by Lucia Ashta
Copyright 2017 Lucía Ashta.
All rights reserved.
Published by Awaken to Peace Press.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via email to [email protected].
Cover design by Lou Harper.
Edited by Elsa Crites.
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For Catia,
whose magic is awakening
There are a thousand ways in which magic can cause death.
There are as many in which it can gift true life.
Contents
Prologue
1. Claiming Sickness
2. A Dreaded Grand Arrival
3. Trepidation Blessed by Hopeful Colors
4. The Unhappy Happy News
5. The Gaping Void of the Future
6. Stay or Leave
7. That Which Was Dormant Awakens
8. Life within Death
9. Particles of Magic
10. A Dark, Brooding Man
11. Dangerous Secrets
12. Swallowed Whole by Perfectly Still Water
13. A Flood
14. Keep the Secret
15. The Undeniable Something Is Happening
16. Who or What Am I?
17. Another Way of Life
18. Life and Death Serious
19. A First Book of Magic
20. You Are Who You Become
21. The Elements within Us
22. The Unique Path
23. An Uncommon Pupil
24. Surrender to Something Big
25. The Incredible, the Unlikely, and the Nearly Impossible
26. Curious, Exciting, and Frightening Things
27. Fate’s Determinations
28. An All-Consuming Commitment
29. The Threat of a Life of Unpleasantness
30. Escaping Reality
31. The Business of Cruel Fates
32. Plots, Plans, and a Destination
33. What Is within Bubbles Forth
34. Outrunning That Which Cannot Be Outrun
35. Beauty within Magic
36. Coming and Going
37. A Woman in a Man’s World
38. Something Very Much Like Magic
39. A Valiance without Size
40. A Gentle Stop on a Long Road
41. Hope Flies toward Irele
42. An Unexpected Fairy Tale Ending
43. An Uncertain Future
44. One of a Kind
The Five-Petal Knot - Book 2
Make a difference
Acknowledgments
Read more by Lucía Ashta
About the author
Prologue
I’ve had to keep a terrible secret for years. Keeping secrets isn’t easy or fun, but I’ve had no choice. The secret is dangerous. The type people kill over.
There have been a few times when I wasn’t cautious enough, and I almost revealed it. It’s made me realize that I can’t keep it to myself any longer. I have to find a way to share the secret, or it will boil over, desperate to get out.
Since I must tell someone, I will tell you. You pose no danger. By the time my words reach you, my body will have faded from this world.
So it is here that I begin, at the beginning of it all, before I knew anything of secrets.
Claiming Sickness
Father and Mother stood at the entrance of my chamber, minimizing their risk of contagion. They’d forbidden my sisters to be anywhere near the quarantine zone. “What is it, Doctor? What’s wrong with her?” Father called from across the room.
Doctor Whittling was the second physician to see me in as many days. The first doctor had no real understanding of what to do with me and left in a hurry, pocketing the payment he’d done little to earn, while murmuring far-fetched hypotheses and generic treatment instructions.
The fidgety Doctor Whittling had no more of an idea of what was wrong with me than the first physician but truly wished to see me recover. With meaty fingers, he brushed aside strands of red hair, plastered against my forehead, saturated with sweat and dark as blood in the dim light.
Mother ordered the servants to change my soaked bed linens just before sunset, but it made no difference. The fever was strong. The fresh sheets clung to my slick skin.
Doctor Whittling lifted my eyelids with gentle fingers and drew a candle near to examine my clouded eyes. Before shifting his gaze to my parents, he let out a heavy sigh of resignation. The round little doctor froze, knowing he couldn’t retract it, while everyone in the room pretended to ignore his lament and what it implied.
“I’m uncertain of the cause of her affliction, nor do I know why it settled into her body so rapidly, but I can say that her condition is very dangerous. Unless her fever breaks shortly, you may lose her.”
Doctor Whittling looked toward the doorway with a practiced expression of regret. He delivered this kind of news regularly. It was an unavoidable part of his profession.
Unlike the physicians and my parents, I knew what had caused my illness. Over the last several feverish days, between hallucinations, I realized that I’d claimed it. I told my mother, “I am sick.” And so I’d become.
I’d never had a thought like that before, and now I wonder if the feverish hallucinations were what allowed me to reach through to what had not yet come.
But first, I had to survive, and the fever had a vise-like grip on me, fragile and devastated as I was.
A Dreaded Grand Arrival
It all began on a particularly cold day. Nestled in the countryside, Norland was a beautiful place, but during the winter months, a bone-chilling, damp cold was the price to pay for the future reward of sunshine and verdant landscapes.
I woke to the subdued sounds of my lady’s maid stoking the fire. Her trembling silhouette clinched her shawl closer around her neck and shoulders. Her body relaxed only when the fire stretched from the night’s sleep and awakened.
“Good morning, Maggie,” I said.
She turned, surprised. “Good day, Milady. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s all right. I was ready to waken. Has day broken yet?”
“Only just, Milady.”
It wasn’t possible to open the shutters and let in the morning light. It was too cold early in the day at this time of year, nearing the winter solstice. Maggie opened the shutters only during the height of the day, and even then, for only an hour or two at most.
She scuttled around the room lighting the candles left from the previous evening. She looked much older than her years, still hunched with the memory of an overbearing cold. She was only as old as I was.
“Shall I prepare your clothes, Milady?”
I stretched. My bed was warm. I was reluctant to leave it. I knew how cold the stone floors were.
“I suppose so. I think I’ll wear my green dress, the thick one.”
Maggie was already assembling the small pile of clothing expected of a future countess. “Perhaps Milady may want to reconsider. Today the Count and Countess of Chester are arriving. Perchance your new violet dress would be a better choice.”
I groaned. The violet dress was not as warm, and the sleeves and bodice were tight and itchy. But Maggie knew better than I did what my parents expected of me. I’d learned long ago that resistance to her suggestions
was futile. Inevitably, my mother would send me back to dress precisely as Maggie had recommended in the first place.
“Maggie, I wish you looked like me. Then you could take my place, and I’d be free to do as I wish.”
Maggie laughed aloud. Behind closed doors, we could be friends. Outside of them, my mother wouldn’t allow it. “There’s no one that would mistake us for the other.”
She was right. In most ways, we were polar opposites. With her dark, straight hair and stocky body, there was no confusing us.
“Besides, I’m not sure I’d want to trade places with you today, Milady.”
I searched her eyes. The orange of the fire played across her face in a game of shadows and light but revealed nothing.
“The Count is in a serious mood this morning.” Even though we were close, Maggie still wouldn’t cross certain boundaries. She was always careful, and I wondered what that was like, always monitoring what she said. I suppose I was the same in a way. My circumstances didn’t allow me to be myself either.
Maggie looked away, pretending to be distracted by the choice in shoes to match my outfit. But she didn’t fool me. She’d grown up in the castle, shadowing her mother, who shadowed my mother as her lady’s maid. Maggie had heard my mother’s commands, complaints, and impossible requests in the place of nursery rhymes. She’d learned the punctilious requirements of a life of nobility from a master.
“The Count and Countess of Chester are bringing their son.”
I didn’t say anything. We both knew what that meant.
My parents were trying to marry me. They’d been searching for a suitable match for some time. I wondered what this latest arrangement offered the Court of Norland.
I closed my eyes and rolled over in bed, trying to block out my life. “I think I was born into the wrong family.” Goose down filling muffled my voice, but Maggie interpreted my mumbles. I’d made the same statement to her many times before.
“Our lives are in the hands of God, Milady. I don’t think He makes mistakes.”
I’d heard that same answer many times before too.
It didn’t make me feel any better.
*
I sat in front of the mirror that had once been my mother’s. Its carved wooden frame was busy with leaves and flowers. I watched Maggie painstakingly braid my hair, mostly in silence. She was aware of what I was thinking and left me to my thoughts—What would this son of the House of Chester be like? Would my parents force me to marry him even if I didn’t like him?
Maggie twirled the finished braids and pinned them into place atop my head. Even if she hadn’t already announced it, I would have known: Today I was to look my best. She reserved the pins adorned with freshwater pearls for special occasions.
Maggie picked out two auburn strands to either side of my face and encouraged their natural curl. Then she surveyed me, satisfied with her work. “Now make sure not to move around too much so your hair doesn’t fall out.”
She was perpetually dismayed at how my hair tumbled out of the intricate hairdos she put me in. I met Maggie’s gaze in the mirror. “I’ll do my best.” Both she and I knew I only partly meant what I said.
I stood so Maggie could tighten my corset further.
“Breathe in,” she said.
“I hope this one breath will last me until dark. You know I can’t breathe in this thing.”
“It’s the price you pay for beauty.”
It was a hollow statement. My beauty was more evident when I was free of all this artifice.
Maggie smiled a sympathetic smile and handed me pearl drop earrings. “There. Pretty as a picture you are, Milady.”
I looked in the mirror at a girl who was beginning to resemble the striking woman she would become. Still, all I saw was emptiness reflected in eyes that looked like someone else’s instead of mine. A weak smile at Maggie did nothing to bring life to my naturally sparkling amber eyes.
I turned and made my way down the hall. This being such an important day for them, Father and Mother would be waiting for me to begin breakfast. Maggie helped me with the ample skirts of my dress down the wide stairs from the family rooms of the second floor to the entry hall. She wished me luck before leaving me to walk the hall to the dining room by myself. When I took my seat at the table, I was the last to arrive, even though the sun was still low in the sky.
“Good morning, darling,” Mother said with a pleasant-looking smile while she looked me over approvingly. My five sisters and I watched her. “Did you rest well?” This mother was much less business-like than what we were accustomed to.
“Yes, Mother, I did. Thank you.”
“Today, the Count and Countess of Chester will be visiting us,” my father said in his usual straight-to-it style. “They are bringing their son.”
He paused to sip his tea. He let his words hang densely above the chestnut dining table. Then he made measured eye contact with each of us. He began with my youngest sister. Gertrude was eleven, but she knew as well as any of us what the look meant. He ended with me. I was the one he was most worried about.
“You will all be on your very best behavior while the Count and Countess are here.” There was no need for Father to mention the consequences if we were to misbehave. We all knew the repercussions would be severe.
“This is important to our family, and we will put the well-being of our family first.” Although he spoke to all of us, this statement was directed only at me. My parents expected me to put their well-being before my own happiness. This was my duty in life, and it would also be the fate shared by my sisters.
My siblings looked back at Father with obedient blue eyes. They accepted what he told them without question. Only Gertrude showed signs of a rebellious spirit in a flash of honey eyes that were very much like mine.
Of my four sisters, only Gertrude looked like me. The spark of our inner fire revealed itself in our copper hair color. Our other sisters had blonde, straight hair, as if not even their hair considered deviating from the norm.
“Yes, Father,” I said. I was the only one who needed to reply.
“Good.” He leaned back in his chair. The solid, dark wood accepted his large frame stoically. “They’ll be arriving soon. Break your fast so you can be ready to welcome them.”
The rest of the meal was devoid of the usual chatter that followed my sisters everywhere they went. They restrained their easy-going manner in the presence of our parents.
On normal days, we were left to the care of governesses and ladies’ maids, while Father and Mother tended to matters of the estate—that seemed often to involve the attendance of hunting and tea parties and dinners that extended late into the night.
“Excuse me, Milord,” interrupted the butler. “Little William has spotted the Count and Countess of Chester at the bottom of the drive. They will arrive shortly.”
Father pushed his chair back. “Thank you, Henry.”
As we each stood, Father and Mother examined us. We passed inspection, all of us in our finest dresses and ornate coiffure.
“Gertrude, remove that jam from your upper lip,” Mother snapped. She then plastered what would pass as a joyful smile on her face and took Father’s extended arm. They began to make their way to the entry hall.
Even as we were leaving the dining room, Bertha and John were hastily removing any traces of our unfinished breakfast. Everything had to be in order for the grand arrival.
Three blonde heads fell into step behind Father and Mother, but Gertrude came to my side and took my hand. I squeezed hers, anticipating the introduction to my potential future husband. We joined the procession together, dread weighing down our steps.
Trepidation Blessed by Hopeful Colors
The clop of hooves and wheels dragging behind them on the cobblestone drive finally came to a stop in front of the manor. The footsteps of a horseman and footman descended on the pavement. The men would soon begin to open doors for the passengers.
I couldn’t see anyone. Father and Mo
ther decided that the appropriate place for us to receive our guests was in the entry hall, not outside. So all Gertrude and I could make out was the wide stone steps that connected entrance and drive.
The sound of a tired horse nickering wafted into the entryway, and my stomach tied into a big, unpleasant knot.
Henry appeared at the threshold of the massive wooden paneled door: “The Count and Countess of Chester.” Then he stepped aside to allow them entry.
The Counts of Chester and Norland shook hands then circled around each other in a practiced move of the nobility to kiss the extended hands of each other’s wives. The Countesses curtsied to each other with trained faultless smiles.
“Heir to the Count and Countess of Chester,” Henry said, and all six daughters looked up as I caught the first glimpse of my suitor.
He looked as nervous as I did, trailing behind his parents. He locked eyes with me. As the oldest, I was the tallest and easy to spot. His mouth turned up slightly in tentative entreaty, and I felt the knot in my stomach loosen a notch.
Gertrude squeezed my hand discreetly. She, too, was relieved. He looked nice, although it was still unfathomable to comprehend that this boy might soon become my husband.
The relief in my stomach was short-lived. The servants approached the doorway with two large trunks. It was too much luggage for a day’s visit. I sensed my sisters suppressing the same groan I did. Our parents would of course extend the invitation for as long as the guests wanted to stay.
It was going to be a very long day.
*
“It really is too bad that you have so many daughters,” the Countess of Chester said in a pause between bites at dinner. The candlelight flickered across her face in sinister slashes and waves. “Not a son among them all.”
“Charles contracted small pox when he was only four. His death has been our cross to bear,” said Mother.
