Just Call Her Syndre

Chapter 11 | Whimiscal Delight

After I tossed and turned, for what felt like years, my body finally exhausted itself enough to fall into a fitful sleep. My dreams were churning telenovelas featuring oversized versions of Madame and Timotheus chasing me down dark, dingy alleyways with roses and a wedding ring. They still brought shivers to my stiff spine when I thought about them.

Sasha and I spent the day relaxing at a spa, being plucked, massaged, and exfoliated until our skin was iridescent. When we arrived back at the house, with sparkling eyes and in full makeup, Orion ordered the servants to prepare a light snack before we dressed. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely eat.

Nausea chased me. What if I was chosen? What if a Lord or Duke took notice of me and wanted me? Shivers crossed my spine again. Madame would simply explode. And now I had only the beautiful dresses that the Eliot's purchased for me.

"Worrying like that will give you lines." I frowned harder at Sasha. Pulling my eyebrows down comically and smiling with sarcastic glee. "Come on, Syn." She sighed, "stop fidgeting."

"I'm not fidgeting."

"Yes, you are. There's nothing to worry about." Her reassurance fell on deaf ears. Sasha's hand gripped mine, squeezing until her pink hands bleached white. My hands caught hers back, meeting her eyes as a bleak smile pulled at my mouth. "It'll all work out, I promise."

She left me at the table after that. I wish someone would have told her, told me, to never make promises you can't keep.

I sat at the table for as long as I dared, listening to the winds comb through the trees and the soft pop and hiss of water in the fountains. A stark difference to the madhouse I'm sure Madame was closely maintaining with a grim look on her hawkish face. In years passed, I would have been in the very center of the madhouse, trying my best to make sure the girls were both dressed with perfect hair and makeup. It felt odd to not be responsible for the welfare of someone else. My hands fisted, crinkling the thin maxi dress I wore as I made my way back up to my bedroom.

The dying rays of the sun slipped across my first dress. Ribbons of sunlight speckled across the walls and ceiling of my bedroom, temporarily distorted by the color rich creation displayed proudly on a free standing bodice. It stood in the corner of the room, sandwiched gracefully between the balcony doors and a full body, oval antique mirror.

A reflection stared back at me, one I barely recognized. My hair had been washed, conditioned and styled into a complicated bun. Pressing shaky hands against it, I tilted my neck as far as I could to see the single upside down braid that led upwards to the bun secured at the top of my head. Sasha had been right at the spa, the design made my neck appear leaner and longer.

Tears bunched in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I looked over at the dress again, and found myself standing in front of it.

My fingers drifted across it, double checking that the dress wasn't an elaborate creation of a long lost dream. The dress was tea length, high in front and low in back, silk chiffon. I had requested the straps be removed for focus to fall to the dramatic sweetheart neckline that plunged into a sexy "v".

The entire dress was white, and covered in a light sheen that glittered brightly under the sun and shimmered in the low moonlight. A color explosion flowed through the white. Yelling yellows, roaring reds, plum purples, persnickety pink and pale periwinkle woven together in an intricate pattern swirled romantically around the bodice, waist and skirt.

Today I'd be wearing my least favorite dress. Selfish of me to think, but honesty was something I didn't believe in compromising. Though I liked the dress in a whimsical kind of way. It twirled like a dream when I put it on. Matched with a set of diamond encrusted sandal stilettos that were just as whimsical, the woman in the mirror looked nothing like the over-worked woman I truly was.