[Thin Ice V2] Chapter 8
”Want to visit the town today, Young Master?” Ginny asked after she’d successfully woken him up. Cale was still sitting on his bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He yawned, covering the motion with a hand, and pushed some rogue hair out of his eyes.
”Town?” Cale asked, more of a murmur than anything.
Ginny smiled at him, pulling the curtains back and opening the windows. She said, ”Graystone, Young Master. You’ve only been there once since your summer holidays begun. I thought perhaps you might want to visit again. You’ve been very subdued lately, it might cheer you up.”
Cale frowned. He silently watched as Ginny finished with the windows and walked over to the cabinet with the bells. She pulled one—the one that he’d learned meant a meal was being summoned. Fixing his position so that he was leaning against the headboard and a couple of pillows, Cale wondered.
The town hadn’t even been mentioned by in the book. Nothing plot-related had ever happened there. And Calla was so weak that it was unlikely he had a strong relationship with anyone living there. So in that sense, going there couldn’t hurt.
But.
Well, there were so many different buts.
He took a deep breath, pulling up his blanket to his chin. Theoretically, it’d be too warm in the summer for him to be comfortable with a blanket that thick and made of wool on top of him, but it was not. The air never really seemed to be too warm, nor was it ever really cold. The world was just a very pleasant middle ground.
”I’ll think about it,” he said. Ginny glanced at him, her eyebrows slightly furrowed, but then she smiled. Cale’s gaze lowered to his lap, and his fingers fiddled with each other under the blanket.
Ginny went back to cleaning, her back wide and dependable as she worked. Not long after, another servant arrived with his breakfast, knocking on the door with what sounded like their elbow. Ginny got it for him, and Cale scooted around on the bed until he wasn’t visible to the new servant.
Ginny closed the door with her foot once she’d accepted the tray. ”Here, Young Master,” she said as she placed it on the bed before him. Her eyes were already moving to the next thing she had to do and so Cale was left alone as he ate, the company unobtrusive.
After dinner that evening, Cale retreated up the stairs to the second floor. He pretended he couldn’t hear the sound of footsteps following him, or feel the charged air of somebody aching to voice something. It was easier sometimes, to pretend that he was unknowing, just a specter in somebody else’s story.
The balcony on the second floor had the kind of breath-taking, gorgeous views that only really showed up in movies. The kind you’d awe over, but didn’t believe really existed. It faced the forest, and the mountains in the distance, and the garden right below.
There were chairs placed around a table, right next to the railing. Cale walked up to one of them, grabbing it in a tight fist. His hand trembled slightly as he pulled the chair out, and when he dropped down onto it, he sighed. The noise seemed to startle Mariana, who made a sound vaguely resembling oh my.
She sat down opposite him. For a moment, neither said anything. Cale kept his eyes glued on the view, his heartbeat slowing down as he breathed in forced calmness. Evening had only just started to began, and the darkness encroaching on them from the sky and the light of the setting sun made him regret that he couldn’t paint for the life of him.
When the sunlight hit the treelike just right, it looked like the top of the trees were on fire.
Cale breathed, his breath deep and thorough. Mariana stared at him across the table, her eyebrows furrowed. Dinner tonight had been quiet, Cale barely saying a word as he’d eaten in silence. Mariana kept looking at him from time to time, though, and it had only made him retreat further into himself.
Finally, Mariana spoke the first word, ”Are you alright?”
”I’m fine,” Cale said. Too quickly, maybe, as her eyebrows merely furrowed more. He contained his flinch at her displeased expression, instead watching the fog his breath formed every time he exhaled.
It was still summer. The evening was warm, and the air pleasant. The green leaves on the trees swayed gently in the time with the winds. Mariana was wearing in a thin dress, the sleeves long and loose. Her hair was in a tight updo, her cheeks softly painted. Cale could barely stand to look at her, some days.
”You haven’t left the estate since you returned home for the summer holidays,” Mariana pointed out, her voice low.
Cale nodded. It was impossibly for him to know what Calla had done before Cale… arrived, but it sounded reasonable. Mariana frowned at him, but continued, ”And you barely go outside.”
”I’m outside right now,” Cale responded after a moment. Mariana’s eyes softened at that, instead of the annoyance that he would have expected. Her hands landed on the pile of books in the center of the table, her long nails tapping on them while her eyes begun to sparkle.
Cale cleared his throat. ”Well, that’s just incase.”
”I’m not judging you,” Mariana giggled softly, pushing the books closer to him. ”I’ve spent a lot of evenings reading out here. I just… I don’t want you to feel trapped.”
”I don’t—”
”Calla…” Mariana pressed her hand over her eyes. Cale closed his mouth and adjusted his gaze to look at the pile of books. He’d read about half of them so far, and while they hadn’t given him a lot of factual information about this world—being fiction books—analyzing them for common phrases and information that seemed to intersect had been strangely rewarding. Analyzing works of fiction (in this case, contemporary to the general time period they were in) to had never been his strong suit, but it was far more interesting than just reading dry facts.
”Ginny told me she’d talked to you about a trip to Graystone,” Mariana said, after a bit of time had passed. ”A new bookstore just opened just off the main square.” She smiled at him and wiggled her eyebrows. ”I hear they have a lot of translated books from other countries.”
That was unfair. Cale narrowed his eyes, ”Books we don’t have?”
”Books we don’t have,” Mariana confirmed.
His eyes drifted back to the view. While they’d been talking, the sun had continued to set. The moons were now visible over their heads, the stars too many to count. Cale gulped. He wanted to hugs the books to his chest like a teddy bear. He wanted to climb onto his bed, wrap himself in a hundred blankets, and never leave.
He wanted so many things.
”Maybe,” he murmured. Maybe going wouldn’t be a mistake. Maybe getting away from here, even if only for a few hours, would do him good. Maybe the chance to be around people who didn’t know Calla, who wouldn’t be able to call him out as an imposter, would ease his mind. Maybe he’d stop worrying so much, and finally relax.
Maybe he just wanted to read books. And maybe that was okay.