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Dove

Present Day

“ G et up.” The words are spat at me as I push my bruised knees off the mosaic tile below. I’ve spent many movements, turns and rotations scrubbing these floors, and they still entrance me with their colourful designs of florals and tiny creatures. They are a veritable garden underfoot and presumably all hand-painted by a single person throughout a lifespan—well before my time, considering these floors are centuries old.

No one knows the exact cycle, but that’s because these floors and walls…do not belong to us.

“Damn turn dreaming, good for nothing, mute,” the old woman, Bridget, mutters as she reaches for my upper arm and yanks me up to my meagre five-foot height.

It is times like these that I hold a quick remark on the tip of my tongue. Maybe I could tell her to jump in the lake of the souls—the very lake that meanders by the temple gardens—or wish that her morning chores end in a face-first trip into some cow dung . Mostly, I pray she will just leave me alone, but that requires some words leaving my lips, and my body does not play fair when it comes to expressing myself, specifically when speaking to other people.

The sting of her sharp, serrated nails through the thin cloth of my blouse makes me wince. A scowl moves over my lips.

Lazy old bat.

She’s come to pass her jobs on to me again, a familiar dance between Bridget and myself.

“Here.” She shoves a dry rag in my hand, making me drop the wet sponge I’m holding. “Cardinal’s study needs dusting, and you know how my lungs wheeze,” she says, giving a non-committal cough. I roll my eyes and tug the rag from her hand, going to pick up the sponge and bucket I was using to clean the floors.

It is not as simple as swapping a much-begrudged task. I don’t get a choice in the matter.

You see, as the resident mute girl, I am an easy target. If you miss changing one of the priestess’s sheets, blame it on the mute girl. If the stables aren’t mucked, blame it on the mute girl. If the silver isn’t shining, blame it on the mute girl. You get the picture. I am easy prey, and I truly can’t blame them for seeing me as such.

We are all in the same boat.

Servants of circumstance.

There is no way to get ahead. The work within the temple is endless, and there is no end in sight. It grates on the soul, especially when you are trapped within the confines of your own boundaries. We are merely pawns in a bigger game, and everyone is playing for themselves. I learnt a long time ago that to play the game meant destruction. A slow breaking of morals. A full extraction of long-forgotten hearts and souls.

However, I have one advantage. I was raised here. I was given one of their names, and Cardinal seems to have a soft spot for me. Well, she doesn’t punish me when my name is stirred into the pot—another valid reason I continue to have a target on my back.

I keep my head down as I move silently on the tiled floors, and I soon find myself in front of Cardinal’s door. It is an elaborately decorated piece of solid oak inlaid with an abundance of bird species. I can name most of them, except for a couple that still elude me, even though I’ve spent hours at night scouring the library archives for clues.

My eyes fall on a familiar spot where a small bird is in flight. My namesake, a dove, inching its way towards the receding sky. It is ironic, really. This dove has direction, possibly a purpose to fulfil, and full freedom to explore it. On the other hand, my freedom is entombed within these temple and garden walls. It is hard not to question why the priestesses aren’t allowed to leave—except the high priestess—but in the end, the only thing that greets me beyond these walls is fear.

It is so palpable that I wonder if it all belongs to me. If I leave, agony will follow. I am safe in my sanctuary. That is enough. It must be enough.

Pushing the heavy door open, the smell of patchouli wafts towards me, lingering in the back of my throat. I gulp it down begrudgingly and make quick work of the job that was unceremoniously dumped on my shoulders. Trying my best to forget about the old bat, I remember who I am doing this for—Cardinal, the high priestess.

Her study is all warm colours, rich reds and browns with golden accents. It is a jarring contrast to what presents us outside during the light now visible through stained glass balcony doors.

A heavy gloom sits ominously above the Kingdom of Haven. It is rare to have a bright sunny turn here. Instead, a thick mist hangs high in the sky that has no problem forming frequent rain showers, producing an unfavourable environment for our vegetable gardens outside.

With our outdoor gardens now mini pools, we have moved all our new seedlings to the greenhouse, which is not big enough to produce enough food for all the temple residents. It is one of my growing concerns for this coming winter season. But we are told the Goddess will provide and to trust in her.

Heaving a large sigh, I move away from the balcony doors and finish up one quick pass of the room before leaving.

Just before stepping out the door, my eyes find their way to a painting of a wheat-haired gentleman with piercing blue eyes, the same shade as his mother’s. A face I’ve seen every turn in my mind since I arrived at this temple, falling at his mercy and his feet. A memory of an arresting touch slices through me as I remember basking in the soft skin of his hand as it reached to take mine and pull me up. Those ice-blue eyes pierced mine for the first and last time at eleven rotations old.

A broken girl latching onto her first dream. An unrealistic reality.

Scoffing to myself, I hurry out of the room. Stop that! He is not yours and never will be. You are a servant. Nothing more.

When the stars arrive, I dream of ice-blue eyes that gradually turn a shade of onyx so dark I cannot see where they end, and I begin.

After completing my morning chores, it is time to check in on the garden before the evening to see what vegetables and fruits need more care before the chill of the night takes over.

Walking through the temple’s quiet, grey stone halls, I hear the unsettled chirps and squarks of the aviary, a large, open-air atrium housing the Goddess’s most prized creatures.

The priestesses say that each bird, with their wings of flight, is created in the image of the Goddess—a representation that only our winged creatures can truly ever come close enough to the stars, to her.

Servants are not allowed in the aviary, one of the few places off-limits to us within the temple. Only the priestesses have the affinity to care for the winged creatures within. Well, that’s what we are told anyway. I know differently.

Unlike the rest of the people in this temple, I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I seek answers, making it my business to find them.

“Dove,” the hissed sound sweeps past me in a flourish of dusty pink robes. “You should not linger.”

Kestrel is right. However, I cannot take my eyes off the drooping branches of the tree, dropping half-lifeless leaves, a reminder of our growing turmoil within Haven, my only home.

“If the priestesses see you, they will see fit to punish you, and Cardinal won’t be here to save you.” With those last words, I increase my speed towards our destination just beyond the atrium, the last room surrounded by glass walls.

I don’t understand the priestesses need to protect the aviary, which can be easily viewed through its large arched windows. But as I am told, such things aren’t for me to understand. I am here to serve the priestesses who serve the Goddess. Nothing more, nothing less.

The priestess beside me understands better than anyone how strict the rules are within the temple. Most of them are unwritten to the naked eye but on full display if you know what you are looking for. It is a type of warfare I have lived with my whole life, even before the temple entombed me at the age of eleven.

Kestrel opens the glass door into my own slice of heaven, a slight warmth and hint of soil in the air, greeting us.

I nod in thanks, and a soft smile encases her wide face, her hair hiding behind the pink hood that sits on her head, pooling down her back in an almost cape-like fashion. I do not envy the garb the priestesses wear in modesty.

Stepping inside the space that holds six large garden beds and an array of potted fruit trees I’ve somehow managed to save from the unpredictable weather, peace and calm wash over me. I have few places I can call my own, and this is one of them.

The greenhouse is surrounded by large glass panes that allow the paltry light to filter in from the suns outside. Rotation after Rotation, the weather and soil grow more unpredictable.

My mother once told me stories of a cycle when this land flourished. But then the villagers started to notice a natural decline. She taught me ways to work with the land that respect its bounty in a reciprocal exchange of energy. I carried her practices into this small greenhouse, and for a time, it was working. Until I noticed it wasn’t.

Even bees I once kept towards the far windows in hives, opened to the outside elements, took their leave. On that turn, I shed tears for what I knew was coming. Mother taught me to look to nature for clues, and our smallest creatures never failed us.

Worms in the soil meant it was ripe for growing. Caterpillars kept the smaller diseased insects at bay. And bees supported our pollination process throughout the kingdom. Without them, the delicate dance between birth and death tilted too far in one direction.

Knowing there is nothing I can do here to control such matters, I move past my wallowing and make my way towards the small patch of delicate violet flowers at the back of the room. I look at the lack of harvest for the upcoming full moon. Cardinal will not be pleased. The fairy’s breath is a favoured ritual ingredient among the priestesses during certain moon passages. Now, with its dwindling reserve, it is only supplied to the high priestess herself.

I suspect this latest batch will not be enough for her needs. I will have to stretch it as usual. The real challenge will be the next full moon. There is every possibility this precious flower will not grow back after this. Each rhythm I trim the flower heads, less and less return.

“Dove, over here.” Kestrel stands in front of our last orange tree, a shrivelled orange ball in her hand. “This is the last of the citrus fruits.”

I want to tell her we are lucky they have lasted this long, but the words will not breach my lips. Taking the shrivelled piece of fruit from her, I look up towards the sliver of suns peeking through the grey clouds above.

It’s time. The words swirl around in my head. I know what I need to do.

“Did you hear?”

“There’s an announcement from the high priestess.”

“I heard she’s on her way from the king’s residence now.”

News travels fast among the temple servants, and as I enter the kitchen to drop off my produce from the afternoon trek into the greenhouse, I find conversation steering towards Cardinal.

The smell of freshly baked bread consumes me as I slip through the older women who stir large pots of soup, my tummy grumbling.

Placing the yield from my harvest in a basket opposite the women, I listen intently, invisibility my secret power within these walls, hoping my hunger does not give me away.

“She will be here before the two suns retreat below the ocean.”

“I heard the news is about Prince Castor.”

“There’s only one thing this could be about.”

My body stills as they discuss, the carrot hovering in my hand over its remaining friends below. At the mention of the prince, my whole world starts to spin on its axis. Not Castor. Please not Castor.

“Child, make yourself useful and bring me those carrots.” The woman with lines wrinkling her face squints as she crooks her wooden stirring spoon at me.

The glare breaks my fog, and I hurriedly grab the carrots and bring them to her.

“Goddess, child, sometimes I wonder if it’s not just your voice but also your hearing,” she chides.

I have lived with these women since I arrived on fallen knees as a small girl, and none of them took it upon themselves to help raise me. I did that all on my own. As long as I could cook and clean, my fate was solidified.

They barely have a maternal bone in their bodies, which explains their utter lack of care for me—probably their jealousy, too.

I am the youngest. The only one of them who did not arrive as a discarded spinster, cast out by the rules of society to serve the Goddess until their crossing of the veil. Vitality and youth are still on my side. Each rhythm they look at me, all they see is opportunities misplaced.

Maybe I would feel a shred of sympathy for them if they gave me an ounce of respect, but it’s hard to sympathise with people who beat you down each turn.

Placing the four carrots that I managed to secure from my very sad garden bed beside her, I’m careful not to make eye contact. Life is easier when I don’t engage with the monsters living within these walls. It’s like they crave a fight, the opening to take a chunk out of me. But I know better than to aggravate the women I work alongside. I quickly bustle out of the suddenly cramped space, my feet taking me towards the place that fills my stomach with a swarm of bees.