章 42: Open Wounds and Old Scars
Blood speckled the polished granite floors of the manor's main corridor.
Two maids who had been assigned to hand scrubbing away the minor imperfections and dirt on the floor worked tirelessly until one of them stopped at the sight of blood droplets writhing.
"Miria." Naeun loosened her grip on her washcloth, eyes widening. "Miria, your hand is bleeding!" Panicked, she viewed the maid next to her. "Are you alright?"
Seated next to Naeun, Miria stopped scrubbing her section of the floor she'd been assigned to. She sat upright and released the soapy wet washcloth from her hands. She scanned her swollen hands, the damp bandages on one of her wrapped hands, oozed out a blob of red into the fabric bandage.
"Miria." Naeun moved her rag bucket and crawled over to her. "You must've been scrubbing too hard; you've opened up your wound."
Miria wiped her hands on her apron and took out her chalkboard. 'It was already open,' she wrote.
"Still, you shouldn't have hurt yourself." Naeun sighed. "Is everything alright? You have been out of it these days." She peered at the vacant eyed looking girl. "You know, Samira and I saw you the other night in the dinning talking to Mister Ezra. Did he say something to you that upset you?"
Miria quickly shook her head.
"Then what were you two talking about?"
Miria pulled out a tiny foldable chalk from her apron pocket. Quickly she scribbled a few words. 'I'm worried about Lily.'
"Oh, is that what this is about?" Naeun sighed. "I'm really sorry. I know what's going on with Lily hurts you."
Miria lowered her head, loose waves of dark brown hair escaping from the conscription of her hair bonnet. She let her body decay as she hunched over, descending into a shrunken frame of herself.
'I'm fine, but Lily?' She glanced at her and clutched her hands.
"You don't look fine. Listen," Naeun stressed. "I hope you're not blaming yourself for Lily's situation. Lily may be young, but she's a smart lass. She knows she wasn't supposed to get comfortable." She held a steadfast gaze on Miria's dispirited impassivity. "Everywhere you go, she knows how they treat us folk. As replaceables, we should always be prepared. I know the pay is not comparable, but hopefully Lily will find another like this job soon."
'I feel responsible.'
"Don't you start thinking like that. If there's anyone to blame, you should blame Lady Tyrant. She's just as worse those Tyrants of 3."
Gradually Miria directed a blank, unfocused gaze to her concerned friend.
'I do blame her. But myself more.'
"The last person you need to blame for anything bad happening in someone else's life is yourself. So please don't blame yourself." Pain carved a deep-set frown into her worried face.
Miria drew her eyes to the ground. 'Still feel responsible.'
"Please don't." She shook her head. "You can't put all the blame on yourself."
Empty hazel eyes drilled into the floors. 'Okay.' She folded her hands together, gripping them tightly. 'I'm sorry.' She wrote, melancholy unmoved from her distant stare.
"Now, let's think positively." Naeun created a weary smile. "Lily is going to find another job eventually, she has time. Plus, while she's searching for other options, we'll help her. We'll all pull together and give her whatever funds she needs to keep food in her belly."
'Okay.' She nodded.
"I have hope, even if I can't guarantee it's going to be alright, I have hope that things will work perfectly fine. It's just a job. She'll get another one. If nothing about her situation has changed from what you told me about, then we'll be able to get around this. Alright?"
Miria turned her distant gaze to the corridor windows.
An already weakened smile, withered. "Okay, Miria?"
She gripped her chalkboard, scribbling out more words. 'What if much worse than before for her?'
Her friend's shoulders deflated downwards. "Worse?"
Miria nodded.
"How much worse? Is Lily's situation more of an emergen---."
"---Emergentcy!" A loud obnoxiously pitched voice cut into her sentence.
Samira darted towards them. During every pound of her urgent stomps, her ginger hair spilled out from a black bonnet.
"Emergentcy!" She shouted, without slowing down her frantic speed. "It is a emergentcy." She drew out the syllables, holding onto every vowel until she met her desired destination via crashing directly into Naeun.
As she did, they went tumbling into the ground, and the rusted silver bumble bee brooch attached to Samira's apron flying as they did.
"Samira! You nearly knocked the wind out of me!" Naeun snapped, as Samira tossed her arms around her.
"Nae," she whined, snuggling into her chest. "You won't believe what I've been through." She dramatically sobbed and sniffled. "Lady Tyrant came to me this morning, and she's forcing me to join her plot and---."
Naeun reached for the duster attached to her hip side, and without warning whacked it hard down on her friend's head. "Why in all the wonders of the world are you running around the corridor screaming like you want to be fired?" She struck her again, and instantly Samira cringed away. "And lower your voice are you trying to break the glass windows?!"
"Don't hit me." Samira sniffled. "I've been through a lot this morning."
"Clearly it was enough to turn you madder than you already are I see," Naeun said with a sigh.
"Geez, Nae, I come to you for comfort and you speak so coldly to me." Samira stopped her crocodile tears, and pouted. She would have complained some more but Miria tapped her shoulder, offering a rusted silver brooch.
"Oh, my brooch!" she exclaimed, taking it. "Did it just fall off?"
Miria nodded, wiping away chalk from her board to write more words. 'Don't lose it.'
Samira smiled at Miria and without warning lunged at her, enveloping her into a hug. "Miria, you won't believe the morning I have had. I need comfort after such a stressing encounter." She rocked Miria back and forth in an unrelenting grip. "Not only that, Lady Tyrant is trying to take away my future husband."
"Get off Miria and stop whining, Sami." Naeun whacked her hard on her head with a duster. "Don't think you have immunity to do whatever you want just cause of Missus Pedigree."
"Ouch." Samira protectively blocked her head. "How can you be so foul?" She pouted.
Naeun folded her arms over her chest. "Miria and I were talking about something serious before you came with all your nonsense."
"Something serious?" She looked between the two and noticed the drained appearance Miria held. "What's going on?" Concern filled her voice as her eyes settled on her friend.
"You can't be serious." Naeun groaned.
"I am being serious!" she puffed back.
"No, Sam, I don't mean literally that you can't be serious, I mean, I seriously can't believe you forgot."
"Forgot what?" Samira's beady eyes bounced between them once more. "What is going on? Don't tell me Ezra left already?"
"Lily." Naeun emphasized with a matter-of-factly tone.
"What happened to Lily?"
"Remember? Yesterday, something happened in the family quarter, and the Young Miss fired Lily. Now, Miria and I are trying to figure out how to help her. You know how bad her family situation is, she really needs another job."
"My goodness." Samira looked to Miria. "Oh, Miria, I'm so sorry. Don't worry about this. We are to do something. We can all pull funds and support her."
"See Miria? We're all going to help." Naeun gave her a bright smile.
With a lowering of her eyes, Miria nodded.
"Now, what were you running halls about, Sami?" Naeun looked to her.
"It's horrible," she gasped. "Lady Tyrant is planning something quite dramatic and oh so, wickedly bad against my Ezra."
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