Song From A Music Box (Updated Version)

So here we are the final draft, sent in copy of my short story. I added in new details and finally gave that ending that was bugging me a good end (You have no idea how much time was spent on Wikipedia looking around for an answer.)

One turn, two, then three. When she heard the fourth click, she let go of the little key in her hand. As the music swelled from the box in her hand, her mind drifted back to when she saw the stars in the night sky and the clouds during the day. Eleanor looked to where the window was, her music box now on the window sill. With a hand delicately resting on the stained glass, it was cool to the touch from the snow she knew was drifting down slowly. -Silent and colorless. Just like me.-

As the music slowly went silent, she picked it back up in her hand. When it stopped, Eleanor rewound it again. Same notes as always, yet still so beautiful. Her mind wandered and she saw herself at the piano with her knight standing against the wall behind her with a hint of a smile on his peaceful face. It was his favorite song. And she learned it just so she could make sure that every time he came back home, he would feel relaxed again. The music stopped and she fell back into the real world. Back to where her knight has not returned. Back to where she could no longer see his face when he returned. Back to where she could no longer play the song for him, even if she could see.

The piano was gone. The room where she played for him was gone. The courtyard where she first met him while trying to escape was gone. And her dress she was going to wear when he was to become the Champion Knight was gone. All in flames the day she ran to live. She had no time to save anything but the music box that was at her side on that early autumn day, the only reminder of the song that filled the house that had stood for generations. It was a rebellion of the other nobles, who had grown jealous of her family’s growth in wealth. Hired mercenaries slaughtered every servant, every worker, and every noble, regardless of age.

Hiding along with her maidservant, her toddler son, and the lady invited to stay as a guest. As the smoke started to suffocate them, several mercenaries rushed into the room. The guest had tried to make a mad dash for the door. The crimson blossomed on the white gown like roses. While preoccupied with the lady guest, Eleanor grabbed her maidservant and ran out into the hallway. Across the room, through the charred hallway, and dashing across the shortcuts known only by her. Suddenly the maid tripped, her son tumbling across the ground as Eleanor stared back in fear. The mercenaries had followed and their sights on the fallen maidservant. The maidservant looked at her son and back up at the lady with a pleading look set in her eyes. Eleanor grabbed the child and ran on, not looking back to see what transpired for the young maid. Now running with an oddly silent toddler, she could finally see the last escape route not cut off by the flames. Turning the last corner, a burst of flames made her stumble backwards and trip over herself when fleeing the larger flames behind her. The reason she had escaped from any deadly fate or mortal injury was the knight that was at her side every waking moment. He scooped her up from the ground where the embers had found those once deep green eyes and ran with the toddler outside to the cloaking darkness. He had brought her to this church, one that served her family for years before the house was built. The toddler had gone to the orphanage, she to the head priest.

She shook her head to empty her mind of that painful day. -No use dwelling on that day a year and a half ago.- Even though she tried as hard as she could, Eleanor could still remember when she woke up in a bed, and panicking when she couldn't see any light. Her knight had been next to her and had placed her delicate hands on his face so she knew it was him. When she had asked him what happened, she knew his face had fallen.

Her eyes were not damaged in the fire. She should be able to see. Eleanor had heard the priest talking with her knight in the hallway the day after the fire. Those burns on her body will not scar though the burns on her face, however, might steal some of her youthful beauty; Including her green eyes. Eleanor felt anger inside her mind and stumbled out from her room. Her knight was there. The priest was silent. She grabbed her knight’s hand and placed her mouth on the palm of her hand. -I am not vain! Please be honest my dear sir.- Her pleas echoed still in her mind back in the present. -Do tell me. How does my face fair? I feel my hair yet, my face. It feels changed.- At that moment, her knight teared his hand away from hers. He had never shied away from her. Never turned away from her words, so silent and soft. Tears came to her eyes for the last time as she rushed back into her room and stumbled back to the bed.

The knight had left her in the same church a week later. Only a hand placed gently on her head and a faint kiss on her hair. Not a word, nor thought. No letter from him and no tears from her. Eleanor was trapped in a god-forsaken world without her best friend. He had left to go back to the battle field where he believed he belonged. A year had passed and the only word that had come from him was in the form of four words written on a piece of paper.

Again, Eleanor tried to clear her head of the past. This time she was able to stay in the present moment on a cold winters evening. She placed the music box key back on her necklace as she felt night approaching by the cooling air. She had spent the day in her chair waiting for him as she always did. What else was there to do? A bed, a table, a desk, a bookcase, and three chairs. The bookcase had only three useless books and a small statuette of the local deity. The table across the way from her held food, though she barely ate. The two other chairs stayed in their spots across the table. The last bit of space held her desk. Nothing else, nothing less. Stone walls like a prison creeping in. Not even the everlasting darkness could hold the secret back. Her only guest was the toddler she had saved, filling the room with some sound. Only once a week was she able to hear something other than cold wind, echoes from the past life, her own voice screaming inside her, and the footsteps from the hall from the monks.

Eleanor stood up to walk over to her desk and reached out for a small cloth bag. Inside was what he saved for her. Along with the letter, he had sent a remnant of what had survived from the room when the flames had swept through it. Reaching her hand in the bag she first pulled out a white chess piece from her set that was in the shape of a horse. She knew it was white as that was the only side she ever played, since she was the White Lady. And in the bag was also an ivory key from her much loved piano that she played so diligently. And the letter, carefully folded around the key, with four words written out with a piece of charcoal. Two small mementos, three with the music box, and four including her necklace.

A set of chess pieces charred to no remains. A lady with no house left to lead. An ebony piano destroyed to the point of nothing being left but ashes. A knight with only a fragmented land left to protect. A forgotten and hidden church serving no family any longer. The only followers left were a young knight, an even younger toddler, and a disabled girl.

A swift knock sounded on her door as she quickly placed her treasures back on her desk. 

“My Lady, it’s from the knight!” The priest from those days long gone rushed to her. “It’s another letter! Would you like to know what it says?” When she nodded, he continued. “‘To my White Lady.’ It comes with a gift.”

Dismayed the letter said the same thing it did last time, she reached her hand out for the gift. The priest had rushed back out the second he had pressed the letter and the gift in her hand. She opened the cloth bag and out fell a carved figure. She felt it careful before realizing it was in the shape of a phoenix, the old symbol for her house and linage. She set the carved figure on the desk. -What does it mean? He did love riddles. I hated solving them.- Eleanor had just set the bag down and heard the sound of metal hitting wood. She picked the bag up again and reached into it a second time. When she pulled her hand back out, a small gold ring was in her hand. -Wait. How can I tell it's gold?- Blinking once slowly, she saw her hand holding the ring, and the stone floor beyond it. Hearing movement next the her, but the door not being opened since the priest came, she suspected they had come with him.

Turning to face the sound, Eleanor saw a man in full armor on one knee and his head bowed. As his head lifted, a familiar smile on his face. "Good Evening, my White Lady. Did you know that there are several medicines, associated with a Phoenix, that, after being forged in gold, have healing abilities for those who wish to no longer see?”

Tears came to Eleanor’s eyes once again and streamed down her face as she held the ring in her hand and ran to her knight.

“Didn’t I promise I would come back? And I promise I will get you back your title.”

Eleanor took her knight’s hand and held it to her lips. -I do not care about my land or title. Just a place I can call home with a piano.- Lifting the hand away from her mouth, she smiled. “My sweet Sir Tristan, the music box will play again as loud and strong as before.”