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The steadily building heat of midday had been no more help in Ada’s work than it had served to hinder her Countess’s request to retrieve her freshly dried garments in as timely a fashion as usual. Nor had it lessened the sheer number of shifts and trims she and, at the Countess’s gracious insistence, Ada wore in a week. Though the Countess Cordula did not openly delight in Ada’s toils, the polite air of superiority with which she issued her every demand never faltered. If anything, it seemed to grow by the day, as if in time with the summer sun. Next to the patronizing gaze of her Countess, the solitude she found folding laundry in the sweltering heat was almost welcome. Almost.
It was on one of the hotter of these days Ada found herself again in the courtyard, collecting the linens from the line, that she discovered another soul caught out in the summer sun. Ada set herself in a sliver of shade cast by a hanging sheet, obscuring herself both from the glaring rays of the sun and the view of the castle windows looming above, from any one she imagined the Countess might be watching. Let her watch, she thought. Let her think me a loyal maid. The urge to induce some slight in her work, some wrinkle, some minute tear just to spite her, just to see the Countess’s placid smile finally sour into hate, burned brightly in her chest. Instead, Ada took each piece from the line, carefully looked them over, and finally folded and neatly set them in the basket.
In the midst of her reaching for another shift, her eye caught on something: somewhere past the edge of a courtyard—a glint. Ada looked away from her work. There was movement behind the hedge of roses, past which lay the kitchen gardens. She watched a moment longer, still as stone.
All was quiet.
All was still.
Ada narrowed her eyes, then simply frowned. A trick of the light? It might as well have been, just as she would doubtless be told the sound of footsteps where no one had any right to be, the faintest hint of a shadow fleeing from sight, the flash of a ghastly white face and glint of scarlet eyes in the dead of night were nothing more than girlish flights of fancy on her part. No, she was sure, there was something there—past some curtain, down some hidden passage, in some unknown nook. But for all her certainty, for all her searching: nothing. The castle kept its secrets, and still it haunted her.
Ada shoved her doubts aside, making to return to her work. It may haunt her, but she would not let it have her. It would not get the better of her.
Again from the garden, there came a slight rustle, then a sigh. Ada looked up in a huff, this time more bothered than bewitched, almost certain someone—be it bird or devil—was having her on. It was much to her astonishment when the effort was, for once, met with an answer. There was someone standing there. Ada muffed a gasp, sure to keep her head held low. The stranger hung in the air like a specter in the summer’s haze, their back to her. Their face was hidden behind the wide brim of a moth-eaten hat—the likes of which the Countess would not have abided the sight of on even her lowest of servants. Ada had half the mind to call out to them, when a piece of metal flashed in their hand as they reached up to wipe at their face. She flinched, watching on in silence.
The stranger sighed again. If they knew she was there, they didn’t show it. They moved on to what must have been another of the garden beds. Ada lowered the shift she ought to have been checking inch by inch for wear and set the basket aside. She’d of late taken to spending twice as much time on her tasks as was necessary where she could help it. She would hardly be missed for taking a few minutes more.
The stranger wore trousers, though they were awfully thinly built for a boy and their hair was twice too long. Under one arm they carried a basket, in which, beneath a layer of cloth and fresh cut greenery, Ada spied the glint of a blade. In the other, they held something she couldn’t quite place: metal, flat but with a slight curve, and pointed at one end—a pair of holes just above its center. A mask, Ada realized, like one of the faceplates of one of the castle’s few suits of armor that laid forgotten and dusty in the odd storeroom or out of the way corner. Curious.
Ada slipped towards them, the sun at her back. If they were some thief or beggar that’d snuck onto the castle grounds, she’d never hear the end of it. The alternative—that they were some secret part of the household—at least might make for some measure of intrigue.
She waited until she was just behind them to speak. “Pardon?” The boy jumped, nearly toppling the contents of the basket onto the ground. Ada leaned over, trying to see past the brim of their hat. “Who are you?”
“No one,” The boy fumbled with the mask in their hand, hastily snapping it over their face. Ada’s eyes caught on the side of their cheek as it was hidden. The skin there was red and unnaturally ridged, like the petals of a rose. “I’ll take my leave—”
Ada stepped forward to block their way. “I’ve not seen you before. I’d been told I’d been introduced to everyone here.”
“You have, I’m sure.” The boy moved to step around her, only to find themselves blocked again. “Please, miss, let me go. I mean no harm, I swear.”
“Is that so?” Ada gestured to the basket. “What do you have?”
The boy looked hurriedly around for onlookers or else an escape. Finding neither, they offered the basket towards her. Ada lifted its cloth covering to reveal little more than sprigs of rosemary and thyme, among others greens she didn’t know the names for, but recognized from the garden nonetheless. The knife she’d spotted before laid among them, worn and sticky with sap and leaves. Nothing more than a tool then. Ada quirked her head. “Herbs? From the garden?”
They gave a short nod. “I didn’t think anyone else would be out…” Their eyes flicked nervously behind their mask, clearly eager to take their leave. “I’m sorry, I promise this is the last you’ll see of me.”
Ada crossed her arms. “You think I’d trust the words of a thief?”
“I’m not a thief—”
“You dress like one.” She gestured towards her own face, indicating their mask.
“I—” The boy lowered their head. “It’s for everyone’s good.”
“For you to hide your face?”
They nodded. “Yes…”
Ada paused for a moment. What was so worth hiding out here at the edge of the world? Her gaze fixed on the nervous eyes behind the mask. She had to know. “Show me.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “Pardon?”
“You want me to keep quiet about you sneaking around?”
“I— Yes…”
“Then show me,” she insisted. “Let me see you.”
The stranger gave one last desperate look around, before turning away, and lifting their mask.
Their face was unusual, but not nearly as monstrous as Ada might have feared. Their skin and shoulder-length hair were the same pallid tones of the Countess that she’d so come to loathe, though she could surely say the stranger wore them well. A wide, red scar—what she’d spotted before—stretched from their forehead on one side to their cheek on the other. Their lips sat strangely over their teeth, those of which she could see were unnaturally sharp. Their eyes were red, but no less human, and altogether brimming with shame and fear.
Ada’s own eyes wandered in fascination, then flashed with recognition. “You are the one I saw in the kitchen!” She nearly laughed. “I thought you were a ghost!”
The stranger miserably turned away, revealing further scarring down their neck. Some part of Ada wondered just how far down those scars went. “May I go now?” they asked.
She had so many questions. At last, something interesting, a chance at the castle’s secrets: a puzzle and mystery wrapped into one. Remembering herself, she stepped aside, though she could not help calling after them. “Your name, what is it?”
The boy lowered their mask again, but paused in their step. They looked back at her with pain in their eyes. “Do I have to give you something for you to keep that too?”
Ada’s breath caught in her throat. The way they looked at her made her heart break. She’d meant to be curious, not to be cruel. She lowered her gaze and simply shook her head.
The boy sighed. Silence fell between them. “Inge,” they at last said. “You can call me Inge.”
“Inge…” Ada repeated. A surprisingly usual name for such an unusual person. Her expression lifted with a small smile. “Good to meet you. I am Ada Lang.”
“Ada…” They whispered her name like some small but no less precious gift. The change in their composure set a shiver down Ada’s spine, in spite of the heat. “Ah- Miss Lang,” they corrected themself, breaking the spell as swiftly as it had been set. “Thank you. You won’t hear from me again.”
“See that I don’t,” Ada teased. She turned her back to them, as if to attend to the freshly dried clothes. “Farewell to you, ghost.”
Inge paused a moment, seemingly bewildered, before quickly making their way away. Their hurried footsteps were cut off by the slam of a door. Ada glanced back, marking the direction they’d fled.
If she wouldn’t hear from them, she’d be sure they heard from her.