Inside is a scrap of paper inscribed with a line of dots and dashes.
SOS
“Excuse me,” I say, and I practically fly down the stairs and through the underground corridor to the main house and then up to Eve’s room.
As soon as she opens the door, I blurt, “Are you all right?” I step into her room and promptly close the door behind me, shutting out a curious gaze from Lara, who is dusting in the hallway. “Did something happen last night at Tivoli?”
“Marit,” Eve says. She tosses me a pair of satin shoes and sits to pull on her stockings. “Can you help sew ribbons on those? We can talk while I dress. I have so much to tell you and barely any time.”
I move Wubbins to sit on the bed.
“I have big news,” she says, rolling her stockings up her legs, buzzing with an energy that seems to be some blend of terror and excitement. “Enormous, stupendous. The biggest news ever. But first—Marit—did you know that some of the staff here have magic?” she asks breathlessly.
My heart sinks.
“I don’t know how to feel. It seems wrong. I don’t want them to use it,” she says, brow knitting, “especially for me. Can you find out which ones have it? Do you know?” She looks up at me with her big brown eyes.
I look back. I have to tell her. I cannot lie to her again. I scramble for the right words, the way to frame it. I set down the shoes.
“Eve, I—”
But she grabs a new pair with fresh laces and begins to put them on. “And there’s more, Marit. It’s Philip,” she says, tightening the laces. “He has something planned. We saw the king at Tivoli last night and Philip invited him here. The king, Marit,” she cries, “is coming here! To watch me dance!”
A sudden thrill runs through me. I think of my father’s letter, of his secret red stone hidden in my pocket. Of him wanting us to find an audience with the king, no matter the cost.
Do I dare tell Eve the truth now? Risk her anger, risk losing the relationship that matters most to me, risk being kicked out of my employ—right before the king is, impossibly, coming to me? This could be the one opportunity I ever get.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Eve says. She reaches across the bed and takes my hand. The waver in her voice finds all those tiny little cracks in my heart and threatens to shatter them.
“I’ll help you,” I tell her, echoing Liljan’s voice from that cold day in Copenhagen. I close my hand around hers. “I’m going to be right here with you.”
Lara knocks on the door and calls, “Miss Eve? The choreographer is here.”
“I have to go,” Eve whispers. She kisses my temple. And then as quickly as a snowflake melting, she and the moment are gone.
* * *
“Hygge,” my sister once said when I was six years old, “is hard to explain because it’s a feeling. It’s like trying to describe a color.” She tugged my hair into a plait, sending a delicate tingle along my scalp, and gestured around the room: to the fire blazing in the hearth, the snow falling white outside the window. My father stood over the coal stove, the kettle starting to whistle beneath his big, worn hands. “For me, it’s honey tea and cinnamon sugar æbleskivers, a deep chair and a good book and a blanket. It’s being cozy and content with you and Far.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “It’s being warm here”—she touched her heart—“even when the world is cold.”
Hygge. The very mention of it calls up a heady mix of clove and citrus peel and smoke wisping from candlewicks, warm coals burning cobalt and orange. Ingrid crafted a crown from wire that year and made it bloom with felt flowers and glass birds. I remember following the lace of her white nightgown to line the mantels with candles; the way she made custard cream from one of Mother’s old recipes and whipped it with egg whites and orange zest.
That warm sense of contentment, of rightness, of home, even when the rest of the world is cold—that is what I want the king to feel when he watches Eve dance. I want him to wish that he could sit and watch her forever.
I spent the early weeks of December feverishly making holiday dresses and sewing plump satin ribbons onto fragrant fir wreathes that hang on all the windows and doors. But tonight, it’s Christmas Eve, and the staff is off. I put on the blue-green dress I wore to the ballet. We hold hands and sing hymns around the Christmas tree, which is draped with Danish flag garlands and lit with wax candles. Nina’s voice is surprisingly rich when she sings “Dejlig er den himmel blå.”
For the staff dinner, Dorit created a hot buttered rum with maple syrup, butter, red pepper, and cinnamon that makes my lips tingle. Candles are lit in the windows. Serving dishes are piled high with pork roast stuffed with prunes, pickled red cabbage dyed dark crimson with currant juice, thickened gravy, and fried brown-sugar potatoes. We each sample the Danish-Crucian dish Dorit created for tonight at Helene’s request: rødgrød, red pudding usually made with berries and cream but tonight made with delicious pink guava instead.
“How is life at the glass shop, Ivy?” Lara asks, pulling up a chair after we’ve said grace. And whether because it’s Christmas Eve or Ivy’s here again, Dorit even gives me a full portion of roast.
“Fine,” Ivy says, “although I miss Dorit’s cooking and do feel as though I always smell of glass paste.”
“That’s not your perfume?” Brock teases.
“I heard the king is coming here,” she says. She lets her comment hang in the balance among us, and her meaning is clear. “How exciting.”
I swallow, thinking of the work Helene expects me to do on Eve’s costumes. Ivy was right. These events to help secure Eve’s future are requiring more and more magic. Everything meant to help Eve make a home here is making home here harder for the rest of us.
“Well, His Royal Highness hasn’t officially accepted yet,” Brock says. He gives a tight smile, which sends Ivy dipping into a large burlap bag at her feet.
“I’m sorry for the last time we were all together, at Tivoli,” she says. “I felt as though I left on bad terms. So . . . I’ve brought gifts!” She rises with her arms full of small lumps wrapped in brown paper and makes her way around the table, distributing them by name.
“You’ve changed your mind, then, about the magic?” Brock asks.
“No,” she says proudly. “I made these months ago, and the rest I finished by hand.”
When she reaches me, I keep my head down. I concentrate very hard on cutting my meat, expecting her to walk right past me to Liljan. But instead she places a wrapped gift in front of my plate and says, “Merry Christmas, Marit.”
I look up at her with an unexpected pricking in my eyes. “Merry Christmas, Ivy.”
Inside each package is a cube of glass. They’re gorgeous and heavy and clear, like pieces of ice. Mine has edges that look sewn, like embroidery. “They’re paperweights,” Ivy explains, “but I made a little divot that also holds a tea candle.”
Dorit beams at her. “Look at you, dearie, always bringing a bit of light.”
“I love it, Vee,” Brock says. And I will admit that though he’s a miserable little sod, he looks like a different person whenever he’s looking at her.
“The nisse is certainly going to love this risalamande,” Liljan says, tucking into rice porridge with whipped cream and an almond hiding in it. She winks at me wickedly and I lick the warm cherry sauce off my spoon. I used to read Eve Danish folktales on Christmas Eve in the Mill, when she had just begun methodically eating her chocolate biscuit from Mathies.
“The nisse wears a pointed red cap,” I would tell Eve. “He is roughly the same size that you are, and he will cause all sorts of trouble if we don’t leave him a treat in the attic.”
“We’re not doing any of that nonsense,” Nina announces tartly now. “Nisse is legend, but you know what isn’t?” She pauses and drinks her buttered rum. “Rats.”
Undeterred, Liljan pushes open the door to Jakob’s secret nook later that night, carrying a tray full of forbidden hot cocoa and second helpings of risalamande. Some of
the whipped cream sloshes over the side to the floorboards. “Nina will serve my head on a platter of fine Vestergaard china for this,” she says, setting the tray down on the floor.
“She’ll chop us like almonds,” I agree, handing Jakob a cup. “Hide us in risalamande.”
“She’ll dip us in hot wax and make us into candles,” Jakob says. “Especially if she knew that I stashed these here yesterday.” He pulls a tin of butter cookies out from behind a vase.
I eagerly take a cookie and dip it into the whipped topping, watching the butter crumble against the cocoa and chilled cream, and curl into my blanket.
“For you, Lil,” Jakob says, reaching under a pillow and handing Liljan a package. She muffles a shriek when she rips open the paper to find a book about grotesque history. On the front there’s a painting of a rotting head and a helmet covered with spikes. “Thank you!” Liljan says, gleefully embracing the book to her chest.
“You’re such an odd little duck,” Jakob says with fondness.
“Quack, quack,” Liljan says.
“And for Marit,” Jakob says, and they turn to present a gift to me together.
“The copies of what you wanted,” Liljan says formally, taking them and handing them over to me with great ceremony. “You’ll need to destroy them completely when you’re done.”
Jakob has found everything I asked for, and Liljan made exact copies for me—down to every unique jot and tittle of handwriting. I comb through the sheaf of paper, scanning the statements. There are payments to the miners, registers and dates of gemstones selling through a network of four jewelry shops based out of a flagship store in Copenhagen. It’s going to take hours to sort through. The stack of paper is as thick as my hand is wide.
Jakob clears his throat. “One more thing that might help,” he says, and hands me a heavy package. I unwrap the paper to find a tome on gemstones, minerals, and metals. “It’s the most detailed one I could find,” he says. I crack it open, feeling its weight on my lap. It must have cost a small fortune.
“Thank you,” I breathe, and Liljan and I sit together, clutching our books to ourselves with unmasked delight.
“My turn,” I say. I knit Liljan three new pairs of stockings, since she’s always losing hers, and made Jakob thick gloves for skating. When he pulls them on, there is a gap of skin at his wrists between the gloves and his shirt, because his sleeves always fall an inch too short for his arms.
“Thank you,” he says. His hair is more mussed than usual, and when he brings his hands down to rest on his knees, his bare wrist suddenly grazes mine.
He doesn’t move it. The very ridges of our wrist bones are touching, and that slightest touch sets my skin tingling. I keep waiting for him to move, but he doesn’t. Maybe it’s so inconsequential to him that he doesn’t even realize it’s happening.
Or maybe he actually wants to keep touching me.
The thought makes me so nervous I blurt out: “I have an idea!”
“Mm?” Liljan asks, glancing up from an illustration of a cannon, a half-eaten candy cane hanging from her mouth.
“What if we asked Helene for Vestergaard jewels to weave into the costumes? We could tell her we want to make it special for Eve—use jewels only found in Vestergaard mines. And we want them all to be red.”
“You’re a genius,” Liljan says triumphantly around the candy cane. “That’s perfect!” She stands and does a little jig in her socks. Jakob finally moves, stripping off the gloves I made to light a small coal stove in the corner, and though the flames curl and dance, the space next to me suddenly feels cold.
“Let’s stay here forever,” Liljan whispers. She sends color flooding across the walls around us, turning them from faded white to a lush grove of fir trees, covered with snow. When Jakob sits back down, she yawns and leans her head against his shoulder.
After a moment she’s fallen asleep, and it’s as if she’s left for a different room. Jakob gently slides her head onto one of the oversize pillows and covers her with a blanket. Then he looks up at me for a beat too long. Like something is going to happen.
I hesitate. Then I reach across the space between us and take his wrist in my hand.
I feel his pulse quicken beneath my fingers.
“Here,” I say, touching the end of his sleeve, my heart pounding as I loosen each thread. “The cuffs should hit you here,” I explain, delicately sweeping my fingers over the bones of his wrist. There’s a flush of something swirling across my skin, little zings curling up my arm, and I’m conscious of how still he’s gone, how close we are, how his breath grows shallow at my touch. It suddenly feels warm in here, like spring coming for winter, the electric hum of bees and unfurling of flowers. Like things coming alive.
“There,” I say when I finish lengthening his sleeves and shifting the buttons. I let go of him and add, “How handsome.”
He flushes. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely, absently feeling the place my fingers just were.
There’s a tug in my belly and I sink deeper into the softness of my blanket, with Liljan breathing next to me. The fire crackles from the corner.
“Maybe this is the way you cure the Firn,” I murmur.
“With what?” Jakob asks, a smile playing on his lips. The three of us lie under the skylight, beneath snow and stars, and even though there are a hundred reasons why we shouldn’t, what I really want is for him to lean over Liljan and kiss me right now.
“Hygge,” I answer softly, and think of Ingrid. How she tapped her chest with her eyes closed, smiling at the moment when warm contentment started flowing through her from the inside out.
* * *
Three days before New Year’s, Jakob heads to the capital to meet with Dr. Holm. Liljan climbs into the carriage with him to run errands for Nina in town. Jakob raises his hand to me, the other holding the book of ideas I bound for him this morning. Liljan pauses when she looks over her shoulder and I feel a sort of shimmer in the air. I sense that something is about to change with what we are setting in motion.
And then they are both gone.
The house is emptying after the holiday—Philip leaves to return south, and though he’s due back one more time for the new year, I hope that soon we won’t see him again for months on end. It feels like letting out a stale breath, to watch his carriage pull away, snow sticking in the wheels. Ivy is the last to leave that morning. She borrows one of the Vestergaard horses, saddling it in the stables. She’ll return in a few days, to ring in the new year here. I tighten my apron, unable to shake this unsettled feeling that is forming like cobwebs in my chest.
Time to approach Helene about the red stones.
I advance toward her bedroom with Liljan’s sketches tucked into a leather folder. “It’s all about presentation and confidence,” Liljan said to me last night, pouring out red on the paper in splashes of scarlet and crimson.
“I wish you’d do it,” I told her. “You’re better at it than me.”
“You can do it, Marit,” she insisted.
I hesitate in front of Helene’s door, smooth my apron, and then raise my hand to knock. “Mrs. Vestergaard?” I ask softly.
There is nothing but silence in return.
Then the door opens abruptly, sending me jumping back.
“She went out,” Lara says, covered in soot from dusting out Helene’s grate. “Early this morning.” There’s a smudge on her cheek, and she’s holding a feather duster.
“Has Eve gone too?” I ask. I turn toward her room, my heart lifting at the thought of a few moments alone with her.
“I’m not sure,” Lara says, and then below us, the front door bursts open with a violent scrape.
Someone staggers in, the snow swirling into the room with their steps.
“Who’s there?” Lara calls, peering over the banister.
I can feel the cold seeping in from outside.
“Help me,” a woman’s voice says. “Help. In the road.” She takes in a jagged breath and it almost sounds like a sob. �
��I think they’re both dead.”
Lara drops her feather duster and screams.
Because Helene Vestergaard is standing in the foyer.
And the front of her coat is soaked through with dark red blood.
Chapter Nineteen
Helene chokes out, “In the carriage.” She shudders. “Help.”
I start to move toward the foyer and, as if through water, I hear someone ask, “What’s happened?”
I walk forward. Dread and stillness are settling deep within me, icy cold and crystallizing with a thousand different threading branches. I hear no sound at all.
And then it all comes rushing in.
Panic, loud voices, my own heart beating wet and hot in my ears.
“Is that your blood, Helene?”
She shakes her head, dazed.
“Then whose is it?”
Liljan?
Jakob?
. . .
Eve.
The others would break my heart enough, but she—oh, she—she would be the worst.
I fly downstairs, out the gaping front door, into the wall of frigid air, as Nina flings the carriage doors open. Declan is trying to grasp hold of the first bundle, hauling it to the servants’ delivery door. I feel bile rise in my throat. He struggles under the limp weight of it.
A human weight.
Nina gasps.
“Brock, help!” she yells over her shoulder.
“What’s happened?” Brock appears in the kitchen doorway and springs into action.
“Clear the table inside,” Nina says. “Boil water and get bandages.”
“And fetch Jakob,” Helene orders.
“He isn’t here,” Lara says, paling. “He’s in town. With Dr. Holm.”
Helene swears as the bundle lurches between Brock’s and Declan’s hands. Blood drips onto the white snow. A man groans, and when the blanket falls open, I realize, with dread:
It’s Philip.
Brock and Declan drag Philip into the kitchen, and we follow behind, jumping to clear the table, to find linens to staunch the bleeding.
Splinters of Scarlet Page 15
