The Smell of Sunlight
Anastasia stood at the window and peered out through the curtains. She could see the carriages that had arrived late the night before. The manor servants were unloading furniture heaped high upon the carts without pause. Her eyes moved restlessly. Beds and bookcases she recognized were among them, yet there were also pieces of shapes she had never seen, whose purpose she could not begin to guess.
It was not only the unfamiliar furniture that astonished her. A full week had passed since Mikhail’s arrival at Edenhurst, and still the carriages from Sokolov never ceased. She had counted dozens with her own eyes; each one carried not only furniture but every manner of object meant to fill the house.
They said it was all brought from the Sokolov manor.
According to the maids, every piece had come from Mikhail’s residence in Sokolov. Yury, who had visited Edenhurst earlier, had prepared them in advance on Mikhail’s orders.
There was so much that the once-empty Edenhurst now looked nearly full. And yet a manor capable of storing so many things… Anastasia thought of the storeroom at Edenhurst. The one beside the basement room where she had lived for years had been packed with seasonal carpets, curtains, and odds and ends.
Even that space, however, would have been crammed full if she had put every stick of furniture from her present room into it. A storeroom large enough to hold enough to fill an entire manor… what sort of house possessed such a place?
Just how large is the Sokolov manor?
The sudden thought startled her. In all her life she had never wondered about any place beyond Edenhurst.
Edenhurst had been the most beautiful, the most perfect place in the world. She had believed everything outside it was no different from the rural village of her childhood…
When the emptied carriages disappeared around the back of the manor, Anastasia stepped away from the curtains and turned. Her skirt flared with the motion. Looking down at the skirt she wore, she spun again. The hem swung wide in a perfect circle, tracing a beautiful arc.
She followed the line with her eyes and spun again and again. Each time, a flower of beautiful red cloth bloomed inside her room.
“Ah…”
She must have grown too absorbed in the game. Continual spinning brought on dizziness, and Anastasia sank onto the edge of the bed. Her body bounced on the soft mattress. She rose and sat several more times, savoring the sensation.
It was as simple as a crow rolling in a winter snowfield, yet she was truly delighted.
At last the dizziness returned and she collapsed onto the bed. The coverlet enfolded her face. It was filled with a warm, soft scent—the smell of fabric dried in the sun. The same scent that clung to her clothes when she dried them in the ruined chapel deep in the midsummer forest.
That scent alone could summon brilliant sunlight, so whenever she went to the chapel she would deliberately spread her clothes on the rocks and fill them with sun. At night she would clutch those clothes and endure the cold by remembering the light.
Anastasia lifted her face from the bedding and sat up.
“The chapel…”
She had not gone into the forest for a full week. No rain had fallen in that time, yet she worried about the shoes she had hidden beneath the stone seat.
I should go check on them.
She rose, approached the door, laid her hand on the knob, then let it fall weakly. No one had ordered her to remain in this room. Even so, Anastasia had not taken a single step outside of her own accord.
Until now, everyone had ordered her not to come out. And yet…
“Just cry as loud as you want.”
The voice that had told her to do freely the very things everyone else had forbidden brushed past her ear. In that instant she pressed the back of her hand to her flushed nape. After standing alone for a long while cooling the heat, she looked down at the clothes she wore.
A week ago she had fled the maids’ hands insisting she would not wear them; now she quietly donned whatever they brought. Of course the clothes still felt strange. Arms bare, ankles bare. Some plunged so deep below the throat that the upper swell of her chest was exposed.
When Anastasia had panicked and begged them to return her old clothes, the maids had looked ready to cry themselves, pleading with her not to kneel. Then they had run to a carriage newly arrived from Sokolov, found a shawl that could be wrapped around her neck, and draped it over her.
Thanks to that, she still wore the new clothes the maids gave her. Soft fabrics, styles she had never worn before. At first they had been so loose she looked like a child in adult clothes, but the maids had spent entire days with needles in hand, altering them until they fit her perfectly.
Anastasia had clutched the clothes tailored for her and bowed her head again and again to the maids.
“Miss, please don’t. We were only doing our jobs.”
At her thanks the maids had stamped their feet in helpless fluster. There had been no contempt in their eyes.
In the past… they used to get angry…
When she had first come to the manor, the maids assigned to her had bowed respectfully at the Count’s order to provide suitable clothes, but once they withdrew their gazes had turned cold.
Then they learned that so long as they obeyed the Count’s orders—keep Anastasia from leaving her room, and bring her to his study once a month—he paid little attention to her condition. After that, life grew far harder for her.
“Just give her the clothes Miss Catherine can’t wear anymore. That’ll do.”
“But she’s so thin they won’t suit her.”
“Who cares? She can’t go around in a sack, so this is better.”
The maids in charge of Anastasia had looked at her as if she were filthy refuse. It was only natural; the Countess’s weeping had not yet stopped.
At first they had still given her wearable clothes. But once they realized Anastasia never spoke a word to the Count and that she feared them, the torment intensified. In the end they threw her not clothes but rags.
“From tomorrow, wear this, Miss.”
Snickering laughter reached her. Still Anastasia could make no reply and simply accepted the cloth they held out. It was a shape no one could wear. No doubt a large stable hand’s work clothes worn to ruin.
“Hurry and put it on. I think it’ll suit you.”
“D-don’t…”
“No need to be modest. What are you waiting for? Strip her.”
The maids seized Anastasia and forced the clothes off her. The tattered garment was forced onto her gaunt body. When they released her she hugged herself against the chill that stabbed through the frayed cloth—and realized the clothes were so large they kept slipping from her shoulders.
“Please give me other clothes…”
“My, Miss. Even Miss Elizabeth and Miss Catherine never make such a fuss.”
Their clothes were perfectly fitted and needed no alteration. But Anastasia, who did not know that, heard only the rebuke: who are you to dare complain of something the real young ladies never do?
“We’ll take the rest to be washed.”
The maids gathered every other garment and shut the door. Joyful laughter sounded beyond it. After they left, Anastasia curled into a corner of the room and shivered. They had left no blanket; nothing remained to cover her. Creak. The door opened a crack. Thinking the maids had returned, she lifted her head in hope—and swallowed her breath.
Through the narrow gap, eyes watched her. Eyes hidden in darkness, staring at her. Those eyes slid past her face to her throat, then licked over the chest visible through the thin cloth. At the crawling gaze Anastasia remembered her father’s words.
Do not show your face, do not show your body. You are a serpent that tempts men and leads them into sin.
The eyes hidden in the dark had watched her a long while before vanishing.
From that day on Anastasia layered clothes upon clothes. So that the eyes that sometimes came at night would not see her. Because she was the wicked one, so that those eyes would commit no further sin.
Those eyes had surely been…
“Miss Anastasia!”
“……!”
At the voice calling her, Anastasia gasped in shock. The dark, cold memory vanished in an instant, and the warm, sunlit room was beside her again.
“Good heavens, are you all right? You’re covered in sweat…”
The maid standing before her reached out with a startled face.
“Huk!”
Anastasia recoiled, batting the hand away and stepping back. Had she been holding her breath? She sucked in air roughly. Her blurred vision slowly regained focus. Then she remembered she had just struck the maid’s hand away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“Not at all. I knocked but there was no answer, so I came in without leave. Are you truly all right?”
Though the blow must have stung, the maid showed no offense—only worry. She was Natasha, the maid assigned to care for Anastasia exclusively.
“But w-what is it?”
Anastasia no longer hid her body when speaking with the maids. Still, because of the old memories, words did not come easily; she stuttered. Yet the new maids from Sokolov never looked at her strangely. They always smiled as they treated her.