Eastvale: Through Her Eyes, Chapter 20
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Chapter Twenty
Portwillow Passageway, Route 22 - October 6, 1:37 p.m.
Flowerbeds covered the landscape, teeming with yellow and red black-eyed Susans, and the sun shone onto the leaves of the trees down the path. I sat still, maintaining complete silence in awe of Portwillow Passageway's beauty from the car's window. I liked the winding paths and hillside spilling with sand-verbenas, the long rows of chrysanthemums.
We passed countless travelers, mainly peddlers and gypsies, they were unlike any sort of individuals I'd encountered in Arborview. Immense manors began dotting the sides of the passageway, each one less spread out from its neighboring home until the car halted.
Exiting the car, I stood idly and turned away, I felt uncomfortable in this new world. I noted my reflection through the gleam of the car's exterior, my eyes bruised with sleepiness, black like an eclipse.
"Cheer up, you're as timid as a mouse and it's too fair of a day to be so distressed no matter the circumstance. I understand your worry and once Overseer Abbington returns, she'll answer all of your curiosities. But until her arrival, let's get you settled in the overseer's manor," the woman dressed in maid garments smiled cordially. Even as a maid, her outfit appeared more costly than any other I'd seen with its taffeta and lace.
The sun spread along the opaque horizon, clouds like snow piles on this perfectly painted sky, the waves inhaling and exhaling from the ocean in the background. Sunlight highlighted the manor like a spotlight purposely placed to extol its beauty.
Ivy and fern clung to the brick walls, jewels adorning its royal master, and trimmed hedges guarded it all. A miniature elemental shrine that must have been worth a fortune stood proudly.
"It's not the fanciest manor, but that's Overseer Abbington for you; she's always so modest. It's much nicer inside. Follow me," the maid said. She must have been an aristocrat herself, or a veteran housekeeper, for a place like this was only one that we could dream about in Arborview through illustrations, a castle by the sea.
"Feast your eyes on Overseer Abbington's parlor, miss. It's quite a glorious entrance for any guest fortunate enough to have an invitation to her manor," I could hear the admiration in her voice as she envisioned entering this room for the first time from my perspective.
The interior was startling, I understood what she meant by the exterior being modest in comparison to the interior. Vases of roses embellished every table and an overabundance of chandeliers sparkled, the room filled with figurines, photographs, and extravagant paintings into an ideal depiction of Eastvalian aristocratic life to the eyes of an outsider.
It was just a room, I thought, but a remarkable room. My eyes widened at the bountiful gold trim glimmering from every direction until the maid spoke up once more. "I will be right back as I must retrieve the afternoon mail for Overseer Abbington. Please feel free to make yourself comfortable in the parlor until I return in a moment's time."
She left while I pondered the consideration put into the placement of every painting on the wall, the carefulness of every pillow color and texture residing on the sofa, the joyfulness mixed with refinement of this scarlet room, it all felt splendid in its balance and radiated.
Was all of this too much? I sniffled, my nose allergic to sudden dust and my throat parched. Laughter filled the parlor and I moved toward the sound source, attempting to evade the dust buffeting the room.
"Ha! She told me you'd come! You're just like me!" Like you? A little boy controlled a dust storm from the tip of his fingers or so it seemed, was I dreaming? I blinked, the dream didn't dissipate. Did magic like this truly exist? Even if so, the likeliness of such a young child in a rabbit hood with adept control over magic appeared inconceivable.
He conjured a thicker wave of earth particles, sand and soot encircling my body. The bunny boy proclaimed, "The difference between you and me is…I'm the deadliest deity around and you're gonna be dust! ^_^"
I sneezed, "I don't follow you.."
With the slam of the parlor door, the dust storm vanished and the maid interrogated the boy. "Tifu, what on earth are you doing, playing tricks on our guest? How dare you display such rudeness."
In his sailor suit with bunny ears bowing submissively, he tried to retaliate, "But Miss Mare, she isn't a guest, she's an ele--" An ele-what?
"I won't hear another word of your excuses for this type of toddler behavior. Why don't you apologize then get back to your studies with Professor D'Aruno in the library?" She firmly reprimanded the child, her arms crossed in annoyance.
Merriment ruled his face. Gone were his looks of remorse and his snickering, complete with a miniature dust storm. His eyes of amber sparkled with excitement and he laughed. "Sorry about that, I guess I got a bit carried away. ^_^;; I'm Tifu, by the way, see you around!"
He darted for the hallway beyond, Mare clapped her hands at him and scolded, "With haste, Tifu, with haste! Every moment away from your lessons is another moment behind the other children your age." Tifu merely ignored her words as though he'd heard them too often, he skipped impishly out of view.
Mare turned to me, I sniffled from the dust remnants and glanced back at her. "I'm so sorry about that, I had no idea he would be such a rascal toward you, and don't worry about your dust allergies, they'll soon fade. Now come with me, I will show you to your room."
I responded, "My room?" All of this made me speechless, especially after watching Tifu, who didn't look older than nine or ten, conjure such power with a bare fingertip. I'd never seen anything quite as remarkable as that.
"Overseer Abbington will explain everything once she returns. Now, come," she motioned.
We wandered across the hallway of another ornate room where a grand rug lay to welcome its denizens up the stairs. With each step, I kept my head downward at the stair, uncertain of where this staircase would lead to. The last wooden staircase I forded lead me into confinement, my mother's sorcery and betrayal.
The upstairs appeared less extravagant, clearly a place for those who lived in the manor and not so much its guests, it didn't try to display gaudiness like downstairs. Still, I beamed in amazement at the exquisite crystals shining brightly from the light above like raindrops hanging from a tree.
"Just a few rooms further," Mare assured me.
Several grand pianos and hoards of dozen rose bouquets later, Mare stopped and pulled a key out of her apron pocket. She fidgeted with the key and clicked the door open, moving into the room whose window spilled with sunlight between the clouds and palm trees beyond. I followed her.
Mare went off to inspect the room, bending over to pick up various books left on the floor while muttering something about messiness. The room appeared much different in theme than the rest of this Overseer Abbington's manor, painted in robin's egg blue and ornamented with thriving tropical plant life.
Was this my room? I wanted to fit in and belong in this room, nestled in the corner of this mansion, it was all so foreign to me. It comforted me to know that this room too must have felt foreign in comparison to the rest of the house, it didn't truly belong but was placed here anyway, like me.
"This room is beautiful and seems quite different than the others, did you decorate it yourself?"
"Heavens no! I personally think that this room is too modern to belong in a house of an aristocrat, but Overseer Abbington insists on keeping it as the esteemed guest before you designed this room entirely on her own," Mare said, looking around and sighing at the environment.
A guest was free to design a room of her own? "That's very kind of the overseer."
"Why don't you get accommodated with your room and rest for now? You look debilitated from your journey, young lady. I'm certain that you have plenty of questions on your mind and you should be well-rested to ask them."
"Okay," I managed to smile and say that much. I was so confused by this predicament, how I ended up in an abode of a clearly prosperous Eastvalian, a dream to anyone in Arborview let alone those of lower classes in Eastvale.
The housekeeper maneuvered out of the room, she spoke thoughtfully before closing the door, "Feel free to come downstairs if you need anything at all, I will be tidying the parlor. And enjoy your rest, you look like you need it."
I sat on top of the bed, observing all of the beautiful oddities that decorated the room she called mine. How could someone just hand out a room in an upscale manor so easily, when so many fought to purchase materials to build cabins, or tried to make an income to support a life in the country's capital? I had done nothing to earn this, no contributions, nothing.
Nonetheless, the room made me smile in its tranquility, the robin's egg blue a serenity with the patterned floral tiles and scent of calla lilies and dried lavender.
A burden had been lifted from my body, I knew my journey to Eastvale was over when I laid on the bed.
I felt like a wreck too with a plethora of mixed emotions; the filthiness I felt in these same clothes, the hunger that ached and pierced my stomach, and my exhaustion, dried sweat and dirt most likely caked my forehead. I reflected on the day, I felt bad for the knight who had to tolerate my repulsive state.
It must have been moments before my tiredness settled in fully, my mind drifted despite mental exhaustion, and sleep came as natural on this bed as breathing oxygen.
Beneath the Unquiet Forest, Arborview - October 6, 4:25 p.m.
As Lariska awaited along the underground corridor wall for the Council of Veneficus chapter meeting to begin, she took note of the amount of unfamiliar witches in line. In front of her, the one recognizable face belonging to another Veneficus member stared morosely at the stone floor below, murmuring beneath her breath, "I wish this meeting would commence already…"
"Greetings, Sister of Veneficus, long time no see," said Lariska. "I don't mean to sound dense, but could I inquire about the amount of witches present? I thought that this was just a regular chapter meeting for those in the Council of Veneficus."
"Haven't you heard?" The girl waved her brass braid with a perturbed look. She leaned over toward Lariska and lowered her voice to a whisper, "This meeting is now about that fool from the Council of Lupine, the one granted with the most significant of tasks, she's failed the council."
"Failed?"
An older Dark Councilman wearing mottled patchwork barked at the line of witches, "Ladies, please bite your tongues and quietly seat yourselves." The candlelight flaring behind the witch intensified her exacerbated expression.
The gate made a shrill sound when opened, and one by one each woman in line treaded into the room beyond with speechlessness.
Idle gossip vibrated in the stone chamber, witches belonging to the same council sat beside one another and embraced familiarity. Lariska abided by the requested silence, scanning the room and contemplating all of the women she didn't know who shared the same cause: to worship the dark elemental by any means possible.
On the bench ahead, an aged witch crossed her arms in worry, in regret. She was a fragile woman with tired lilac eyes and the nervousness of a petrified child, Ines Mermier, Council of Lupine. Normally she sat imperiously as a member of the veteran clique of Dark Councilman, chattering away, boasting about her relationship with some wolf-man, pointing out her expert mastery of the dark element, and never stopping to let others talk. Today was different.
"My lamenting witches of the Councils of Strix, Lupine, Corvus, Veneficus, Aranea, and Vulpes, it's my deepest sorrow to summon you here this afternoon to speak of a serious matter our council has faced in the past morning," the witch said.
Lariska watched her eye the crowd, specifically glancing at Ines ahead. She recognized the speaker as that horse-faced High Coucilman Wyste, most renown member of the Council of Aranea. "A specific witch sitting in this very room, charged with the important task of maintaining our elemental, our power, has lost our primary source overnight. Darkness indeed has vanished from the new confinement she was placed in several days ago."
The voices of the witches grew fainter, stunned with stillness by the news; the dark elemental was gone, and High Councilman Wyste confirmed the rumors. A mixture of panic and downright distress overwhelmed the crowd and Lariska stared at the strangers sitting on their benches, jeering and prattling insults at Ines.
"Fool!"
"Traitor!"
"How will we access dark elemental magic now? We need it. That idiot ruined everything!"
"The Dark Council should have known better than to elect a witch from the Council of Lupine; they're a disgrace!"
"SHH!" Wyste strained her ears in aggravation. "Let me continue."
Something shined blazingly in the center of the room, the Well of Darkness, a shadowy aura pulsated in kaleidoscopic colors. The witches surrounding the well pacified, squinting at the dark energy emitted, most had never seen raw dark energy before.
"Witness the dark power storages already in place in case of a tragic event such as this. The dark elemental has been in our possession for 20 years now and we've built up quite a reserve since," she explained. Some knelt at the sight of their revered elemental's power, others whispered a prayer.
"Reserves won't last forever, so don't allow this notion to make you feel too relieved. My fellow councilmen, we need to discover the whereabouts of that dark elemental, so that we may continue to work toward our goals with undoubting success. Otherwise, we will fail."
Lariska sat stationary, her eyes following the flickering lights of the energy but her mind elsewhere. It's just as I thought, she smirked, that historian from Greenmill must have taken the elemental for himself, it all fits the timeframe of the elemental's disappearance. I never imagined that everything would be executed with such perfection.
"I summoned the entire Council of Veneficus and other councils' sorcerers who could make it to this gathering on such short notice. The council thanks you for arriving and for performing the duty as a messenger to spread this urgent news to the rest of our council. Time and time again, all of you have proven your loyalty not only to the element of the shadows whom we praise, but to the Dark Council itself," said Wyste, her cracked lips formed a smile that looked more like scowl.
The wretchedly fetid smell of the antechamber didn't affect any of the witches, and the room remained motionless as every witch waited for its present high councilman to carry on.
"If anyone has a proposition as to where to start our hunt to retrieve the elemental deity, please elabora--"
A single hand flailed in the air, a voice filled with sudden excitement, "Over here!"
"Lariska Alard of Veneficus?" High Coucilman Wyste's dress dragged, she moved closer to the girl whose eyes sprung with an inappropriate gaze of enthusiasm.
A slight sneer filled Lariska's face. "I think I may just have some information that will prove beneficial in the hunt for our goddess…for a price."
Continue to Chapter Twenty-One
Return to Chapter Nineteen
Notes
I'm so glad to have this chapter posted! This past month or so has been hectic with lots of deadlines RL-wise and the final deadline (for quite a while at least, or so I hope) is tomorrow, so hurray!
Earlier this week, I was scanning the older chapters and, this may sound really redundant as I've mentioned it before, I'm way happier with the story production just from the decision to change the picture sizes to be larger like they've been as of late. It might seem like a teeny difference, but I think it creates more immersion by far.
And how could I forget…Happy Halloween! :) Hugs!