She plucking several varieties of flowers, oblivious to the narration she had just given me.
I gazed at her, taken aback by what she was doing.
"What are you doing?" I inquired.
"Have you gone completely blind?" She inquired, halting her puckering of the petals and rising up to face me.
"You claimed these flowers were haunted, so why are you plucking them?" I inquired.
"I never said explicitly that they were haunted. Furthermore, we don't know all of the facts, so disregard it and take the flowers you want home." She responded.
I couldn't do it. Not after what she'd just told me.
My parents had never discussed anything paranormal happening in the world; this was my first time hearing such a story, and I was terrified.
I was scared being there too and all I wanted was to leave.
And it took her a while before she took all the flowers her heart desired, and when we eventually departed, it was dark.
It was so dark that one could hardly see, yet the darkness didn't seem to bother her because she knew exactly how to go home.
Maybe it was because she was no stranger to these paths, and she definitely knew them even in the middle of all the darkness that surrounded us.
When we got home, she left me soaking in the tiny basin she had put up as a bath tub for me and went to take care of the flowers.
After a few minutes, as the water began to cool, she returned and assisted me in drying myself, applying some oil to my body, and dressing me in warm clothes.
A little clay vase held a bouquet of colorful flowers, nicely placed, on top of the table in the area that functioned as the kitchen, living room, and dining room.
I glanced around but couldn't see any additional flowers since I anticipated her to have filled the home with all the flowers she had collected.
"Are you on the lookout for the other flowers?" She inquired, a little grin on her face.
I agreed with a tiny nod as she placed a bowl of porridge and a loaf of bread in front of the table where I was sitting for me to eat.
I was easily becoming bored with the repetition of food that we had here, but given that she had cautioned me not to repeat the words 'palace,' I couldn't do it, and I was in no position to request a new diet from her.
Every day when it was time to eat, I had a range of meals and other items to chose from at the palace.
Unless it was my favorite, I never ate the same dish twice. Furthermore, the dishes were never undercooked or insipid in flavor because the greatest chef in the kingdom was cooking them for us.
The meal made at the palace was so delicious that even the maidservants enjoyed it. In this case, the bread was hard and lacking in yeast, and the porridge contained very little sugar, but I had no alternative; I had to eat since I was hungry!
"I've already planted the other flowers because I need to create a lot of candles after you sleep. I have orders to fulfill tomorrow, so I won't be able to plant them." She elaborated. "And we don't want them to run dry, do we?"
No one liked dead flowers around because they stank.
But, since she had so many candle orders to fill, it meant she made a lot of money; why would she want to live in poverty when she was making excellent money for someone in her class?
Why would she eat such bad cuisine when she had a lot of gold and silver concealed somewhere within this poor house?
This woman was enigmatic, and there was much to learn about her. I desired I was older so I could learn more about her.
"Oh," I murmured before grabbing the bread and biting into it, listening to the crunch beneath my teeth.
Not the delicious crunchiness of a crunchy fruit or snack, but the dry and unpleasant crunchiness of it.
Bread was never supposed to be that dry!
We ate quietly before she tucked me in and left to do her work.
Charlotte's POV
Something did not feel right, and I was curious as to what it was.
Something deep behind the walls of my heart made my soul restless, and I was quite disturbed.
Maybe it had something to do with Charmaine falling and smashing those gourds?
This emotion had begun then and had grown stronger, and I did not know what to do.
After a few minutes, I repeated the process: melting the wax after measuring it, adding the desired colors and scents, attaching the wick, pouring the wax, adjusting the wick...
This was not exhausting, believe me... I'd been doing this for virtually my whole life... what had me fatigued and holding me down were my thoughts.
I groaned and looked at the table beside me, which had all of the materials I was using.
The wooden boxes carrying the candles could be found on the opposite side. I had branded the boxes with a little mark scrapped with a metal in order to differentiate which box each candle had to go to without mixing up the orders.
Furthermore, the markings on the boxes were so little that anyone else would miss them unless they looked closely at the box.
I finished up the order of the elderly woman who had paid in advance earlier today, as well as a few other orders, before eventually going to sleep.
I prayed that the following day would bring me more luck and less unsettling thoughts, like what I was going through at the moment, since the last thing I wanted was a horrible day after such a long night.
*******
As her sisters knelt down to her, the evil sneer on her face defined the evilness in her eyes, all ignoring the dead bodies that were around them.
"Hail the queen, may she live long!" They all exclaimed in unison as the 'queen's' grin widened even further.