby," Mae shouted through the high pitch of the cooking. The girls were engrossed in their work and were busy talking among themselves, so Mae set down her makeshift bag and tapped the shoulder of one of the girls. She was tall and though her hair seemed to have been pulled back in a tight bun that morning, her bangs had come undone and her frizzy hair stuck to the forehead of her flushed face. Mae repeated her statement, and the girl yelled, "The new girl is here. Someone go fetch Ms. Abigail." Her thick, foreign accent sailed along the conversations between the workers.

"Hey. You there. Hey, Ezekiel." The girl pointed at a bypassing boy. "Take this one to Ms. Abigail." Mae's eyes trailed past the girl's finger to the eyes of the servant boy. They were hazel, warm, like the air encasing her. Mae suddenly found it hard to breathe, and she didn't know whether it was because of the humid air or because of his easy smile. He motioned for her to follow him and led her out a second set of doors.

"I'm Mae," she coughed as she transitioned from the thick, wet air of the kitchen to the dryness of the castle.

"Ezekiel," the boy grinned his response, and the glint in his eyes caused Mae to break a smile of her own.

"Nice to meet you. I was told I am supposed to speak to-"

"Ms. Abigail, yes I heard. You're here to replace Anne. Come on, I'll show you where to find her." Ezekiel led her into the castle through the back. Mae found that the servant's entrance was grand enough to swoon, and she wondered what the front entrance would be like. Though Mae never doubted the rumors of the size of the castle, she was worn out by the time Ezekiel led her up the stairs and into the pressing room.

"Ms. Abigail will tell you... but servants are never to use the main staircases, especially if not in uniform. She'll give you what you need, and you can wait for her here. I don't know where she is now, but she'll be here soon." Ezekiel broke the silence. He spoke with a smoothness that accompanied an fluid confidence.

"Thank you for your help. I'm looking forward to meeting her," She managed to pant out, still recovering from the seemingly impossible feat of climbing the stone stairs to the top floor of the castle. Ezekiel let out a light laugh; it seemed to flow out of his chest as if it had been waiting for a reason to come out.

"That's the first time I've heard someone say a nice thing about Ms. Abigail," he chuckled. Mae's face fell. She had no idea who Ms. Abigail was, only that she was supposed begin working today. Her cousin had a friend whose brother knew the stable boy, and since Mae's father had died, she needed the money to help her aging mother. When she received a note with a royal seal that she was called to work as a queen's maid, she was overjoyed.