Entering the small laundry building, she tossed Tom's wet clothes into a large vat with other items waiting to be washed, mixing them in slightly.
Satisfied, she nodded and hurried back to her quarters, sticking to the shadows of buildings and trees, navigating around obstacles like neat flowerbeds, trimmed bushes, and other meticulously maintained landscaping features so carefully guarded by the head gardener and his two assistants.
Returning to her room in the servants' house, which was situated a bit away from the nanny's and maids' rooms, she shut the door firmly and sighed. Despite all the night's worries, it could be called a small adventure.
Her eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the gloom of the room, which had a rather small window and a now-extinguished candle whose light had previously allowed her to read after sunset, when she felt an icy gaze on her back.
"Where have you been wandering at such a late hour?" a voice, cold as winter frost, pierced her ears.
"The horse was restless. I hurried to calm it so it wouldn't wake everyone in the estate," Alexandra replied, suppressing a startled exclamation and quickly composing herself, though her heart was pounding wildly in her chest.
"A horse? I doubt it." At that moment, someone from the darkness grabbed her wrist and forcefully turned her around, making Alexandra take two steps toward him. "If Miss is so concerned about some animal's sleep, why did she forget about her brother? Brother is very upset."
"Darrell, you're hurting me."
He immediately loosened his grip.
"Sorry, I have poor control of myself right now, I have this... this strange illness again. Believe me, it hurts me much more right now. He... I... It..." As he said this, the young man hiding in the room's darkness grimaced, grabbing his face.
"Visions again?" Alexandra reached out and softly touched her brother's head.
Even though she had no blood relatives in this family, she treated them all with the warmth as if they were her own.
Silence was the answer. After standing like that for a couple of seconds, Alexandra sighed and said:
"Sorry, it's been so long since you visited; I thought your ailment had passed. To be honest, I'm very tired today. Please, lie down on the bed; I'll be right there."
After guiding him to the bed, Alexandra hurriedly changed behind a screen into a lighter dress, washed up, and returned to her older brother.
The history of his ailment stemmed from early childhood and was connected to Alexandra's appearance in their family. As she was too young at the time, she only knew from adult stories that it happened one summer during an unbearable heatwave. The nanny assigned to Irwin and Darrell had stepped away to get some cool spring water.
Since she didn't plan to be gone long, she didn't call for help to watch the children playing quietly in the hall, merely asking them not to go anywhere in her absence, and quickly headed toward the kitchen.
In those years, Darrell was even more restless than Tom was now, and unnoticed by anyone, he ran off chasing a colorful dragonfly, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, which had caught his attention flying past the open main door.
When he ran out of the house, Irwin only slightly raised his head, glanced briefly in that direction, and nodded lightly, as if answering someone's question, then continued playing with toys spread on the patterned rug in the large hall.
Darrell ran, not hiding, across the entire estate grounds toward the forest. For some unknown reason, the escape of one of the family's main heirs went unnoticed by the numerous servants, and later, no one could understand how the child had managed to slip unnoticed into the forest, the edge of which was not far from their estate.
Despite a fairly frequent fence meant to keep wild animals out, as if hypnotized by the wonderful insect, he squeezed through the bars and delved into the thicket, dark even in sunlight, full of sounds.
Returning to the main hall, the nanny didn't immediately realize Darrell had run outside, as Irwin, whom she immediately asked about his brother's whereabouts, replied that he was in the hall, just where no one could see him.
Irwin had always been responsible and honest beyond his years, so the nanny believed him immediately.
Frowning, she began searching for Darrell, who had loved playing hide-and-seek with her before, leaving Irwin this time under the watch of a maid passing by. But when all of Darrell's usual hiding spots were thoroughly checked, the nanny became truly worried.
At that moment, the couple Daley, Irwin and Darrell's parents, appeared on the threshold of the main building. They had been away in the city on business related to their noble duties to the ruling authority of the country.
Seeing the extremely worried expression on the face of the person responsible for their children, they immediately interrogated her and, learning one of their sons was missing, turned the entire estate upside down.
The first to be questioned, when it became clear Darrell was truly missing, were the nanny and the maid helping her. Getting nothing from them, the parents questioned Irwin, but he stubbornly insisted that Darrell was right here, just almost invisible.
Scolding the child for bad jokes at a time when his brother was missing, and reducing the boy, sure of his correctness, to tears, the elder Daley sent several people to the village and town to invite as many helpers as possible for a worthy reward.
For several days, servants and people invited from the nearby village searched tirelessly for the missing boy.
When the estate grounds and adjacent lands had been combed length and breadth, only one direction remained—the forest. Several search parties with dogs were dispatched, having first let them sniff the young master's belongings.
On the verge of despair, Darrell's father, ready to find at least the cold body of his younger son, sat on his horse with a completely empty gaze. Their party had wandered very far into the forest, and several times he had heard warnings from people walking slightly ahead about wolves prowling nearby and a bear passing by, scared off by the pack of loudly barking dogs and shouting people. How could a small child survive in a forest full of wild beasts?
Then, amidst the cries of people shouting "Darrell" in various ways, the master of the estate heard something drowned in the chorus of human voices. Freezing for a second, he listened. At one point, he heard it again, more clearly.
Some people also seemed to hear something and gradually stopped chanting the name, listening. This allowed Darrell's father to make out what the voice was shouting. Without wasting a second, he spurred his horse and raced like a hurricane toward the sound, not paying attention to the foot people who hurried to make way for him.
"Found him... Found him!" a male voice was shouting.
Reaching the man now shouting at the top of his lungs, the elder Daley dismounted, mentally prepared for the worst, but what he saw made him freeze.
In the powerful, intertwined roots of a century-old tree sat his little son, safe and sound; only his dirty little shirt betrayed that he had spent several days in the forest. There was no trace of exhaustion on his face. He wasn't alone; he was tightly holding a girl just as small as himself. The girl's hair was long, dirty, and tangled. Instead of clothes, she wore some kind of rag, and her overall appearance, what could be seen behind the roots, was wild.
Both children were sleeping peacefully, clearly breathing, ignoring the commotion around them.
Tears streamed down the elder Daley's face. He wanted to hug his son as soon as possible and make sure he was alright, but despite his father's desperate calls, Darrell didn't open his eyes, still sitting peacefully in the roots as if behind some invisible wall separating them.
The other people who had caught up at that moment, realizing they couldn't simply extract the children from under the tree roots, took out axes and began chopping at them. At that moment, it seemed to many present that the surrounding sounds intensified, and wolves howled somewhere nearby. Echoing them, the search team's dogs also joined their distant cousins in a concert that made blood run cold.
Some people immediately began to pray, calling upon Higher Powers to protect them from possible attacks by evil creatures.
At that moment, the elder Daley didn't care about possible attacks by strange creatures or other mystical phenomena. He just wanted to get his son home as soon as possible.
Pushing aside the people frozen with axes, he began to move the tree roots with his hands, which suddenly became pliable.
On his knees, he reached the children in the tree's improvised cave and touched his son's face, which was pressed against the girl's cheek. Feeling the warmth of his body, he exhaled and shook his shoulder, but there was no reaction from either his son or the girl.
So, he tried to pull Darrell out first to then return for the girl. But then he felt resistance—his son was hugging the wild-looking girl so tightly that it seemed impossible to separate them.
Gritting his teeth, he carefully dragged both children toward the exit. As soon as they left the confines of the tree, the girl and Darrell opened their eyes, staring at the crowd of people surrounding them. At that moment, the howling finally stopped. It seemed the entire forest had suddenly plunged into an abnormal silence.
Outside the shady tree, in the light, the girl's face turned out to be quite pretty, and the small freckles and warm green eyes were simply charming, despite the dirt and small scratches covering her skin.
Blinking, the two children seemed to not understand what was happening at all, pressing themselves even closer together. The people who saw this scene froze for some reason in reverent fear.
Only the master of the estate, who had finally found his son still alive, was undeterred. At that moment, even if a golden doe had run right past him clicking its golden hooves, he wouldn't have looked in its direction.
"Son! Darrell, are you alright?" the worried elder Daley didn't dare jostle the boy too much, afraid of frightening the child who had already endured who knows what. But when he got no answer, only a look from completely unrecognizing eyes, the man became truly frightened.
"Get me a horse, quickly! He needs to be taken to the doctor! And the girl too, call another rider," the master of the estate gave orders.
People, snapping out of their stupor, began to move.
"Alright, Darrell, let me take you, and please let go of this young lady. She needs to be taken to the doctor too. Where are your manners? She is not a toy," saying this, the man tried to pry the two children apart, but suddenly the girl burst into hysterical sobs, and Darrell, who hadn't done anything before except look around anxiously, snarled like an animal and bit the hand of his father trying to separate them.
Jerking his hand back, the elder Daley recoiled in shock, and the children, jumping to their feet, started to run, holding hands, weaving around the frozen people who seemed bewitched. But suddenly, a hundred steps from that spot, something seemed to stop them both, making them freeze, not daring to take another step, as if heeding someone's will.
Then, shuddering simultaneously and hearing footsteps behind them, the children slowly turned around.
Turning to face his father, Darrell shielded the girl, not letting go of her hand, and as if relearning to speak words he had recently articulated with great speed, slowly said:
"She is my sister. We must be together." As he said this, a blue light with a slit, snake-like pupil flashed in the boy's brown eyes. But only the person closest to them noticed it.
Darrell's father was completely bewildered. Inside him, all the feelings experienced recently—fear, detachment, anticipation, joy, anger, and helplessness—mixed into an incomprehensible knot, ready to explode inside at any moment, giving rise to madness.
At that moment, a completely unrelated man intervened, finally snapping out of the prevailing stupor.
"Sir, let me take both children to the doctor. I'm the one who brought provisions for the search party; there's definitely enough room for these children in my small cart, and they won't have to be separated."
Almost not hearing the man, the elder Daley nodded almost imperceptibly and remained standing, watching the man lead the children away. Seeing the Master's deep confusion, one of the servants loudly announced that he would also go to accompany the rescued children; several others echoed him, hurrying after them.
Meanwhile, back at the estate, Darrell's mother had almost lost herself to grief. All she could do was fiddle with a small wooden soldier—her son's favorite toy. Hearing the commotion and cries of the remaining servants in the main hall, she didn't immediately return from her thoughts. Only frantic knocking on the door brought her to her senses.
"Madam, they found him, found him! He's alive, ALIVE!" the chattering maid couldn't hide her happiness. After all, all the estate servants loved this family very much, as they provided work and, if necessary, shelter. "Come down quickly!"
"A... live?" she whispered, stretching out the words, slowly approached the second-floor window, and in the light of the setting sun, saw a long procession led by a horse pulling a small cart in which someone was sitting, swaying gently to the rhythm of the ride.
Unable to believe her happiness, the mistress of the estate rushed at full speed to meet the search party.
Running outside, she didn't hold back her sobs, rushed toward the cart, frightening the horse, which the driver barely managed to restrain.
Seeing the two children, she rushed to hug her son, but he spoke up, making the woman, tears streaming down her cheeks, freeze in place.
What exactly the boy said to her—no one heard clearly, though many people surrounded them.
Some said later they thought they heard a few words in a foreign language; others said they heard a sound like the roar of a beast and never quite understood where it came from; and some in evening conversations claimed they heard nothing, and the first two groups must have imagined it. But everyone clearly heard what the mistress said:
"I swear, I will do everything in my power."
Alexandra remembered almost nothing from her rescue and her life before it. Only fragments of memories on the edge of sleep and reality sometimes invaded her slumber, showing forest landscapes.
But she remembered very well the moment she was led into the estate's main hall.
As the older boy named Irwin ran down the stairs from the second floor and, seeing those entering the house, screamed in a voice not his own, looking at Darrell, who was still holding the girl's hand:
"Monster, give me back my brother!.." This wild cry was etched into Alexandra's memory for years to come.
Startled, the girl burst into tears again from fright, and the boy immediately hugged her, calming her.
Many present thought Irwin was frightened by the wild appearance of the girl Darrell had brought and didn't pay much attention, instead escorting the children to a guest room on the first floor where a urgently summoned doctor was waiting. But the maid standing next to Irwin heard the continuation of that phrase as she tried to calm the child so he wouldn't frighten the rescued ones.
"That's not my brother, that's not my brother..."
The drawing-room wasn't very large and couldn't accommodate all the people, so most of the escort remained outside the door when the mistress of the estate entered with the children, accompanied by the nanny, who had gone gray during the search, and several maids crying from an overflow of emotion.
Throughout the examination, the children didn't utter a word. Both allowed themselves to be examined but refused to move more than an arm's length from each other, starting to behave wildly immediately if separated.
Shaking his head, the doctor looked up at Mrs. Daley.
"Both children have severe mental trauma, but physically they are completely healthy, aside from the girl's minor cuts, which should heal soon. Tell me, do you have something the young master really liked to play with before? It's quite possible it could bring him to his senses a little."
Rummaging in the folds of her dress, the mistress of the estate pulled a small wooden soldier from a hidden pocket, the one she had been fiddling with earlier.
"He liked this one..." she said, handing it to the doctor.
As soon as Darrell saw this soldier being passed from hand to hand, he grimaced in pain, grabbing his head and breathing heavily. The worried adults froze for a moment, not knowing what to do.
Seeing the boy's suffering, the girl rushed to hug and comfort him, but he suddenly pushed her away with a shriek:
"Get away from me!"
Losing her balance, the girl fell, bursting into bitter sobs, trying to cling to the boy, but he recoiled from her. The stunned adults, as if on cue, without consulting each other, immediately rushed about—Darrell's mother rushed to hug her son, and the maids immediately picked up the girl and took her to their quarters to take care of her appearance.
From that day on, Alexandra lived on the estate. In the very beginning of her stay there, the master of the estate—the elder Daley—tried to find out if anyone had lost a child in the past few years, but learning nothing, he wanted to send her to an orphanage. Unexpectedly for him, his wife stood up for the girl and even forced her husband to recognize her as a foster daughter.
But since the relationship between Alexandra and Darrell had become very distant and cold since that evening, it was decided that she would live not in the main manor but in a separate room in the female servants' house.
Darrell, since then, had done everything to avoid Alexandra, not understanding why himself. He could never explain his behavior on the day of his disappearance or what had happened to them afterward. Sometimes it seemed to him that he hadn't gotten lost at all, and that this girl had appeared on their doorstep out of nowhere.
But since then, he sometimes had severe headaches. It wasn't the kind of pain adults blamed on the weather or fatigue. It was like a hurricane that turned his brain upside down and inside out.
Sometimes it seemed to him that from this pain he was losing his mind, and the most varied, incomprehensible visions of strange places exploded from within, making him scream wildly. His parents were at their wits' end searching for ways to cure his ailment, but all sorts of doctors and healers just threw up their hands, unable to help. Once, a priest even came to their house, but it was all in vain.
Until one day Alexandra found Darrell struggling with another bout of pain at the edge of the stables. Tears were running down the boy's face, but he didn't make a sound, gritting his teeth firmly, enduring the pain stoically, just squeezing his head tighter with his hands.
Each of his attacks usually threw the entire mansion into an uproar, and the boy, not wanting to disturb his already overly worried relatives, began to find hiding places, sensing the approach of pain.
Obeying an inexplicable impulse, despite their strained relationship, Alexandra knelt down and, tightly embracing her older brother, who hadn't noticed her presence before, sang the first village song that came to mind, about how beautiful their native expanses were.
At that moment, a barely perceptible impulse rushed from her to Darrell, calming his troubled mind like snow on a hot summer day. From this inexplicable feeling, he froze and, guided by some strong feeling coming to him from somewhere outside, hugged his little sister in return, without even realizing it, and began to sway in time with her simple song in her embrace.
The wild images that seemed to tear his head apart, stretching from the depths of his consciousness, stopped flashing before his eyes; instead, everything was covered with a steady, calming light.
Alexandra, now looking at the boy not with wariness but with the love and tenderness of a sister that had awoken in her for some unknown reason, allowing her to feel another person's inner state. However detached he was in public, however he treated her personally, this character trait hid only his inner loneliness and unwillingness to show his weaknesses to everyone—that's what she believed at that moment.
A few moments later, the boy pulled himself together and, pushing away with a couple of movements, wiped the traces of already drying tear tracks from his face.
"It doesn't hurt anymore. You... You healed me. Tell me honestly, is this some kind of magic? Are you a witch?"
Smiling softly, she shook her head.
"No, well... I've noticed before that my songs have some effect on animals, but I've never had to use this method on people before."
After a short silence, he said, forcing the words out:
"If that's the case, can you keep singing for me until the ailment is completely healed?" Having said this, he turned away, for some reason deeply embarrassed, although this feeling was generally alien to him, and even he found it extremely strange.
Beaming like a ray of sunshine, she nodded.
"Of course, if I can help you cope with the pain, it will be my joy!"
Four years had passed since then.
Remembering this, Alexandra sat on the bed, softly placing her hand on her brother's chest, and began to sing. Darrell closed his eyes, and his body, taut as a bowstring, relaxed, following the call of the voice that seemed to play on the strings of his being. The girl's hands were warm, emitting a soft glow that gently spread through his body at such moments. The pain vanished without a trace, and a feeling of inexplicable joy, calm, and some strange languor flooded his soul.
Different thoughts began to swirl in the girl's head. After all, there hadn't really been an attack for quite some time. It seemed nothing foreshadowing was happening, but from the height of her not very many years, she already felt a slight unease about the situation. She was a sister saving her brother, but if anyone caught them in her room at that moment, trouble would be unavoidable.
Assailed by various thoughts, she suddenly felt a gaze on her and opened her eyes.
As her song fell silent and the last surge of unknown force absorbed into the young man, the feelings that gripped him during their sessions immediately evaporated, though the pain also disappeared without a trace.
"You know, I hadn't noticed before how much you've grown up. You've become so beautiful; what will it be like when you fully blossom? It's a pity you'll be married off to the Baron anyway. If not for the family's debt, perhaps I would have taken you as my wife."
The blush of embarrassment that had begun was quickly replaced by a scarlet flush of anger on the girl's face as she jumped up from the bed as if scalded.
"I think it's time for the young master to leave these humble quarters."
Darrell smirked, rising on his elbow.
"You know, duty above all else for Father, and he would never give his own blood to that aged miser, but you could become my mistress. I bet the Baron will drink so much at the wedding he won't even realize you've been deflowered."
"OUT!" the girl shouted, pointing to the door without thinking about who might hear.
Sighing, the young man stood up and, throwing a long, unreadable look at Alexandra, bowed low, uttering:
"Extremely grateful to my personal healer." He left her room.
Letting out a breath, she flopped onto the bed. Darrell... He could drive anyone crazy. It seems like an innate talent. She herself perfectly understood the causes and effects, but anyway, the Baron was disgusting to her, and here he was reminding her of it. The very thought of having to sleep with a near-old man filled her with disgust.
And why did that brother save her in the forest then?
Oh, what thoughts! Perhaps if she had stayed to live in the forest, she could have met some youth who had wandered in by chance, as in a novel about beautiful knights, who would have loved her soul.
And actually, if you think about it, why are all the handsome men in romance novels as if picked to order? What injustice! Although she often complained about gender inequality, she was still a maiden, and the courtship described in novels often touched her deeply. But again, why even there do only men do the courting? Couldn't there be a woman who wanted to court a man, enough to write a saccharine book about it?
Switching her thoughts to the inequality in the little books she sometimes secretly pilfered from the governess, Alexandra fell asleep without even putting on her nightclothes.
That night, in her dream, she saw several tiny fairies dancing in a roundelay over the water's surface under the light of a huge moon.