Chapter 13

The following days saw our lives returning to some semblance of normality. Perhaps maiden Threwon sensed our spirits lifting for she doubled-down on our tasks, leaving us little room to relax, except at mealtimes. At any other time, this may have been a kindness; unfortunately, it also left me with less time to consider how to approach her and even to speak with the others regarding our plans.

The days were bleak; but at least for us, we now had something akin to hope keeping our arms and legs moving.

I studied Threwon at every given chance. I noted her habits like never before, her expressions, how she reacted to things we said and did. She remained an enigma most of the time.

Some of our group gave me the cold shoulder when I mentioned, even tentatively, that I actually felt sorry for her. I understood their disgust perfectly; for me, her being worthy of our sympathy was predicated entirely on whether or not she chose to help us. Panic struck at my heart each and every day when I considered how much rode on me winning her over. This anxiety alone was almost enough to make me give up and beg Dornell for a new plan; and every day, I had to force myself to remain focused. My nights were plagued with dreams of death and dismemberment along with a foreign, ever-watchful eye.

So, as always, we danced. We wrote letters, and practiced the best ways for drying ink in a pinch. Ellie often worked alongside Torvis, I noticed, as the two of them were assigned mostly to improving their cooking skills as well as the inevitable clean-up. For this, Threwon moved them into a large kitchen adjacent to the Hall proper for most of the day; they would return to us in the evenings covered with stains and sporting burn marks or cuts upon their hands. Sometimes their skin would be pruned with the time spent washing dishes. Strangely, Torvis seemed singularly embarrassed by this, and I could often hear him muttering under his breath when he went to bathe and change clothes after work.

Ellie, of course, appeared as serene and gentle as ever. But by now I had some practice in seeing what a person concealed behind their expression; I could tell that she was suffering as much as any of us, perhaps even more so.

A week went by without me making any meaningful progress toward confronting Threwon, and by that point I had nearly talked myself out of doing it. Putting it off any further was no longer an option; so, I broke down completely in front of Dornell one night, describing in detail my conundrum.

Dornell listened to me with quiet eyes until I’d finished. I feared that I’d just cost him his faith in me; but he surprised me, as always, by offering an ingenious solution.

“Your problem is that you’ve turned this into a single, overwhelming task. You picture yourself as just sidling up to Threwon, making a heartfelt appeal to her maternal instincts, and then praying that she responds favorably. Anything less than a perfect argument would mean instant catastrophe, and that pressure will only ensure that you fail.”

He smiled wanly, his attempt at reassurance. “You’re a perfectionist. We all are. But what if you don’t have to do this all at once? Take the way you’ve been casing her: you watch her, trying to gauge her reactions to things happening around her, with the intention of finding out what she might respond well to. Am I correct?”

I mulled this over for a moment and began feeling embarrassed. “In truth, I… I don’t think I really thought that far ahead. But now that you mention it, yes, that would appear to be what I’m going for.”

He nodded. “So then, why don’t you step it up a notch? Try putting her in situations where she’s faced with our reality and is forced to have feelings about it. A mention here and there about what’ll become of us; a wistful statement that you wished someone cared enough for us to give us solace – you know, nothing too revealing, but just enough to display your desperation.”

I frowned. “That’s…”

“Cruel, I know” Dornell finished. He chewed at his lip, something he only did when he was uncomfortable. “But we have no choice, Veille. Ask any of the others, and they’ll tell you that you’re crazy for putting our plan at risk over hurting someone else’s feelings – especially someone who betrayed us by hiding the truth all these years.”

I felt a lump in my throat. “That’s why I’m talking to you right now and not to the others.”

“I know. And it doesn’t bother me the same way it does them, and you know that. That’s something I love about you.” And he blushed slightly as he said it.

I cried and hugged him tightly after that, feeling his heart flutter against my chest. As always, it didn’t bother me in the slightest; it just made me feel loved. I thanked him for his advice, and set out the following morning with a new game plan in mind.

Threwon often took her breaks from watching us about half an hour after we began working for the day, returning before long to assess our progress, provide criticism or set us about doing something new. While she was at the head of our lives in Mannerly Hall, Threwon was not the only maiden we had contact with. Far from it; nearly a dozen other maidens made their presence known throughout the day, usually having little to do with us, but sometimes stepping in to assist her in guiding us gracefully toward our grotesque and inevitable destiny.

Most of these were the same ones, rotating between watching us and managing their own chores from sunup to sundown. Occasionally I would see a few new faces in and about the Hall, and sometimes other servants would come in and out as well. I tried to take mental notes about each of these individuals, hoping to assess whether any of them might also be trustworthy; but even with my rising skill in reading people it was simply too much to catalog. I didn’t really want to ask Dornell for his assistance – and knowing him, he’d probably noticed more than I had without even trying. So I kept my mind focused on the task at hand.

Whenever she stepped away for a bit, Threwon often lingered near a collection of library shelves in the center of the Hall, perusing them idly but not seeming to really pay too close attention to any one volume. If I didn’t know better I’d say her head was off in the clouds; and with everything going on in this awful place, why shouldn’t she be? It’s what I would’ve done, trying to seize any and every chance to escape from this nightmare, if I weren’t already doing exactly that. But then, perhaps maiden Threwon had nowhere else to escape but inside her own head.

Watching her was difficult, even for me. With the many other prying eyes keeping tabs on us, I had to invent new ways of sneaking around in order to observe her.

One of those ways came in the form of O’mally. The fifteen year old usually had a quiet mouth, but whenever Syreize was around – which was most of the time – the two of them lit up like a candle, fueling each others’ hysterics.

I spoke to both of them about what I was doing and what I needed help with. Though not normally very pleasant to talk to in my opinion, Syrieze’s mouth had split into a grin when I suggested that they try and involve as many maidens as they could during their day-to-day tasks. The object: to keep enough activity going on, without overdoing it, to keep some of the eyes away from me while I cased maiden Threwon.

Beginning the following day, the two performers set out upon their task with a nuance that impressed even myself, and they did it mostly by flirting. I wasn’t sure what either of their sexual interests were – aside from the fact that they clearly had a thing going on between them the two could’ve been asexual for all I knew, and I’d certainly never asked – but without leaning too far out of character, Syrieze and O’mally began attracting the attention of several maidens that they knew to be interested and available.

I’ll admit; even I found their charms… distracting. I caught Mylannes watching one or both of them occasionally, a slight redness rising in her cheeks as they sidled, touched bare skin, laughed musically, and generally made an excellent show of finding someone irresistible without appearing too garish or up-front. Only a trained performer would find any reason to doubt their sudden promiscuity – and maybe not even then.

If Threwon noticed anything out of the ordinary she didn’t say. Since everybody was still managing to get their work done and to prove our increasing fluency in whatever skills we had to learn, none of the maidens took much of an interest in these games, aside from the ones who were, well, you know, interested. This left me with increased opportunities to observe maiden Threwon and think about the best thing to say.

In the end, it occurred to me that if I were ever going to slip into her conscience the way Dornell had suggested I do, then it would likely have to be during those innocuous moments when we passed each other by naturally, and not by approaching her in the middle of the day when I was supposed to be working, apropos of nothing. Still, this didn’t mean that Syrieze and O’mally’s efforts went for nothing; I gained a great deal of knowledge about the maidens whom they flirted with, even listening to the responses they received when asking a particularly revealing question. If either of them knew that I was watching their antics more than I was watching maiden Threwon, they likely would’ve been a little bit irritated.

Some of the maidens, I gathered, were as shy and awkward as Mylannes after a cold shower during flu season. They seemed hesitant to discuss their feelings about their lives within the Estate, and indeed, whenever an average person might think about making their acquaintance more… personal, they would always back from further entanglement, even often with reluctance. It wasn’t as though any of these people were inherently our enemies – they were victims just like us, or else willing servants to their own limited reality. But there was a far cry between sympathizing with our plight, and actually wanting to do anything about it.

That left, as before, maiden Threwon. And one morning just after breakfast, I finally found my opening with her, and I seized it.