Nothing At All

4.2

I left the tower with the intention of going back to my room, but I got lost within a minute of entering the maze of corridors. Every hallway looked the same, especially in the darkness. At some point, I walked face-first into a spiderweb. After screaming and doing a little jig while hitting myself in the face, I continued on with my search.

I finally came to another narrow staircase. While I knew I hadn't seen it when going from my room to the tower, I was still curious as to where it led. This one wasn't nearly as claustrophobic as the first one, and it spit me out in another hallway after only one turn of the spiral.

To my left, I could see a faint beam of sun at the end of the corridor. I rushed towards it, desperate to leave behind the dark and stuffy castle interior. Hopefully it led to the outside world.

A sigh escaped me as a sun beam bathed me in light, and I stepped out into the open world. Blinking, I shielded my eyes from the sun. I was standing in a courtyard.

A few stone steps protruding from the doorframe led me down into a wide, open area ringed on all sides by the castle walls. At one point, the floor had been made of checkered tiles that must have left the whole place look like an oversized chessboard. Now, after time and the elements had worn down the dejected space, the only things that remained were weeds and broken tiles half-buried under the dirt. Shrubbery edged the courtyard, overgrown and neglected. A well, missing half of its bricks, hid itself behind a scraggly tree in the corner. To the right, a grand staircase with iron handrails and chipped steps led up to the second story. There, a wrap-around balcony encircled the entire space, with doors to the inside spaced every twenty feet or so.

"Is that you, Iulia?" called a voice.

I jumped and looked to my left. To my relief, it was only Andrei standing on the opposite side of the yard.

Gingerly descending the steps, I waved at him. "I'm just exploring," I called out.

"I'm glad to see you up and about. Adela and I were just gardening. Come and join us!" He gestured for me to follow him and disappeared through a small archway.

I walked after him, watching my step the whole way. The broken floor tiles were slippery from mud. The last thing I needed was to fall and impale myself on one of them. The arch, only a few feet taller than me, cut through a tiny alleyway and led to a second, smaller courtyard. There were no tiles here, only dirt and grass. A large garden, maybe fifty feet long, took up the majority of the space. At first glance, I saw plants of every kind, from wheat to something that looked like a small, yellow cantaloupe. In the center of it all, there was an ancient, towering tree with a trunk thicker than a boulder and sprawling branches; massive red apples dangled from the branches.

Adela sat in a simple, wooden chair under the shade of the tree. She held in her shaking hands two knitting needles, and a ball of tan yarn rested in her lap. Her head turned towards the sound of dead leaves under my feet.

"Good morning, child," she cooed.

"Hello." I nodded to her and Andrei, who was sitting in the dirt a few feet away from his wife.

Now that I was able to get a closer look at him, I saw that his clothes were absolutely filthy. They may have been beige when he put then on, but now they were as dark as the freshly tilled soil underneath him. Streaks of dirt smeared across his face and his limp straw hat hung down over his eyes.

"Do you guys keep this garden up all by yourself?" I thumbed the leaf of a peach tree, happy to find that it didn't instantly kill me.

Andrei gave me a small smile and wiped the sweat off his brow. "It used to be lot more impressive when we were younger. Now I just do my best to keep the weeds out."