Bind Our Loving Souls (6 page)

“My mom said that when the first Halvandor
had this place built, he wanted to make it as hard as he could for
an intruder to get to a Halvandor. If you barricaded one of these
doors from the inside, it would be practically impossible to break
through.”

They must have really been worried to go
to so much trouble,
I thought. “What about the windows?”

“They haven’t been part of the house for
nearly as long as the doors have.”

Helena crossed the hall diagonally and forced
open the door to a dark bathroom. It was weird because it had a
modern porcelain toilet and sink, but an archaic pump in between
them. “You have to get a candle if you don’t want to be going in
the dark,” Helena said, going to fetch one from the end of the
hallway. Then she handed it to me, saying, “Just crank the pump a
few times before you use any water. I’ll wait here so I can help
you with your hair and take you to meet everyone in the
kitchen.”

Her natural pink cheeks were so rosy and
cheerful. It was a big contrast to the men from the night
before.

I took the candle and walked into the
bathroom. Everything was bronze—handles, pictures and mirror
frames, the giant cat statue in the corner—so the glint of the
little candle’s light was really pretty. And I was so glad for a
halfway decent bathroom.

I hurried, since someone was waiting for me
on the other side of the door, and then came out to find Helena
eating the bun I was pretty sure came from her hair. And sure
enough, when she walked past me into the bathroom, it wasn’t there
anymore.

“Come on, I can’t wait to fix your hair,” she
said.

I walked up to the big mirror above the sink
as she pulled a little drawer out of the side of the cat’s head and
took several bobby pins from it. As I looked closer, I realized the
entire side of the statue was lined with little drawers. “Are they
all filled with hair accessories?”

“Um, I’m not sure what accessories are, but
there’s also soap and ointments and such.” She reached in a lower
and much larger drawer to pull out a hairbrush.

“Does everyone use that brush?” I asked,
moving away when she reached for my hair with it. I’m not one to
share things like that.

“It’s here for anyone to use, but we usually
do our hair in our own rooms, so I don’t know if any of the women
in our hall have actually used it. I haven’t, though.”

I didn’t see any hair in it, so I turned back
to face the mirror, deciding it was safe. My lifeless hair didn’t
take long to brush. Then Helena pulled all of it back except for
two strands in the front, and pinned it against the back of my head
so that little spouts of hair came out. “I’d do more, but I feel
like we should hurry. Maybe you’ll let me do something with your
hair tomorrow, too.”

“Sure.”

Following Helena out of the bathroom and down
the hall, I felt a bit nervous when we walked through the door on
the end I’d never been through. We entered a small,
triangular-shaped room, each wall with an identical door in the
middle.

“The dining room’s through that door and the
kitchen’s through here,” Helena said, pointing to the right and
then the left. She reached for the one on the left. “I hardly ever
get to go in the dining room.”

As soon as the door cracked open, I was hit
by heat and laughter. It was hard to believe all the noise was kept
in so well. All the women wearing long, boldly colored skirts and
white shirts matching Helena’s reminded me of giant M&Ms. Their
hair was damp with sweat, and they were working hard washing dishes
or preparing food, but they also seemed so happy, like they were
having the time of their lives. A woman said something in Norwegian
before popping a spoonful of gravy into another woman’s mouth.
Someone else said something a moment before a lemon was tossed to
her.

“Everyone!” Helena called out. ”This is Miss
Sarafina. She says to call her Sara.”

“Sara,” they all said, following with a great
deal of cheering. Half the kitchen came to crowd around us.

The lemon-tossing woman with long brown hair
grabbed my hand. “What beautiful piano-player hands,” she said.

“This is my mother, Aria,” Helena said,
pointing to a skinny lady with rosy cheeks just like hers.

“My Helena has been so looking forward to
having you here,” Aria said.

A tiny old woman standing right in front of
me said something foreign and then smiled at me expectantly.

I stared at her for a second, feeling bad for
my cluelessness. “I’m sorry. I only speak English.”

“That’s all right,” Aria said. “Most of us
speak English and Norwegian. Emma was just saying how she hopes
you’ll tell her about where you came from. Helena or I can
translate.”

“Okay.”

The excited chatting went on until a woman
squealed. “Your cake’s burning, Aria.”

“Oh dear.” Aria rushed off to one of the cast
iron ovens.

“Back to work, ladies,” the tallest woman
called out in a rather deep voice—Hilda, I think her name was.
“Perhaps Sara will visit us around noon and we can speak with her
then.”

I turned to Helena as the busyness returned.
“Is there anything I can do to help out?” I asked.

“No, you’re the musician, not a maid. And I
should probably be showing you to the dining area anyway.”

I followed her out of the room, feeling even
more nervous about entering the second one.

“Hopefully, you will stop by the kitchen
again after breakfast,” Helena said once we were in the connecting
triangle. “You don’t have to wait until noonday.”

“You mean you’re not going in there with
me?”

“No,” Helena laughed. “We’re not allowed in
there during dining hours.”

“Who’s
we
?”

“The maids of the house, the gardeners, and
anyone else with that sort of job.”

As she opened the door and I heard only a
man’s voice giving someone directions about what part of the
countryside they were responsible for, the clear division between
“the help” and everyone else began to sink in. It made me a little
uncomfortable, since I’d never thought of another human as being
beneath me before. Paul stopped talking and everyone stared at
me.

I felt my cheeks burn as I searched the faces
for Enock. When I couldn’t find him, I decided he had to be the one
person who wasn’t watching me, the sliver of a head I could barely
see on the far end of the table.

“Miss Sarafina,” the beautiful woman with
long, thick, curly hair said from the center of the table, where
she sat beside Paul. “You will be sitting beside Enock. This is
where you will always be seated. Usually it’s Kristoffer you will
sit beside, but since he’s ill and Enock is up a little later than
usual, things are slightly off and you will be dining beside him
this morning.

“Yes, ma’am,” I responded, crossing the room
and not daring to correct who I was fairly certain was Mistress
Demora about my name. No one spoke or was merciful enough to turn
away.

Enock leaned his forehead against his hand as
I sat down, hiding his eyes as golden light burned from them
against his palm.

I nearly fell out of my chair due to the
oversized hump I was sitting on, with my puffy dress cocooning so
much of my hips and rear end. No matter how much it matched the
Halvandor’s attire, I was changing out of it the moment I got back
to my room and burying it in the back of my closet.

The curly brunette rose from her chair once I
was situated. “Listen well,” she directed at me, “for I will only
say this once. I am Mistress Demora. You know my husband, Master
Halvandor. Beside him sits his sister, Sessily…” She went all the
way around the table and I tried to remember everyone’s names, but
it was hard because most of them were unfamiliar to me and there
were so many of them.

By the time she was finished, I was wishing I
was having breakfast with the help. The room was so solemn and
everyone in it so serious. The walls were ornamented with crystal
and glass cases containing rifles, ammunition, and gold plaques.
The size of the table and room and how extravagant everything was
made me feel like I was eating with royalty. It made me feel
insignificant and out of place.

As Paul began talking again, I tried to
ignore the grandeur and survey the table. I decided I wanted the
soup that was right in front of me, but I was kind of afraid to
reach for it, since no one else was serving themselves. Paul
instructed three Halvandor men to sweep the northwest corner of the
forest before the balding man to my left whispered to the
completely bald man on his other side to pass him a half-full plate
of biscuits. After putting three on his plate, he held it out to
me, so I took a couple. A jar of jam was between my plate and
Enock’s, so I grabbed it, using it as an excuse to get another look
at his still-lit eyes.

His face and the hand covering it looked
tense. It was making me half crazy, as I spread jam all over my
biscuits, to be sitting so close to him and having him ignore me
completely like that. He was the only reason I was there, after
all, and the biggest one I was staying for.

When I’d put enough jam on my biscuits, I
used one hand to eat with and put the other in my lap under the
table. I froze mid-bite when something grabbed my hidden hand and
set the biscuit down as I looked over at Enock.

“Look away and take this,” he said under his
breath, being careful not to move his lips. His fingers moved
around as he slipped a piece of paper into the palm of my hand and
then squeezed it before letting go.

My heart pounded with longing, and I wanted
to use my other hand to reach under the table and grab his to stop
it from leaving. But I caught Paul’s eye and realized he was
watching me suspiciously, so I picked up my biscuit instead.

As Enock stood, I fought the urge to watch
him push in his chair and leave me feeling all alone.

I clutched the paper in my hand as if my life
depended on it while I ate breakfast, hurrying so I could get away
from the nerve-racking room as quickly as possible. I planned to
ask Helena if she thought it would be all right for me to eat in
the kitchen at their little table. The people in there were a lot
friendlier and less intimidating. Since I’d seen a few people get
up and leave without saying anything, I decided it would be okay
for me to do the same when I was finished.

“Miss Sarafina,” Demora said as I pushed my
chair in. “You will be expected to be here, playing piano, by
sunset each evening.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then I hurried away from the room to see what
Enock had written to me.

Chapter
Six

It took way too long getting back to my
bedroom because I had to fight to open and close three doors along
the way.

When I got there, I had an equally difficult
fight with my dress just to get it off.
I would have never
survived the eighteenth century
, I thought when I’d finally
found my way out of all the poof. I sighed with relief as I slipped
on my dress of choice. It was like pulling on a cozy pair of fuzzy
slippers.

Then I sat on my bed to read the note.
Meet me over the southern hill.
I read it a couple of
times more, wishing it wasn’t so vague.

“Right now?” I asked myself. “I guess it
wouldn’t hurt to go walk around.”

Unfortunately, I had no idea which way was
south. Looking out of my window, I saw one very distinct hill way
over to my left and decided to go check it out. If I didn’t find
Enock anywhere there, I would just keep circling the manor and
exploring hills, which actually sounded like a good way to make
this place feel more like home.

Placing my hand on the windowpane, I decided
it was freezing outside. I looked around my closet for something to
help keep me warm, because the clothes in my suitcase just weren’t
going to work here. I managed to find a black pair of flat
knee-high boots and an old-fashioned black button-up coat. My dress
wasn’t nearly as pretty with it on, but it would warm up outside
later.

I also put on the necklace my mom had given
me and tucked it under the coat, just in case. It had a whistle and
a small bottle of pepper spray hanging on it for times like this,
because I really had no idea what sort of dangers surrounded this
castle-ish home.

Not wanting to go through the manor and risk
running into a Halvandor, I climbed out of my window and began
walking toward the hill.

It
was
fairly cold outside, but the
bright sunshine was warming and there was a lot of early-bird
chirping. Usually I’m not really into sunshine and chirpy birds,
but it was cold enough that I could appreciate it.

I kept looking around as I walked the quarter
mile or so, but I didn’t see anyone nearby. A rooster crowed
somewhere in the distance and I heard a few
moooos.

When I reached the hill, I saw another one to
the far left of the house which hadn’t been visible from my window,
so I figured I’d go look at that one next. As I walked upward, I
watched the grass and purple irises remain flattened when I crushed
them with every step.

I saw no one at the top of the hill. It was a
bit of a disappointment, but the tall scraggly trees drooping all
over the other side looked pleasant, so I decided to walk downward
through them before investigating the other hill.

Jo Hanna would love this
place
,
I thought, wishing I could call her and tell her
all about it. It was hard not to feel depressingly lonely as I
strolled downward.

The lower I went, the closer the trees grew
together. No, they were reaching for each other as I came closer.
Their branches lifted and tangled as they formed an archway for me
to walk through. I stopped to look back after walking through it a
little ways, and the seamless arch wasn’t there anymore. But it
kept forming in front of me all the way down the hill.