Page 53 of So Close To Heaven
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took my first bite.”
When she’d eaten as much as she was able, Ivy took the tray from her lap, laying it on the bedside table, forcing the stubby candle and the murky potion that had helped bring down her fever further back on the table.
“Where’s the bathroom?” Claire asked then.
Ivy froze. “Right. About that.” She cleared her throat. “This place... doesn’t exactly have indoor plumbing.” Heat crawled up her neck as she reached beneath the bed and tugged out a chamber pot. “Here. I’ll step out while you—uh—use it. I’ll just be in the hall.”
The woman stared at the pot, lips parting, disbelief plain. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were,” Ivy muttered, already halfway to the door. “But you’ll get used to it. Sort of.”Probably not.Ivy hadn’t yet.
She slipped out and leaned against the corridor wall, giving the woman her privacy. Moments later she heard the scrape of the pot being shifted, and then what sounded like the woman getting back in bed.
When Ivy returned, the woman looked wrung out again, her head tilted back against the pillows.
“Okay. Claire. I think that might be enough for one day, right?” Her lips curved hopefully. Another hour had past, darkness had fallen outside. “I suggest you finish that,” she said, pointing to the surely noxious concoction in the cup on the table. “so that your fever doesn’t return. And then get some rest. I’ll poke my head in, and I’m right next door,” she added, pointing to the wall to Claire’s left “if you need anything. Don’t be afraid to shout if you need me.” She smiled again, her brows lifting. “I bet when you wake tomorrow, you’ll feel better, and even stronger.”
For a fleeting moment, Claire looked uneasy, prompting Ivy to offer, “Or I can stay. If that would make you—”
Claire caught herself. “No, no. Thank you. I’m fine. I can’t believe I’m still so tired—I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Everything will be better tomorrow,” Ivy predicted. “We’ll start to make sense of everything.”
***
The next day, Ivy didn’t rush. She waited until Claire was sitting up again, the tray emptied, some color returning to her cheeks. No more of the fevered glaze remained in the woman’s sharp gray eyes, though a certain guardedness remained.
“I thought you might be ready for some fresh air,” Ivy said lightly. She presented the gown she’d bugged Evir to produce,plain and serviceable, the color of river stone. “Your clothes are being laundered. This will do until then. Just something simple to wear over the chemise.”
Claire turned until she was sitting on the side of the bed and accepted the gown, her brows drawing together as she smoothed a corner of the fabric between her fingers. “This is... different.” She glanced up at Ivy, her gray eyes lifting up the gown she wore. “Is this how everyone dresses around here?”
Ivy nodded.
“Are you in, like, a cult or something?”
Ivy barked out a nervous laugh, never having suspected that Claire’s mind would have traveled in that direction. “No, no. Nothing like that.” She turned awkwardly, busying herself with moving the tray from the bed to the table. “But yeah, it’s a bit old-fashioned, I guess.”
With some effort, Claire eased to her feet. Ivy helped her pull the gown over her head, tying the laces at her back with quick, sure hands, then guided her toward the door.
They walked slowly, Ivy steadying her when needed, out of the chamber and down the corridor that spilled them into the great hall. The air was cooler here, so much stone around them, shadows tucked into the high, cavernous beams overhead. A pair of maids swept past with baskets of laundry, their skirts swishing about their ankles, the soft slap of leather soles fading quickly toward the stair.
Beyond the hall the heavy door groaned on its hinges, and they stepped out into the open air. The bailey stretched wide before them, enclosed on all sides by a thick curtain wall, its gray stone mottled with moss and age. Ivy tried to see it through Claire’s eyes—the sheer scale of it, the raw, rough permanence that spoke of centuries rather than years, that spoke of an ancient past and not the present as Claire believed in.
The gatehouse loomed to the left, squat and solid, its twin towers framing the heavy oak doors bound with iron. No guards lingered there now, no soldiers clustered with pikes in hand; the yard was hushed, emptied with the armies gone. A restless breeze rustled through, scattering leaves and straw across the packed earth.
Outbuildings lined one side of the yard, their thatched roofs low and weathered—storehouses, the granary, a lean-to where tools lay stacked. To the far end stood the smithy, its wide-mouthed forge cold at the moment. Beside it, the stables crouched long and low, the smell of hay and horse strong even without the bustle of grooms and horses.
It was not grand, not the fairy-tale castle Claire might have imagined if someone had mentioned a medieval castle in real time, but it was formidable, lived-in, heavy with history.
Claire’s head turned, her steps halting as she took in the scene. “This is very...picturesque. We’re in a castle then?” she deduced. “A historical site?”
“You are at a castle, but no, this isn’t merely a historical site—and it’s not a reenactment, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Ivy answered, recalling where her brain had gone in those first hours. “It’s more of a...working castle.” She led her further, out through a side door and onto a narrow path that wound toward the cliffs. The Firth of Lorn spread wide and glittering, the air smelled faintly of brine and resin, and gulls careened overhead against the bright sky. Below, men worked with nets along the shore, their shouts drifting up on the salt wind.
Claire stopped altogether, her brow furrowed as she glanced down, studying the men there, and then all around. “A working castle? Lost in the past?”
Ivy drew a long breath. “It’s real—for the actual time period. Every bit of it.” She waved Claire away from the edge. “Come this way. I’ll explain.” She guided her beneath the spreadingcanopy of a sycamore tree, its trunk gnarled from centuries of wind, its crown arching wide enough to dapple the ground in shifting light. “Claire,” she began when they faced each other in the shade, “there’s something I have to tell you. Something impossible.”
Claire swallowed hard, her eyes flicking between the sea, the keep walls behind them, and Ivy’s face. “What?”
