The Fledgling Read online

  Chandra stood wringing her hands. “I won’t go up there,” she stated.

  “You don’t have to, little sister. No one asked you anyway. Go play with your dolls!” He dismissed her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chandra looked torn, like she wanted to come, just to see what I would do once I saw the tower room, and fearing what she might see, once we arrived. “Go find some servant’s clothes that will fit her,” Sheldon instructed her. Then he took a lamp from another hook and lit it. The staircase was dark, because there were only very small slits for windows, along the way.

  The openings, that let small streams of light into the stair casing, showed how thick the walls were. At least half the length of my arm, I gauged. They did not have any glass over them, and even though they probably kept the rain out, from the thickness of the walls, the cold draft from outside could be felt in the stairwell. It made Sheldon’s lamp waver, casting irregular shadows on the walls, as we walked. My feet hurt so much, that I could barely climb the stairs, and Sheldon noticed it.

  “What is the matter with you?” he asked, as I paused every few steps. “I told you there is nothing wrong with the room. It is not really haunted.”

  “It’s not that,” I said, and sat down on a stair to rest.

  “Then what is it?” he demanded. He almost sounded angry, as he turned back to me, and held the lamp above me.

  “My feet hurt. I have been walking for three days.”

  “Let me see,” he said, kneeling beside me, and he started unbuttoning one of my boots.

  When it fell to the floor, Sheldon’s face took on a look crossed between shock and concern. I glanced down at my foot. My stockings were torn around my toes, and there was blood on Sheldon’s hands, where he had taken my foot in his hand, once the boot was off.

  “You are injured!” he exclaimed, and started removing the other boot. “Father will be upset, if you are unable to work.”

  At first I had taken his concern to be for me, but now I realized he was only worried that it would anger his father, if I was not capable enough to do what was expected of me. I pushed his hands away.

  “I am fine,” I bellowed half in anger, and half in pain. I grabbed my boots up, and stood, running up the stairs in front of him. Now that my boots were off of my feet, it didn’t seem to hurt as much. Sheldon caught up with me, and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t be angry with me,” he said softly. “It’s just that I want you to stay. I’ll bring some salve for your feet, and bandages. By morning they will feel better.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. The stairs continued to turn in a circle, leading to the top, and then we stood in front of a door. The same key used to open the stairway door, was also used to open this door, and Sheldon pushed it open. The hinges resisted with a resounding squeak. The room was dark, but Sheldon strode across the floor, and pulled back some heavy drapes, letting in a misty light.

  I could see the dust floating in the air, as the stream of light hit against the floor. The room, of course, was round, but larger than I had expected. There was a dresser, a full length mirror, in a frame on the floor, and a bed that was rumpled, and unmade. A single round rug covered part of the floor. A bedside table with a candle stick on it, half burned, was placed against the wall.

  I walked over to the window and looked out. Directly below was the ocean, crashing against the rock cliff that met the base of the tower. There had been bars over the windows, but some of the bars had been chiseled free. They lay on the floor in front of the window. I unlatched the window and looked down to the rocks below. There was only a narrow walk way, separating the tower from the edge of the cliff.

  “Did she really jump?” I asked, closing the window, and facing Sheldon.

  “Yes. That is why the tower doors are locked. It was merely to keep us safe from falling from the window when we were little, in case our curiosity got the best of us,” he explained. “You don’t plan to jump, do you?” he asked.

  “Of course not, I left my home to keep from dying of the sickness. Why would I want to end my life, after walking all this way, looking for safety?”

  “Good,” Sheldon said quietly. “Then I won’t worry about you. Anyway, she was a mad woman. That is why she had been locked here.”

  “They locked her in?” I questioned.

  “For her own safety,” he explained.

  “Apparently she wasn’t safe after all,” I mumbled, motioning to the window.

  “I suppose, no one thought she was that desperate to escape the tower,” Sheldon shrugged. “It was a long time ago, anyway. She had been my great grandfather’s wife. His first wife, that is.”

  “And the tower room has been closed all this time?” I exclaimed.

  “From what I am told, there are other rumors about it being a place where lovers went to be alone together, where no one would suspect to look.

  “Then there must have been some happy times spent here,” I reasoned.

  “But they were the ones who claimed the room was haunted,” he pointed out, with a strange smile. “You see, my great grandfather said his wife was mad, and he had to lock her in the tower. Before that, he claimed his wife had died, and then he married my great grandmother to take her place. It wasn’t until his first wife jumped from the tower, that they discovered she had been there all along. That was when he told everyone she was mad, and he didn’t have the heart to commit her to a mad house. He said he wanted to keep her safe. But apparently, she wasn’t safe, as you pointed out.”

  “How sad,” I mumbled. “How could they tell if she was mad?” I wanted to know.

  Sheldon shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I have never seen a mad person before.” Sheldon glanced down at the floor. “You are tracking blood,” he exclaimed. “I’ll go get the bandages, some water, to wash your feet, and another bucket for you to clean yourself with, before you change into the clothes Chandra is getting for you. I will return shortly!”

  Sheldon removed himself from the room, and I could hear his footsteps echoing down the stairs in a rush. I turned and looked at myself in the mirror, but it was so dusty, I could only see a shadow, so I wiped it clean with the sleeve of my dress. When I looked at myself, my eyes widened in shock. No wonder Chandra had mistaken me for a beggar!

  My face was covered in soot. Twigs decorated my hair. My dress was ripped, soiled, and hung on my body like a rag, from the weight I had lost. I unfastened my cloak, and let it fall to the floor, in a heap around my feet. My stockings were torn and bloody, and I could see the bloody foot prints, I had made in the dust on the floor.

  I could hear a noise behind me, and I turned to see Sheldon coming into the room, with two buckets of water. He had a dress slung over his shoulder.

  “Chandra wouldn’t come with me,” he explained, as he let the buckets settle on the floor, and then handed me the dress. “Sit on that stool,” he pointed to a stool in the corner, and I limped to it. He was pulling things from his pocket and setting them on the dresser. “You will have to take your stockings off,” he instructed.

  “My pantaloons will have to come off first,” I informed him. Apparently he did not know how stockings were attacked to strings tied about the waist beneath one’s pantaloons.

  Then remove them, “He said impatiently, and I reached up under my skirts and fumbled with the button at the back of the pantaloons, letting them fall. Sheldon pulled them from my legs, as I sat on the stool, and then he watched me lift my dress to unfasten the stockings from their ties, but the bows had turned into knots and had been tightened from having worn them for three days straight.

  Sheldon looked impatient as I kept fumbling with the ties.

  “Let me help,” Sheldon offered, kneeling before me, removing my hands from the ties, and taking them between his own fingers.

  In the past, maids had been relegated to this task. It had only been during my parent’s sickness, that I had been tying my own stockings, and buttoning my
own shoes. I suppose I had not tied them right, and that is why they had knotted up the way they had.

  “How do you ever manage this?” Sheldon asked, as he kept tugging at the knots. “It seems to me, you would discard stockings all together if this was the bother you had to go through to remove them!”

  “I think I must have tied them wrong,” I told him, as his fingers worked against the knots, and brushed against my upper thighs, causing strange sensations, because a boy had never touched my skin like that before. “I always had a maid that did this for me.”

  “Which means your parents did have money,” Sheldon, murmured. “Hold your skirts out of the way. I can’t see a thing,” he complained, pushing my mud stained skirt and petticoat up higher.

  I grabbed them up to my stomach, and then Sheldon paused, as his eyes seemed to be riveted on something. He reached his hand out slowly and touched me, at the top of my legs. I gave a little gasp at the feel of his fingers there.

  “So that is how a girl looks,” he murmured, as though in some sort of trance. “Do you mind if I look at you?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I don’t think it is proper,” my voice shook.

  “No one will know. Chandra won’t come in here, and neither will my father.” I will lock the door. He got up and went to the door to lock it.

  “Why would you want to look?” I asked, wondering what he thought was so interesting about it?

  He turned and came back to me, kneeling like before.

  “Because I want to learn about those kind of things. Aren’t you curious about what a boy looks like?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” I admitted.

  “Then I will show you what I look like, if you let me see more of what you look like,” he offered.

  I hesitated, not knowing if I should allow it. After all, I had just met him.

  “Father said I was responsible for you. That means anything that happens with you, I am to take care of it. It is like I own you, and so I can do what I want with you. I have come here to nurse your feet. I am not going to hurt you. Besides you are our servant now, and Servants are supposed to do what their owners wish them to.”

  He gave my upper leg a nudge with his fingers, encouraging me to give him a better view. I sat silently, clinging to my skirts, as he first examined me with his eyes, and then slowly used his fingers to examine me even more, while I sat nervously on the edge of the stool, my eyes tightly closed.

  “You feel and look strange,” he breathed.

  I opened one eye to look at him, and I could tell he was more interested than he was letting on. The feel of his fingers touching me, caused me to take in my breath with surprise.

  “No one has ever touched me there,” I murmured, scooting back on the stool a little. I don’t think you should either.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have expected them to,” he said mater-of-fact. “However, since you are my servant, I have the right.”

  He started fumbling with my stocking ties again, but his eyes kept escaping from what he was doing, to stare at me, from time to time. He cursed, when he couldn’t get the ties to loosen, but eventually he managed, and was pulling one stocking off, then working on the other.

  “You have hurt your knee,” he mumbled, as he pulled the stocking over my knee. His eyebrows drew together. “I will tend to that too.”

  Once he had removed both stockings, he began washing my feet, and I winced at the pain, as he touched them.

  “I have to clean them before I can put on the salve,” he explained, in a gentle voice.

  He sat on the floor, close to me, pushing one knee up, and placing my foot in his lap. Then he was working the salve into my blisters, but I could see that his eyes were not on what he was doing, as he kept pushing my knee up even higher, and ducking his head closer to me. Then he took the other foot, working on it, even longer, it seemed.

  “I have to see more,” he murmured, almost to himself, as he lifted both of my knees, causing me to tip back a little, and lean against the wall.

  The time seemed to stretch on, as Sheldon continued to peer under my skirt. Surely he had seen all of me, I reasoned, but he didn’t seem to tire of looking and touching.

  Slowly, Sheldon sat back and started wrapping my feet with bandages, as though nothing had happened. He also rubbed some salve on the wound of my knee.

  “You should bathe yourself before you change your clothes,” he instructed me. “Would you like me to help?”

  “I don’t think it would be right,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t have let you look at me, the way you did. If you bathed me, I would have to take all my clothes off.”

  His deep curiosity, had intrigued me, though. He had been so gentle, with my feet, and I knew he merely wished to help me because my feet had been injured. But I still wondered about how his touching me could cause all those feelings to tangle inside of me?

  “I promised to let you see me too,” he reminded me, eyeing me to see how I was going to respond. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “What if I don’t look at you?” I asked.

  “I think you will have to, because I have looked at you, and besides, I promised,” he mumbled, and I could see him starting to unfasten his trousers, so I closed my eyes.

  “You have to look,” he insisted.

  I opened one eye, and saw he was standing so near my face, that I couldn’t help but see him. Both of my eyes flew open.

  “Now was that so bad?” he asked. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

  “You look strange too,” I said in a small voice, not wanting to look, but not being able to stop myself, either.

  “That is because I am a boy, and you are a girl. I was surprised to see what you looked like as well.”

  His eyes rested on me again, where I sat on the stool, my skirts now covering my legs. A slow smile crawled over his face.

  “Now that I have looked at you, and you have looked at me, you can’t let anyone else ever do it, and you can’t tell anyone, or you will be punished.”

  “Why?” I asked, hugging my knees, but still looking at that part of him that intrigued me so much, because he hadn’t covered himself. “What would the punishment be?”

  “Because it means you belong to me now. I am the only boy that can see you, or touch you. When you get older, you will have to marry me, but if anyone finds out, before we are married, you would become a woman of the night. ”

  “I don’t understand,” I squeaked.

  “If a man sees a woman this way, and touches her, she is compromised. That means she has to marry the man that looked at her, or touched her. If she doesn’t marry him, she is sent out to work the streets, because she is not fit to get married then. It is the law.”

  “But you didn’t tell me this before you asked if you could look at me,” I complained. “How can I marry you? I don’t even know you.”

  “By the time you marry me, you will,” he informed me.

  He had not bothered to fasten his trousers yet, and my eyes could not help but continue to stare at him. He gave me a satisfied smile as though he enjoyed the fact that I was looking at him.

  “If we get married, you would have to see me like this all the time.” He moved even closer to me, until he was almost touching my face. “You are still looking at me, which makes me know you like doing it,” he pronounced. “But you can never look at another boy or man, now that you have looked at me,” he cautioned. “It would be considered adultery.”

  “But we are not married,” I pointed out. “How could it be adultery?”

  “Because now we are promised, since I have seen you close up. And since you agreed to look at me, it means you have accepted the promise.”

  “You didn’t tell me that either, before I looked,” I complained. “You said I had to look at you, even when I didn’t want to!”

  “Well, it’s too late now. You have already seen me,” he told me, giving a small chuckle. “You can touch me, if you want,” he encouraged. “After all, I have to
uched you. And since we will get married when you get older, and you can’t touch anyone else, it won’t matter.” He took my reluctant hand and laid it against him. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “You can touch me, all you want. I liked touching you.”

  I really didn’t want to touch him, but the feel of him under my fingers caused my own curiosity to grow as well. Touching him intrigued me more than I had expected it to do, and he was standing so close, I could see every vein, and ridge, and what was beyond the part I was touching. At first, I felt embarrassed, and thought God would hate me for even thinking about it. But then I remembered that God didn’t even care about me. Why would he care if I was doing this, I reasoned? And I wanted to rebel against God for what he had done to my family and myself, putting me at the mercy of a Godfather who didn’t even want me here. Sheldon was the only one who seemed to want me here. I didn’t care if I couldn’t look at any other man.

  “No one has ever looked at me like you just did,” I admitted, as I continued to run my fingers over his skin that was so close to my cheek, I could almost feel it brush against me.

  “No woman has ever looked at me either,” Sheldon confided. “I like the way your fingers feel.”

  “This doesn’t mean I will get a baby, does it?” I asked suddenly, jerking my fingers away.

  Sheldon caught them and replaced them back again.

  “I don’t think so. It takes more than that to bring on a baby,” he educated me. “Causing you to have a baby will have to wait until we get married. Just touching and looking is all that is permitted before marriage,” he continued. I had a feeling he was making up the rules as he went. “Take your clothes off, so I can see all of you,” he begged.