I stood in the oldest hall of the palace; hands pressed against the brick sides of the window I was leaning out of, waiting for the sun. My breath curled briefly in a gentle silver mist, then whirled up and into the dim sky, followed by another short breath that danced clouds upon the silent morning air. The darkness was melting into early, sweet sun after long cold moon, and I could feel the shaking of my hands slow and then stop. When Prince found me my face was still tilted up into the blinding brightness, eyes closed, soaking up the golden sun. He stood by me for a moment, came and watched the town below scurry underneath the pale, cloudless sky.
“Breakfast is ready,” he said, one hand resting just above his eyes, casting long spidery shadows down his dark cheeks.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” my brother Finbar answered for me, and I jumped. He always appeared when you least expected it. Prince bowed slightly, no more than was proper, and whisked away. Finbar turned towards me. I took one last breath in the bright sunlight and faced him. “Ready for breakfast?” He asked, smiling.
I shook my head.“Not hungry,” I mumbled.
This time Finbar’s smile was a bit forced. “Sorcha, you haven’t eaten for days. You’re going to wither away.”
I made a small, inconsequential noise designed to dissuade him, although of course it did nothing of the sort. Finbar could be very stubborn.
Now his face was serious, dark eyes pinning my light green ones in place. “Sorcha, you have to eat.” I started to protest. “No choices,” he said firmly, then grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall of gray stone.
As I stumbled after him, I looked at his hand on my arm: tan on white. We’re not really brother and sister- not even close. He’s from a country far to the west, distant and generally out of mind of the people of Farya. His tan skin, white-blond gold hair, and black eyes contrast so sharply with my white skin, thick black hair, and light green eyes that no one could ever believe we’re related. But it’s not relation of blood that counts- it’s relation of spirit. And my mother had cared for Finbar ever since he showed up on our doorstep six years ago. At the thought of my mother, any appetite I might have had withered away.
Before I knew it, I was seated in a huge velvet chair with elderly servants ceremoniously depositing ridiculous amounts of exquisite food on my china plate. The royal table itself was laden with pork buns glistening with honey, soft pears, fresh apples, crisp parsley, light, feathery pancakes baked to golden-brown perfection, buttery toast, and pitchers of milk and cream and syrup and wine. I pinched off a bit of apple skin from a round, firm-skinned scarlet apple and rolled it thoughtfully between my fingers, staring off into the distance.
Next to me, Finbar not-so-subtly dug his elbow into my ribs.
“I said, ‘Would you like to say grace, Lady Sorcha?’” Prince stared at me expectantly, his pale eyes drilling holes through my skull. Cheeks hot, I quickly recited the customary thanks and watched silently as Prince, Finbar, and Kieran, the court dancer, ate heartily.
Finbar jabbed me again. Under his supervising glare, I forced myself to take a bite of apple, and quickly spat it out in disgust. A worm wound its way slowly through the apple’s black heart. “Ew!” I exclaimed, wiping my mouth. Suddenly I noticed Prince and the dark dancer, Kieran, watching me, intent. Hostile might be another word, I thought gloomily as Finbar led me from the hall.
“What is wrong with you, Sorcha?” he hissed at me when we were in the gardens.
“Mother’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with me,” I shouted, just before the tears started to roll down my cheeks. Finbar sighed and sat down on a bench near a rose bush. He picked one and twirled it absently between his fingers. “She’s been gone for three months now, Sorcha.”
“I know,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Don’t you think I know?” I grabbed the lowest branch of an apple tree and swung up into it, even though I knew Prince would scold me if he found out I’d been climbing trees. “Do you expect me to forget her after three months? Did you forget her?” I said angrily.
“Don’t be stupid,” he growled, and from my upside-down position in the tree I could see his eyes were cold. Finbar rubbed his forehead and sighed. “No one’s asking you to forget anyone,” he said in a gentle tone.
I swung up and grabbed an apple that was hanging near my head. “There are some people I wish I could forget,” I whispered fiercely, spitting the apple savagely on a nearby twig.
“Bronagh,” Finbar sighed, even though I had thought he couldn’t hear me. “Sorcha-”
“I dream about Mother,” my voice cracked when I said it, and I unspeared the apple with shaking hands.
“How often?” he asked sharply. Here in Farya, everyone dreams- it’s not a rare thing. But there is a serious superstition in Farya concerning dreams: Supposedly if a dream comes back too many times, the dreamer is a witch. The previous King was old and his aging mind feared the nightmares of the witches, the “Dark Prophecies”, so much that he passed a long and detailed law concerning them. If the witch tells of a good dream, she is allowed to live, but in solitary confinement. If she tells of a nightmare, the witch is put to death. Finbar’s told me ever since I can remember that everyone has repeat dreams: it was only the King’s own foolishness that made them into prophecies. Still, people in Farya don’t often talk of dreams.
I pretended to think about his question. “Seven times,” I muttered at last, peeling the apple on a long, sharp stick. The strip came out jagged and curled into a dark spiral when I let it fall to the ground below.
He let out a long sigh, then yelped. One drop of blood from the rose thorns slid down his finger. Finbar smiled ruefully at me and tossed the rose away. “It wasn’t Bronagh’s fault,” he began, but I slid down out of the tree and raced away.
I ran, feet pounding across the flat, clean-cut palace grounds until my head spun disconcertingly, then I curled up in the corner of a courtyard and slept. Safe from nightmares underneath the sun’s warm embrace.
There was a dancer in my dream, dark-skinned and beautiful, with golden bangles shimmering all along her arms. After a moment I realized it was Kieran, the court dancer, flowing from one movement to the next, long golden hair flashing brilliant underneath the noon sky.Suddenly, the dream changed, as dreams will do, and Kieran became Mother. Mother! Mother? Wake up! I shouted in the dream, shaking her.I’m sorry, Sorcha. Bronagh was standing beside Mother and I, shaking his head. He had his doctor’s face on, and I hated him, wanted so badly to wipe that incompetent look off of his face. It’s just pneumonia! I yelled at him. She’s not supposed to die from it! What did you do to her? Why can’t you save her? And he shook his head and shook his head and Mother wouldn’t get up.When I woke I was in my room in the palace, looking up at the dim outline of the canopy overhead in darkness. Crying, I pulled the covers up over my head and waited for morning, tears following one another down my cheeks until there were too many to count. I couldn’t sleep in the dark, I was shaking too much; couldn’t close my wide eyes, I was afraid I would see Mother behind them.Morning found me at the window again. I was so tired I could barely stand, but the sigh of relief I could breathe when the sun’s first rays peeked over the mountain made the terrible night fade a little from my mind. Suddenly Kieran and Finbar appeared at one end of the corridor, speaking in quiet, solemn tones. Finbar glanced up and saw me swaying on my feet.“Sorcha,” he said gently. “Bed.” I didn’t resist.I dreamt of Kieran walking with Finbar. I’m worried about Sorcha, Finbar said.She’s so quiet. And she eats nothing. Why? Kieran questioned him.Since Mother died she’s talked little and smiled less, Finbar said wearily, and then they both faded into the shadows.When I woke it was getting dark again in my bedchamber, and I rolled quickly out of bed and went to the oldest hall in the palace. It had windows on both sides, so it was the first room in the palace to be lit, and the last to be dark. I stared out at the fading light of the sun, and the candlelit windows that flickered to life in the indistinct houses of Farya below, feeling the air grow cold.“This morning you looked like you thought the sun had died,” a voice behind me laughed. I whirled around to find Kieran standing there. I knew her name, vaguely, and that she danced, but nothing other than that. She held out a bangled hand and said, “Kieran. You must be the girl Prince took in.”“Sorcha,” I said shortly, shaking her hand. “It was Finbar’s idea.”“Prince doesn’t usually take in orphans,” Kieran said, and I stiffened, but the comment was only thoughtful.“It was Finbar’s idea,” I repeated.“Prince said that he and your mom go way back, whatever that means,” Kieran giggled, then sobered. “I brought you something.” She produced half of a brilliant scarlet apple, juicy and freshly cut. “No worms this time,” she held out a pinky. “Promise!” I stared at her, then remembered pinky-promises from when I was a little girl. We linked fingers. “Thanks,” I said quietly, then went back to staring out of the window at the advancing night. The shadows began to curl in along the lines of the gray bricks, then slither down towards my feet. Kieran stood beside me, watching. Suddenly I felt the darkness pull up over my face, and I flinched.“You don’t like the night,” she commented softly.“It’s when I dream,” I agreed hesitantly, “Of mother,” I added as an afterthought. She seemed like she was about to say something, but I turned and headed upstairs to my room so she wouldn’t see my tears. I lit a candle and stared into the flickering flame for a long time, back pressed tensely against the corner of the room, turning Kieran’s apple over and over in my hands.I didn’t mean to dream, but suddenly I found myself asleep. Mother was the first thing I saw in the dream. I tensed. No, no, Mother! There’s a candle. The room is light. Bronagh, don’t bother me now. Stay locked away. I will run long enough that you will never find me. But Mother wasn’t lying down. She was sitting up in a beautiful white dress, her black hair piled up on top of her head, shining. She laughed, and suddenly I realized how long it had been since she laughed- I hadn’t heard that sweet sound since her sickness came. Mother turned to me and held her arms out, one hand closed around something, her gown rippling around her like the folds of the sea.Sorcha, child, come. I have something for you. But I couldn’t move.I can’t come, Mother! I can’t move! She knelt and rolled it across the floor to me, a scarlet apple brighter than any I’d ever seen. Then she put her fingers to her lips.Hush, she whispered. Sorcha…
When I woke Kieran’s apple was brown on the floor beside me, and there was a scarlet apple pressed into my hand.I wandered out into the halls, dazed, feeling as though I hadn’t slept at all. Slowly the palace darkened. I passed Finbar on my way into the oldest hall in the castle. He stopped me with a touch on my shoulder.“How are you feeling?”I handed him the apple and said, “Hungry.” He grinned, even though there was a bit of confusion in it, and he walked off, bouncing it in his hand.When I arrived in the oldest corridor of the palace, Kieran was waiting for me. For a moment we watched the sun sink ever lower in the sky being painted deep cobalt in swift strokes. Then she spoke. Her words were soft, but echoed in the emptiness of the corridor, and my heart, which was just beginning to fill up.“Sun fades to moon,” Kieran held her dark hands up to the fading breath of day, lighting them chocolate among the brilliant golden dust motes filling the halls. “And day to night.”I stared out at the dancing sun shafts just winding their way through the treetops below, watching. Kieran turned slightly toward me in the dimness, and she must have seen my wide green eyes trying to gulp down the last shining rays. “Don’t be afraid of the shadows,” she said softly. “Don’t try to forget them. You can’t, no one can. It’s because human nature is never strictly good or evil. You can’t carve out a human soul in a rigid line like the rose’s thorn. It’s an apple peeling, sweet and curled and eaten up by worms in some places. Darkness shares with light- it’s unchangeable. If we forget the person we must never become, how are we to prevent that change? In the depths of despair we find the beginnings of hope.”How do you respond to something like that? I closed my eyes, but there were no tears to hold back now, and I stood unmoving long after Kieran had danced away. In my mind, I could see the shadows curling first in among the lines of the gray bricks, then slithering down towards my feet. In a moment I felt their cool, inquisitive stroke on my cheeks, and this time, the taste of apple still bright in my mouth, I did not pull back.
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