Dragonfly Maid

in the Servants’ Hall tonight. I picked up a knife and set to work dicing a bread slice into cubes.
“You’ve been in the Queen’s room all this time?” Mrs. Crossey slanted a look my direction.
“Not exactly.” I scraped a handful of cubes into an empty bowl before starting on the next slice. I glanced around, making sure no one was near enough to hear. “Did you hear about the girl on the Slopes?”
Clank!
I whipped around to find Mrs. Crossey fishing her ladle out of the pot.
“How did you hear about that?” she whispered back, wiping the wet handle with a dishtowel draped over her shoulder.
“The Queen’s ladies mentioned it. Not to me, of course. I overheard them.”
“Gossiping as usual.” She sighed in a way that made her whole chest heave. “Still, you should have been finished and back an hour ago. Mr. MacDougall has already been by. He wants to speak with you.”
“Just now?” I asked.
She nodded.
That must have been a quick conversation with Mr. Bailey. “What did he want?”
Her forehead wrinkled beneath a silver curl that had escaped from her bonnet. “Who knows, but he didn’t look happy. Did something happen? I mean, with the Queen.” She gave me a pointed look.
I deposited another handful of diced bread into the bowl and dodged her gaze. “Of course not. It was only firewood.” There was no point mentioning that awkward moment with Her Majesty. “I did see Abigail, however. So she’s a parlor maid now?” I tried to keep the envy out of my voice, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.
“Abigail is not your concern,” Mrs. Crossey snapped. “Tell me what delayed you.”
“Nothing. I told you.”
Mrs. Crossey set down her spoon and waved me to a more private corner. “You’re lying. Don’t pretend otherwise. Now tell me why.”
How did she know? There was no earthy reason she should, but she did. Excuses raced through my head—some outright lies, some only partially so. I settled on a partial truth. “I needed some fresh air. It frightened me. That girl on the Slopes. What if it had been me? What if it was supposed to be me?”
She watched me as she mulled that over. “It is rather upsetting,” she said at last.
I bit my bottom lip.
Her suspicion returned, and she didn’t so much look at me as bore holes through my skull. “There’s still something you aren’t telling me. What is it?”
I cringed. How in the world did she know? “While I was out, I saw Mr. Wyck.”
Her eyes widened then her face reddened with fresh rage, and in that moment, I saw an unmistakable family resemblance. Headmistress Trindle had turned that same furious look on me many times over the years. “I told you,” she said, “and quite clearly that you were to stay away from him.”
She paused and pulled back to allow a cook to pass us on his way to the pantry. When he was out of earshot, she resumed with only slightly less anger. “I specifically said you weren’t to speak to him.”
“It wasn’t my fault. He approached me.” I could see that didn’t appease her. “If it’s all the same,” I continued, “I hope I never speak to him again. I don’t like him. He’s rude, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one responsible for what happened to that girl.”
That got her attention. “Why? Did he say something?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
There were so many reasons, and they all swept through me, a churning sea of anger and frustration. But at the center of the storm, at its very core, one complaint rose above the others because it terrified me. I lowered my voice to little more than a breath. “I told you already. He touched me, and there was no vision. Absolutely nothing.”
“That’s your concern?”
Wasn’t it enough? “Yes, and he was there. He was on the Slopes when the attack happened. If someone murdered that poor girl, it had to be him.”
“Murdered? How do you know she was murdered?”
“What else could it be?”
“Any number of things, I suppose. You shouldn’t jump to such a conclusion without good reason. Do you have any proof?”
I didn’t, of course. And what was worse, now that I’d heard the accusation aloud, it sounded insane even to me. “You’re right. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what came over me.”
Mrs. Crossey closed her eyes and shook her head. I could see her shoulders sink beneath an invisible weight. “I filled your head with fear, that’s what did it. It’s no wonder you’re seeing danger at every turn. Maybe I was wrong to drag you into this.”
“Don’t say that.” I didn’t like seeing her this way. Broken, discouraged. “Perhaps I said more than I intended. I do want to help the Queen, especially if she’s in danger.”
She looked at me as though she were trying to decide if I was telling the truth. It was a surprise even to myself, but it was the truth. At least I was starting to think it was. I was always grateful for my job. I knew what ills befell many of the girls like me, orphans with no family or prospects. But the job was just a job. A simple reprieve from the streets or a workhouse.
I had no particular love for it, but being in the Queen’s presence today, hearing her speak to me no less, made it all feel different somehow. Not like I was important or anything so grand, but like what I did mattered, that it had purpose. Yes, that was the word, purpose, and I hoped Mrs. Crossey sensed my sincerity.
The way she scrutinized me now, I couldn’t tell.
“When you were in the Queen’s room, did anything happen?” she asked.
“Like I said, Abigail was there.” I considered telling her about the girl’s accusation but thought better of it. “But I didn’t feel anything.”
“Are you sure?” There was that strange, unblinking stare again. The muscles in the woman’s cheeks twitched.
“Abigail accused me of stealing, but I only wanted to touch one