Here it is:
Arla shivered deep into the musty straw and sighed. Her breath left a mournful wisp of cloud hovering in the cold air, and dust and bits of hay swirled through it and danced in a dying ray of sunshine just beyond. Arla regarded the feeble sunlight in some consternation. She had been sure she had stuffed up all the holes…
A gust of wind swirled in through the crumbling masonry and goose bumps prickled on her skinny arms. Arla tugged her tunic down over her knees and huddled in a dirty miserable ball, burrowing even further into her thin bed. She reminded herself sternly that it was a much better bed than she’d had when she slept in a corner with the other drudges, who cringed and taunted and snored even when they left off tormenting her for long enough to fall asleep.
She twisted and shrugged restlessly on the edge of sleep for a long time. The bruises the cook had given her made almost any position uncomfortable. When she woke up for the third time her attention was called to another crack that had escaped stuffing – this time it was moonlight that was filtering through. A cold slice of it silvered her cheek, and the touch was cool and healing on the puffy bruise there. She opened her eyes and stared at the moonbeam in surprise; the promised storm was almost here, and – as she could see by pressing her eye to the hole, clouds obscured most of the sky. As though on signal, they rolled back across the moon and Arla’s closet was plunged back into darkness. She drew back and shivered. She couldn’t see anything! Her room felt suddenly airless and oppressive, closing in… She gasped and threw herself out.
She sat on the stone floor for a while, looking around. Another moonbeam had escaped the cloud cover and was streaming through the windows, allowing her a unique view of the room she had lived and worked in all her life.
The huge kitchen was empty and silent, frosted by the moonlight. Silvery drops of it quivered on gleaming cauldrons and splashed into corners where ragged drudges curled in sleep, breathing steadily. On the rare nights they were allowed to stop work early, everyone always took advantage of it and went right to sleep. Arla wondered vaguely why she wasn’t doing the same, but couldn’t be bothered to give the matter much thought. Even this big, open room seemed to stifle her. She tugged at the neckline of her tunic and her gaze turned to the little windows lining the northern wall of the kitchen. A tree tapped against one in the wind of the approaching storm – it was the window that Arla had been looking out of when the cook caught her. She hopped nimbly onto the counter and perched, bare dirty feet tucked under her, right up next to the glass. She grinned to herself. How the cook would yell if he could see me now, she thought. She put her hand on the glass where the tree tapped it, then looked up. Framed in the slender branches of the little birch was an enormous, silver orb – the moon.
Arla went perfectly still. It was so big—It was beautiful. She gazed at it rapturously, pressing her palm against the glass.
With a sudden creak the window swung open and Arla, caught off balance, tumbled out and landed with a flump and a squeak of fright at the foot of the tree. The grass was iced with silver rain shining as brilliant as a polished stewpot. It was the only comparison Arla could manage. She was totally flustered.
She was outside.
She sat up, rubbing a bruised posterior, and looked around. Alarm jangled at the back of her mind, but it was drowned by her awe at the beauty of the outside world. She had never left the kitchen, except a few times serving at unimportant meals where she couldn’t offend anyone. Her little alarm bell caused her only an apprehensive glance back at the open window before she began wandering slowly toward the forest that bordered the castle, as the grass whipped to a frenzy around her knees and storm clouds scudded across the moon.
The storm broke before she reached the forest. Rain lashed her face and soaked her tattered tunic. She lifted her arms and turned her face toward the boiling clouds; the wind and rain were exhilarating, not frightening! And when the full moon sailed from behind the cloud cover again she laughed aloud for the simple joy of being able to do so. Suddenly she stopped laughing and lowered her arms.
The moon hovered near the uppermost fringes of the forest, which were black where they brushed its glow. Except in one place. A golden light radiated from the forest floor directly beneath the silver moon, and the two lights mingled among the highest branches of the forest. They spilled over, silver above the trees, golden below, forming a shimmering path that ended just at Arla’s feet.
She stood stock still, as the storm thrashed around her and the rain soaked her hair, and stared in awe. The moon still shone clearly in the sky. Arla kept staring at the path of light. After several motionless moments, she moved one foot and placed it on the path.
The feeling of bliss, of belonging, was so strong that Arla gasped and almost fell over. She stood bathed in the ethereal glow and drunk in the feeling -- And the sky was ripped apart by an ugly red brilliance. For a moment Arla, shocked, saw the world stand out in vivid relief, every shadow sharp against the scarlet glare, then it faded back into darkness. A tremor rippled through her and the path shivered in her vision, then slowly melted into enveloping blackness. Arla toppled slowly and collapsed into a heap on the ground.
“I said wake up, ye beetle!”
Arla jerked her eyes open and saw – a stomach. She squeezed them shut and opened them again, and this time the stomach had legs; skinny legs encased in gaudy red hose. And it had a face, away up high in the musty dark of her adopted cupboard, but Arla didn’t have time to look at it because one of the legs was kicking her.
She scrambled out of reach and leaped to her feet defiantly. How dared he…Oh.
Oh.
Reality grated through her and she helped the mind-clearing pain along by giving herself some very hard mental kicks. It was a dream, it was a dream, it wasn’t real… But she could hardly bear the thought. For just a moment, she had mattered… No. She was a nobody. One of hundreds of nameless drudges.
So Arla cringed in a suitably servile manner, wincing with the shame of it. But the head cook visibly relaxed. For a moment, he had seen absolute fury and indignation in the eyes of a skinny little drudge who he’d never seen so much as lift her head. It unnerved him more than he cared to admit, and so he puffed up his considerable bulk, bolstered up some bravado, and launched into one of his famous tirades – adding an occasional whack with his ladle to punctuate some of his more passionate pronunciations on her worthlessness. By the end, his confidence was restored and he was sure the girl was thoroughly back into her role of cowering slave.
“Now git goin’, and don’ never let me catch yew sleepin’ after daybreak agin’, neither!” he bellowed.
“Wha… daybreak?” Arla stammered in astonishment.
“What, daybreak?” mimicked the cook, furious again. “I said move!” He strode off muttering about idle, useless, incompetent slaves and how was he expected to get anything done when all he had was leeches like that skinny dirty little witch to work with?
Arla stood still for a moment, bewildered, until a shout from the kitchen sent her scurrying from the broom closet she had adopted as a bedroom. She ran to her washtub and plunged her arms immediately into the water. Her hands began scrubbing automatically, leaving her mind free to wander back through the wonders she had seen – or not seen – last night. It must have been a dream, she told herself firmly. Or else how did I get back here? But it was so real… No. She shook her head firmly as she bent down to pick up another plate. It couldn’t – The thought choked off as an oak leaf slipped from her sash and landed noiselessly on the flagstone floor. It was perfectly formed, beautifully green, with a strange silvery-golden light pulsing in its veins.
“Oh, Roke,” breathed Arla, touching it fearfully with one finger. Then she snatched it up and clasped it to her, breathing hard. She glanced around furtively to be sure no one had seen, then stuffed it back into her sash and resumed washing dishes.
But she couldn’t concentrate. How… how… She had seen – a tree – the path led to a tree… it was an oak tree… She wasn’t sure how she knew that, just knew it was true.
For the rest of the morning her thoughts kept wandering back to the glowing path, or the strange unreal oak, or the huge gleaming moon, and her hands would slow and she would stare dreamily at her tub. One time as she did this a faint reflection floated out of its depths – a pale, thin girl with enormous hazel eyes too big for her face, high cheekbones and a smudge across the nose. The reflection had a haze of tangled brown hair snarled around its face and was clothed in tattered gray rags. It gazed mournfully back at her, then looked suddenly shocked as a fat tear turned it to ripples. What is wrong with me today? Arla asked herself fiercely. Great Roke, you’d think I was expecting to see a diamond coronet on a princess. But she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be… After last night, everything had changed.
“Oy – Beetle!” Arla turned. That particular name usually belonged to her. She wondered what she’d done this time.
“Ah, there she is, yer lordship, sir, there in the corner,” said the cook, fawning. Arla’s eyes went wide at the sight of the man he was talking to.
He was middle aged and very handsome. He had dark hair and cold blue eyes, set close over his aristocratically arched nose, and his mouth was pinched in a thin line. His clothing was – Arla couldn’t imagine anyone having enough money to afford even the high, soft leather boots, replete with fashionably curled toes and tiny rubies studded into the intricately tooled designs. His shirt was gleaming white silk and a rich red cloak swirled around his shoulders. It was clasped on either side with gleaming gold, and hung on a golden chain around his neck was an enormous, cold white gem. Every drudge in the kitchen was gaping at him. More specifically, they were gaping at the gigantic leather bag he was holding casually in one elegant white hand. From this bag he extracted a single fat gold coin, rolling it lazily around between his fingers. No one in the room doubted that the purse was stuffed as full of gold as a good chowder with potatoes.
“How much?” the nobleman asked the cook, his steel-blue eyes never leaving Arla’s.
“But sir, yer nobleship, sir, I can’t -- I mean, she’s not – you’ll have to…” The cook’s voice choked off as the man, without warning, upended the leather purse. Gold coins poured onto the stone floor, bouncing and rolling in all directions. The room went deadly still, and the sound of the last coin spinning slowly, slowly, on the ground and then settling flat…Arla thought it was the loudest noise she’d ever heard.
“Is that enough to overcome your scruples?” It was not really a question. “Come, girl.” Arla rose, trembling. Her ears rang with a hollow metallic buzzing as she followed the nobleman to the door. Halfway there she looked back. The cook had stooped to pick up a gold coin and was staring at it wonderingly. A few of the other drudges glanced at her timidly and looked quickly away. Arla turned her back on the kitchen and walked quietly out the door.
Arla trotted in the nobleman’s wake, head reeling from the speed of her sale. From under her curtain of hair, her wide green eyes darted over everything without taking any of it in. She had a strong feeling of unreality that was very different from the dreamy strangeness of the night outdoors – Arla stopped short and jumped back as quickly as if she’d just stepped into the cook fire. Of course, stupid, she abused herself. Of course that was why he had come – it was something to do with last night – he was going to beat her, – or worse. She lifted her head and stared, petrified, at the red cloak swirling away from her down the corridor. The leather boots made little muffled bumps as they went, sharp, impatient. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand in a sudden, overwhelming fear, then without thinking she turned and bolted.
She hadn’t made it two feet away before she crashed into a young man crossing the corridor, bowling them both over in a tumbled tangle of bodies. Arla scrambled away very quickly and pressed herself hard against the wall, eyes wide and terrified. The nobleman turned with a whirl of scarlet and a most alarming snarl, and was helping the young man to his feet before Arla could even register his having started coming toward them. He directed a ferocious glare at the tiny drudge and she shrank even further into the wall, but her eyes were hard as agate. Arla was angry. Somehow, she felt as though she was no longer someone to be glared at or intimidated. But the new emotion vanished instantly as the noble purred at the young man, “so sorry, your highness, entirely my fault, the girl is young and inexperienced …” Arla’s eyes snapped wide in shock. Your highness?
“No, no, it’s all right, no, I…no!” The prince straightened and shook off the noble’s fluttering, helping hands. He took a deep breath and said calmly, “Thank you, Baron. But I am quite all right. It was my fault. Pray excuse me, I am summoned to my father’s bedside.” He turned and midway through a courteous nod to Arla, he stiffened. He had caught her eyes, still wide and turbulent with shock, fear, and anger, and his eyes seemed to shift color, sizzling gold – Arla could feel them reflected in hers, magnified, surprised, hot –
She became aware that her mouth was open, and she shut it and quickly looked away. The prince swayed a moment, steadied himself, and set off quickly down the corridor. Arla watched him go, still pressed against the wall.
Torlin shook himself and passed a hand across his eyes as if to erase the memory of what he had seen. Most people shrank away if he forgot himself and directed that hot golden stare at them, but this girl met his gaze; returned it with a flash of green… Torlin bit his lip. He could not forget the hunted look of fury and betrayal and terror. He wondered vaguely if she always had that stare.
From her appearance, she was a servant, perhaps even a slave, from the kitchens most likely. He couldn’t understand why she was with Fithzak. The Baron certainly didn’t need any more servants, especially such terrified, underfed slaves as the palace kitchen bred. Torlin shook his head. He did not like the Baron. He was too… there was something… not right about him.
