Marala Sindhu
Erebus |March 18, 2016 | 4:05 PM
Erebus |March 18, 2016 | 4:05 PM
As the very nice man introduced them to all the wonderful lords and ladies of the house, Ducky tried ever so hard to pay attention but there was a music in the air which she simply could not ignore. The sound of it was like nothing she'd ever heard, not since waking up in the playground, perhaps not even since before. It was slow but so striking, so smooth and insistently flowing, like- like-
But Ducky did't have the words to say what it was like.
Then there was a change in the tempo - another one - and the very nice man was introducing them to the lady Hekate who was certainly the most wonderful of all the ladies of the house! She descended the staircase to the sound of a new instrument and her black gown slid gracefully over the steps, so that Ducky found herself watching it all the way to the floor and only then looked up in absolute awe at its owner.
“Good evening. You must pardon the extravagant reception, as you are the first official guests we’ve ever had. I don’t usually wear ball gowns and jewellery, but I certainly could not welcome you in casual clothing.”
“Oh, are we under-dressed?” Ducky asked. Afterall, they were still wearing the clothes they had woken up in and as soft as her red jumper was, it probably wasn't what you wore when listening to such beautiful music and standing in such a grand hall.
Fortunately the nice lady didn't think they were under-dressed and she took them on a splendid, wonderful tour of the castle and answered lots of questions - and even gave them names! - and then invited them to supper! Ducky, that is Marala, could not have been happier as she dropped into a chair at the table between Yi-Ze and Jeremiah.
"Do you think they have any Indian food? I expect I'll like that best, though I'm not entirely sure what it is but it seems like we'd probably like the food from the places we come from, right? And candyfloss, though I'm not entirely sure that it's Indian!"
"Maybe," Yi-Ze replied as she looked at the large array of dishes in front of them. "Does... does it bother you that we don't know our own languages?"
Marala thought about that for a moment as she started loading her plate with anything and everything, but she stopped when she realised it did. "Oh. It does, I think. I guess Archibald didn't know what our languages sound like but that's kind of sad, maybe we'll have to learn them all over again. I expect we'll be good at that, don't you think?"
"Of course," Yi-Ze replied but she didn't quite meet Marala's eyes and it felt like maybe that wasn't what she had meant to say. Or maybe not what she should have said, or something. It was kind of hard to figure out what people meant when you were looking at them through someone's else's memories of how people should be.
"We'll work it out," Marala promised. Then they ate and they talked, though Jeremy seemed very lost in his own world and didn't actually respond to anything they said but Marala figured he was just enjoying the listening part of the conversation.
"Well we'll see you later!" Marala declared as she got up from the table and turned to the lady who had offered to show them where their rooms were. "You know, it's so nice of you to show us where we're going to sleep and to get us clothes and to do all these things for us. My memory of ladies suggests that they're very important and so I didn't expect you'd be so helpful as well!"
"Ladies, miss?" The lady shook her head and gave a small laugh and then quickly covered her mouth. "Sorry, I shouldn't laugh - I beg your pardon, but I'm not a lady."
"You aren't?" Yi-Ze asked, her brow creased slightly in confusion. "Are you a gentleman then?"
"Well no, I'm a woman, but a 'lady' suggests someone of higher birth, like Lady Hekate," the woman explained.
"Oh- so only orphans are ladies, I understand now." Marala smiled and since they had reached the second bedroom, she entered and turned quickly on the spot, her eyes growing wider at every new detail in the room. "Wow! Look at the paintings! And the beds - they have roofs! And look at all these things on this dresser, are they for us?"
"It's lovely, thank you," Yi-Ze agreed. The woman looked like she wanted to say more but she lowered her head and simply wished them a good evening and repeated Lady Hekate's words that they could call on her if there was anything they needed.
Marala bounced on to one of the beds and ran her fingeres over the thick embroidery of the beautiful, shimmering green bedspread. Then she pulled out the questionnaire which had been returned to her and began to read all of the comments on it.
"Do you think we should read them out aloud? Apparently I should like the meaning of my name but since I don't know any Indian, I suppose I'll have to ask Hekate about it tomorrow."
"I'd rather not," Yi-Ze said. "Read them aloud, I mean. I hope you don't mind, I hope it isn't rude of me to-"
"I don't mind," Marala broke in. "I suppose we should get ready for bed, these clothes and things must be- oh! Take a look at these!" Marala moved the two sets of pajamas aside and uncovered two dictionaries, one in Indian and one in Chinese. "I think these are dictionaries and there's one for each of us. I think maybe I'm going to look up what my name means, here you should look too, but for your name instead of mine because I don't think Marala would be in a Chinese dictionary."
Marala turned the pages eagerly to the letter M and searched down the page but her enthusiasm fell as she found words like 'Masala' but no sign of her actual name. "I can't find it. I guess maybe names aren't in dictionaries - are you having any better luck? Maybe Hekate spelled it wrong and she meant Massala, which means spicy, but I don't think I want that to be my name."
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