The Maid

She sat hunched at the decrepit table, with the weak orange bulb throwing watery light over her head. Pieces of crumpled paper scattered around the plastic bin next to her bed. She sighed noisily, cushioned her chin on her palm and squeezed her eyes shut, eyebrows creased. Her fingers still tingled, from all the scrubbing and polishing, and she slumped even further onto the letter she was working on. Outside, the last of a few maids chattered noisily as they made their way into their sleeping quarters. Carrie, her roomate, who is in charge of the Blue Drawing Room, had returned to the village for the night. It was her day off, and knowing Carrie, she's probably boozing herself up on a trucker's lap in that sleazy pub next to the diner.

She shook her head and sat up sharply, forcing herself to concentrate on the letter. Her pen made scratchy noises as she unconsciously mouthed each and every word that she wrote.

Dear Sue,

I have finally found us a house to live. It's perfect! The windows are tall, and they open to stretches of soft green grass; and a little curving path of the whitest pebbles possible unfurls like a ribbon from the front door. The front door, yes, that's the best part of the house. It is made of heavy dark oak with a grotesque brass knocker in the shape of a mishapen dragon's head. To get in, you'll surely have to rap the metal ring smartly, (or if you're short) you can certainly give a firm tug on the charming tulip-shaped bell by the side of the door. With that, the double doors will swing open to reveal majestic hand-carved pillars that reaches the arches in the ceiling, and you shall be greeted by the sweetest little puppy in the whole world.

The frantic movements of her pen stopped abruptly. Raising the nib to her lips, she pondered on what to name the puppy, and her mind wandered automatically to Qi Qi, the vicious Rottweiler that terrorizes the grounds of the mansion. And on how it dribbled saliva all over her shoes this morning, when Young Master cornered her behind the treehouse.

The little darling's name is Qi Qi, and she's a brown-eyed little terrier. She so quiet and mild-tempered that you wouldn't realise that she's there (unless if you happen to sit on her favorite cushion next to the window).

Outside, Qi Qi's deep bark echoed across the compounds.

One day, I'll bring Qi Qi to St. Caroline. Hey, you know what? I'm sending you photographs of Qi Qi!

She wrote for another minute or so, her face growing bleaker and her eyebrows knitted together. She ended the letter, signed prettily at the bottom of the paper and folded it slowly, twice, into the envelope. Both are of high quality cream-colored paper, and the stationary had an impressive letterhead of the mansion. She had only managed to steal a couple of them from Agnes' room today and Agnes had probably filched them herself from Madam's writing table anyway. There was such an impressive stack of these looted stationary in Agnes' drawers that she would not even start to notice that some of them were missing.

She stood up from the creaky chair, and knelt next to her bed. Slipping her hands under the mattress, she pulled out a small plastic-lined stack of photographs. She returned to her seat and spilt them over the uneven surface of her table.

Carefully, she handpicked photographs of the little gray Scottish terrier from the gardener's cottage. Old Jim, that was what everybody calls the mutt, and he has a bad reputation of killing chickens and wounding ducks by the riverside. To her satisfaction, the images of Old Jim caught in mid-trot were all clear and crisp. She imagined Sue fawning over them, and she smiled herself too.

She finally ended up with three: one of Old Jim chasing a yellow butterfly, the second with him staring up balefully into the camera, and the final one with him trotting after the gardener, his tail waving coyly in the air. She chuckled and wanted to see for herself Sue's reaction. Sue had always wanted a pet.

She penned Sue's address to the front of the envelope and was suddenly struck with an absurd idea. She remembered seeing Madam's seal in the bottom-most drawer. Conveniently unlocked. Imagine Sue's squeals of delight when a sealed letter arrives for her! That'll shut the mouth of that snobbish bitch of a roommate of hers.

Poor Sue, she sighed, no mails from friends, nor presents for Christmas; and forever spending her holidays in the dorms. I'm all she's got left in this world, she thought, and I'll do anything to make you happy, baby. She smiled weakly and bit her lips in thought.

She tucked the letter under her mattress, and plopped herself onto her lumpy bed. The bedsprings creaked in protest as she sat up to flip off the light switch on the wall. In the darkness, her eyes glittered excitedly at the thought of tomorrow's plan. When Madam goes out from her study tomorrow evening, she will be able to borrow the seal and some wax for awhile.

Exhaustion finally overcame her. She fell into a disturbed slumber, where her rest was punctuated with dreams of Sue howling in the basement; howling because she was locked there and the shadows were gathering so thickly around her. She longed to ease Sue's fear, but she was trap in a dreamer's petrify. And there was always that somebody, who's forever breathing down her neck. Hissing, kissing...