Finding The Cure: An Order of Love

“Come on, Nera! Wake up! We have very important company today!”

The shrill voice of my lady's maid Hana cut through my dreams like a knife. I groaned, curling deeper into the tangle of sheets, I didn’t want to get up. I was having such a nice dream of the forest. Another knock on my door had me finally dragging myself upright. The cold stone floor bit at my bare feet as I sat up helping me wake up further. I shivered in my thin sleep gown and glared at the window that a terrible draft always seemed to find itself through no matter what was done. I hated being cold.

“Important company? Yea, right.” I muttered to myself making sure it was low enough Hana wouldn't hear. Hana would smack me if she heard my sass or saw my eye roll. Rubbing the grit of sleep from my eyes I began to wake myself up for whatever torment waited me in the form of “important company”. That usually meant more of Father’s tiresome suitors, each one awful in their own way. He was eager for me to choose one of the three, but I still had four months before my twentieth birthday, and I intended to cling to every last day of freedom I had left. Not that I had much freedom anyways. Unlike my brother who had all the freedom I could only dream of. Why couldn’t I be like my brother, riding off on adventures, free to see the world? Instead, I was trapped in these suffocating walls, my only escape the wild woods beyond the estate.

At least the woods gave me some reprieve. Whenever I could, I slipped through one of the forgotten escape tunnels by my room and slipped into the wild. I felt like I could truly breathe when I was in the forest. I never ventured too far, even though I was dying to. I didn't though with the risk of Father’s wrath and the punishments he could dull out. Scars on my back burned in reminder of how cruel his punishments could be.

The sharp scent of pine and damp moss, the crack of twigs underfoot, the distant cry of a hawk. It was all a song that danced in my heart, and I ached to be in the forest to listen and dance until I collapsed in exhaustion. In those moments the forest felt more like home than the velvet-draped walls of this estate ever had. Even though I went out with my dog belladonna, she would run off to chase an animal like a bunny, while I did my own thing. So I was often left alone when I adventured into the woods. Unlike the eyes always watching me here, waiting for me to mess up.

Once, I did have someone to share them with. Ivy, a village girl with more heart than skill, had begged me to teach her the ways of the forest. Her laughter still echoed in my memory, bright and unrestrained, so unlike the stifled politeness demanded here. I remembered how I would often tell her if she pulled her hair back the black locks wouldn’t cover her blue eyes making it easier for her to hunt her prey.  Every time she’d miss or grab the wrong plant. Her blue eyes glittered like the ocean full of amusement. One day she bent over laughing when I asked why she rubbed mud on her face like that. She told me it wasn't mud, it was freckles. We both laughed until we cried.  I smiled at that memory. I had a lot of memories like that with her until Father caught me sneaking back one day and saw her with me. All she wanted to do was make sure I made it home safe because it was getting later than usual for me to be out.

He had called her a “bad influence” and forbidden me to ever see her again. He thought she was the reason I snuck out into the forest. He was wrong and did not believe me when I had told him that wasn’t the case at all. His mind was made up and there was no changing it.

When he made the mistake of forbidding me from ever seeing her again. He should have been more specific with his rule. He had said we couldn’t see each other. He hadn’t said anything about leaving notes tucked beneath tree roots or hidden under rocks.

Ivy’s recent letter was informing me she was married recently. She wrote to me about her husband, he sounded like a decent enough person to spend your life with but she didn’t sound like she was in love with him. Still, she was content, and that had to be enough. I still bring her herbs, berries, even games to sell. I didn’t need the coin. I needed the practice and the sense of freedom only the forest could provide me. Practice for what? For the dream that had burned in me since childhood. To adventure. To matter. To live beyond these suffocating walls. To feel the bowstring’s snap against my fingers, the thrill of tracking prey, the joy of finding the correct plants needed for cooking and medicine. It all made me feel alive. It gave me purpose.