Midnight's Song (14 page)

“I suppose you can say
that…” he pointed toward the extravagant lights of the manor,
towering up over us in all its grandiosity even though it seemed a
world away. He flashed a clever smile. “That life has never really
been for me.”

I felt a spark and
couldn’t help but smile. He meant no harm, he was friendly – and it
appeared that he was out here for the same reasons as I
was
.
Before I
could speak up, he offered the cloth to me again. Even though I
wasn’t crying anymore, the moisture still uncomfortably lurked and
burned in my eyes.

“You’ve been crying. Please, tell me
why.” He softly requested.

Something inside of
me refrained from holding back. Exactly what caused me to vent all
of my emotions to this complete stranger was beyond me. I could
tell that he was honest, perhaps even able to see
more
of a depth in me
than I could. I took the hankie and nodded
gratefully.

“I wasn’t made for
this life at all,” I started. “I was content with my life, but now
all of the people with power of me have tried to change it. None of
them want me…simply as
myself.
Ever since I came to live here, no one has let me
make my own choices. All I am is a puppet on strings to them…a bird
trapped in a golden cage!”

We both quieted. My
anger suddenly vanished. I don’t know what he did, but I would
eventually figure out that it
was
him. When he looked at me in that moment, I felt
something strange come over me. It wasn’t a normal feeling or a
human feeling; it was like he looking into something
deeper.
It was like he
was sympathizing with me…within my
soul.

“I understand more than you know.” It
was the only thing he said to me.

It’s not something I
can truly explain in its entire capacity. The curiosity flared
inside of me because of it. Who was this person? Why was he here?
How on earth did he – out of all the places in this 10-mile wide
piece of land that he could have been – did he end up coming
face-to-face with me
here?
And, what was this feeling I was experiencing? It
was a new, almost unearthly one that caused me to internally
understand that this person knew more about me than I could
presently see myself.

“Who are you?” I softly asked him,
plainly and simply in return.

He abruptly
retracted. All this time we had been unconsciously moving closer to
each other, and now he quickly pulled away. Was my question all
that bad? I had asked it with pure curiosity and innocence, and I’m
sure that he knew that
.
But, remembering his own identity – he tried to
maneuver to another topic.

“…The better
question is; who are
you?”
He began, attempting to act as if he was
responding defensively. Though, I could tell it was playful all the
same. Or, maybe not even that. It simply seemed artificial. “I was
walking through the garden…I heard a beautiful voice…and I don’t
get to know who it belongs to? How about I learn
your
name
first?”

I blushed. Girlish feelings overcame
me. I had never quite felt this way much in my lifetime – but I
knew what these feelings were. They were like a drug - a drug that
made your insides numb with fear and fuzzy with joy at the same
time. Yet, my logic could not overcome this. I simply
smiled.

“My name is Elissa.”
I told him. There was no part of me that realized that no one
wanted to call me by this name anymore. At that moment, I fell
back, embarrassed. If he had been at the party – he probably
thought the same way. He probably thought that it was the name of
a
peasant.
But
before I could open my mouth to apologize, protest, or object – he
spoke up and stopped me.

“That’s a beautiful
name,” he told me. The young man bent down and cordially kissed me
on the hand. “It’s said to be the name of a
queen.”

I suddenly stiffened,
awkwardly interrupting the moment and becoming completely
dumbfounded. The moment was absolutely perfect, but in all my
perplexity I couldn’t help but ask him through a blank stare:
“Really?”

Yet, he didn’t seem to mind. He just
stood up – a slight smile forming in the corner of his mouth – and
let out a pleasant laugh. “Yes, it is! Well, at least where I come
from. Where I come from, she is a queen of legend. Some even say of
future prophecy.”

I laughed along with him, pretending
in the awkwardness of the moment that I knew exactly what he had
told me about beforehand. Of all the stories and legends I’d heard,
this surely wasn’t one of them. I think that underneath it all, he
knew that I was completely mindless about what he was saying. After
a few moments of laughter, our eyes met. We both quieted. But
before I could become caught in them, I was stabbed by the impaling
curiosity that lurked inside of me. I still didn’t know who he was,
where he came from, not even his name!

“Where
you
come from? So,
you’re a foreigner then?” I asked him after the laughter stopped,
cracking into a slight smile to hide my miniscule
embarrassment.

“I suppose you could say that,” he
smiled back at me as he continued speaking in his entirely
gentlemanly nature.

Now I was curious,
maybe even a bit too curious for his likes. There had been
something different about this mystery man from the start, but I
didn’t guess he could have been from…
a
land beyond.
The thought perplexed me, as
most people living in the Magisterial Empire had never seen or
heard from anyone living elsewhere. It never seemed like there was
much beyond this country, I suppose because we were scarcely
allowed to leave it.

“Why would you come here?” I
questioned. I didn’t think to ask particularly where he was from,
because all that I could think of at that moment was how crazy
someone would be to leave their own country – one of the few free
ones in the world – and come here. Yet, he didn’t
answer.

“I’m sorry if I was prying…at least
tell me what your name is,” I asked again over the
silence.

The young man stiffened, momentarily
refusing a response. The pleasant feelings that had overcome me
suddenly faded. Why wouldn’t he tell me? I simply couldn’t
understand why he wouldn’t give me a response! All I wanted was his
name! I opened my mouth to ask again, but I was halted. The halt
didn’t actually come from him; it instead came from the shrill
voice of someone coming out of the maze from behind me.

“
ELISSA CELESTE!”
A woman screamed.
The bushes on the side of the hedge maze rustled, and I turned me
head to see someone come through the exit. It was Beeti. “Where
have you been? You’re lucky that no one noticed you were gone until
the party was over!”

“W-what?” I
stammered, “It’s over
?”

“Of course it is!”
Beeti screamed in return. It seemed odd to me that she screamed so
loud right now – the mysterious figure that I had bumped into must
have been standing right there, I thought – and Beeti
never
revealed her
temper around regular people. “You foolish girl – we’ve been
looking for you for
hours!”

Had it really been
that long? I could hardly fathom how on earth I could have been out
here for more than thirty minutes – let alone a few
hours!
Before I could
even contemplate it, Beeti grabbed me by the wrists and began
pulling me out of the hedge maze. I protested with all of my might,
desperately hoping to see the mysterious man one last
time.

“Wait!” I still didn’t even know his
name! My plea came with such desperation that even the sour-faced
Beeti suddenly loosened her grip. It had been no more than a few
seconds – I assure you – but in that split second, everything
changed. I turned my head, expecting to see him. There had been no
sudden sounds; not any kind of rustling in nearby bushes or even a
hint of a footprint left behind. My heart sank, but my head filled
with curiosity.

For when I looked
back, there was
no one
there.

I came out on my
balcony that night experiencing a nauseatingly strange feeling.
Nothing that had just happened made sense. I had barely met this
one person, yet something inside me desperately wanted to see him
again! Part of it was utter perplexity at all that had happened. My
logical mind simply couldn’t fathom how after only a few seconds he
could have simply – just –
disappeared
.

As many times as I tried
to go over it in my mind, it still didn’t make any sense to me. For
one thing, I still couldn’t figure out how the others didn’t see
what I saw. It took me an entire conversation to realize that my
encounter had taken place completely alone.

“Child – I cannot
believe that after all of your training you would display such
complete
insolence
!” Beeti lectured me in the kitchen earlier that night. “You
are not ready! Completely unprepared for whatever task we thought
that you would be!”

Why the kitchen, you ask? Well, it was
the first and only place in the manor that the last of our guests
(mostly the drunk ones) weren’t busy lounging in before they
departed. The clatter of pots and the barking orders to the other
servants from our cook, Haley King, were enough to shroud our
conversation in near-secrecy.

“Oh, Elissa…” Wren exclaimed, standing
next to Beeti and holding her head despairingly. “What on earth
were you thinking?”

“I – I was just getting some air,” I
stammered, partially fibbing. Inside, I still wondered heavily
about my encounter. Wanting to test what they had seen, I decided
to work my way into a full-out lie. “I…I was with that young
gentleman. I met him at the party, you see! We both thought that we
could use some fresh air and…as we enjoyed getting to know each
other and such; he accompanied me.”

Beeti gave me a strange look. “What
gentleman?”

At that point, I
realized that whatever I had seen – my mind hadn’t played a trick
on me. He had actually
vanished.
I suddenly fell silent, internally vowing to
figure out what exactly I had seen. Though, when I sat idly - my
aunts craved a reply.

“Elissa, what gentleman? Please tell
me!” Aunt Wren suddenly clasped my hands and knelt down at my
side.

It occurred to me that even if I told
them everything that actually happened that night, my story still
wouldn’t line up. Now both of my aunts were inwardly waiting to
hear my story, hoping that somehow I had found someone to court me
in a complete miraculous success to their endeavors. I bit my lip
for a moment, and then spoke up; conjuring together a completely
fabricated a suitor to fit their needs.

“Well…he was wealthy,” I started,
continuing when I saw the immediate glimmer in both of their eyes.
“And he was well dressed…and short. We talked for almost an hour,
actually. He said he was some sort of duke.” Beeti and Wren both
looked as if they were on the edge of their seats. I just had to
keep on going now! “And he was single.”

The finishing words caused Wren to do
all but burst into a girlish squeal. Perhaps she had, and it was
just masked by the sounds of the kitchen. Even Beeti was taken
aback quite a bit, although still stoic as usual.

“Well dressed…short
stature… a
duke…”
Wren searched her mind aloud. Within a few seconds she made
her apparent conclusion and gasped. “Beeti – it sounds like she’s
caught the attention of
Winston
Everen!
”

Both of my aunts gasped. Any sign of
emotion beyond anger at all was a rarity in Beeti, so this was
quite the spectacle. On the other hand – sitting in the corner of
the kitchen completely surrounded by my aunts – I felt trapped. Who
on earth was Winston Everen? I had to say something – I couldn’t
risk fabricating someone that could actually be tracked!

“Oh no!” I interjected. “That wasn’t
his name! At least, I don’t think it was.”

“…Well then…what was it?” They both
answered in unison. For a few seconds I struggled to find an
answer, but a clever smile rolled across my face as I found the
perfect answer. In a way, it was my own sweet revenge.

“We talked for quite
a while, but unfortunately I never found out. He
was
going to tell me
it,” I cleverly told them, a hint of irony in my tone. “But Beeti
came screeching for me at the very moment he was starting to speak
and scared him away
.”

There was at least a little bit of
truth to what I had said. Beeti fell back, red and silent. After a
few moments, she composed herself and spoke up – though avoided
looking me directly in the eye.