I Am Bree - Book 1

Chapter 8 - A Year

 Of course, it wasn't humanly possible to complete the tasks I'd been given in one day, so in the morning, I was punished by having more chores added to my list. For days, I slaved away for my family with no time of rest. I hardly slept a few hours each night before I had to get up and start the day again.

I noticed Greta giving me worried glances after the first week. Apparently, the amount of weight I was losing was becoming obvious. I knew all the servants were trying to lighten my load to the best of their ability, but their plates were already overfilled without the addition of my troubles.

In my days of work, I formed bruises on my knees and arms until the skin began to wear down. It came to a point where I had to wear permanent bandages on my hands and knees to keep them red and raw instead of cracked and bleeding. I scrubbed floors, washed endless walls and windows, turned over the entire house at my mother's crazed cleaning commands, and still, it wasn't good enough. None of it was ever good enough. I had hoped and sometimes dreamed, that if I did everything they asked of me, they would accept me as part of the family and allow me to take up my proper place again. I should have known better.

I cleaned Annabella's foul room and beat every rug in the house until I felt the pounding in my exhausted arm well into my short night. After a while, whatever dreams I had possessed fled from my mind, and I lost all hope. Despair didn't even have room in my heart. I was too tired to feel anything.

As if that weren't enough, by night, I was tormented by nightmares. The fear of having forgotten some task or having more work added to my load took fierce hold of my dreams, leaving me restless. Worst of all were the vivid visions of some new punishment Mother and Adella devised to make my life more hellish.

A year passed beneath my feet like so many grains of sand through open fingers. Before I knew it, the girls had taken up the discussions of the court balls again, and I was forced to suffer longer hours and—if possible—more work. Thankfully, however, their minds were too preoccupied on what they would wear, how graceful they would look, and what the prince would think of them to pay too much attention to me, so my punishments were lessened.

While working in Flora's room one day, I chanced to catch a glimpse of myself in her vanity mirror. I almost didn't recognize the face that peered back at me. I looked worn and thin, almost haggard, and there was almost a year's worth of grime coating my skin. I had tried to stay as clean as possible, but besides the fact that I had no time for such things, I had been forbidden the use of a bathtub. As a lowly scullery wench, I could use a bowl and a dirty rag if I needed to clean myself.

That first visit to Father's study had been my last. Though I found comfort in the familiarity of his scent and the things he'd used to love, I had resolved not to let my family see me collapse beneath the weight of their torment, and if I ventured there, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from letting go the torrent of emotions I felt. I was going to stay strong.

In a year, I had learned to carry the trays evenly and without mishap. I learned to open doors with my hands impossibly full, and because of some iron in me, I bore up under Adella's treatment of me without a single tear. And I forgot what it was to be loved and cared for. Despite Greta's kindness, she couldn't spare much time for me, either.

Another birthday came and went, and when it was just a year after the news of Father's death, Mother began making plans to travel to the city for the New Year's Ball. A year ago, I'd had the prospect of going along, but now, to my relief, I was to be left behind with the other servants.

"It was only at your father's insistence that you would have gone, anyway. He was ever a foolish man." She told me as I stood at the supper table one night, waiting to serve.