The Castle on the Edge of Night

Chapter 34. Decisions

Would you listen,
to the sound of your own voice,
if it was the only thing,
to keep you from breaking?

"She's hasn't run away! She's also probably not going to run away," Astra called out as we descended the stairs.
"ASTRA! Some tact! Please!" Stella said horrified. She shook her head. "Really Astra."
"Well, it's what you wanted to know right?" She said with a huff. "So I asked. She answered. All's well. No need for thanks." She went straight to her spot at the table and sat down.
"We weren't going to ask! You silly girl! It isn't right to ask things like that. Never mind Astra," Danica said to me as she came out from the kitchen with a large bowl of warm oats and nuts in milk and honey. "You just sit here and eat your meal, and ignore anything coming from that girl's mouth."

I blushed as I took my seat.

Stella sat down beside me and gently held my hand. "I'm so sorry she asked," she sighed taking a sideways glance at Astra. "Truthfully though we did wonder. We talked about it last night, and we came to the decision that if you truly did want to leave then we would all go to the king and ask him about the situation and see if you could leave. We would not disobey him, but there's no harm asking. We know you don't really want to be here."

Was it really that evident? I wondered, as Danica spooned our food into wooden bowls that were laid out in front of us.

I fell silent while Astra and Stella bickered over her choice of words as we ate our food.

"I suppose now that we know she's staying, we'll need to get her a new dress. Castle uniform and all that," Astra said. She turned to me. "I think I can gauge your size, so it won't take me long to alter an old one."

"She doesn't need to change if she doesn't want to," Stella said. "Let her wear what she wants."

"No. Then her beautiful dress will get dirty, and I cannot allow for beautiful things to be soiled."

I felt a little tear prickle in my eye at the words. I'm not sure why, but her calling the dress my mother made beautiful really resonated within me. "I don't mind wearing a uniform," I chimed in quietly.

"Excellent!" Astra exclaimed and stood up. "I'll go and tailor something to your size. Give me a moment or two."

"Put your bowl away!" Stella said exasperatedly. "If you can't have tact you can at least have some manners!" Astra made a face of annoyance, though her expression hardly seemed to change at all and obeyed Stella before setting off to get me my new uniform.

"You know," Stella said looking at me. "I hope you don't mind her much. She's a lot different than her brother. But, he has his issues too doesn't he? Really, I wished we brought them up better."

"I don't mind," I quipped up. It was a bit refreshing having so many different kinds of people to talk to. "I was scared at first but everyone's really friendly," I admitted.

"That's sweet of you to say Rox," Stella smiled then clapped her hands together. "Alright. First things first! Are you ready to start working today? If you wanted you could just spend some time wondering the castle grounds and familiarising yourself with the place more. Or you could start by cleaning a room. I'll show you a room. Then you practice getting back and forth from there yourself. When you're happy, we move you to another room. And so on, and so forth, until you learn how to get to every room you need to get to in the castle. There's still probably an endless amount of rooms that I myself don't know how to get to, to tell you the truth. Honestly navigating through the corridors of the servant's area is a lot easier. But the main area, you know... It's very different. You noticed how to get here we have to fiddle with a tapestry? Well, you'll have to learn how to do some of those manoeuvres. It's a lot to take in so we are not going to teach you all at once." Stella studied my face to make sure I was not feeling too overwhelmed still.

"It's completely up to you child," Danica chimed in. "You decide what you want to do. But doing some busy work has always made me feel a lot better."

"I think... I would like to start work," I told them.