A Rose for Beauty

Chapter 23

"Lydia, what on EARTH have you done to your hair?"

"What?" Lydia groggily peeled her face from the pillow. Her arm was still underneath, her hand still clutching the herb sachet. She attempted to release it, but her fingers were cramped in position from holding it for so long, and she had to flex them several times to get them to cooperate again.

Anna was sitting up in bed with an incredulous look on her face. "Your hair, Lydia. It is an absolute rat's nest."

Lydia put one hand to her head - it was true. Her hair was a wild tangle, surrounding her head like a knotted halo, almost as though the winds of her dream last night had been real. Immediately the entire dream rushed back into her mind, jolting her into wakefulness. Her heart thudded in her chest, though she struggled to keep the alarm from her face. How could she possibly explain it to Anna?

"I, ah, I had a bad dream last night," she managed.

Anna arched one shapely brow questioningly, a ghost of her former superiority upon her face. "Another nightmare, Lydia? Have you always suffered from such frequent bad dreams?" Suddenly her face fell, and she deflated a little. "Have you, Lydia? I should know if my own sister had such an affliction, should I not? But I do not."

"It was not a nightmare, exactly," Lydia lied. Perhaps it was not a lie. She did not like to see Anna so - so defeated, and so she gave her a tiny piece of the truth. "I had a dream about mother," she admitted.

Anna's expression softened further, and faded sadness entered her eyes. "I see." She did not say another word as she rose from the bed and wrapped herself with her thick woolen shawl before collecting the wide-toothed wooden comb from the top of the clothes-press. She sat once more on the bed, indicating that Lydia should sit up.

Lydia obeyed, shivering as the cold morning air slid down her back. There was frost on the windows, after all. She turned, and rearranged the blankets to wrap them around behind her. Anna began the chore of untangling her hair, and she worked in a silence broken only by the occasional hiss or gasp from Lydia as a knot pulled particularly hard for some time before she spoke.

"You know," she said, her voice soft, "I was about your age when she died."

"That's right," Lydia said, surprised, "though I never thought of it before."

"It's been so long now, you know, but at the same time it feels like it's been hardly any time at all. Like if we went back ho-" Anna caught herself, then continued. "If we went back to our old house, that she would still be there. Sitting in the parlor, or out in the garden."

Lydia examined her own memories of her mother, and found them pale and threadbare with age. They were like memories from another life, the storybook of her childhood. "I don't feel that way," she said. "I was so young - ow."

Anna murmured an apology and continued her efforts. "She loved the gardens there," she said. "Especially the roses. Just like you, Lydia." She laughed. "Do you know, she used to sail rose blossoms on the ponds, too? I think that is why Clara and I would get so annoyed when you began to do it; it was a painful reminder, and we did not welcome it."

Lydia stilled, blinking at the revelation. "I don't remember that," she said slowly, "I don't remember that at all."

Lydia felt Anna shrug behind her, heard her sigh. "You are so much like her. Oh," she brushed aside Lydia's objection with a laugh, "your hair is a different color, and your chin a trifle stronger, but your smile is the same, and your laugh, and sometimes I can see her in your eyes."

Lydia was silent, unsure what to say, but Anna continued. "That day that she would not wake..."

"What?" said Lydia, attempting to turn until Anna chided her. She faced forward again, but would not be distracted from her question. "I thought she was ill, Anna, that's why I wasn't permitted to see her."