I tried to swallow the piece of dried bread dipped in the warm soup our nanny had provided me this morning. The moist spongey texture feeling alien in my throat as I stared at the mirror. It was strange to eat like this, I’ve been told. To sit at the dressing table with food, is unheard of.

Still, I like to watch myself eat – observe how I move, taste, and swallow. This was how I had learned to present myself, to refine myself until even the shadow of a candle directed through the refraction of a butter knife could not hide my grace. What had once brought me great satisfaction did not even whet my appetite. I simply pushed the bowl of soup to the side, making room for my elbow.

I cannot eat. Now, was not a time for eating. It is now the time to perch, I’d decided, as I glanced to the side. The wind pushing past the small gap in the window, sending the thin curtains into the air.

My knees found its way to my chest, pressed tightly against my frame and leaving no space for the tumult vying for my affection. There was time when I’d thought love would provide me everything, that it would grant me gifts I’d never known or fathomed. That love, in all its challenges and triumphs, will grant me honor and glory. It would protect me and hold me true as it had done for many of the women in my family, and those around us.

If I had walked outside into the bustling halls of this villa alone, I would find framed poems of past amors and barely-passing paintings from ancestors made to grasp their lover’s visage. Turning from the west wing, I could have looked up at the enlarged wedding portrait my father had commissioned a famed mage to render for my mother – to remind all who enter and walk these halls that this place built on love and fidelity.

Fidelity.

Looking into the depths of the mirror, I tried to discern the faces of those who had once looked through it. Squinting I’d see the gleeful child dancing around in her nightgown, the little girl sat across her nanny’s lap as the older lady pulled the twigs and flowers from her hair, or the young maiden pulling open a book to reveal a secreted dry rose. How many of these faces did I know by heart? Memories that had once lit up my face, made me turn away.

“Miss,” a knock came interrupting the accusatory voice that spilled from my heart,” have you eaten?”

“I’m done, Quinn. Please take it away.”

“Miss,” Quinn, her lanky frame filling the doorway,” you have not had a bite to eat since Wednesday.”

I could hear the concern dripping from her tone, her warm honey colored eyes pinned to the gauntness of my shoulders peeking out from under the thin nightgown. I tried but not food tasted like wet mush, horses would have a better time than I.

Still, I force a smile on my face as I direct her to the stack of letters beside the tray of food. “Please send it out with a bouquet or a box of sweets with my apologies.”

Quinn looked visibly shaken, sweeping the stack of letters onto the same tray holding the untouched bowl and bits of perforated bread. Her shoulders hung limply as she stood a few paces from me.

“I am okay,” I try and soothe her.

A small beam of light darted atop the mirror, sending an array of colors into the room. It bounced atop a variety of knick-knacks I’ve amassed: the magecraft music player, the dancing dolls, the stack of preserved flower cuttings, and a small cloth doll hung on the bedpost. The colors, the memories and the ghosts came flooding into me.

When the light finally touched the hem of my dress, I repeat, solemnly: “I will be okay.”