To Live in Dreams

From the day of my birth, I was surrounded by Society. My clothing and manner were the finest to be had, and I was instructed in all the finer arts by private instructors and special tutors brought from all over the world to complete my education, and that of my sister, Alaetia. Everything was amply supported by the extensive income my father received, and therefore we had everything and wanted for naught. Until the ship upon which my father sailed was lost to sea.

He was voyaging to Elayath on matters of business. It being winter, there were but three ships running at the time, and all of them merchant- ships. For lack of better transportation, my father signed on as the single passenger on one of these ships, and set out for Elayath. But his ship did not withstand the short voyage, and in a freak winter storm off the coast of Pelarza it was lost, with no survivors.

Overnight, there were changes. My mother was informed that we had six days to vacate the premises of our manor - for with my father had died his healthy income, and we three were left quite penniless. Alaetia and I watched helplessly as each and every item in our dear home was auctioned off to pay debts that my father had left. We watched, too, as my mother turned in one day from a youthful, charming, vivacious and in-love Lady to a cold, hard woman incapable of the more passionate emotions. Alaetia and I worried over accommodations, but on the fourth day my mother brought to us a young Lord who had sworn to her his undying love, and informed us that we would live with him thenceforth. The matter was closed quickly, and before Alaetia or I knew what had happened we were installed in guest chambers at the manor of the honorable Lord Elwyth, a rich widower with a single daughter. His love for my mother must have been enough for two, for it was certain that my mother had no love for Elwyth or his daughter, Eleanor.

Shortly after we arrived, Elwyth departed on business and we were left to ourselves. The manor was enormous - even larger than the one which we had lived in in my father's day. Immediately, my mother slid into place as the Lady of the house, displaying such cold indifference toward everyone that I became rather frightened of her. She hated the manor, and everyone in it - there was not a servant in the place who had not at one time felt the lash of her tongue or the glare of her eyes. I think she even hated Alaetia and I, for we reminded her of my father, whom she had loved with all the passion bestowed upon a woman. But more than any other, she hated Eleanor Elwyth.

Neither Alaetia nor I was much acquainted with our new stepsister. Having recently lost her own mother to wasting illness, she, too was grieving, and neither of us had any wish to seek out the other party. She seemed good enough - she was pretty, as a Lord's daughter is expected to be, and quiet, as it is hoped that any child in society should grow up, and if she was more melancholy than Alaetia and I were disposed to be, nobody commented upon the fact. She mourned as delicately as Alaetia or I, wearing the black wardrobe with just the right amount of grace, humility, and grief to please Society. But she kept to herself, and we kept to ourselves - and my mother hated her.

From the beginning, my mother seemed determined to avenge herself on Eleanor for the shortcomings of her new husband. Though she was quite our equal in Society, my mother acted as if Eleanor were a degree further from gentility than Alaetia and I, and took every opportunity to give of her opinion to her stepdaughter. And when we learned of Elwyth's tragic demise through undisclosed events, it seemed to my mother only logical that now Eleanor had no position in Society.

Gradually, my stepsister was kept from more Societal events, until Society itself had nearly forgotten her. Wrathfully, my mother at last sent her to the kitchens, proclaiming that she would have no more to do with the daughter of her second husband. For nights afterward, Alaetia and I waited in trepidation lest the same fate befall us - but it never came. Instead, my mother took up the pretense of loving her natural daughters as lavishly as she had once done - and if she railed at us and shouted at us and continued to hate us at home, Society never knew of it. To the Lords and Ladies who were my mother's peers, she appeared a loving mother, gracious host, and tragic twice-widow, and nothing more. They did not know that the daughter of my mother's husband worked as a slave in her own household, or that my mother had veritably seized her stepdaughter's fortune for her own at Elwyth's death, or that my sister and I lived in constant fear of our own mother and what she might take into her mind to do. Each night I longed for the days that once had been - when my father was alive, and my mother was alive, and our manor home held no secrets.

Life continued in such a manner for a long time, until the Prince of Chilzan returned from his two-year sojourn in Elayath as was customary of Chilzanian monarchs in their eighteenth year. I was then sixteen, and Alaetia eighteen. Eleanor Elwyth was a year between the both of us. It was then that the King of Chilzan declared his intention of three balls in honor of his son's homecoming - and proclaimed that from these balls would the Prince choose his bride.

Naturally, as part of Society in Chilzan, my mother, Alaetia, and I were expected to go. My mother seemed excited over the prospect - more excited than she had been in years. She harbored hopes for Alaetia, that the Prince of Chilzan would find her a desirable bride, I suppose. For months my mother's life revolved around the Royal Homecoming and the Ball associated with it. For months she schemed and hired and purchased and sewed and made all manner of preparations for what she hoped would be the defining moment in Alaetia's life. I watched with some little interest, but my mother noticed me only enough to get measurements for a gown. Eleanor was forgotten - as a servant of my mother, she would not be at the balls.

The evening of the balls came, and Alaetia and I were both in attendance, as was my mother. Alaetia danced one or two cursory numbers with the Prince, but His Highness was more captivated by the shining girl in the diamond tiara than my sister. For one entire evening he attended to the stranger in the glass slippers, and the next - and the third night as well. Angrily, my mother sought the identity of the maiden, only to find in consternation that she was none other than my stepsister, Eleanor Elwyth. Enraged, my mother locked Eleanor away - but the Prince of Chilzan sought her out and married her, taking her away forever from her stepmother's hatred.

Soon after, Alaetia's hand was claimed by the Duke of Yldad, with whom she had become favorably acquainted on the last night of the Prince's string of balls. And I was left alone with my mother and the Elwyth fortune, unable to defend myself against her nightly verbal tirades and numerous threats. Though I needed it, no fairy godmother ever came to my aid, and my fairy tale was of the sort that mothers skip over in the telling, lest it be too unhappy for their child. Sometimes, alone in the Elwyth manor with none but my mother and the servants for company, I wished that my fate had been like Eleanor my stepsister, or Alaetia my blood- sister, whose stories had both ended in love and happiness. But for some love and happiness are never to come; such was my case. Instead, I contented myself with fantasies.

For it is not always a bad thing, to live in dreams.