"Why don't you sit beside me, young boy?"
She called for Andrew, her voice calming and full of care in it.
"I am fine, here, thank you"
Andrew politely rejected her.
Smiling, a genuine smile, she spoke.
"Okay, if you are comfortable with standing there in a distance, staring at me like a creep"
"Why does she sounds like Lady Isabelle?"
Andrew questioned himself in his mind, he tilted his head to the side in confusion.
She turned her gaze away from Andrew and asked him, while looking up the sky.
"How are you?"
"Huh?"
Andrew was surprised that a stranger was asking such questions.
"How are you doing in this castle?"
That unknown lady made her sentence clear and straight forward for him to understand.
"I am doing fine"
Andrew answered, he shifted up his gaze to look at the dazzling sky infront of him.
"Oh really? Then why the sad look on her face?"
"Can I know?"
This question tooke him be surprise and he turned to look at the lady.
"Pardon me?"
''It's just a simple question which are you questioning back, do you feel hard on earing?"
She sounded so caring that Andrew spoke, letting his heart out.
"I am not happy"
"I am terrified"
His eyes felt hot, the wind which was blowing was cold, but his eyes were hot, burning due to tears he had controlled on due to this his vision got blur.
This made the tears to fill his eyes.
"From whom? My dear?"
She asked looking at Andrew.
"From everything and everyone present in this castle"
He confessed his feelings, the feelings he kept locked inside his heart, he was scared that one day this feeling will come out, in a bad way which can bring harm to him and his father and slowly this fear was killing him slowly from inside or it was eating him from inside.
"Oh my, you went through so much I see"
"I wanna go back home, but I can't as if I did I will go against the lady"
He said crying.
"So?"
She asked confused.
"If she gets offended, she ....might hurt... my father"
He sobbed and his voice cracked in middles.
"The one who is waiting at the village?"
"Yes, I know that he is not my real dad, my real dad is somewhere that I don't know and he don't even know where I am"
Even while crying he had his grip on the bread.
"How do you come to know that the one who raised you, is not your true father?"
"My father would always tell me a story where a farmer found a little child one day and brought him home and raised him, but the farmer knew the fact that someone will take away the child one day"
Andrew said crying, he erased his tears with the back of his sleeves.
"Why don't you come here and give me a hug?"
She opened her arms and faced towards him, while sitting on the bench.
"Thank you, my lady"
He came closer to her and hugged her.
Andrew felt alone on this big castle, he really needed a hug right now and after what he witnessed at the dining table, he really needed someone's shoulder, he wanted to cry his heart out, he wanted to confess how much he hated this palce.
She kissed him on the forehead and mumbled something which Andrew did not heard, but while she was mumbling against his forehead, he did not felt her breath nor the warmth.
Which he found strange.
When Andrew looked up the lady was not there anymore, she was gone, vanished into the thin air.
"Am I imagining things now?"
Andrew questioned himself.
He went around in the garden, searching for that lady, but she was nowhere.
The whole garden filled with the sound of cricket and sound of owl.
But no signs of that lady.