Carolina's Room
Feb 12, 2009 15:43:03 GMT -5
Post by Carolina on Feb 12, 2009 15:43:03 GMT -5
***NEW DAY***
*Weeks had gone by since the incident by the pond, and Carolina had wept with relief when her courses came, having been terrified that she was carrying Laurent's child. Still, she never went anywhere alone, anymore, and never outside. Her free hours she now spent locked in her room, reading. She grew thin, and her pallour was marked as she shunned the sunlight, growing pale and dull-eyed as she spent so many hours hunched over a book in that tiny attic room.
She pored over science and history--never poetry, never novels...they held more romance than she could bear.
Nearly asleep one night, as her candle burned low, her gaze brushed across a simple ink illustration in the corner of a heavy book about the history of Austria. She glanced at it, then glanced at it again.
Something wasn't right. --she knew that symbol...but where had she seen it before?
Her fingertips brushed the page with wonderment, and then it poured over her like ice-water. How often had her fingers traced the edges of those wings...that crest...
Her hand went to her neck, drawing out the pendant on its chain.*
The birds...the sword...the...orb of some kind.
"...but...?"
Why would I have the royal crest of Austria? Stamped in...in gold?
*Of course it was stolen. Her heart nearly stopped at the thought. She had no memory of stealing it--but she doubted that would stop some vengeful noble.
It was late, and there was no one else awake. She tiptoed into the library and committed some real theft--an envelope and a bit of paper.
Working quickly, she scrawled a note, slipping it into the envelope along with the necklace, the chain slithering against the paper. She sealed it carefully with a bit of candle wax, splattering it messily on the envelope as her hands trembled.
She wrote the direction as carefully as she could, and calculated the postage. From her meagre savings, she paid for it to be delivered as far as Austria, and slipped the payment and the simple, plain envelope into the pile of the Desmarais family's post to go out in the morning.
She went to return to her room, pausing only once to look back with a pang as she left behind the necklace that had been a strange sort of comfort for her for all these years.
Perhaps it was time for that new beginning. Perhaps she should leave and make a new life. There was nothing for her here--and the history of the house could only pain her, now.*
*Weeks had gone by since the incident by the pond, and Carolina had wept with relief when her courses came, having been terrified that she was carrying Laurent's child. Still, she never went anywhere alone, anymore, and never outside. Her free hours she now spent locked in her room, reading. She grew thin, and her pallour was marked as she shunned the sunlight, growing pale and dull-eyed as she spent so many hours hunched over a book in that tiny attic room.
She pored over science and history--never poetry, never novels...they held more romance than she could bear.
Nearly asleep one night, as her candle burned low, her gaze brushed across a simple ink illustration in the corner of a heavy book about the history of Austria. She glanced at it, then glanced at it again.
Something wasn't right. --she knew that symbol...but where had she seen it before?
Her fingertips brushed the page with wonderment, and then it poured over her like ice-water. How often had her fingers traced the edges of those wings...that crest...
Her hand went to her neck, drawing out the pendant on its chain.*
The birds...the sword...the...orb of some kind.
"...but...?"
Why would I have the royal crest of Austria? Stamped in...in gold?
*Of course it was stolen. Her heart nearly stopped at the thought. She had no memory of stealing it--but she doubted that would stop some vengeful noble.
It was late, and there was no one else awake. She tiptoed into the library and committed some real theft--an envelope and a bit of paper.
Working quickly, she scrawled a note, slipping it into the envelope along with the necklace, the chain slithering against the paper. She sealed it carefully with a bit of candle wax, splattering it messily on the envelope as her hands trembled.
She wrote the direction as carefully as she could, and calculated the postage. From her meagre savings, she paid for it to be delivered as far as Austria, and slipped the payment and the simple, plain envelope into the pile of the Desmarais family's post to go out in the morning.
She went to return to her room, pausing only once to look back with a pang as she left behind the necklace that had been a strange sort of comfort for her for all these years.
Perhaps it was time for that new beginning. Perhaps she should leave and make a new life. There was nothing for her here--and the history of the house could only pain her, now.*