Midnight's Song (27 page)

I still hadn’t looked up to see what
awaited me. I closed my eyes as I stood back up again, trying to
shake the embarrassment and appear at least somewhat confident for
the peering crowd below. The crowd’s seemingly vague laughter had
worked its way up to an almost unanimous roar, and I couldn’t help
but wonder why. A simple stumble couldn’t possibly cause this much
gawking! But, when I opened my eyes I saw the reason why they were
laughing so hard. It was something that made my heart drop.
Something that caused me to step backwards, utterly
terrified.

Everyone was wearing
their normal, everyday attire. Everyone but
me.

“You’re not going to
leave now, are you?
”
Stella snared at me through gritted teeth. In the corner of
my eye, I could see Stella removing her mask and discarding it to
the side. Before I could dart, Stella forcefully began to drag me
down the stairs. “Aren’t you going to make your
entrance?”

“This isn’t my party,” I murmured in
cold shock.

“Of course it is,”
Stella snidely replied. “It’s your own birthday
roast!”

I began to tremble as she led me to
the big fireplace on the edge of the room. Every eye was staring,
inescapably mocking me as the severely over-dressed center of
attention. As pretty as I had felt earlier, now I had been reduced
to dust.

It was because I was
different…out of place. This was the very thing I had wanted to
avoid! It was the worst feeling I could have experienced at that
moment, but the embarrassment and discomfort coming from being the
center of attention simply were not enough for Stella. No, Stella
wasn’t going to stop until she had completely, degradingly,
humiliated
me.

“Everyone – turn
your gaze upon Madame Butterfly! This beautiful queen has joined us
tonight to provide the entertainment for tonight!” Stella shouted
jovially above the crowd. The laughter continued. “Tonight we will
dazzle you by
stripping this creature of
its wings!
”

On the other side of the house at that
moment, Wren was tending to Grandmamma alongside her sister. Beeti
acted as though she knew nothing of what might have been going on
across the house, throwing her own masquerade of sorts as she hid
her knowledge behind a sick smile. When my sleeping grandmamma
awoke to find them both standing over her instead of chaperoning
the children down the hall, she was immediately filled with
concern.

“Why are you both here?” The old woman
confusedly recollected.

“Stella said that you wanted me here,”
Wren swiftly replied. Grandmamma looked to her in
concern.

“And you listened to her? I have said
no such thing!” Grandmamma exclaimed. “You and Beeti should be
supervising the girls at the party!”

As senile as she may have been
becoming, they could both tell that her words were coming out of
her right mind. Wren flashed her aloof sister a look of concern
before Grandmamma spoke up again; her insight beyond all
compare.

“Heavens, ladies!
Don’t tell me that you’ve left those girls
alone
!”

Wren rushed out of the
room to find me, feeling utterly stupid to have believed an ounce
of Stella’s words. Beeti went along with her sister, though the
concern for me that she displayed was all really a sham. Not
wanting to raise alarm in either of the women, she went with Wren
carrying such concern that her demeanor would have seemed to scream
that she had nothing to do with what could be conspiring down the
hall. They picked themselves up from where they were sitting and
rushed as quickly as they could toward the dance hall.

They were already too late. Stella
brutally knocked me to the ground again. This time some of the
crowd quieted at the sight. Though, a few sadistic souls became
even louder in their bellowing. I tried to stand back up again, to
which Stella obliged. She yanked me upwards, turning me around and
ripping the fairy wings from my back of my costume.

“Now you can be dressed just like
everyone else!” That was when she threw them into the
fire.

She still didn’t stop there. She
grabbed the blue satin cape from my hands, but this time I wasn’t
going to let her take it. It became a tug of war, and even through
the disadvantage of my size against hers; her strength couldn’t
overwhelm mine. I tugged and tugged in a relentless fury until my
cousin fell backwards onto the ground. The crowd was mostly silent
now, except for a dwindling few of the sadistic souls who still
found it all to be such grand entertainment.

“Can’t you see? You’re just a pathetic
little thing!” She screamed pettily, banging her fists onto the
floor. “You might think that you’re such a beauty – but no matter
what you do you’re just like everyone else! In fact, not even that!
You may think you’re stunning, but the harder you try, the more
ridiculous you become!”

The scene fell
inescapably still. Stella sat on the ground, eyeing me. She wasn’t
just generally doing so – she was eyeing something in specific.
After a few seconds, I looked down to realize what it was.
It was my necklace.
Stella suddenly lurched at me, and I jumped back. That was
when the crowd finally had enough, I think, because a few of the
sour souls from Stella’s group of friends jumped
forth.

“Stella, please – this is getting out
of hand,” Reginald’s sister suddenly exclaimed.

“Yes, it was funny at first, but now
you can stop!” Reginald in turn spoke up. “Please…for her
sake.”

Stella calmed, but
her eyes still burned with their misguided anger. At the same time,
I stood frozen like a deer caught in headlights. The entire room
had their attention focused on us both now, but I knew that most of
them were looking solely toward
me.
Now their stares read everything from contempt to
pity to anger and disgust.

Their eyes burned. Their eyes mocked.
Their eyes marred. The room felt as if it was closing in around me
at that moment, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slowly began to
back away in horror, each step becoming swifter than the last.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion now, and my heart
was pounding as I turned from the crowd in my painful soup of
tumultuous feelings. Right then Beeti and Wren burst through the
doors in a frantic rush – but it was too late.

I had already turned from them and
started running.

I picked up the
bottom of my dress in a chaotic frenzy ran toward the back door and
out into the main hallway. Much to my surprise, the crowd didn’t
stop me. In fact, they parted especially for me as I miserably fled
from the scene of the crime.
Where could I
go? What could I do?
Presently, I felt so
much angst that I didn’t care. I ended up running outside and
darting toward the very first thing I saw.

As fate would have it, the first thing
that caught my eye was the hedge maze. So, I ran.

The huge, harvest moon hung low
tonight. The stars shone as brightly as they could have on the very
eve of creation. But, none of these things brought me peace or
enjoyment right now. All I could feel right now was anger and
humiliation.

After wandering a good distance
through the maze, I stopped at the fountain in the center. It was
the one with spluttering waters that used to remind me of my life
by the sea. I took a look up at the sky and stars, expecting to be
calmed. Instead – the very opposite happened.

“What kind of plan is this?” I angrily
screamed into the air. “I’m no queen! All I am is a commoner
dressed as one; someone much more fit to wear rags than a crown! A
plain…small…useless…”

In that moment, I
became so angry that I did something rash. I was so angry about the
present moment, about my life and all of the things that I wished I
could be but never would obtain; that I jerked my hand over the
necklace. Then, I tore
the pearls from my
neck and threw
them onto the
ground.

When I let them go,
I instantly regretted it. I tried to grab them in horror, but it
was already done. They quickly hit the ground and the entire
necklace shattered
into a mess of
freely-rolling beads. Pearls are strong and enduring objects, so
they were all still intact. Nevertheless, their roundness made each
one impossibly difficult to catch. The string that had been holding
them together quickly split and caused each of the tiny pearls to
roll freely and chaotically across the stone trials. I chased the
little beads across the pavement in vain.

“No! No!” I exclaimed in tears. “I’m
sorry!”

It was already too late. The more I
tried to reach out and scoop them back into my trembling hands, the
more they scattered. Before I grasp even one of them, they began
rolling on-by-one into the fountain. In less than a few seconds,
the last of the pearls had fallen into the water and sunk to the
bottom.

I tried to see if I
could retrieve them – but it was useless. The water was too deep
and the scene was just too dark. The pearls were nowhere to be
found. The last pieces of my mother’s precious necklace were
gone.
How could I have
done this? And…how would I ever be able to tell my grandmother?
Tell her that the last relic she had of her daughter had been
destroyed at the hands of her granddaughter?

I stopped my vain
quest to retrieve the tiny pearls as I came to terms with the
inevitable. But, I still didn’t avert my gaze from the water. Now I
saw my reflection in the crystalline surface of the fountain,
faintly outlined under the light of the moon.

I saw the crown on
top of my head and abruptly ripped it off. I wasn’t worthy of any
crown, especially not now! How stupid could I have possibly been?!
How rash, how emotional?! The damage done, I took it into my hands
and tossed it aside. I then fell prostrate onto the ground, buried
my head into my arms, and utterly wept.

“Oh Mother, I’m so sorry!” I
repetitively cried. “Forgive me!”

As I wept, I felt
the emptiness grow. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who felt it –
for someone had been quietly watching me from afar. And this
person…as allusive as he might have been; could feel the pain
in
his
soul as
well. He took tender pity on me…not being able to see me
suffering.

Although he knew he
probably should not have done it, he approached me. I though, was
too grieved to notice it. The next thing I knew, I felt a warm hand
settle gently on my back. I slowly sat up, turning my head toward
this stranger. Normally I would have been terrified…but as soon as
I saw him a strange calm came over me.

“Oh…it’s you,” I dazedly spoke as I
recognized whose face it was.

It was the same person who always
seemed to surface at these odd times…the one who I had struggled to
find and yet never could unless I wasn’t trying to. It was
Rhys.

“What happened?” He tenderly asked me,
wiping a tear from my face with his hand. “Who did this to
you?”

What could I tell
him? I struggled to find even one word that would comprehend what I
was feeling right now. Then, something strange happened. It was as
if…as if I didn’t even have
to tell him.
He gazed into my eyes with such depth that I could almost feel him
looking into my soul. After a few moments, a great calm swept over
me. It was even greater than the one I had felt before. The tears
still came, but not nearly as heavily. I opened my mouth to speak,
finally able to articulate.

“A terrible thing has just happened…”
I began, the tears beginning to pour once again. “Those people in
there – all they could do were gawk at me –”

“Gawk at you?” He
interrupted. “Why would they do such a thing? You’re not worthy of
being mocked. You’re…
beautiful.
” His last words seemed to
come in a daze now as well.

“My cousin…”I began again. I tried to
hold back my emotions, but it was useless. It all came out in an
explosive burst. “She’s succeeded in spiting me! That’s all that
there is to say.”

I choked on every word
now, feigning my way through it all; working my way from being an
emotional train wreck to the complaining venting of an angry two
year old. I looked away from him, embarrassed that I had unloaded
so much on someone that I barely knew. But, he didn’t seem put off
by it at all. Rather, he seemed to be strangely understanding of
it; understanding in a way that I’d never seen in another person
before. He gently took me by the arm and helped me to stand up,
tilting my face toward his.

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” he told
me gently before bending down and taking the discarded tiara into
his hands. “And why aren’t you wearing this?”

Without even asking,
he placed it back on my head and immediately zoned out. I won’t
lie, it was
very strange. He stopped and
stared at me, just stared. It was as if he were visualizing
something – I didn’t know what – but it was something eerie. It was
almost as if he was connecting this image of myself wearing the
crown with something he’d heard or seen somewhere else before…maybe
a vision or a far-off dream.