When Rose Wakes (6 page)

He made a face and glanced over the counter at the tops of the secretaries’ heads. “Another time, without an audience?”

Rose’s heart skipped a beat, and she felt herself flushing again. Another time. For the first time it sank in for her that there would be another time, that she would be going to school here and that she would indeed see Jared again. And he wanted to talk to her again, to have a conversation no one would be around to hear. All of her aunts’ warnings about boys reverberated in the back of her mind, but she pushed them away. They were impossibly old-fashioned. If she ignored all of the boys at St. Bridget’s, she would quickly get a reputation as an arrogant bitch.

Arm’s length,
she reminded herself.

“I’d like that,” she told Jared.

He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Me, too.”

A phone rang in the office and she heard it answered. A moment later, Mrs. Barkley stood and walked over to the counter.

“You can go in now, Rose. And don’t worry, you’ll do fine. I think you’re going to like St. Bridget’s.”

Rose thanked her as she stood and went to the principal’s door. As she opened it and stepped in, she glanced back at Jared.
So do I,
she thought.

The test lasted ninety minutes, during which time Rose had no idea what her aunts did to occupy themselves—perhaps took a tour of the school. Mrs. Barkley continued to be sweet and enthusiastic, certainly the most welcoming person at St. Bridget’s, except maybe for Jared Munoz, but the comparison wasn’t exactly fair to the school secretary.

When she finished, Mrs. Barkley took her test and pencils and escorted her back to the office, where Aunt Suzette awaited her with an almost meditative calm, hands folded over her generous belly. Rose glanced at the chair were Jared had been sitting and fought the urge to go sit there for a moment. She wondered what class he was in right now and how much trouble he had gotten in for whatever it was he had done.

I’ve got to get out of here,
she thought. Just because he was the first guy her age she could remember having a conversation with did not mean she ought to be obsessing
over him. There would be a lifetime of conversations and boys to obsess over.

“Well, she’s smiling,” Aunt Suzette announced. “She must have done all right.”

Mrs. Barkley put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I’m sure she did just fine. It was nice to finally meet you, Rose. Ms. DuBois. I’ll be in touch by the end of the week with Sister Anna’s decision on Rose’s placement.”

After they had thanked her and left the office, Rose glanced around the corridor.

“Where’s Aunt Fay?” she asked.

“She needed some air,” Aunt Suzette said in the same offhand tone she always seemed to use when she wanted to talk about something else.

Rose couldn’t think of any reason why such a question would make Aunt Suzette uncomfortable, but in the preceding days she had found more and more that her aunts were often difficult to predict. They comforted her when she had bad dreams but never attempted to ascribe any significance to them. Despite their belief in various superstitions and their reliance on herbal remedies, they discounted dreams entirely, except to say they were reminiscent of make-believe games she’d played as a girl. But Rose had been wondering about them more and more.

You must’ve had a pretty vivid imagination,
she told herself. Either that, or her subconscious had taken those games of pretend and turned them into something incredibly vivid, with a narrative all its own. In her dreams,
everything seemed connected. Rose thought it might be her subconscious trying to jar her memories into returning—not that she’d actually lived in a castle or seen war up close and bloody, or known anyone who believed fairy women lived in the forest—but that her mind was trying to use the images from those childhood games to tell her something.

Maybe the castle was meant to symbolize her coma. She’d been trapped inside it. And the king she always seemed so afraid for in her dreams, well, that was obvious. Her father Guillaume, brother to Fay and Suzette, had died when she was only seven years old. So at least the fear of losing her father made sense.

She had to make
some
sense out of the dreams. If they meant nothing, were just her imagination run wild, then she feared she might be just a little bit insane.

“Rose?” Aunt Suzette said. “Are you listening?”

“I’m sorry, Auntie, my head was in the clouds.”

“I asked how the test went.”

Rose hesitated before replying. “Well enough, I guess. But there are some things that just elude me, you know? Things I feel like I should know but don’t. The author of
A Tale of Two Cities.
Or the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—”

“But you’re French,” Aunt Suzette said. “Surely you can’t be expected to know everything about American history or English literature when you’ve never been to an American school.”

They pushed through the front doors, the chilly October breeze embracing them.

“I suppose,” Rose said. “But I feel like they’re things I do know and I just can’t come up with the answers.”

“You’ve been through an ordeal, darling. They’ll take that into consideration,” Aunt Suzette assured her.

Rose glanced down as she descended the steps in front of the school and frowned. For just a moment she had thought she had seen writing chalked there, the peculiar symbols that were on the wards and little wooden and metal charms that hung in front of most of the windows of the apartment on Acorn Street. But she must have imagined them, because looking at the steps now, they were just ordinary granite, tracked with city grime. When she turned toward the school, something similar happened with the keystone carved with the school’s inception date.

“What the hell?” Rose whispered, blinking and shaking her head.

The keystone was ordinary, except for the engraving. She had been spending much too much time cooped up inside that apartment with her sweet but superstitious aunts. She needed normal people and the real world. No matter what year the principal placed her in, she couldn’t wait to start school. At first she had been anxious, but now she was glad that Aunt Fay had rushed her.

“Are you all right?” Aunt Suzette asked, taking her arm.

Only then did Rose realize just how weak she felt. Her legs felt unreliable. She looked around, thinking she needed somewhere to rest, and then sat down hard on the stairs, breathing deeply.

“This was too much for you,” Aunt Suzette cried in alarm. “I knew it!”

“No, no. I’m fine,” Rose said. And she was. Her head was already clearing, momentary disorientation fading. “I’m just not used to so much exercise, but I need it. You know what Dr. Kittredge said.”

But Aunt Suzette did not seem convinced.

“I do. But I still think we’re going to have to postpone our shopping until tomorrow.”

Rose might have protested but she was distracted by movement off to her left. She turned to see Aunt Fay coming around the corner of the building. There were several trees obscuring her view—the only foliage on the street was already turning the oranges and reds of autumn—but she stared in fascination as her aunt appeared. Aunt Fay swayed and then twirled in a circle before pausing to close her eyes and clasp her hands together as if in prayer.

“What the heck is she doing?” Rose asked.

“I told you she needed some air,” Aunt Suzette said, as if what Rose had just seen was perfectly ordinary.

Aunt Fay waved to them and started walking to meet them.

Rose smiled in disbelief and shook her head. “I love you both very much,” she said, “but that was incredibly weird.”

Aunt Suzette took her hand and helped her the rest of the way down the steps, where Aunt Fay met them.

“Darling Rose,” Aunt Suzette replied sweetly, “we never said we weren’t weird.”

L
ate at night, it is cold in the corridors of the castle. The chill seems to seep up through the stone floor and to slither through the halls and coil in the corners. It never really troubled Rose before. In cold weather there would be roaring fires, and on long nights there would be the smiles of her teachers and her father’s servants, warm furs, and visits from her closest friend, Rielle, to take her mind off the cold.

Tonight, though, the atmosphere within these walls is grim and heavy, and despite the thick cloak she wears over her shoulders, ice has begun to form inside of her. This is not winter, she knows. It is fear. All of her life she has looked upon her father as a hero, as a great king, like those found in ancient myths. He is a good and decent man and a just ruler, who provides for all of those beneath him, and cares for each of them, from the wealthiest patron to the lowliest orphan.

Even now, as she becomes a young woman, she finds it almost impossible to believe that her father will not find some way to triumph over his enemies. But those enemies are
persistent and plentiful. Their armies camp not far from the castle and village. Every day she sees the vigor and hope and determination fade from her father’s eyes.

It is crushing her, this revelation of her father’s humanity. His ordinariness.

He is still decent and just and loving, but he is only a man.

Rose has found it more and more difficult to sleep of late. Tonight, as many nights, she prowls the halls of the castle. She wants to see him, but does not know what she will say. He has always looked after her, and it is strange to think that the time may have come when she must look after him.

At the base of the stairs that lead into his private chambers, she pauses. An icy ripple of dread races up her spine and she feels as though she is being observed. She turns, holding her breath, and stares at the shadows in the recessed doorways that lead away from this anteroom. The shadows seem darker here than elsewhere in the castle. She cannot help thinking that there are whispers strung through them like spiderwebs, a low susurrus of voices she cannot really hear—but would hear, if she dared get any closer.

A soft laugh drifts around her, caressing the stone walls and gliding across the floor. Rose twists around, fearful and angry and frustrated. She looks up through the long throat of the hollow tower above her, but sees only more shadows. Something is here with her—she can feel the ominous weight of its presence—but she cannot see it.

“Show yourself!” she demands.

For a minute or two she stands and listens, waiting for any further sign that she is not alone.

A loud creak startles her and she spins, heart fluttering like a frightened bird. Breathless, she stares at the heavy door swinging inward, and for a moment she fights the urge to flee or scream. A pale face looms in the shadows, and then emerges.

Rose can only stare and then chuckle softly at herself. “Miranda,” she says. For that is the name of the serving girl who stands staring at her.

“Milady,” Miranda replies, managing to bow her head without tipping the heavy tray out of her hands. Upon it is a jug of wine and a goblet, as well as a plate of bread and cheese. “You startled me.”

Rose laughs out loud. The sinister weight of the shadows has not vanished, but it has lessened.

“And you, me,” she replies. “Is that tray for my father?”

“It is,” Miranda says. “He couldn’t sleep, and…”

The girl—only a little older than Rose—says nothing more, but it is evident that she wishes that the king could have slept so that she herself would not have to be up in the middle of the night fetching wine and bread and cheese.

“Let me take it to him,” Rose says, her heart leaping at the realization that she was not alone in the cold dark, that her father had also been unable to sleep. She had walked this way only with what she thought was an empty wish that she would be able to see him, to find some comfort in his tender eyes and gentle voice.

Miranda does not dare argue with her, nor does it appear she would want to. The girl hands Rose the heavy tray, then hurries up the dozen steps ahead of her to open the door to the king’s chambers. She bows her head as Rose passes her and clanks the door shut once Rose has entered.