Her heart felt whole.

  On a morning when birds chirped their lovely little songs in their nests, going “tweet, tweet!”, and the crickets filled the front-garden with a pleasant hum almost a lullaby, a gallant horse snorted into the air to announce the arrival of the carriage being pulled by it.

  With its wheels coming to a lull, the Duchess stepped out of the carriage and welcomed a little girl running quite enthusiastically up to her. Stomping her little feet, she came to a stop however and pointed at the thing behind Rosalyn. How rude, she thought. Who was it that taught her such a thing? Perhaps one of the younger maids?

  Her second-born child stood with a cute tilt of her head. She wore the petticoat dress custom-made by two seamstresses she chanced upon. As this wasn’t the first time nor the last time it made its appearance this week, it appeared to be her new favorite one.

  The dress’ vivid crimson color matched her daughter’s hair, lighting up the surrounding bricks as they flowed with the sun, painting them a soft shade of red and pink. Almost as pink as the two legs peeking out. Legs that never seemed to stop running about.

  Nary a day passed by in the estate without the sound of her thumping feet taking a race across the carpets the maids so diligently had to straighten out everyday. Even so, Rosalyn found it delightful that she was such a healthy child and couldn’t find it in her to reproach her adorable, albeit energetic, daughter.

  However maybe one little scolding was in order. For with a tone befitting a young ducal lady, she said, “Mother, who is that dirty girl behind you?”

  Her sigh vanished into the ether. “Gwen, what did I say about such rude remarks?”

  “But she’s all covered in filth?” Woefully, the Duchess had to agree with her daughter. For it was the truth.

  If you hadn’t known beforehand, then it would be utmost unthinkable to guess the girl currently hiding behind her poofy dress, big enough to fit the two children both, actually had lustrous gold hair that the Queen herself may envy.

  In the same manner as her hair, the clothes she wore were no better. Drab and frayed clothes commonly used by poor commoners, stained with all sorts of grime and soot. A sight that was unfortunately routine among the slums.

  An emancipated face showed itself between her overgrown bangs, much to the girl’s dismay, and two seldom seen little things peeked forth whenever she didn’t hide them. Clear purple eyes. Affixed in a wary expression ever since they ascended the carriage, the girl’s hollow gaze darted around to look for potential dangers, all the while gripping the dress in front of her.

  “She will be living with us for the time being.” Rosalyn crouched down to her height, giving her a reassuring smile. “Gwen, why don’t you come and say hello?”

  The Duchess herself gave the child a bath, which took several rinses before the water turned from mud to a clear stream. Scrubbing her scalp was quite the messy and arduous task that the maids lamented they could do instead. “Nonsense,” she said and shooed them off.

  Cleaning off the bubbles that had gathered, her original hair color finally showed itself. Unfortunately, this also meant the scratches marring her back could be seen. Thin and red, they were no doubt made by that man.

  Rosalyn expected her to squirm or complain, anything. Yet on the contrary, all she did was sit still as a rock simmering in the oversized bathtub relative to her own body. Her cheeks turned a sweet pink and her attention was being held by the bubbles bouncing on the water’s surface. Did its rainbow color interest her?

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” The sudden voice made her shoulders jump. How regretful, thought Rosalyn.

  “Gwen, the red girl you saw earlier, used to love being bathed by me. Now she says she is all grown up and can do it herself. But grown ups don’t cuddle their stuffed bunny plushie in their sleep now do they?” Rosalyn chuckled. “Ever so prideful that girl, don’t you agree?”

  Two blank eyes stared at the Duchess, blinking a few times instead of a giving a reply. Even so, it told her everything she wanted to hear.

  As a Duchess of the Kingdom, it was her duty to hold the most extravagant events to lead the nobles in the right direction. What was once fashionable became stilted after a few years, and what was once considered wooden, Rosalyn made new again with a tweak here and there.

  To her, these tea parties didn’t hold that much value. A waste of time and effort, she thought. But the attending guests appeared to enjoy it and the new dessert recipes weren’t half-bad.

  A year had passed since the girl was taken in, and Rosalyn’s main concern did not come into fruition. She heard some stories the other noblewomen had shared over tea and feared the same would happen to her.

  “Oh dear, did you hear what that servant did?” A plump voice to her right said.

  “You mean the young fellow you plucked straight from the slums? I still cannot fathom what moved you to do such a inane thing.” A slender voice filled with cake replied to her left.

  “My eldest had to whip that thief black and blue, and after doing so, his gentle soul didn’t muster to eat dinner with us that evening.”

  “What did you expect? Even a stray dog wouldn’t dare to bite the hand feeding it. But to hear that he didn’t eat after that ordeal, I didn’t know that side of your boy. Say, how old is he now? You see my daughter…”

  Rosalyn took refuge in one of the many lounges in the estate after the party. There she heard what was now commonplace.

  “Lady Gwen, wait for me!” The two children were flitting around the hallways, filling it with much needed life.

  “You’re so slow!” She crossed her arms at the girl catching her breath. “How are you going to beat my brothers if you can’t even catch up to me?”

  “Do I really have to? I mean, they are faster and look kind of scary…”

  “Nonsense, those meatheads look dumb as a loaf of bread, and slow as one too! Stand up! We will complete one more lap around the halls!”

  “My lady… I’m tired…”

  Then a third voice added to their endearing conversation. “Hey! No running in the halls!”

  “Ah! Run! The tutor is here!”

  It was a silly sight. Holding each other's hand, the two girls were being chased around by the elderly woman. Their laughter and giggles filled Rosalyn’s heart with much needed comfort.

  The two pairs of heads, one red and one yellow, were always seen together. As the years passed, the more like sisters they became. Playing together, attending lessons together, and going out exploring the duchy together. They had even begun sharing their bedroom at some point.

  Never would Rosalyn have imagined that her daughter would become such friends with her. And now it was like having two daughters, one meek and one not so meek. She had to smile at the thought.

  “Ugh…” Gwen laid flat on the tea table, letting her cheek be squished. “All the boys at the academy are so dreary…”

  “Surely there must be one that caught your fancy?” The once skin-and-bones girl replied holding her cup of tea in a practiced manner.

  “You… Don’t even get me started…”

  “What about the eldest son of that Marquess?”

  Gwen babbled on the table. “He’s too dumb-looking…”

  “The Count’s son?”

  “He’s fat…”

  Rosalyn propped up her head with a hand. “At this point, it appears that my daughter will find even the prince himself below her.”

  “The prince?” She rolled over to her other cheek. “He’s too bright.”

  “Didn’t you say you like smart people?” Oh, did Rosalyn hear that right?

  “I meant appearance wise. He’s bright like the sun, it’s hard to look at him.” She squinted. “Besides, I don’t want to be in someone's shadow.”

  “I see.” Both their voices replied at the same time.

  “Mother, are you sure she is not my real sister?”

  “How rude.” She flicked her daughter’s forehead, eliciting a laugh from the three of them in the gazebo.

  Gwen nudged her elbow at the girl beside her. “And what about you? Anyone you fancy?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Her voice went a pitch higher than normal. “O-oh I don’t know. There aren’t that many to choose from...” How silly, there was no need to put her hands up.

  Gwen narrowed her eyes. “Mother, look how suspicious she acts. Don’t think I will let you sleep if you don’t tell me.” She readied her claws to pounce.

  It caught air however, as her target was already up and running. The two of them let out giggles as they chased each other around the wide garden. Even when they were older, they still acted like little girls.

  Rosalyn believed that the two of them would continue to always be this close even after she turned old and gray. Her daughter needed a friend like her. Someone calm that could act as an anchor and help her in case she wasn’t present anymore.

  Ever since Gwen was a child, she would hold everyone at an arm’s length. An introduction and a greeting was all she ever did when the other ladies brought their children with them. And after giving them a look-over, she would bounce away, rustling with whatever she did beforehand to being dragged out.

  Rosalyn thanked the expectant noble-girls’ attempts to speak to her unfriendly daughter in her mind. But in her heart, she couldn’t stop fretting over her lack of friends. One hand, that was the amount of times she invited a classmate or an acquaintance over for some tea. Even then, it was to finish an assignment or something in that vein.

  Seeing her daughter being so close with someone almost brought her to tears these days; her child wouldn’t need to grow up on her lonesome. After marriage and moving away from her territory, Rosalyn had herself found it terribly difficult to find someone to talk with.

  Her brothers couldn’t fill that void as they didn’t know the plights of a lady. Yes, her two other children, how different they behaved in comparison to the two girls napping in the grass.

  “Galen, isn’t it about time you stop being picky about your food?” Like always, the two of them shot jabs at each other.

  “How can I be picky about food if it isn’t food?” Her youngest nudged the mushroom to the side.

  “You are being rude to the chef that made this with great effort.”

  Galen pointed the fork at his older brother. “You eat it then, Gilbert.”

  “Father, he deserves another scolding.”

  Her husband didn’t even glance up from his plate. “Just eat quietly, you two. And where is Gwen and that girl.”

  “Dear, she has a name you know?” That girl or that child, her husband alternated between those two titles depending on his mood that day. What a grump. It has been several years since she took residence with them and not once did Rosalyn hear him call her name properly.

  She could vividly remember the first time the two of them met face-to-face. Like a rabbit standing in front of a blood-thirsty lion, he stared her down with those oppressive eyes of his. Making her tremble to tears as she clutched the hem of her dress. Rosalyn gave him a proper scolding after the meeting. But before that, he said something wholly unexpected.

  “Alden, notify the seamstress that Gwen uses. Send for the tutor too.”

  “As you wish, your Grace.”

  That man, did he need to act like a wall all the time?

  The months following their first encounter, she would sometimes find something sweet in his coat. Deep in his pockets were several pieces of wrapped candy. All of them strawberry flavored and coincidentally the child’s favorite flavor of course. How come she married such a silly man.

  Peaceful days continued with the brothers arguing over the simplest matters and the sisterly girls giggling about the simplest matters. This was the period the Duchess felt the most content. However those days didn’t last long enough. A knocking on her bedroom door was the turning point of it all.

  Lamp in hand, she went to open the door where the distraught rapping was coming from. Intending to scold her unruly daughter that woke her up in the dead of night, she readied her voice to ask what all the ruckus was. But her voice vanished.

  The pebbles on her daughter’s face were illuminated by the lamp. They streamed clearly down her cheeks, and then her chin, finally falling to the floor for she didn’t care to wipe them away.

  “Mother…” Her voice shattered Rosalyn’s heart. “I want to have my own room again…”

  She cried in her mother’s arms that night. Something she had not done ever since a young child. Rosalyn wondered. What had happened between the two of them for her to cry so?

  The usual chatter that filled the long spiraling hallways disappeared. Like a veil, silence had taken over instead ever since that night. Their laughter. Their frequent trips to the capital. It was gone. It was rare to even see the two of them in the same room these days.

  With no one to talk to, her daughter turned irritable and standoffish. Perhaps her real nature, much to the Duchess’ hope that it wasn’t. Days passed and she began to isolate herself, lashing out at all that came near her. This wouldn’t do, thought Rosalyn, and went to ask the one in the center of it all.

  “I apologize, your Grace… But it is not my place to tell you what happened.” Staring down at the girl giving the deepest bow did little to abate her frustration.

  “Then who if not you?” Her head went even deeper hearing the sharp tone.

  “I apologize...” Rosalyn didn’t press further as the girl too began to cry.

  Tears. Cries. The coming years were joyless. As if to follow their sister, her two sons were starting to get more and more aggressive in their arguments as they grew older. They were constantly at each others throat, and she feared the day one of them would draw steel.

  These days, her husband was too busy with inspecting the territory after a great flood and could not afford the time to alleviate their son’s grievances. Nor had he the time to talk to their daughter. Nor with Rosalyn. The whole estate was for her to manage with the help of Alden.

  A task perhaps expected of her, yet she couldn’t focus her mind and did mistakes often enough that Alden suggested he take over. Useless pride made her double her workload and therefore the time she spent in that cold office. She started to lash out at Alden who kept reminding her to rest. How could she rest now? When these reports kept coming in.

  Her youngest kept disappearing at night, only coming back after morning.

  And her eldest was constantly spotted wandering the streets where the brothels stood, mingling with the scoundrels and brutes.

  Even then, they were all small matters compared to her daughter who was now behaving erratically. Always this faint smell of wine over her.

  It was as if a curse had befallen her family turning everything wrong. Because it didn’t make sense otherwise. She remembered the church around back and went there to pray. Pray and pray she did to the Goddess. Pray that the curse would stop and her family would find happier days again.

  After a full month of constant praying, Rosalyn began to see black dots littering her vision.

  The Duchess found herself sitting with her daughter, her own hair riddled with gray strands. “Gwen, don’t you think you have been drinking too much lately? It can’t be good for your body.”

  “I can’t sleep otherwise.” She spat out, slumped in the chair, not caring in the least about her image. Why should she care if there was no one to notice? Her daughter’s comment rang in her head.

  Seeing her hold the overfilled glass of wine with decadence, Rosalyn wondered where she had gone wrong. Was it when she was a small cute baby in her arms? Was it when she first noticed her daughter’s blank face? Perhaps it was when she introduced the girl. Still she had done the minimum a mother had to do for her daughter, right? Gwen had gotten married to a decent man after all.

  “What about your daughter?”

  She chuckled with a sardonic tone. “And, what about her?” She swallowed half the glass in one swig, letting out audible glugs down her throat.

  Rosalyn’s remaining heart ached. “How old is Estelle now?”

  Twirling the now empty glass with her fingers, rays of light scattered across her sickly blood-red dress. With a snort, she said, “Who am I to know?”

  Rosalyn thought back on the day the news about her pregnancy broke.

  Overjoyed of finally having a granddaughter, she prepared everything her daughter would need. Included were colorful toys, cute clothes and a hand-knitted little hat that could keep the baby warm. She smiled as good news were hard to come by these days.

  Like a little girl again, she bounced towards her daughter’s room. The room she was using as she was to temporarily live with them until the child was safely delivered. Her husband had himself suggested the idea as he could not look after her with the amount of work he did. A respectable business venture, but it left little time for family. As to be expected of the breadwinners.

  She met the physician wandering in front of her daughter’s door. He was a trusty fellow, nothing bad would happen to Gwen with him around.

  “My apologies, your Grace. But I don’t think it would be wise to visit her at this moment.” It wasn’t what she had expected him to say. And what did he mean by not wise?

  Opening the bedroom door, Rosalyn could not move a single inch over the boundary separating the hall and the room now clear of the lingering smell of wine.

  Like small rocks that disturbed a stream’s surface, littered on the floor were ripped letters that her acquaintances had sent to say their congratulations. The once-pretty envelopes that Alden had collected were crumpled into jagged balls, torn to shreds, and some were even burnt, sharing their ash with the carpet under her bare feet.

  Standing in the middle of this white mess, her daughter held the white baby clothes with a strange expression. Neither happy as when she was running around the halls as a child, nor angry like she had been as a young lady. Gwen had a blank expression. Tilting her neck marred with red claw marks.

  Rosalyn closed the door without calling out to her daughter and went back to her room. She started to pray again.

  The Duchess did not see her daughter leave the room that week.

  One day, as if wrapping everything up in an ironic bow, everything came crashing down. It was raining heavily that day.

  The crackling fireplace did little to mask the raindrops hammering the glass windows. Thump, thump, it went. Or was it her heart that made that sound? A roar cut through the drumming. From her husband. And in front of him on his knees was their youngest child, Galen. Soaked to the bone. In his arms, wrapped in his coat, he held a little blond thing.

  He wasn’t alone. Rosalyn turned her attention to the woman kneeling with him. It was the girl that had once hidden behind her dress. How time flies, she thought. She was an adult now.

  “How did this happen!” The Duke’s bellow echoed in the cold parlor.

  The carpet acted like a sponge, absorbing all that dripped from them. Rainwater or tears, it was all the same. “She’s not even an infant! That’s a fully fledged child for Goddess sake! Are you insane!?”

  It had to have been a curse. It had to be.

  “Father please, she’s sick!” The little girl’s face was pale as ash.

  “And what do you want me to do about it? I don’t even know how old she is!”

  “S-she’s seven, your G-grace.” Her teeth chattered, likely from running from who knows where all the way to here.

  “Seven!” The duke stood up, his veins bulging under the immense pressure, pulsating like small snakes. “For the last two decades, I have fed you, gave you clean clothes and even a place to stay! You must have thought me to be a fool! Was it fun laughing behind my back!?” She cowed under his fury. “Now you have even ruined my son!”

  The Duchess sighed. “Garius, how about we calm down a little.”

  “Rosalyn. Are you not angry?” What would anger help with in this situation? If that child with the labored breaths over there was their granddaughter, then her feelings meant nothing.

  She didn’t give it much thought when Victoria had asked for a year-long vacation that day seven years ago. She wanted to go explore the Kingdom, she said. Seeing the current state of the soul-crushing atmosphere of the ducal household, she had no reason to reject it. Maybe the trip would do her some good.

  And it did. A year later, she came back all smiles and filled with motivation again.

  “Father, please listen to me this once! Please let the priest heal her!”

  “Get the hell out of my sight!”

  “Are you going to let your granddaughter die?!”

  “I don’t have a granddaughter with blonde hair!”

  The thunder outside masked the fractures of Rosalyn’s heart.

  ***

  I waited for the Duchess’ answer. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts, staring quite long in the air.

  “It may be better if you don’t remember that day,” she finally said.

  I nodded. “Then I wont ask about it again.”

  She smiled. “I didn’t see the resemblance that day, but you really do look like a younger version of your mother.” Again, she used a phrase involving her eyes.

  “Grandmother, can you actually see?”

  She laughed. “Oh, how silly I must appear to be. I still haven’t adjusted my manner of speaking.” Her eyes bore into my own. Deep like the ocean.