Kara discovered that a bath and a change of clothes did much to revitalise her mood. Once she was done, she actually felt cleaner that she had for a long time- cleaner than on just the surface. As was her wont in her native Greece at the estate her family lived in near Athens, she wore a simple peasant dress with nothing underneath that was deliciously cool and free from constraint. She would have liked to go barefoot but decided upon a pair of light leather sandals that matched her dress.
As she entered the glass room Señora Castellan looked up from her lunch and raised an eyebrow. 'I scarcely recognised you, child! It seems that you somehow remained fresh and unspoiled beneath that false citified exterior, though you have a . . . a wounded look about you. Well, don't just stand there, girl- sit down and join me! How on earth did a shy girl like yourself ever manage to travel half way around the world on her own?'
'How, indeed,' Kara mused to herself. 'Well,' she admitted slowly, 'it's something like you said, about my exterior being false. It's a bit like wearing a mask at a ball: the mask gives you a confidence you wouldn't normally have, but you daren't ever remove it, because the act of wearing a mask means that you're concealing things about yourself- things that can in some cases prove very . . . painful . . . if ever you're found out. Some of them are lies; some are mistakes others make about you that prove useful; some are assumptions without any sort of foundation, some of which create problems and some of which have their uses; I guess some of it has to do with making life glamourous, but in certain circles it is a tool of survival . . . except that, as you say, it's all false.'
Señora Castellan gave her a bemused look. 'You do not sound at all like a girl born to work in a fish market. Your people must have been well-off, eh?'
Kara wrinkled her nose and accepted a stuffed croissant from Maria. 'Anachronistically so- Maria! This is fabulous!'
Maria, who appeared formidably dark and severe, allowed a ghost of a smile to touch her otherwise hard features as she finished setting up their luncheon and left the two alone. As they ate together in silence, Señora Castellan referring often to a sheaf of paperwork, Kara turned her attention to the view. The valley at the lakehead was green, lush and tranquil, never looking twice the same as the sun passed overhead, continually changing the arrangement of light and shade. This was, Kara decided, because of the particular alignment of the valley, which ran from east to west. The deep valley of her ancestral home in Greece ran north to south, and consequently the days were comparatively short and cool in the early mornings and late evenings. It too was subject to great variation in all its facets over the course of the day. 'Who would have thought,' she mused, 'that there were so many different types of valleys in the world. I'd always assumed they were all pretty much the same.'