Chapter
4
Daphne tried concentrating all morning on where she wanted to go, though Rayne continuously strayed from the path she intended. She tried to focus on her movements, while at the same time, directing Rayne through her thoughts, but it was like arguing with herself and made her head throb. It was easier while she slept when she didn’t have to track where her vision was leading her.
She sat legs folded on the floor of the attic like she’d seen the shamans do.
“Rayne, remember, we go downstairs, head to the dining hall, there’s a door in the pantry that will lead us outside,” she told her reflection. She didn’t want to go to lessons today. They had to find a way out of it.
Rayne didn’t pay mind to her. She wobbled toward the falcate window and clawed at its pane, croaking with gripe to be outside. She finally lifted on her wings and flew out the door.
“Rayne wait!” Daphne scrambled to her feet and scurried after her.
She dashed down the stairwell and whooshed past Annett and a tray of teacups.
"Good gracious!" Annett gasped, the tray unsteady in her hands. “You oughtn’t go running around like that! Someone could suffer an accident!”
Daphne faltered from her scurry, confounded. It was happening again, the series of random images flashing in her mind. She had to revert to alertness, feeling her way carefully around the room, and bumped right into Harriett.
“There you are, child. Come, it’s time for your breakfast. You’re going to be late for your lessons.”
Daphne was scarcely able to sit still. She ate her breakfast eagerly, snatching blindly at the plate of sweet breads and fruits.
Harriett dabbed the napkin on her little chin. “Don’t eat so fast, child, you’ll have a stomachache.”
The old nurse retreated to the pantry to have a word with the butler, and Rayne came out of hiding to land on the chair opposite her.
Daphne swallowed a large portion of her meal. “You have to slow down, I can’t keep up with you!” she hissed across the table at herself.
After she finished her breakfast, Harriett sent her on her way to her lessons.
“You can’t come in with me,” she whispered to Rayne. The raven merely tilted her head, and Daphne brushed it from her shoulder. “Shoo!”
Croak!
Rayne fluttered away just as the door to the study came open, and Daphne spun around. Her tutor stood just behind her.
“There you are, Daphne,” he yawned.
Lessons felt longer than usual. Daphne couldn’t concentrate on anything while her mind was having visions of other places; of the rose gardens outside and of the roof of the manor house and of peeking into the attic from outside the window. She often tried describing the things she saw to her tutor, but he’d only chuckle like something was funny, pat her head and say, “That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there, Daphne.”
It was the same with everyone, except Harriett. She must have confounded them all with tales of the Irys and the ruin desert temples. Once she’d been journeying across mounds of sand and stumbled down the front porch steps. Harriett had tended to the scratches on her knee and elbow while she cried. Her old nurse had ways of making her feel better though, and would always ask what place she was adventuring now and Daphne would eagerly dispel to her all the details of what she saw, what she was seeing.
She ran hand down one of the pages of her book. She was learning the histories of Pansphere and the Desertlands. More than three-thousand years ago, Pansphere had been the home of the Goddesses. They were the guardians of the Pandorians– humans, druids, witches and fey alike. Each Goddess had her own purpose; some made it rain in the spring, others sent frost in the winter. Then one day the warlords from Ether, the Seraphs, descended from the sky on their golden wings and invaded the lands below. Great magic was used during the War and it split Pansphere in two. Harriett said that Irys in the midst of the Appolonean Sea was a remnant of their power, and magic that had once been abundant on Pansphere faded with the Goddesses who’d perished.
Of course, her tutor said all that was a myth –the Seraphs as well as the Etherworld, because no one in known history could find such a place. Harriett told her it was because the world above theirs drifted on the clouds.
The moment she was allowed her pastime, Daphne followed the images outside and called for Rayne. The raven came soaring toward her from atop of the high gate. Daphne tried to keep up from below as she flew around the estate. It was not long before she tired.
Rayne settled on her shoulder were she sat on the front porch steps, and felt the stuffing inside her pocket. She pulled out the Book of Love Poems to look through it again, but grew confounded when all of its pages were blank.
After dinner, Daphne climbed into bed and waited for Harriett to turn out the lights.
"Would you like to hear a bedtime story, dear?" the old nurse asked as she stuffed her pillows. When she found Daphne was already fast asleep, she retired.
As soon as the door closed, Daphne threw off the spreads and crept to the window.
“Rayne!” she silently called.
The raven emerged out of the darkness, drifting toward her silhouette in the window, and perched on the sill, croaking at her.
“Shush! Come on!”
Daphne slipped through her bedroom door, Rayne flew on ahead, making certain the coast was clear. She held her breath as she tiptoed down a hallway, hearing the faraway laughter of old Barnaby and Harriett in the distant rooms.
She followed Rayne in haste through the ghostly ballroom, into the dark cubicle, and skipped up the cobwebbed stairwell two steps at a time. They wandered down the narrow corridor of cluttered portraits and burst inside the attic, wheezing for breath.
Rayne swerved around the loft, securing the area. Daphne went to the hearth where the little fire was yet burning and uncovered her treasure. She opened the music box and sat down on the hardboard floor to listen to its tune.
Rayne came to land on her shoulder, her beak nibbled on her sleeve, distracting her.
“Stop, Rayne.” Daphne shooed her off.
Rayne ruffled her feathers, then flew toward the bed across the room, disappearing beneath the mattress.
"Rayne?" Daphne whispered in trepidation in the darkness. She remembered all those frightful bedtime stories Harriett told her of goblins hiding under the bed, waiting to snatch her. She had to rescue Rayne from under there.
The fire shone through the narrow slit underneath the coverlet. Daphne saw only her hands and knees crawling timidly toward the bed. Her heart pounded in her ears as she grasped the crimson covers and slowly lifted them. The light filtered through, and she was relieved to find there was no goblin, just old parchments scattered under the bed. She gathered them up, then returned the hearth to look at them; Rayne made a landing on her shoulder to join her. They depicted crudely drawn images of a woman and a girl holding each others’ hands and smiling. Behind them was a hut with hugely drawn flowers on its rooftop, with words scribbled at the bottom.
'Blair taught me how to write today. She said I could paint pictures through words.'
Next was a drawing of an ocean.
'This is the place I want to go once the summer returns. It’s where the Sirens live. Blair said their voices can be heard over the sea at night.'
What followed was an image of a gate with the ivy shaped like an elephant.
‘This is where I escape. Shhh… It’s a secret!’
Next was of a cake with six candles on top.
'My birthday cake! Blair made it for me. We ate it up in the attic because no one else wanted to celebrate with us. I want to make Blair a cake for her birthday, but she said a cake so small wouldn't be able to hold so many candles. She's more than one-hundred. That's very old!'
Daphne giggled, and then her delight vanished when she glimpsed the next drawing.
'Everyone is sad. Mama is crying. Bonn
ie is crying. I drew her a picture but she tore it up and cried some more. I try to talk to them in my secret voice, but only Blair can hear me.'
The drawing showed a girl with yellow strands of hair and big tears rolling down her cheeks, forming a puddle on the ground. The line of her mouth was frowning.
Daphne bit her bottom lip, her blind and raven eyes watering. It was strange imagining other children had once lived in the manor. Daphne didn’t know any girls her own age. She wished she could have met the girl in the drawing, whoever she was. Daphne wanted to be her friend.