The Crickhowell School for the Muses

by Waxman, Rachel

  Francis slowed the horse to a walk as they made the ascent up the steep hill. “Lean forward just a bit,” he said. “It helps the horse make it up.”

  Awen tilted her body toward the horse. The ride was slow, but enjoyable—a much better way to spend her time than being inside, singing inspiration for Sir Robert. Awen gazed down at the grass, watching for wildflowers as they made their way up the hill. It was then that she noticed her bare feet.

  “Oh no!” she cried.

  “What?” Francis asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “My shoes!” She pointed at her feet with one hand. “My new leather shoes!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t have them!” Already, she felt her eyes welling. “I left them by the rock.”

  “I’m sure I could dig up a pair for you somewhere inside,” Francis offered.

  “I…well…they’re sort of a special pair.” She wiped her eye.

  “All right,” he sighed. “Let’s just go back and get them. Hold on tight!” He laughed, and the horse whipped around, heading straight down the hill at a near canter.

  Awen clenched her teeth, clinging on to as much of the horse’s mane as could fit in her two fists.

  “Lean back!” Francis shouted over the whipping wind.

  Yet by the time Awen could tilt her body back even a little, they had already reached the bottom of the hill and were winding around to the front again.

  “Slo—” Awen realized she had been holding her breath. “Slo—slow down!” She could barely get the words out, and immediately they were lost in the wind.

  “What? I can’t hear you!” Francis yelled. “Wooooooah!”

  Then, the horse slowed to a moderate trot and, finally, to a walk. Awen exhaled the air she had been holding in. “I said. Slow. Down.”

  “Ohhh! ‘Slow down!’ Now I understand.”

  Awen suspected he had heard her words perfectly well the first time. “Well, after that ride, I suppose I’m all dried off now.” She rubbed her hand across the fabric of her dress: sure enough, it was barely damp.

  Francis pointed to the large boulder at the side of the stream. “This rock, right here?”

  “Yes. That was fast!”

  “And that was a canter,” Francis quipped. “Know how to dismount?” He positioned the horse alongside the rock.

  “Yes, I think I’ve got it.” Awen set her left foot atop the rock and tried to swing her other leg over, nearly kicking Francis in the face.

  “You missed,” he joked.

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll get you next time.” She climbed somewhat awkwardly down the boulder, twisting her neck around to look behind her. “They should be right…” She scanned the ground. “I left them on this side.” She circled the rock but found nothing except grass and a few tiny wildflowers. “I…” Awen walked to the edge of the brook, wondering if a wind had pushed them in. She peered into the water:

  Nothing.

  “You find them?” Francis asked, staring off toward the horizon. “Or did you fall in again?”

  “No. They’re gone.…I can’t imagine how that could be. I don’t think they fell into the river, and there isn’t anyone else out here who could’ve taken them.” Awen clenched her teeth to keep from crying. She knew the shoes were rather plain, but they had become her most prized possession. It was not what they were, but what they meant.

  “Hmm, strange indeed,” Francis said, still gazing into the distance. “Maybe an animal made off with them. That wouldn’t surprise me around this part of the country.”

  Awen stared at the empty ground, defeated. “I suppose we can go back then,” she mumbled.

  “I promise, I’ll find you a wonderful pair of shoes when we return.” Francis turned to her and smiled. “Now, get back up here.”

  * * *

  Awen walked at Francis’s side as he led the horse to the barn. A huge, wooden double door, spanning the entire front, served as the entrance. Francis unlatched a large deadbolt and pulled the doors open. “You can stay out here if you want,” he said, leading the horse inside. “It smells in here, and the whole lack-of-shoes bit, well.…” He looked at the barn floor. “You get the idea.” He disappeared into one of the stalls.

  Awen kicked at the grass with her bare feet, wondering what kind of shoes Francis would have for her. She still wanted her old pair back, but secretly she hoped for something with more color and a bit more style.

  Francis returned, shut and bolted the doors, and wiped his hands on his sleeves. “So then, let’s go find you some dry clothes and a new pair of shoes. We can take the back staircase in.”

  Awen followed Francis to the stone steps at the foot of the castle; they were grey and crumbly, with weed sprigs growing in between the cracks.

  “This entrance takes you straight to the second floor,” Francis explained as they reached the terrace. “It’s quite nice to come out and just sit on the ledge. In fact, I’ve had it in mind to set up some stools and tables out here.”

  Awen surveyed the bare stone terrace. “Why haven’t you, then?”

  “Wonderful question. You know how things get…er, busy.” He straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “Business to tend to, trips to make…”

  “Ah,” Awen replied, unconvinced.

  “Eventually, I will spruce this place up so much, you’ll never recognize it. Now, come on—through here.” Francis opened a set of double doors disguised as windows and pulled Awen into the castle behind him.

  The shift from the bright sunlight into the half-lit castle forced her to squint as her eyes struggled to adjust. She had not seen this end of the second floor before, but its design was much like that of the first floor—a long corridor, offset from the center, with doors on either side.

  “What rooms are behind all these doors?” Awen asked. She ran her hand across the stone wall as she followed Francis.

  “Oh, lots of things. Closets and storage. Old rooms. Guest rooms…Ah, this is the one.” Francis stopped outside a door on the left and pulled a ring of keys from his pocket. “We will surely find some footwear in here,” he murmured, speaking more to himself than to Awen. He fumbled with the keys, trying two incorrect ones before finding the one that opened the door.

  “What room is this?” Awen asked, following Francis inside—tentatively, for the room was nearly as dark as hers had been when she had first arrived. At least the tiny window on the opposite wall was uncovered, allowing a square of light to stream in.

  “Or rather,” Francis corrected, “whose room is this?” He squatted, disappearing into a dark corner. Awen heard him rummaging around—the sounds of clinking metal and scraping wood. Then he was standing again, but this time with a lit candle. He proceeded around the room’s perimeter, lighting more candles on the wall. “This room,” Francis continued, still preoccupied with various objects on the floor, “was my sister’s.” He stopped abruptly and turned to face Awen, who still stood just in front of the closed door.

  Awen’s eyes widened. “You have a sister?” she nearly yelled. Her own reaction surprised her. “Not that it’s strange.…I just had this image in my mind of what your family looked like, and who was in it, and…” She did not know what else to say.

  “Had a sister, I think, is the proper term.”

  Awen barely spoke the words: “Is she…dead?”

  “No.” Francis’s voice was startlingly loud. “Not dead. Although, who knows—I suppose she could be. I haven’t seen her since the day they took her. Or, to be more accurate: the day my father sold her.”

  Awen stood with her back against the door, her mind abuzz with an onslaught of questions she did not think it proper to ask…but her desire for answers quickly won over. “Who took her away? Do you know? How long ago? Why—”

  “Easy,” Francis said with a smile that made Awen uncomfortable. “The same people that took you away. Though I suppose the process was a bit different in my sister’s case, since it was my father who wrot
e to Crickhowell and asked them to take her. This was no clandestine kidnapping in the dead of the night. No, the headmistress herself knocked on our door, right in the middle of lunch! Father had planned it all.”

  “I don’t understand.” Awen tried not to believe. Could Francis be making it all up? “Sir Robert seems like a reasonable man. Nice. Welcoming…”

  “Reasonable.” Francis laughed. “Yes, very reasonable. When he discovered how much money he could get for her—the daughter of the most renowned painter in the country!—he acted quite reasonably indeed. He’s an opportunistic man, in a bad sense. A very rational one. Pragmatic. If something can advance him, no matter the cost—he’ll do it.”

  Awen tried to picture the weathered, white-haired Sir Robert through the lens of Francis’s description, but it did not make any sense. Yes, there had been a handful of things her patron had said that had disturbed her—but that did not mean he was the man Francis had described…did it?

  “Anyway, that was about seven years ago, when she was a touch older than you are now. She was my older sister, by four years. ‘Gwen’ was her name.”

  “So, when you found me in the woods, that’s how you knew where I’d come from? You recognized this dress.” She stared down at the cream-colored gown, sliding her hands across the fabric.

  “Yes. The girls have always worn the same thing. No shoes, of course.” He stopped for a moment, looking down at Awen’s feet. “Oh, yes; let’s not forget why we’re in here.”

  “Was it Miss Nina that picked her up? Your sister, that is?”

  “Yes. That godforsaken woman,” he added under his breath. “For a moment, when I took you back to the school, I wondered if she might recognize me. I almost asked about Gwen, too—what art she’d been taught, and to whom she’d been sent. My father has never said anything to me about it—neither when he was planning it, nor after the fact. It was as if she’d never existed.”

  These words called into Awen’s memory the library at Crickhowell: the hundreds of leather tomes that lined the walls, all of them full of records. Records of patrons, maps, plans, biographies and accounts: money paid and money received. Francis’s story was beginning to make sense. Awen opened her mouth to speak—

  “Well, that’s the story of my sister, then,” Francis cut in. “Or all I know of it, at least. Just remember.” He pronounced his next words slowly, with emphasis: “My father is not necessarily the man he seems to be.”

  The room was silent for a moment—Francis lost in some old memory, and Awen having nothing left to say.

  “Let’s look for some shoes, then,” Francis finally said, squatting back down on the floor. As he pulled a large, dark object toward him, Awen heard the sound of wood scraping against stone. From where she stood it appeared to be a trunk, though it was much bigger than her own. “While we’re here,” Francis said, still looking down, “I think I should find you some new dresses as well. That ruffly cream-puff thing you have to wear gets old, I’m sure,” he added dryly.

  “Er…thanks…”

  “Any time.” Francis began to pull up pieces of clothing from the trunk, tossing them right and left. “This one,” he muttered to himself, lobbing a handful of material behind him. “Mmm, no and no. Yes. Yes. No…”

  Awen stood watching from the other side of the room as Francis threw garments all around the floor. She pressed her back against the door and folded her arms. She hesitated to step any farther in, for it was as if this room still belonged to the lost Gwen, and Awen would be encroaching on the girl’s personal territory.

  “All right,” Francis sighed in exaggerated exasperation, struggling to stand with an armful of heavy-looking dresses. “Here are these.” He scanned the room for a moment, then pulled out a wooden table that had been pushed up against the wall. “I’ll set them here, and you can go through them while I search for a pair of shoes.”

  “Um…all right…” Awen hesitated, then tiptoed to the table.

  Francis watched her movements with an ironic half-smile. “What?”

  Her hands were folded. “It’s just that I feel sort of…strange…picking through your sister’s things.”

  He laughed. “I appreciate the respect, but she’s gone, and she’s probably never coming back. Besides, there isn’t a chance she could fit into these clothes again. I am certain she would want you to have them.” His smile faded; his eyes turned serious. “Especially you.”

  Awen stared into his eyes in silence, trying to read his expression. She kept staring, contemplating his face, which held so much intensity she could not look away. She felt exposed and awkward, and clasped her hands more tightly together; then the feeling transformed into longing, which melted into sadness, and finally into desperation for something she could not describe.

  She had to pull her gaze away lest she become stuck. She had to break the stillness. “All right,” was all Awen could think to say. She turned to the pile of clothing on the table.

  All of the garments were knee-length dresses of brown, white, and gold, but they had different necklines—square; scooped—and each had a different gemstone lining its empire waist. One dress had a line of large square rubies, another amethysts, and a third, round peridot. “Oh, my…” Awen whispered.

  “What?” Francis’s voice came from behind a heavy curtain.

  “Nothing…they’re beautiful.”

  “I can’t say I know much about dresses,” Francis said, sliding around another trunk, “but I do recall that my sister was said to have good taste. Why don’t you try one of them on? I’ll keep my eyes glued to this wall—but if you don’t trust me, there’s probably some curtain on your side of the room as well.”

  Awen almost told him she would rather go back to her own room to try on the dresses—but a strange sort of anxiety stopped her. She was afraid that if she left for just a moment, then Francis, the dresses, maybe even the whole room, would disappear.

  Awen selected the dress with the square rubies, draping it gingerly over her left arm. She glanced at Francis to make sure he really was behind a curtain and, presumably, looking the other way. Satisfied, she moved to the far side of the room.

  “Have you tried it yet?” Francis’s voice was muffled.

  “No; be patient, I just found a nook.” Awen flung off her Crickhowell dress and jumped into the new dress before the old one had even hit the floor.

  Francis laughed. “A nook?”

  “Yes, a nook.” Awen smoothed out the fabric, trying not to fret over the lack of a mirror. “All right: here I am.”

  “Well, then, that was quick after all.”

  Awen tiptoed out of her hiding place, face already warming with embarrassment. What was she doing, dressing herself in such exquisite clothing?

  Francis appeared from behind the curtain across the room and regarded her.

  “Well?” she said, a slight shake in her voice, for Francis had yet to speak.

  “Amazing!” He clapped his hands together. “How do I put this.… It suits you perfectly. Do a turn!” he urged.

  Awen pressed her palms together and made a quick spin. She could still feel herself blushing. Quietly, she asked, “Is there a mirror, perhaps?”

  “A mirror…I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere.” Francis stood and strode about the room, his boot heels clicking against the stone. “I cannot imagine my sister not having had a mirror. Something fancy, likely. Aha!” From a dark corner of the room, Francis slid out a large standing metal object draped in black velvet. “Probably lined with jewels too.” He threw the velvet cover onto the floor.

  All at once, Awen was looking at herself through an object as beautiful as the dress she wore. Her eyes widened as they took in the golden rope of the mirror’s frame, with every kind and color of gem and jewel pressed into it.

  “Do you like it, then?” Francis asked, voice dropping at the end of his question.

  “The mirror? Oh, yes; it’s wonderful!” She was still staring at the frame as if in a trance.
>
  “Oh, well—the mirror is great, yes. But I meant the dress.”

  “Oh!” Awen tore her eyes away from the frame and focused, instead, on her own reflection. She could not deny that Francis was right. The dress was beautiful—a perfect fit, in every sense of the word. The top section was white, with a square-cut neckline and short sleeves that hit two-thirds of the way to her elbow. The rubies lining the empire waist glimmered with a shocking, almost unnatural brightness. The earth-brown skirt flowed to just above her knee, and it was hemmed with a strip of gold ribbon.

  Awen swallowed. “I dare say, I must agree with you: your sister had exquisite taste.”

  “Yes,” Francis said, smiling, “but the outfit is incomplete! Here…” Francis walked over to Awen, holding out a pair of shoes. They were gold, with a higher heel than the leather pair Awen had lost. The strap that cut across the middle of the foot contained a line of five giant jewels: a ruby, peridot, amethyst, topaz, and aquamarine. Francis knelt on the floor, placing the shoes before her.

  Awen eagerly slipped on the left shoe, but as she raised her right foot, Francis caught it.

  “Allow me.” He grinned, placing the shoe on for her.

  Awen frowned.

  “Problem?” Francis asked, concerned.

  “What will your father think? The dress, the shoes—they’re not very subtle. I doubt he’d approve.” Awen turned around, eyeing her old Crickhowell dress on the floor: it looked…safe. She kicked it into a dark corner.

  Francis was quiet for a moment, lost in thought.

  His silence began to make Awen nervous, and then she wondered if he had even heard her question.

  “No…” he finally said, “I think you might be wrong. I don’t think he’d approve of us mentioning where we found the clothing; like I said, he never mentions Gwen.…”