Honest Midnight

It was journey down sparsely lit corridors, a mill through the east wing, and a quick trip to the restroom before Cecilia finally returned to her own sleeping chambers. The servants’ quarters had gone unnaturally still, the clatter of dishes and scrape of boots long since faded with the sun. In the hush, the only sounds were the steady breathing of those already asleep, the faint settling of the old beams, and the wind brushing past the small window near the ceiling. A ribbon of moonlight slipped inside, just enough to silver the edges of the narrow beds.

Cecilia laid on her side, facing the wall, staring at the rough plaster. Sleep would not come, and a part of her wondered if she even needed it. Her mind kept tumbling over the past couple of days. With the time to consider her circumstances, she reflected past the ache in her hands, lingering from the constant scrubbing. Her body experienced the aches of labor, but she tried to remember…

When was the last time she had eaten? Did she even feel the need to?

“Are you awake?” Coriander’s soft voice whispered from the bed beside hers.

Cecilia rolled over. “Yes.”

Coriander shifted in her bed, her outline faint in the dim glow. “Me too. My legs are still buzzing. I swear the stairs grow longer every day.”

Cecilia laughed quietly, the sound gifting better ease to her tensions than any rest had. “I thought that was just me.”

“No,” Coriander said, shaking her head. “You’d think we’d grow used to it. But the truth is, I still lie here some nights wondering if I’ll ever feel at home in this place.”

Cecilia hesitated, biting her lip as her chest grew heavy. She had not had the opportunity to share anything so personal, but maybe, in a story that seemed to literally revolve around her, she could share her own feelings. So, with a deep breath, she admitted, “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt at home. Anywhere.” She looked down to her own pillow, heart tight and eyes threatening tears. “My mother used to tell me I was a restless child, always wanting something, anything I could get, reaching for something just out of sight. Now…” She paused, lips tight in a thin line before she said, “Now I wonder if that’s what I’ve been doing all along—running after something I can’t explain, searching for something that doesn’t actually exist.”

Coriander was quiet for a moment, letting the grandfather clock down the hall punctuate the silence. “I know that feeling,” she said finally. “When I left home, I told myself it was for work. But really, I think it was because I couldn’t stand the thought that my life was already written out for me. I wanted to find…” Another moment of quiet before she sighed heavily, a heave of frustration in the dark. “I don’t know. Something else. Something bigger.”

Cecilia’s throat tightened; not with sorrow, but with recognition, with a sense of belonging. “Do you ever think we’ll find it?”

Coriander’s answer came slowly, but with a strength that was not just reassuring; it was confident. “Yes. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not here. But someday, I really think we will.”

Cecilia let out a trembling laugh, the sound as wet as her eyes. “So, we wait for it, or what?” She wiped her eyes roughly as she said, half-joking, “I don’t know how much we’re getting working here.”

“We work toward hope, with hope,” Coriander said. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, the shape a wave in the dark. “It’s what we’ll always have. No matter what, no one can take that.”

A pause stretched between them, though it felt lighter than before. Then Coriander added, with a small grin in her voice, “And maybe cookies. I’m waiting for when the cooks leave me unsupervised in the kitchen again.”

Cecilia laughed, muffling the sound in her pillow, a smile spread across her cheeks. “Is that the trouble you get up to around here? Kitchen theft?”

“I’ll never give them up,” Coriander said with mock solemnity. “Life may be cruel, but cookies have never betrayed me. Besides—” She shot her own cheeky grin at the other woman, eyes sparkling in the sparse light. “—I don’t need to hear that from the girl who attacked the lord’s portrait in his own home.”

Cecilia snorted again, sending both of them into muffled bouts of giggling. As their laughter faded into a softer quiet, Cecilia looked at her tenderly, her own eyes gone soft for the first time in what felt like so long. “I’m glad we’re here together,” she whispered like a confession. She extended a hand into the empty space between their beds, fingers reaching for her. “It makes things bearable.”

Without hesitance, Coriander reached across the narrow gap and brushed her fingers lightly against Cecilia’s hand, hooking their fingertips in a loose grip. “Whatever happens in this house,” she murmured, “We’ll look out for each other.” Coriander added with a wink, “You still have my pin anyway.”

The two women laid in the silver-dark quiet, not asleep, but not restless anymore, either. Their hearts, bruised and weary as they were, seemed to beat a little lighter. With their aches no longer hidden, such pains felt easier to carry.

Cecilia’s eyes drifted shut, but her heart felt strangely buoyed, as though she’d been granted something she hadn’t known she was missing—an ally, a confidante, a friend.

And in that fragile, midnight stillness, the promise of something more—something beyond stone walls and endless work—did not feel so impossible after all.