Helena’s fluttering eyelashes broke open into the warm morning air as it filtered through her windows. Wrapped in heavy blankets, she found herself taking more time than usual to slip from bed. She had slept so deeply, a long stretch was needed to truly restart the blood between her bones.

She had not dreamt the night prior, the dark night lulled her with a lullaby into a sleep like death. Yawning as she rose, Helena’s feet pressed into the cold floor.

Opening her cases, Helena arranged and unfolded her dressed in the nearby carved armoire. It was recently clean she noted, not a speck of dust even in the aged furniture. She disrobed and put on a similar dress to the one yesterday, a snowy lace dress that matched her hair and brightened the shadowed edges of her angular face.

She swiped her journal from the side table, pages yearning to be filled with answers concerning the reclusive Ursula Athanasia.

Walking down the long staircase, her hand draped along the bannister as she descended. Helena’s eyes readjusted to the domicile in bright morning light. No longer did shadows curl around the edges of the stone and make the castle smaller. Now, streaks of light ran up and through the long hallways and over the handstitched tapestries.

Entering the dining room at the beckoning of a far off sound, Helena’s eyes ran over Ursula’s tall form. Similar to last night, her attire was a mixture of dark satin and lace. Ursula was bent over the table, her long strands of onyx hair draped away from her shoulder and hid the details of her face as she seemingly inspected the papers decorating the table. Her shoulder blades sharpened through her dark fabric, her pale skin lightened past the dark lace. Making her presence known Helena spoke up, at first a chirp before evolving into a louder greeting, “Good morning, Ms. Athanasia. How did you sleep?”

Her read rose from the papers quickly and she moved towards the back door. In a silk filled voice she commanded, “Breakfast shall be ready momentarily. Please feel free to take a seat.” A blink later, Ursula had disappeared out of the dining room and presumably into the kitchen. The dining room was larger than Helena’s entire home back in her home country. Dimly lit with flickering yellow candlelight mixed with the dark oak furniture to remind Helena of a warm summer night. A lulling as the world seemed to be quieter, simpler in Ursula’s enormous abode.

Beginning around the perimeter of the room in Ursula’s absence, her eyes traced over the paintings on the wall as well as the artefacts on the mahogany credenza pressed onto the right side of the dining room. Silver and gold decorated chalices, a long ornate dagger upheld with two spokes at its hilt and on the blade. Speaking louder, trying to be sure that Ursula could hear her voice through the wall. “You have a beautiful abode, I am sorry I wasn’t able to see it in all of its glory yesterday evening. It hadn’t been my intention to arrive so late last night. There was trouble on the road, a tree had fallen over along with a minor stop because of a spooked horse.”

Helena’s voice trailed away as she spotted a large open book laid open on the credenza between the series of artefacts along the wood. The words were not in the language of the Goodlands. The construction of the language was intriguing, the font hearkened back to the oldest bible she owned: the one her grandmother had given to her as a baptismal present. Lastly, the sketched drawings reminded Helena of the anatomical studies she had seen when one of the journalists had helped her boss with a piece on medical schools in the Goodlands.

Finally, Ursula appeared from behind the heavy oak door. Sitting in the middle of the silver platter, a carved bowl with her presumable breakfast. “You are not eating?” Helena inquired.

“No. I rose just past dawn and have eaten already.” The images of Ursula being awake all of this time made Helena feel like a bad guest.

She took a seat at the opposite end of the table, looking down she apologized, “I am sorry I did not wake sooner, how rude of me.”

There was something in Ursula’s eyes, something Helena did not understand. Though that was becoming quite common, there was something so elusive about this woman. Her dark eyelashes and jagged cheekbones, like a painting of Medusa in human flesh.

“Miss Bartley, there is no need for an apology, you travelled all this way simply for me. The least I could do was provide you with a quiet and restful sleep.” She placed a small bowl of porridge before Helena. A silver spoon was placed inside, pressing against warm blueberries and strawberries. “Everything has been picked directly from my garden.” Despite her kind words there was something about her, as if she was wrapped in thorns.

“I was not aware Taranqar had strawberries nor blueberries.” Ursula sat at the head of the table, miles away from the other edge. They were separated by feet of dark wood and a swinging chandelier above.

“How wrong you were, blueberries grow rampant in the towns. They mull over hills and fill the fresh air with their sweet scent.”

Helena took a spoonful of her porridge, it was sweet and sour. Reminding her of the rhubarb the nuns would pull from the community garden when she was a child. She gazed up at Ursula’s form, she held herself high, her chin never gazing at the floor. Ursula sipped at a chalice of red liquid. “Is it customary to sip wine in the mornings here?”

“Wine? Oh yes, every morning.” Ursula’s long onyx nails were wrapped around the ornate silver chalice, holding it daintily. Her answer satiated Helena’s curiosity, it seemed the longer she was here the more Taranqar was surprising her. Nothing like the torrid lands she had learned about at the Church.

“But let’s not spoil the morning with your prying questions.” Ursula instructs, just as Helena begins to crack open her notebook.

Helena’s eyes rush over the myriad of questions lining the page again before looking up to Ursula, “You do not wish to answer my questions?”

“To be canderous, no. I have very little interest in answering them, but the people close to me believe it to be a good idea.”

“I would like to have these questions answered,” Helena tried to explain meekly. She did not want to offend her such as she was the guest, but these questions were the backbone to her becoming a journalist.

“Do you desire a tour instead?” Ursula interspliced as Helena sat with rounded shoulders. Ursula smirked as she stood, leaving the dishes on the table as her and Helena left the room.

Despite her irritation, Helena conceded. She had time, perhaps going along with this eccentricity was simply a part of the journey. “Tell me, how shall this…arrangement, this interview work then?”

“They did not inform you? Over the coming months, you shall be by my side, so much as interviewing me for a long term piece about the elusive Ursula Athanasia..”

“I was informed of that.” Helena nods.

“Yet, to me, it seems quite desolate. Because of this, I propose another arrangement.”

“I find myself quite interested, tell me, what is this proposal?”

“How about while on the tour,” Ursula tapped a long nail to her chin, “For every query, you must also answer the question.”

Thinking for a moment with squinting eyes, Helena decided, “That should be quite easy enough. Then let’s begin with a simple question, how long have you lived here?”

“This castle was built in the 1400s, my brethren have lived here since that day. I’ve lived in the same home in the Goodlands since I was only eighteen years old.”

“This is a question for those who might not know much about your status when they pick up the journal but, how did your vast capital?”

“I was quite lucky. Investments and the purchase of far off lands is where the majority of my capital is received from. Tell me, does journalism pay well in the Goodlands? I had never heard of the Goodlands Newspaper before the arrival of your mail.”

“To tell you the truth Ms. Athanasia, I am not in reality a journalist. Therefore I do not know the answer to your question.”

“Oh? How intriguing.” Embarrassment tinged Helena’s cheeks. She had wanted to truly make her beginning in journalism with these interviews, now Ms. Athanasia would never take her seriously.

“I am the assistant to the newspaper publisher’s main journalist. But he fell ill prior to leaving and my superiour asked me to fill in for him.” Helena held her hands together just above her waist, playing with the lace edges of her sleeve as the echoing steps of both her and Ursula’s high heels brought a patterned solace to her mind, “Not to say I am content by his sickness but I am quite…jovial to be here. In his place.”

“Well Ms. Bartey I am quite disappointed.” Helena’s eyes shot open, “I am rarely so well deceived. Bravo to your skills of deception, my new friend.” Despite Ms. Athanasia’s kind words, Helena felt quite similarly disappointed in herself, to be applauded for deception. How scandalous it felt.

They walked down a simple, cold hallway, its largess could not be understated despite its dark interior. No less than twelve feet were the ceiling. Hung high was a line of pristine oil paintings. “Is this your family?”

Ursula nodded as she looked up, the shadows darkened her face. Obscuring her as Helena studied the paintings. Helena pointed up, “Your mother?”

“Yes, she died quite a few years ago now. That painting was commissioned only months prior.”

“She was beautiful. Your family is very alluring.”

“Thank you, how kind of you to say.” But, it still sounded hollow. Helena wondered how she might find her way into Ms. Athanasia’s good graces.

They continued down the maze-like hallways, dark stone and iron details decorating the colossal castle. Ursula stepped close to Helena, she could feel Ursula’s lingering breath against her ear. “Here is the library, my favourite space in the castle.” Across from the expansive bookshelves, large windows flooded morning light into the room. Two settees were placed in the middle of the room, both looking far too expensive for Helena’s one bedroom apartment back in the Goodlands.

They broke apart and Helena stepped towards the windows, trying to ignore her palpitating heart and flushed cheeks. “You do not feel lonely atop this mountain?”

Ursula took up stock beside her, her onyx fabric dragging against the castle grounds, “Quite the opposite my friend. I believe loneliness is what you make of it. To be alone is not to feel lonely and to be surrounded by others does not mean one feels any less lonely.” Ursula Athanasia was certainly an interesting woman, Helena noted.

“....How correct you are.” Down the rolling luscious hills sat the small town that Helena had passed only yesterday. Smoke billowed from warming cottages, the world beyond the castle windows was only blurry dots.