The Mice in the Kitchen

Chapter 32

This time, Flora didn't even want to go in. From outside she heard the voices and knew that her brother was alive and well.

Another deception orchestrated by her mother; some kind of stratagem in favor of her own interests, whichever they were. What did it matter?

She was tired. Suddenly, she couldn't remember why she had returned to the palace. Had she really felt the need to help Kasimir? To find out if he was really dead? Why?

She stood there, in the corridor, next to the door, that door she hated, waiting for a servant to walk by so that she would have to hide herself.

It all happened in an instant.

Detlef arrived, also as a mouse, and before either of them had time to notice, the duchess of Bosfor appeared and threw with her arm an attack, which once again, was stopped by the protective spell Flora had cast upon herself and her three friends. A spell that required a greater amount of personal energy than usual. Large enough to become a sacrifice: that of her capacity to ever have children.

But how could she ever look at any children of hers in the eyes if the lives of three very dear persons had been in her hands and she had not done everything in her power to save them? No. She'd rather not be a mother than carry that burden in her conscience for the rest of her life.

Even though the duchess's attack was unsuccessful, her intention of harming them was more than Flora could endure. How many times had she already suffered or been witness to her mother's rage, wickedness, ambition and envy? How can a soul stand the fact that the person who should love her the most tries once and again to make her disappear and to hurt those people who do make her part of their lives?

She couldn't stand it anymore.

After turning human again, she sent a lethal beam that instantly killed that woman of dark hair, white skin and piercing eyes. Her mother. The duchess of Bosfor. The mother of the man who could have been king. Wilhelmina.

As it often happens, the denouement was disappointing.

But that is quite usual.

This could have been the moment when Detlef made up, with a mere hug, at a moment when it would have been much appreciated, for mistakes of the past; mistakes he had been regretting just before.

But it wasn't.

What Detlef did was leave. He didn't even turn human before leaving. He left as a mouse. And Flora watched him go while a strange, dark calmness overcame her.

She couldn't think. Nor did she want to. She felt that her whole body and soul had atrophied. Unable to move. Unable to feel anything.

That's why she did not react in any way when, seconds after Detlef's disappearance along the corridor, Oda materialized next to her.

'It wasn't you. It was the enormous pain you have inside you,' she told her, as if they were best friends.

Flora raised her head to look at her, with slow, very slow it seemed to her, movements. She felt as if even blinking had turned into a task that required a few seconds.

'Were you here?' she finally asked, still floating in that strange calmness.

'I followed you from Sonlagarb. I knew that, one way or other, sooner or later, justice would prevail.'

Flora began to understand.

'You killed the king,' she stated, with no hint of any kind of emotion.

'Of course,' the old woman answered proudly. 'And I'm sure you of all people can understand my reasons.'

Flora reflected on this. She felt the cold wall on which she was resting her back and the cold tiles under her legs. She was sitting on the floor. She hadn't even noticed. She didn't remember sitting down.

She was staring at the nursemaid, trying to see herself in her as the woman seemed to suggest.

'Resentment?' she guessed.

'You could call it that way. For many years I had been in the belief that I was somehow valued. But it turned out I wasn't.'

'That's why you killed the king, but... Adalberht? I find it hard to believe that you could feel looked down on by him.'

Oda almost replied that to Adalberht she had not done anything, but she didn't. The duchess's dead body on the floor reminded her that she had brought about this removal of masks. She needed to say the truth. No one like Flora and no moment like the present.

'Things with Adalberht are different. He has let the kingdom down, not just me. He had the power to change everything and he chose to run away like a coward. I didn't raise him to be like that.'

Flora's eyes were then filled with rage.

'It seems this palace brings out the worst of mothers. It makes them see their children as instruments at the service of great purposes, powerful purposes, noble even... Forgetting the human part. You should want Adalberht to be happy. Just like my mother ought to have wanted me to be. Your attitude is even more reprehensible, since Adalberht is actually here ─putting his own life and the lives of the people he loves in danger─ to contribute to that which you consider his mission.'

'I know,' Oda replied. 'And that makes me realize that I may have made some mistakes. Nonetheless, I still think it is a crime for the prince not to assume the power he is privileged to have in order to do all the good things he can. What merit is there in saving a single fish if it is in your power to save the whole river?'

Flora knew that Oda would not change her mind. She also knew that she dominated magic at a dangerous level. But she did not want to think about any of that. She just wanted to leave. To get away from that place.

'Don't you want to know what happened to your brother?' the nursemaid insisted, as if reluctant to lose her company.

'No. I know he's alive. I know he's in there,' she said, pointing at the door of the duchess's room, 'perhaps listening to us.'

She held Oda's gaze long enough to understand that the old woman had had something to do with whatever had happened to Kasimir, which had brought about the rumors about his death. And long enough so that Oda would know that she knew.

But no more. Not a second longer. Not a moment longer would she remain there. She walked away from Wilhelmina's body, from the old woman dressed in black and from the smell of pain and death that was suffocating her. If Oda decided to kill her, her confessor, once she had her back to her, so be it. She didn't care.