《First Lessons (A Medieval Tale #1)》Chapter 2 part 1

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At first, Aliya didn't understand what the dreams were. Then it hit her. Her mind was her own, but she still had Lilian's memories, knowledge, habits, reflexes... Two people had merged into one. Aliya was the stronger of the two, and she was used to assimilating large amounts of information, so she simply assimilated Lilian Earton's memory.

It was the memory of an unhappy young woman who simply wanted a family and children and to be loved by her husband, but was met with cold contempt instead.

On the tenth night, Aliya dreamed about her accident in shocking clarity. She heard the crunch and saw the column of flames rising into the sky from the wreckage. Then, she saw her parents. Her father was wearing his dress uniform, and her mother was young and beautiful. They looked at her with reproach, displeased with her. Aliya was upset, wondering what she had done.

Then she understood. They hadn't raised her to just give up and die; they wanted more for her. They were dead, but she was alive.

She was finally truly convinced that she could do this. The woman who had gotten in bed the night before had been confused, trying to figure out what had happened to her and where she was, but the woman who woke up in the morning was decisive. She put her feet firmly on the floor and launched a mission to change her life.

♦

Aliya began by studying her new world. At night, she wandered through the house to discover where everything was, hiding whenever she heard servants near. In the early morning, she slept and watched Lilian Earton's dreams. She had fewer of them now, and they had lost their bright colors and drifted away from her, just like Lilian was drifting away. In the evening, Aliya listened to her nanny, Martha, tell stories.

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Through her wanderings, Aliya learned that Earton Castle was built in the shape of a letter H lying on its back. The center bar of the H was the largest part of the castle. The first floor had an enormous hall, a ballroom, a smaller hall and a dining room. The upper right end of the castle held a library, the earl's study, a music room for the ladies, and a game room for when the weather was bad. This part of the castle was obviously for guests and had a door that led to a porch overlooking the garden.

The kitchen was on the lower right end of the castle. On the first floor were the rooms where the servants did their work, as well as the entrance to the cellar and storerooms, where valuables, such as fabric and furniture, were kept. The servants' bedrooms were on the second floor.

The lower left arm was divided into a portrait gallery, a knight's hall and armory on the first floor, and rooms for guests on the first and second floors. The upper left arm of the castle belonged entirely to the family. The castle's four arms were only connected through its center, with gorgeous, massive wooden staircases leading to the second floor of each arm.

The whole place needed a good cleaning, in her opinion. The curtains hadn't been washed in ages, there was dust everywhere, and spiders had taken over all the quiet corners. So what if the ceilings are fifteen feet high? Haven't they invented ladders yet? She would have to see about that.

Several centuries' worth of soot had accumulated on those high ceilings, and there were rooms in the castle where the corners smelled suspiciously of urine. Do they not make it to the toilet in time, or do they just not care? What an aristocratic pigsty!

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When Aliya finally found the actual privy, she almost vomited. She located it by following the smell, which was strong enough to knock out a fly. She opened the door and saw a room with a hole in the floor. No running water, no nothing. Whatever went into the hole ran through a stone pipe into a ditch outside. Aliya decided she would have to do something about that, too.

She noticed that most of the doors in the castle were unlocked and that the few locks being used were primitive. The lock on the door leading to the storerooms was an ancient hunk of metal, but after studying it, Aliya figured any ten-year-old with the nerve could open it using a pen. The only danger was the lock's weight; if you dropped it on your foot, you'd need crutches the rest of your life.

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