Beneath the Stairs
at Wald Abbey
Sako Aizawa
One little tin trunk contained my entire life.
I thought about that as I polished the marble floors. I’d never really thought about it before. I felt like someone had just whispered the notion in my ear, like this was an illusion that the grand old Wald Abbey had conjured up for me.
I gazed upon the rows of silent portraits and elegant furniture.
The head maid, Miranda, had called this room the Long Gallery. The London mansion where I’d previously worked didn’t have any rooms half as big and impressive as these. I was on my knees before rows of gentlemen, all fixed in the same pose, hands on their hips, staring ahead in an empty fashion. Portraits of every Earl of Lowfield, the longtime rulers of this land, watched from the wall.
Shivering in the morning chill, I kept polishing the floor. The spate of bad weather had caused the grime and soot to build up worse than usual. Plunging my rag into cold water and wringing it out, I let my mind wander back to the strange thought Wald Abbey had whispered to me.
My life fit inside a tin trunk.
Since I was thirteen, I’d worked as a maid in a mid-sized London manor. When I started, my mother gave me the little trunk she’d used herself, but after years of neglect it had fallen into such disrepair that buying a used trunk seemed the cheaper alternative to mending the old one.
And so, my current trunk was even smaller than my mother’s.
I’d filled this trunk with my work uniforms and a few personal possessions, dragging it behind me as I walked to Wald Abbey. The trunk’s contents were nearly the same as when I was thirteen. The only difference was how much lighter my luggage felt. Five years of hard work had certainly built up my arm muscles. Up and down a narrow, spiral staircase I’d gone, carrying all manner of things.
“Katie, your hands aren’t moving.”
Her voice echoed through the Long Gallery.
I was still not used to being called Katie, so there was a moment before I responded.
“Sorry, Mrs. Banks.”
I picked up my rag and began polishing the floor again. The elderly Mrs. Banks snorted, but she must have been in a good mood that morning, for she said nothing more. She turned and left the Long Gallery, the bundle of keys at her hip jangling. I breathed a sigh of relief until I realized she’d left footprints all over the newly polished floor and then hung my head.
✦ ✦ ✦
Naturally, there was a reason I’d left London and gone to work at Wald Abbey. I’d messed up badly at my last job. Another maid had accidentally broken an Eastern tea set that was a favorite of the lady of the house. The maid was just a kid, only thirteen, and I’d been responsible for looking after her. The lady was famous for her temper and would almost certainly have fired the girl.
“I’m finished, Cathy. I have nowhere else to go. They’ll send me back to that prison of a poorhouse,” the maid had cried.
I’d already lost my mother, so, like this crying child, Alice, I was an orphan. I couldn’t bear to think of the awful future in store for her.
I put my arms around her shoulders and said, “Don’t worry. Leave this to me, Alice. We’ll say I’m the one who broke it.”
I believed we could trust the housekeeper, Mrs. Jones. I may get my wages docked to pay for it, but I foolishly believed I wouldn’t be fired.
But neither the lady nor Mrs. Jones had any pity for a poor orphan like me. Without the means to pay for the set, I was immediately let go without a letter of recommendation.
Fired with no references!
Alice gave me an apologetic hug and I left, dragging my trunk behind me. Without references, it was hard to find employment. I went back to the busy corner of the East End where’d I’d grown up, living at an inn run by a friend of my mother’s while I searched for a new job. But not many places were willing to hire a servant with no letters. One lead after another fell through, and right as things looked hopeless, I remembered my mother’s words. If I ever lost my job and found myself in trouble, I should go to Wald Abbey, where she used to work.
I wrote a letter to the abbey. It was far away, in Greenfield. I realized the lady and the housekeeper who knew my mother might have passed on, but, as this was my last hope, I wrote to ask them for work. The answer surprised me: One of their servants had just come down with scarlet fever and moved back in with her parents, so they had a position available. This was a stroke of luck.
I put my entire life into that small, tin trunk and dragged it after me on my journey.
Greenfield, as implied by its name, had more verdant sights than I could have imagined. It was already getting late when I’d arrived, but, unlike London, the sky was bright and clear. An elderly gardener met me as I got off the train in the small station at Wald. He was balding under his faded cap, but when he helped me onto the wagon, his bony hands displayed greater strength than his diminutive frame would have suggested. He gave his name as Lloyd. He smiled for the briefest of moments, but that was enough for me to warm up to him.
Wald was a small place, and the wagon only traveled a few minutes before the surrounding homes grew scarce. The coach road ran between fields as if parting the sea, up and down low rolling hills. In the distance I saw a ridge shaped like the curve of a horse’s back and beyond that a deep green forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. Hill after hill after hill, and so many trees. Lloyd’s cap and the sky aside, everything in Greenfield was the color green.
At last, the wagon went through a beech grove and under an old stone gate.
“Is this where His Lordship’s land begins?” I asked, clinging to my seat.
Lloyd’s shoulders shook. Was he laughing?
“Don’t be daft. Everything since we left town is his land. All of it belongs to the master you serve.”
Eyes wide, I looked back the way we’d come. This vast territory must have been hundreds of acres. I stifled a mix of anxiety and anticipation as I looked down the road. Several hills ahead, I caught sight of it.
Like an old painting, Wald Abbey loomed over the desolate grassland.
It looked like an old fortress from the cover of a romance novel. Asymmetrical, misshapen walls were set with countless, beautiful, latticed windows. A large bay window loomed over the entrance, and the pillars supporting it were carved like the statues in a museum. Since it was called an Abbey, perhaps this had once been a monastery or convent, but it had clearly been extensively remodeled. The garden surrounding this country house was enormous, and behind it stood a dense, green forest, like…
“Seems like the sort of place faeries live,” I said.
The wagon wheels clattered loudly, but Lloyd heard me anyway. He glanced back my way and laughed.
“That they do! It’s an old place. They’re in the house, too.”
“They are?” I cried.
The house certainly was hundreds of years old. I could almost believe it had a faerie or two, but I was sure Lloyd was just humoring a young girl’s imagination.
That day, the first time I set foot in Greenfield, I thought no further on the matter of faeries.