I didn’t remember falling asleep. I only remembered waking up to a blinding, but welcoming, fire and grunting coming from the left of me. My head was pounding, feeling as hollow as wood as I sat up. Pain seared through my ribs and back, probably bruised from my fall, and took in my surroundings.
The walls and floors around me were decorated in snowflakes, much like my home, but also not. The room I was in was like nothing I’d seen in my father’s house; there was carpet trailing along the floor with flecks of sawdust sticking up from the tangles like little weapons. A meat and fur rack was held in the leftmost corner, near the fireplace in the centre of the wall. An old clock and a few portraits were scattered along the mantle, and snowflakes dotted the windows behind me like lights. Like the pillar lights in the ball. I shuddered and finally looked towards the source of the grunting.
Jac.
I stumbled over my long list of curse words as I stared at him. The long, long, long line I had made for the person who had ridden behind me was instantly forgotten as I took in the state of him.
Jac’s hair which had been smoothed over was, once again, rugged and streaked with… red. My blood. His once gorgeous tuxedo was covered in splodges of browns and reds which stood out against the blues and whites, his tie askew and his jacket crinkled. His matching trousers were of the same effect; reds and browns. The red rose that had stood at his lapel was gone, and that’s when I felt something dig into my ear as I reached up to grab it; it was his rose.
I looked into his eyes, taking in the steady embers that were held there for eternity. They were shadowed with worry, but also with relief as he said, “I brought you here as soon as I could. Your head didn’t take well to the fall, but everything else is fine. Oh, and I burnt your dress.”
“That was my mother’s dress, you pig!” I cried, lifting my gaze towards the burning embers. When I looked back with the same embers roaring inside my eyes, I noticed his upturned mouth. “Prick.”
He chuckled as he faced the fire, watching the ashes bounce off the carpet. “It’s upstairs, drying off. You look better in your undergarments anyway,” he muttered, eying my reaction. I could’ve sworn a glint of sympathy shone in his eyes, but it flashed away before I could register it. I sighed and leant back against the arm of the couch and fingered the patterned cushions beside me. The sound of snowflakes dropping on the thin windows was the only sound in the brooding silence. My head raced with thoughts of what happened, of what I would do. I couldn’t go back, not when I was going to be sent to the Madhouse.
“Rhy,” he said, making me jump at the sudden disturb in the silence. “Do you want to go back to your father’s house?”
The calmness, the gentleness, in those words shocked me still. He was giving me a choice.
Why?
“I-I don’t know,” I replied meekly. “He’ll send me away, to the Madhouse, if I do.”
Jac only nodded, his face revealing nothing except possible contemplation. His fire-born eyes traced the outskirts of the room, and then the bitter world outside before asking, “Why would he?”
I told him everything that night. Things I expected he didn’t know, and certainly looked the part if he did. I told him about the nightmares, about how I wake up screaming and sobbing, trying to attack whatever it is that lurks in the depths of my head. His eyes slowly widened with every new piece I told him, until his golden iris was fully visible. By the end of it, I was close to sobbing. I’d never told anyone that information before, and to get it out in the open, to finally
voice it…
“I-I’m so sorry, Rhy. If I’d have known I would have refused the marriage, the party, all of it. I’m-”
I shook my head softly, my hair acting as curtains as I patted his shoulder before curling up on the couch. Apologies wouldn’t get anyone anywhere now. It was too late. I just decided to stare guiltily at the slowly dying fire, letting my thoughts consume me before drifting off into a deep, heavy sleep.
+ + +
My mare beneath me snorted with her breath curling in front of her towering figure. Her mane and tail had been washed and brushed this morning with the supplies in the stable behind the building Jac and I had stayed in; a cabin of sorts. I thought she may as well look presentable.
I’d opted to wear cream coloured pants and a white sweater to rid home in, as there’s no chance I’m going back in that dress. I had a rose coloured cap thrown hastily over my shoulders, the hood thrown over my pale face.
I’m a monster to these people, I’d said in spite of Jac’s protesting.
They won’t want to see me.
Rhy, you’re the daughter of the richest man in the village, he’d protested,
they won’t care.
But they will, Jac. As I have such a high standing in society, more would be expected of me than to faint at an “engagement” party and start writhing at nothing!
That was that. He hadn’t protested about it since. Instead, he’d kept quiet; too quiet for my liking. I’d tried starting conversation to fill the void, but it never lasted long. We had separate interests, and we didn’t like talking about businesses. So I decided to take in the wood around us;
The pine trees, which were sodden from the snow and glazed with ice, shone in the early morning sun like faerie lights at a carnival because of the flakes of snow falling onto and around them. Snow coated the ground beneath us, crunching and churning with every step our mares took. Wind sharper than a knife sliced for us from under our hoods, our cloaks, marring out our fingers and toes through our protection along with shoving flakes of snow and ice into our hair and eyes.
The horizon was barely visible, and Jac’s voice was barely audible as he said that the village was just up ahead. I had to take his word for it. Try as I might to find something interesting around me, I could only see Jac in front of me. A sigh escaped my lips.
I’m going to have a few cups of hot cocoa when I get in, I thought as the wind clawed at my face with invisible talons.
A flickering light danced in the distance in front of us as we neared the village, still pouring with people from the Winter Solstice. The smells of the food had returned to normal after I’d woken up in the cabin; mouth-watering meats and spices, all rich with flavour. My stomach growled like a lion, and I had to keep my focus pierced on Jac’s back to stop myself from easing off of my horse and buying something to fill my pit of a gut. The banners of the Solstice still hung up from streetlights as the wind pushed into them, causing them to rock and sway and flap.
My father’s house towered before us, and it took all of my remaining effort to not stop and head away, in the opposite direction.