Splinters of Scarlet

by Emily Bain Murphy

  “We were actually hoping to ask you some questions,” I say. “Do you recognize this person?” I quickly unroll a thin tube of paper I hid in my petticoats to reveal a small, very lifelike portrait Liljan made of Philip.

  Hanne takes the paper from my fingers and gives it a long look. She squints, then finally shakes her head and hands it back. “No. I mean, we have a lot of customers, so I can’t be certain I’ve never seen him.”

  I let out a breath. “But this man wasn’t here frequently?” I press.

  “No. What is his name?”

  I hesitate, my eyes flicking to Brock briefly before answering. “Philip Vestergaard.”

  Hanne shakes her head again. “Philip Vestergaard, as in the Vestergaard mines? No, he hasn’t ordered anything here in recent months. Why?” she asks, turning her haunted eyes on me. “Is he the suspect? Have they found any of the others, too?”

  I pause while rolling up Philip’s picture.

  “No, he isn’t a suspect,” I say carefully. “He was also injured in the attack. What do you mean, ‘any of the others’?”

  “I tried to tell the police. About all the other servants and workmen, just like Ivy, who have gone missing. People have sought me out here at the shop, at least two a day since it happened—some about a cousin they had, an aunt, or a brother. They want to hear about what happened to Ivy, wondering if their loved one might have met the same fate. I tried to tell the police that she’s the latest in a long line. But she’s the only”—she swallows—“the only . . .”

  “The only what?” Brock asks.

  “The only one to be, um, found so far. A body, I mean.”

  Dorit closes her eyes and sags against the wall.

  “So the police know? That other people in this area have gone missing?” I press.

  Hanne turns her enormous eyes on me again. “The more important question is, do the police care?”

  Her chin quivers.

  I think of Ivy, begging us all to stop using magic on the night that servant woman went missing. I wonder how long the police looked for her before giving up. We’d never know if anything happened to her. The papers don’t usually spend ink on news involving servants. Sometimes Firn deaths are splashed across the pennies, but more as garish entertainment than news.

  “But, perhaps,” Hanne ventures to us hopefully, “now that a Vestergaard—someone prominent, someone they find important—has been injured . . . perhaps they will start to pay more attention? Find out what happened to all those other people?”

  I turn abruptly. “May I use your washroom?” I ask. I feel more confused than ever. If other servants have been disappearing or going missing, then perhaps Philip’s story about an attacker actually is the truth. After all, he was there with us at Tivoli on the night that other servant went missing. I saw him with my own eyes.

  “It’s in the hallway,” Hanne says, and I find it and lock myself in. I didn’t know if I’d have the courage to go through with my plan for Helene’s dress today. But I’m not going back to the Vestergaards’ empty-handed, not without some sort of new lead.

  My fingers are trembling as I unclasp the pearled buttons on Helene’s dress and step into it. The length is much too long for my legs and the fit is a little too snug in the waist. I say a quick prayer under my breath and close my eyes, and as magic sings through me with its chilling prickle, I tailor the dress to fit my own body like a glove.

  I open my eyes and startle as I catch my reflection in the mirror. For one half second, I almost think I am seeing someone else. Just before the carriage pulled away this morning, Liljan dyed my hair a dark crimson and covered all my freckles.

  And in Helene’s gown I look, and feel, rich.

  I stuff my maid uniform into the trunk, and when I sweep into Hanne’s room wearing Helene’s dress, Brock’s and Dorit’s jaws almost hit the floor.

  “Um, what are you doing?” Brock demands.

  “Quickly,” Hanne says, giving me a doubtful look and ushering us out the door. “I’d rather you were gone from up here before my boss returns.”

  “Thank you,” I say to her, and I go down first, with Brock and Dorit leaving the shop on my heels.

  “What happened to your hair, Marit? Is that Mrs. Vestergaard’s dress?” Brock asks as we walk down the street. “What are you trying to pull?”

  Dorit says wearily, “Marit, this wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “I’m sorry, Dorit. I have a chance to do something today, and I’m taking it,” I say. I shove the trunk into Brock’s chest. “And . . . I need Brock to watch my trunk.”

  Brock makes a growling sound deep in his throat, clutching the trunk, and I am careful to pick up the hem of the gown and keep going. I can hear Brock and Dorit follow me as I head up the cobblestone street. I channel Helene as I walk. Chin in the air. Graceful strides, head raised, confident. I will not step in a puddle of mud or pile of horse dung and get incriminating evidence of this excursion on this gown. Just in case, I go over my backstory in my head. My name is Johanne Ibsen—my mother’s name. I age myself up to twenty. Without my freckles, it is passable. I’m from the village two towns over from Karlslunde, the one where the Madsens live.

  I wish, for perhaps the hundredth time, that they had just adopted Eve that day instead.

  The jewelry shop appears in front of me. Its wood is painted a dark, lush black, and it says Jeppesen in swirling gold-plated lettering in the window. Beyond the glass is a display of a model wooden boat, sailing on a sea of diamonds and sapphires.

  This is the Jeppesens’ flagship shop. The one that sells the most jewels and gets a tremendous annual payoff from the Vestergaards.

  “You asked the questions you wanted. Now it’s my turn,” I say to Brock. “As far as you’re concerned, today my name is Mrs. Ibsen. And if you don’t want to be involved, you should probably get away from me now.”

  This is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done.

  Inquiring about jewels right under the Vestergaards’ nose, wearing a dress I borrowed without permission from Helene herself.

  If I get caught, I’m fired, of course.

  But—I try to laugh at myself for even thinking it—could someone kill me for this?

  I pass the street where Liljan let me cry and then I gather my nerve.

  Brock has my trunk in hand as he settles Dorit into the window seat of a café across the street. They will keep watch on me from a careful distance. I was counting on Hanne pointing more of an incriminating finger at Philip Vestergaard, so they wouldn’t tell on me for what I’m about to do now.

  If they side with the Vestergaards and give me up in this, I’m in big trouble.

  “Watch over me, Papa,” I say under my breath, and step through the door.

  * * *

  “Hello,” I say, entering into the warm dimness of the shop.

  This dress is heavier than I thought. I can smell the faintest whiff of Helene’s narcissus perfume when I move.

  “Hello,” the jeweler says, his voice even and smooth. He promptly rises from behind his black wood counter and glides toward me, the way Thorsen would act when a wealthy client came in. We all learned the signs, of course, even without the obvious jewels or furs. It was the aura of assurance. The sheen of fabric, the very slight wear of the shoes.

  The wealthy men were often in a hurry, because they were very busy and important.

  The wealthy women were never in any hurry at all.

  So I take my time, surveying the shop as if I have all the moments in the world. As if my heart isn’t hammering inside my chest. It is not a crime to be in this store, I tell myself.

  Although perhaps it is while wearing a dress that doesn’t really belong to me.

  “Can I help you with something, miss?” the shopkeeper prompts.

  He is sizing me up. I can feel his ticking glance, taking in my youth—wondering, perhaps, if I could possibly have enough money to be worth his while. Perhaps hoping that my immaturity, combined with a lack of c
ompanion, might make me spend more than I should. His countenance warms slightly when he takes in the meticulous handiwork—my handiwork—on Helene’s dress.

  Well, that’s fine. I am sizing him up, too.

  And he has no idea that the intimate details of this shop’s financials are recorded along the insides of my petticoats.

  “I must confess I don’t usually wear much jewelry,” I hear myself say. I tuck my workers’ hands behind my back, so he can’t see my ragged nails. I could angle this approach in so many ways: naive, shrewd, haughty, friendly. “But my husband would like to get me something I genuinely enjoy.” I am looking at the twitch of the jeweler’s mouth, the way he responds to the information I drop like crumbs.

  The jewels of the shop glitter like a colorful frozen garden around me.

  “Where do these stones come from?” I ask, and when I turn to survey them, it’s like being at the center of a kaleidoscope. “Russia? Germany?”

  “Right here in Denmark, madam.”

  “All?” I ask, feigning incredulity.

  He gives a slight nod.

  All of these are Vestergaard jewels. The numbers I saw on the Vestergaards’ financial documents, the sheer profits they reap, are astonishing. Millions of rigsdalers. Vestergaard jewels branch out to flood through Denmark’s economy like arteries, touching royalty, touching commerce, elevating our entire national worth. I take a step toward a stone that’s a unique shade of aquamarine and set with two flanking diamonds. What did my father know about those mines?

  I wrinkle my nose as I pretend to look around the shop. I’ve always believed that you catch more flies with honey, but there are some people who just seem naturally drawn to vinegar. Like Brock. Thorsen was one of those people, and—judging by the gleam in his eye—I’m betting this man is, too.

  “I like the idea of wearing a Danish stone. But . . .” I turn my voice haughty, like the worst women who visited Thorsen’s used to do. “I want something special. Something that not everyone else has. Something . . . different.”

  “Different?”

  My eyes trail over the jewels, trying to catch the price of the smallest one. I brought all the money my father left with me, just in case I had enough to buy the most modest stone and could take it home. I wanted to look at it—compare its facets and makeup to the one my father left me.

  I glimpse the numbers on its price tag and my heart sinks.

  Everything I have still isn’t enough.

  “I’m drawn to a deep red color. But—” I sniff. “Not a ruby,” I say. I take a disdainful look around the shop and sigh. “I don’t think you have what I’m looking for . . .”

  The more uninterested I seem, the more his interest in me grows.

  He moves closer. Fixes his eyes on me. We are doing a dance, and I am playing my part, and now he will play his.

  “Of course this isn’t our entire inventory,” he says, almost coyly.

  My interest piques, but I blink at him, as though I’m bored.

  He leans closer, the way one does to share a secret.

  “With enough notice,” he says, “I could get a stone in almost any shade you wish.”

  I narrow my eyes. The Vestergaards own the only known jewel mines in Denmark. They list five official stones in their accounts. Don’t miners coax stones out of the earth, and they simply are the color they are?

  “I could take down your information, Mrs. . . . ?”

  “Ibsen.”

  “And then I could contact you once we have some additional options to consider, Mrs. Ibsen.”

  My curiosity is like a growing hunger, but of course his offer won’t do. I can’t give him my address at the Vestergaards’.

  “Mm,” I say noncommittally. I want some answers, and I want them today. I feel a sense of foreboding as my fingers are drawn toward the stone hidden in my pocket.

  I could find out what it is, right now.

  Should I take the risk?

  I close my fingers around the stone.

  I wouldn’t let anyone know you have that, Liljan said the day we visited Copenhagen. Liljan, the risk taker. Warning me not to take a risk.

  But today I’m not Marit Olsen, servant girl to the Vestergaards. Today I am little more than a phantom, wearing the name of my dead mother and a dress that doesn’t belong to me, and the question is dancing on my lips.

  Finally, an answer to the riddle my father left me.

  Could you tell me about this one?

  I’ve got the stone in my grasp, pulling it from the shadows of my pocket, when Brock suddenly bursts in the door, his boots caked with sludge and his face mostly obscured by a bouquet of lush, light pink roses.

  “Mrs. Ibsen?” he says to me. “A gift, for you. From your husband. He’d like to meet you now for lunch.”

  “How thoughtful of him,” I say. I drop the stone back out of sight in my pocket and take the armful of roses from Brock. One of the thorns grazes my arm. “These are lovely. I suppose I’d better return to discuss this more another time.”

  The shopkeeper gives me a slight bow. “Mrs. Ibsen,” he says.

  Brock holds the door open for me and ushers me outside, whispering under his breath as I pass, “Keep the flowers up. Malthe is coming down the street. I don’t know if he would recognize you. But I didn’t want to take the chance.”

  Brock swiftly leads me by the elbow and pulls his hat down low as Malthe walks right past us. I sneak a quick glance back as Malthe strides up the stairs to the jewelry store. He carries a Vestergaard briefcase, imprinted with the hammer and pick. Then he steps into the shop, and Brock and I disappear into the crowd.

  Four blocks later, the carriage is waiting for us with Dorit inside.

  “Marit,” she says crossly as the door shuts behind me. She closes her eyes. “Don’t ever pull something like that around me again, or I’ll take a switch to your hide until it’s raw.”

  “I’m sorry, Dorit,” I say, setting the flowers down by my ankles.

  “Don’t you think she’s been through enough already this week without your little stunt?” Brock snaps. “You put us both in a terrible position.” He covers Dorit with a blanket. And he’s right. I suddenly feel ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly. The flowers at my feet are so pungent they’re making me heady.

  “Maybe next time you want to steal an outfit and play dress-up, you could be a police officer and interrogate Philip instead,” Brock says.

  “Excuse me, I didn’t steal this dress,” I say. “I borrowed it.”

  “Semantics,” he says, chuffing.

  But it isn’t. I’m not a thief. There’s a line between a little mischief and crime, and I won’t fully cross it. I couldn’t afford any of the stones in that jewelry store, but I wouldn’t stoop to stealing one. When I take something—like Thorsen’s fabric and beads—I either pay for it or give it back.

  Borrowing isn’t the same as stealing.

  Which makes a light suddenly go off in my head.

  “Actually,” I say, “thank you. You just gave me an idea for the next thing I’m going to borrow.”

  I might not be able to steal a stone. But maybe—just like this dress, and Eve’s beads—I can borrow one. And then put it back before Philip knows it’s gone.

  “You’re welcome, by the way,” Brock says curtly. “For helping you back there.”

  “Thank you,” I say, softening. Did he use magic to grow these flowers? He must have. If someone told me even last week that Brock would risk magic in order to help me, I never would have believed it. “I owe you a favor.”

  “Let’s just say you borrowed it.” Brock leans his head against the seat and closes his eyes. “Which means you have to pay it back at some point.”

  I steal a glance at Dorit to make sure she isn’t listening. Her chest is rising—she has fallen asleep. I pull my uniform from the trunk. It feels scratchy after the lush fabric of Helene’s gown against my skin.

  “I, um, need to change back,” I
say. I pull the enormous bouquet of flowers to my lap to block Brock’s view and begin to unbutton Helene’s dress. “Don’t you dare look this way,” I threaten.

  “Are you joking?” he says. “Jakob would pummel me.”

  “I’d pummel you first. And, um—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, cheeks lighting on fire.

  “Right. You’re both as subtle as a hand grenade,” he says sullenly. But I notice he is careful to fix his eyes out the window, and after a moment of silence he surprises me further by saying, “If you’re doing more borrowing, I want in on it.”

  I am back in my servant clothes, with my hat on and Mrs. Vestergaard’s dress stashed in the trunk again, by the time we pull down the lane to the house.

  “I have one more plan before I have to resort to borrowing,” I say, tightening my hat strings beneath my chin. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

  “I can’t decide if you’re incredibly smart or the most foolish little ninny.”

  “And I can’t decide whether I dislike you or not. You make it difficult to pick a side. Here,” I say. I open the trunk, pull out his mended jacket, and throw it at him.

  He runs his fingers over the place where the rip was. It looks as though it never was there.

  “Did you use a dirty word in your stitches?” he asks.

  I purse my lips.

  Actually, I sewed his rip with Ivy’s name and birth and death dates.

  Just like I sewed my family’s names into my own seams.

  “Don’t you wish you knew,” I say tartly as we climb down from the carriage.

  He gives me a sharp jab with his elbow, and I stick out my foot to trip him a little. But then we turn to help Dorit between us, and by the time we step inside the Vestergaards’, we could almost be standing side by side.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Philip