Free Midnight's Song by Keely Victoria Page B

milady. I apologize for
being too personal. It’s not my place.”
    I gave her a strange
look. “You don’t need to.” I told her. “You’re of the
11 th ,
and I of the 10 th . We grew up with the same
values and stories. We’re the same .”
    “Stories,” she sighed, a smile
creeping across the corner of her lips. “I know those. They are
what give us hope when the mortal world only gives us bitter
change. I can’t help but feel like they mean something more. Is
that how you feel, Elissa?”
    “As a child I loved them
very much,” I began, searching for the words to say. “But I will
admit that I am a skeptical person. I believe them mostly to be
fairy tales.”
    “Oh, but Elissa!
That is the very nature of these tales! The magic of fairy tales
seems improbable – but so does love and life. The magic of a tale
is something that you can’t see, but you know is there. It teaches
us to have faith in the real magic of life. It teaches us to stand up and face the things
that we don’t understand so that one day we do! ”
    Emily was convinced of a
faith and love stronger than my largest doubt. Her conviction
brought me back to the communal fires in my village, filled with
their fish tales. I remembered how perplexed I was by them;
especially the ones about the monsters “in human skin.” Even the
scariest parts of the stories intrigued me. I was always curious
about them, even now.
    “Emily, what do you believe about
those tales…the ones about the ‘monsters,’ that hide among us? The
ones that disguise themselves in human skin?”
    She looked to me for a moment, pausing
before her next breath. She knew what I was speaking of, and she
knew it well.
    “I don’t know what I
believe about them,” she began. “Mum used to tell me that they
weren’t truly monsters…but they were guardians of the people. From
another place…another world. She always warned me that they could
come back…to be ready. I still don’t know if I believe it. I know
it helped me learn to believe in what I cannot see myself…” She
trailed off when she felt her voice work into a weak tremble. “I
truly miss her.”
    Emily didn’t even have to
say it. I knew what she meant. “I know how you feel. I miss mine
too.” I told her softly. I began holding back the tears myself. “I
was just thinking about her a few minutes ago…about how she used to
tell me fairy tales and sing with me.” I let out a small laugh,
reminiscing. “My favorite one was the one we’d sing after she’d
tell me the story about the mortal princess –”
    “Who fell in love with the
prince?” Emily suddenly lit, finishing my sentence for me. “I love
that story!”
    I smiled, for some reason compelled to
start singing that same song. I knew it by heart, and so did she. I
didn’t stop to realize that I had given up my singing – forgetting
the grief that had stifled my voice. I forgot about all other cares
during that moment, losing myself in the song. Emily soon joined in
my chorusing.

    “ In folly he thought he
came, only to bring her rain
    But the love was within
wrapped up in the skin
    That she’d see to be him
all the same”

    Emily fell against
the wall afterward, almost in disbelief. “Elissa
McClellan , you
have a beautiful voice. You shouldn’t hide it.”
    I looked up at her
from my bed, seeing the bittersweet tinge in her eyes from the
emotion of the moment. She had called me by my name; my real
name! It was an act that seemed small…but
it spoke an entire story to me all the same. It was as if a glass
wall had just been shattered. We were truly connecting. I was born
of the 10 th caste – not as a Devereaux. Emily was of the
11 th .
I was more like her than I was like Stella or Wren any day. When
she called me who I really was, she was telling me that she knew
that no matter what anyone said or did – we were both very much
the same.
    And in that moment, she
became more than a servant to me; she became my friend.

An Open