Alice stared at the ring she had found. It was a beautiful thing. Adorned with pretty little gemstones laid atop a polished silver ring. It was her newest and favorite piece among her collection, actually. And would you know, it fit perfectly on her left ring finger.

“Heh.” She held it up against the window, letting the light shine on its blue gems.

Knock, knock. Her heart made a jump from the sound coming from the door.

“Alice, the young lady—”

“Wait! Just a second!”

Quick as a cat, she pulled the ring from her finger, looked around in panic for a bit, before remembering where her safe was. It was in her closet as usual.

Opening the door without waiting for its owner, her colleague entered. “I don’t understand why you won’t lock your door if this happens each time.”

Standing with an elbow to her closet door, Alice asked, “What do you mean?”

“Forget about it. Why are you not with Lady Esther right now?”

“I was dismissed.” She smiled at the girl with the mole under her eye. “Which means that I can do whatever I want to do right now.”

“How can you call yourself her personal maid when you’re always lounging in your room?”

Alice crossed her arms. “Hey. If you have a problem with it, go talk to sir Alden or the young lady herself.”

The visiting maid let out a sigh. “You’re un-dismissed. I can’t believe we have to come fetch you.”

Strutting down the hall with her chin raised high, Alice gave the regular maids the side-eye. It was quite difficult to be hired as a maid here. Not only did you need to have the abilities that a maid needed: attention to detail, dexterous fingers, and a drive to learn how to serve the upper class, you also needed someone to vouch for you.

That last point had been a bit troublesome for Alice, but here she was, watching her fellow maids dust and clean the furniture and decor that would without fail, day after day, collect a new layer of dust anyway.

Passing by a new maid with brown hair braided like bread, she knocked on the door to that child’s bedroom.

What an eerie child she thought. It was a wonder how all the other maids found her cute. Not a day would pass without this maid or that maid say something like, ‘she’s so pretty!’ or ‘I wish I had a daughter as lovely as her.’

Uhm, lovely where exactly? The way she stared blankly was just like the taxidermied animals in the main entrance! It spooked her, and after catching a glimpse of them, Alice’s eyes went inadvertently to her left hand.

Disgusting. All those hypocritical people gushing over her would surely do an about face had they seen the thing. Alice had been shocked beyond reason the first time she saw it. Expecting a small burn or a blemish under her glove, a whole beast of flesh greeted her instead.

She had served a nobleman a piece of meatloaf once. This was in her younger days when she had first started working in a restaurant. He was neither handsome nor tall. Plump in stature and sporting lascivious eyes. Piglike. That was a good descriptor.

Anyway, the nobleman didn’t like the taste of the meatloaf and instead of sending it back or requesting a different dish, like a normal person, he would rather slam it with his fist instead. He was promptly escorted out by the servants but the damage was already done.

The poor piece of meatloaf had been a lasting memory. And that child’s hand looked just like that. At least she had the good sense of hiding it by always wearing that glove of hers.

The child hadn't noticed Alice entering so she knocked on the door. “You asked for me, my lady?”

She spoke without turning. “Did you put this here?” She was staring at the vase on the table.

“Yes, I thought they looked pretty.”

And they were. Arranged with four different flowers, one of which coming from the Duchess’ private collection, the vase holding them sat in the middle of the room, giving it a harmonious feeling. There was no way she didn’t like this one, Alice thought. Even the Duchess had liked her arranged flowers.

“Remove them, I don’t want to see another petal or stem in my room ever again.”

Her hand twitched. “May I ask why? I’m quite proud of this arranged bouquet.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Then why are you staring at them?” Alice blurted out immediately.

The girl turned her head. “What did you say?”

“If there is something about it that bothers you, then just tell me. Asking me to remove it is disservice to the flowers.”

“Hey.” Her voice was icy. “Did I ask you for your opinion?”

Yikes. Look at her, a few days playing noble and she is already speaking like one. They really were all the same. Alice had thought the Duchess to be different, but she too had had the same thought patterns like a typical noble. Not knowing that her actions, flaunting her wealth and knowledge, could be seen as off-putting.

“Fine, but I really do think this room would benefit from having a bit more color.” Alice went and grabbed the flowers by the stem, giving it a shake before tucking them in her arms. Drops of clear water streaked on the hardwood table despite her less-than-stellar effort to not let the water drip.

“Anything else I can do for you, my lady?” She almost scoffed.

“No, get out.”

Cute my butt, Alice cursed her colleagues in her mind. At least she got some free flowers to decorate her own room with. They were expensive things.

“Now,” Alice said to herself , “where should I go search today?”

She skipped around the hallways, not caring that the flowers were still dripping water.

***

Golden circles, and even more golden circles. Speaking to Alice these days was like speaking to the Sun. I may even go blind if she didn’t shut that trap of hers.

“Which hairstyle do you want to have today, my lady? I think a ponytail would fit you.” Her hands grabbed the ends of my hair.

“Just leave it straight.”

“But you always leave it straight, what if we decorated it with this?” She held a hairpin for me to see in the mirror.

My father had bought me that one on a trip around the duchy. Gold in color, shaped in the form of a flower stem with small leaves poking out. Its centerpiece was a purple garnet, in the same shade as my eyes, wrapped around more gold to make a complete flower. A platycodon. Five flat petals that stretched out to make a star. Seeing the smile on his face when he presented it to me, I hadn’t the heart to tell him about my hate of flowers.

It looked like an expensive thing, so I told him the reason I didn’t wear it was because the fear of damaging it. Not a lie, but not the truth either. The hairpin should be sitting in my jewelry box in my drawer, so it was wonder why she held it in her dirty hands.

“Alice, don’t touch my things without permission.”

She sighed. “I don’t get why you won’t wear the accessories you have…”

She bent down to place it right in front of me, between the mirror and I. And in the process, made her hair rub against my cheek, my nose, and then my eyelashes. There was a smudge on one of the gold petals. A big, fat fingerprint.

“You would really look more approachable with it on. And have you considered having a smile? Look, like this.” She pulled the corners of her mouth with two index fingers.

Her smiling face felt especially grating on my nerves today. Each word coming out of her mouth, and each action she took, only made this growing feeling inside me balloon. It was now my turn to avoid staring into her eyes.

“You’re dismissed. Tell my parents I’m taking a walk.” She bent her neck and left.

My feet found themselves back on the training grounds. The same pair of heads as last time, one orange and one green, caught my attention in the crowd of burly men.

They were truly diligent, training each morning and afternoon. Not having an alarm clock wasn’t a problem as they made sure to wake me up everyday with a yell, the same time everyday.

The commander yelled to his underlings, “Stretch your arms out and give me one hundred rotations! One of you drop your arms and one hundred more rotations for all of you!”

It looked quite funny with them standing still and flapping their arms.

“Commander!” Orange hair yelled out. “I’m going to die!”

“Then die! The battlefield has no place for weaklings like you! Now, arms forward!”

Was it really that difficult of an exercise? Mimicking their flapping, I felt my body rock back and forth. It started out easy enough, but on the tenth flap, I had to stop. My shoulders felt like jelly. Burning jelly.

“Look! Even the young lady doesn’t whine as much as you!” Did he have eyes in the back of his head? How did he see me with his back turned.

“But even she stopped…”

“Of course she stopped, knowing your limits is half the battle!”

“Then this is my limit sir!” He dropped his arms.

“Men! One hundred more rotations!”

Half of approximately one hundred men, all in the back rows, fell to their knees and groaned. The older veterans at the front looked at their new recruits with pity.

A familiar presence took place on my right side. “The commander is still fond of the number hundred, I see.”

“Father, didn’t you use to do that at home?”

“Sure did. It helps with strengthening your shoulders, particularly this part.” He poked my shoulder where it was the most sore. “And doing it this way will use this muscle.” His finger kept poking different parts of my arms as he listed a dozen other muscles. I giggled as he tickled me.

“Hey, training is not something to laugh at,” he said with smile. His kempt hair sent pleasant shadows across his forehead.

“Do you think I can have my own sword?” I asked him.

He raised an eyebrow at my sudden question. “You want your own sword? What about a new dress or shoes, or something that is not so dangerous.”

“I’ve already trained with one. Even the commander was impressed.”

He smiled. “Really now? And who was it that gave my daughter a real steel sword?” I pointed at the orange man spread out on the ground.

“Why don’t you sit here for a moment? I need to have a talk with him.” He had a dimple on each side of his smile. Sorry Freckles. I shouldn’t have said that.

The commander spotted my father. “Oh, Lord Galen, are you here to finally join us in training?”

“Just call me Galen. I heard something funny from my daughter over there.”

“Are you here to gush about the young lady again?”

He crossed his arms. “I heard that you were impressed with my daughter’s sword technique?”

“Right, it was quite a sight coming from such a young girl. Did you teach her yourself? My men sure would need your expertise.”

My father laughed, and then stopped. “I’ve made quite sure that she wouldn’t need to wield a sword in her life. And I thought I had succeeded, until today that is.”

The commander stopped moving. “Oh.”

My father went to the stand with extra training swords and grabbed one.

“You there on the ground.”

“Me?” The unfortunate orange-haired young man pointed to himself.

“Pick up your sword.” I winced as an outburst of murderous aura enveloped the training grounds. Maybe I should give Freckles a little prayer.

Later that day at night, mom tucked me in bed when it was time to sleep. “Did you have fun today?”

“I saw father beat someone up today.”

Her hands stopped patting my belly. “He did what?”

“He’s really strong.”

She chuckled. “Of course, he’s the strongest person I know.”

“Don’t be too mad at him, I think he did it because of me.”

“A valid reason then.” The magic-powered lamp sent a soft glow across her smiling face. It made the shadows under her eyes look extra deep.

“Do you want me to read you a bedtime story? I brought two books with me today.” It was relaxing to hear her voice as I fell asleep, and I did look forward to this private time. But she looked really tired today.

Her eyes were drooping like melted cheese and yawns occasionally found itself coming from her.

“Mom, I can read them on my own tonight.”

She pinched my nose. “Are you getting embarrassed? Well, if my daughter don’t want me to, then this poor mother shall take her leave.”

She placed the two books on my nightstand with a soft thud and went to the door, stopping for a moment in the door frame.

“Good night, Esther.”

“Good night, mom.”

Not feeling in the mood to sleep yet, I picked up the two books. Reading the blurbs, both of them looked interesting. One was about a magic cat and the other about a dragon kidnapping princesses.

“You can’t decide which one to read? Why don’t you flip a coin about it.” Right. Eric did sometimes, rarely though, say some smart nuggets. Heads; the cat, tails; the dragon.

Crawling out of my comfortable bed I opened the drawer where my pouch of coins should be. Nothing. The drawer was empty. My pouch holding my countless coins and my lucky coin was gone. Even the jewelry box with a single hair pin had disappeared. Someone had taken it.

Something glimmered above my head. What was it now? I didn’t have someone to lie to and there was no one to stab. Why was there a golden circle appearing now? I was not in the mood for this.

But it wasn’t a golden circle that glimmered. It was a golden arrow, sharp enough to pop a balloon with but a touch. Adorned with feathers that flapped soundlessly, it hovered above my head.

Two ribbons were tied to its shaft and both had two words set on it. Coin pouch and jewelry box. It’s head pointed toward my bedroom door.