Page 4 of Where Shadows Bloom

When I was seven years old, the night after I had first seen and survived a Shadow’s claws, Mother held me and hushed me to sleep, even though her arms were raw and covered in fresh sutures. She sang to me and comforted me.

There had been no wall back then. Back then, I was obedient and innocent and good. I had not tempted the Shadows by crossing into their domain.

Now, Mother sat in the parlor, her face pale and horribly blank. She had cried more when I was younger. Her stillness was worse.

I sat across from Mother, a knitted blanket wrapped around me in an effort to stop my trembling. Tears still clung to my cheeks. Lope reached into the pocket of her breeches and silently offered me a handkerchief. The one I had decorated for her with a messy embroideredL.I thanked her under my breath as I cleaned my face.

“You could have died,” Mother said, her voice faint, broken in two.

“Lope was there to protect me, Mother, she—”

“And what if she hadn’t been?” Her blue eyes narrowed. “I nearly lost you to those creatures before. I built this wall to shield us, I hired a dozen knights, and still you have thegallto ignore your safety to, what, go on a nighttime stroll?”

“It was still light outside,” I whispered, but with my weak voice it was hardly convincing.

“That makes things worse,” she said, her voice delicate but quaking with rage. Her gaze flitted to Lope, who stood stock-still, her posture tall and noble as a suit of armor. “Caballera de la Rosa, have you ever seen anything like this before? Shadows out before nightfall?”

Lope shook her head. “No, Your Ladyship. But there have been more of them each night. We try our best to keep count of the monsters that assail the manor.”

“More of them,” Mother whispered. She leaned forward over the tea table, pressing her hands against her eyes. “Gods above. Ofelia, what were you doing beyond the wall? What did you think would happen? A knight your age justdiedat that wall.”

Memory struck me. She was right. A boy a little older than me. Carlos. Lope’s friend. No wonder she was crying before. I glanced at her, but her face was stony.

“Did you think the Shadows would just ignore you?”Mother continued. “Did youwishto be harmed?”

I flinched at each accusation.

“Your Ladyship,” Lope said softly, “I’m the one to blame. I should have been more alert. And Lady Ofelia only wanted to be outside to meet with me. It’s my fault she was out.”

Of course she’d try to save me, even from my own mistakes.

“Nonsense,” said Mother. “She’s only alivebecauseyou were there.” She wiped her eyes and shook her head. “Thank you for saving my daughter, Caballera de la Rosa. I will reward you for your valor. For now, please—please let me have a word with Ofelia in private.”

My stomach sank. Lope hesitated for just a moment, head turning toward me, before she bowed to my mother and then to me. I watched helplessly as she slipped through the double doors of the parlor and shut them.

The clock on the nearby table ticked a frantic little heartbeat. Mother sighed. The sheen of her tears made the candles’ flames flicker in her eyes. “How could you do something so heartless?”

The word was a blade in my chest.Heartless, as if she herself hadn’t listened to me pour my heart out hours ago and rejected all my pleas.Heartless,as if I could sit silently at home while her sadness grew daily.

Rage bloomed inside me, and I cried, “Mother, I did this for you! You have been so unhappy and so frightenedand—and you’ve shut yourself away onmybehalf. But you don’t have to! We would thrive at Le Château, I know it. We could all be happy there! So I decided to go to Le Château so that I may ask the king for refuge.”

“Ofelia, don’t—” Mother did not even let herself finish her own sentence. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly, like she needed an embrace but didn’t have the strength to ask for one.My heart twisted. Even after all our quarrels, seeing her hurt made me feel like I’d swallowed poison. I crossed the carpet and sat beside her on the sofa. Suddenly, her arms were around me.

At the soft touch, it was like a barrier I had put in place crumbled away, and the memories and the fear of the last hour rushed back in. My memories flickered between my childhood terror and the one I had met just minutes ago.

I leaned into her embrace, sobbing. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t stop shaking. The scene played itself over and over against my eyelids, the creature lunging, its empty eyes, its jaws, widening, widening, widening...

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Mother whispered, covering my head in kisses.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice smothered against her gray gown. Her lilac perfume embraced me as she did.

Mother sniffled as she rubbed her hands against my back. “My sweet girl,” she murmured. “I am here to protectyou.You should not feel burdened with my fears. I wish I couldjust keep you locked away, keep you safe from all this trouble.”

When I finally caught my breath, I lifted my head and began to brush the tears from her own cheeks. It was rare to see Mother show her emotions so plainly. It made me forget my own fears and only long to tend to her own. “We’ll be fine,” I told her. “We have the knights to protect us.”

She shook her head. “No, I—I had thought so, too. But every day things get worse. And now we cannot even rely on the sun for safety.”

Mother pulled away from me, a distant look in her eyes as she drifted toward her gallery wall, past one painting, then another. She paused at the first portrait she’d made of the two of us, me as a little girl with my arms around her neck. Mother had spent months on it. She had liked it so much she commissioned it to be painted in miniature. The tiny portrait of myself at age six was tucked into the golden locket that she always wore: the one she twirled when she was anxious, as she did now.

---