Yarn

I: Gone in the Morning

LIZ SAT AT HER VANITY, tilting her head to the side as she looped pearl drop earrings through her lobes. She let out a sigh, letting her hands fall to her lap, staring at herself in the mirror as if seeing herself for the first time.

The moonlight leaking through the open windows like a waterfall painted Liz in an ethereal portrait. Her ivory toned skin glistening with an iridescent hue, almost angelic with her long dark hair pinned up, strung through with strands of decorative beads that shown like pearls on a clam.

After a long moment, she let out a breath and stood, walking to the writing desk against the wall nearest her oak bedroom door. She sat, dress letting out a sigh. Glancing around, paranoid about the shadows creeping over her shoulders, Liz lifted a brass horse paperweight off the desk and scraped a key out, unlocking the bottommost drawer.

She stared at the neat stack of papers. All her life's work confined to a dark, dismal drawer. She pulled out a new sheet of papers shutting the drawer and setting the key down. Plucking a quill from her inkpot, she began to write.

The scratching of the quill running against the parchment filled the room. Liz had always been quiet and shy in nature, often unable to express herself in the verbal language that slipped so easily from her friends' lips. Writing always came naturally.

On usual occasions, Liz found writing to be a sort of escapism. Something that spoke easily and fluent to her, but before this night, she had found the idea of constructing this particular letter hard to swallow. Her hands shaking, her mind whirring with excuses not to. Tonight, though, her words flowed with a sense of purpose and ease.

A knock sounded at the door, jarring her, "Just a moment!"

She turned back to the parchment and added one last line.

I go in one last grand hurrah. A party for the end of my life.

She signed the letter with not one, but two signatures. One her own, Elizabeth Cadieux, and then her second author's pen name. She dated it September 8th, 1769 before folding the parchment closed and sliding it into an ivory envelope, sealing it with the wax seal of her husband's household.

She stood, walking to the door. The hinges screeched as she opened it, greeting her maid, Lucy, who shuffled from foot to foot nervously. In a thick Aksatain French accent she said, "Mahdame, you ahre already ahn hour lathe to ze parhty. Ze cahrraige ees ahwaiteeng you downstairs."

Liz gave her a nod, sliding the envelope into Lucy's calloused hand, "Have this delivered to my brother, Sebastian, when the post opens. Not a moment later, and not a moment sooner. It is of the utmost importance."

Lucy nodded, taking the envelope, "Yes, Mahdame. I will get your cloak."

Liz thanked her, walking down the stairs as Lucy rushed behind her to get her cloak. She waited by the front door as Lucy hurled down the stairs, draping the cloak over her shoulders, tying it in the front with a silk ribbon.

Before she could go, Liz's heart ached, this would be the last time she would see her friend. Voice shaking, she said "Lucy, there are some documents in my top drawer. When the morning comes, I want you to enter my chambers and find the document with your name on it. Do you understand?"

The document was an employment recommendation for not just Lucy, but for all of her servants. Lucy furrowed her brows in confusion but nodded all the same before ushering her out of the door, and into the carriage that awaited her. Liz's gown hissed against the rocks in the front way as she heaved herself into the carriage, shutting the door with a click. Lucy ran up to the door, handing Liz a dark sapphire mask.