Book of a 1000 Days

Day 7

Day 7

The days have passed quickly it seems and my Lady turns restless. She was never one to be quiet, sit still. And now I fear she may slip darkly into a state of uneasiness. 

I know this because yesterday two cars were in the pantry, and now they're gone. I now this because she does not blow out the candle at night. I see her and remember her father. Dragging her to this place, I remember the clock of the lock. The warning in his voice. My lady's trembling fingers. 

It's my whole life, taking care of her now. Before this I had different dreams, but now I must help my lady through this. The years stretching before us. I scratch a line onto a wall in the cellar with a piece of white chalk I found. In my dreams I hear horses hooves. I see the wall full of lines. I smell smoke. And then my lady hand slips from mine. Then I wake up. 

"Dashti!" I jerk up at my name and tuck the worm notebook beneath some straw in the kitchen. 

I rush to my Lady, "Yes?" 

"Open that window." I look up at the window in the stone. I cannot be opened. "Yes." I reach for the latch and yank on it, forcing all my strength on it, but it doesn't budge, not even a little bit. 

"It won't open my lady." 

"Then break it." And she nods her head, as if the task is so simple. I look around the room for something to break it with. But everything she has in her room is soft. Pillows. Paper. Rugs. Nothing to break the latch. "Well?" Her voice is tight, and in the softness of the candlelight I can see tears begin to well up in her eyes. "Never mind." She waves a hand at me and the jewels on her robe glisten and shine. 

I wasn't going to say anything to her, but as I watch her shoulders shudder and the soft sons that escape her mouth I take a risk and reach for her hand. Her head snaps up and she looks at me. "What?" Her voice shakes with the word and I tug on her hand. "I have something to show you." 

I take my Lady down stairs and into a small back room, a single stool inside. Now windows, simply dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. "Look." I point down to a corner in the room. "I don't see anything." I kneel down and carefully remove a stone from it. Suddenly a beam of golden sunlight shines through. "How did you find this?" Her tears are gone now and lips have stretched into a smile. "Could we escape through here, what if we removed more stones." She reaches for the wall and I stop her. "No my lady, we don't know what will happen if we do." 

Her shoulda fall and the excitement from before slips from her face. "Alright." She bites her lip and adds, "not as if I have anyone to go back too." I watch her turn a golden ring on her finger round and round. He must have give that to her, the painter she loved. The man she loved die before her. And the pain is subdued for her comes back fresh, the wound no longer clean but deep and real. The thought of them in my mind nearly makes me crumble to the floor in pieces. Suddenly the money I'll get for doing this feels meaningless in comparison to what happened to my Lady. Even after all this is over, there is no happy ending for her. 

I look to my Lady, and it's as if she read my thoughts. Her hands ball into fists and she begins to hit the walls as she did before. A scream slips from her mouth and she throws the loose stone to the floor. Her dark eyes fill with tears falling down her golden skin. Her soft hands now drip with blood. "Come my Lady, I must clean that." 

When she is calm I set her down on the bed and lay her hands in a pool of cold water. Wiped them smooth with a cloth. And then spread honey on the wounds. Then I make her a cup of mint tea and light a lantern by her bed. Then I tell her a story. 

There once was a healer, her hands were calluses from all those she healed. She could ease any wound, ease any pain. Make the hurt right again. She worked beneath a mango tree, the ivory arches of her home a beacon of hope to those young and old. 

One day a man came to her door. His side bleeding, weak, he begged for her help. Now she wa skeptical of the man, but the pain in his eyes told her to help him. She quickly worked her magical fingers against his skin and healed him. He stayed there for three days and three nights. But during this time the woman had grown to care deeply for this man. She did not want him to go, but as he held her hands in his, he took a single rose and tucked it behind her ear. "Thank you." He said and she watched him leave. The woman cried for a long time, and then a year passed and on the same day a rose appeared again where the man had slept. And every year she found another rose. He would never forget her and neither would she. Their love was eternal, I'm even if they couldn't be together. 

3 MONTHS LATER 

My lady never went to that room again, and we have almost run out of all our food. She has eaten almost all of it. She sleeps long hours and rises with a ferocious appetite. The wood is nearly gone and now that winter is coming I fear we shall freeze. 

We haven't been here that long, and I have always preferred to be alone, and yet, this loneliness is practically eating me alive. No longer do I have tea in the back garden with the rest of the servants. Nor do I take my long walks into town and meet my friend on the long summer nights, looking up at the dessert stars. 

Here, my Lady spends her time alone sleeping in her room or eating everything. My mind swims with thoughts pulling me in every direction. I can't even pull myself together to sing. I braid my hair every night, curling all the way to my waist in thick waves. My lady refuses anything I ask her. She used to love to have her hair combed through with her jade comb, and now she doesn't. Once she took baths in steaming rose water, and now her lips are red and raw from biting them. 

Everything is so different than what it once was. I could nearly scream. I wish to escape, even money isn't with 7 years of this. Every day I draw a line  on the wall, ticking way days and seconds. Time this cruel thing laughing at me.

My last summer memories flood into me, my heartbeat the only sound I hear. The hanging lantern above my head casting shadows everywhere. I see them dance. Their dark shapes twisting before me. Creating stories. Telling stories. I'm tired, my whole body aches. I'm wearing one of my Lady's robes to keep warm, I don't want to waste the wood. The cloth is of dark green velvet rimmed with gold. And before I fall asleep I can smell smoke hanging in the air before darkness takes me with it. 

So many more ideas for this story, will be updating within the next three days so be on the look out :) 

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