Ironskin

by Tina Connolly

  “What’s your favorite color?” said Monkey.

  Bear shook his head.

  “Can you talk to me?”

  Bear shook his head.

  Jane gently plucked the bear from the air and set it back in Dorie’s hands. The bear zoomed back into the air. Back into Dorie’s hands. Back into the air. Hands. Air. Hands—and then Dorie squealed and the bear went flying across the room.

  Jane sighed. The child was as stubborn as the governess. She was determined that she wouldn’t be the one to break … but how was she going to get through to Dorie?

  Jane spent the rest of that first morning trying different activities, searching for one that might serve as a lifeline to reach Dorie. Stubbornly Jane went back to the shelves and pulled out puzzles, games, chalk, toys.

  One after another they went through Dorie’s roomful of activities. They attempted drawing, but Dorie would not hold the chalk. When tea came, she floated the bun to her mouth. And when it was finally time to get dressed for dinner, Dorie’s jam-stained frock flew off and the new one on without either girl touching them at all.

  An exhausted Jane trailed Dorie down to the dining room. The dining room was lit with another blue-lit chandelier as well as candles—and yet the light fled, sucked into the corners of the dark-papered room. The house was a mish-mash of styles from different generations, Jane thought. Her rooms had been furnished a very long time ago, judging by the whitewashed walls with the worn tapestries. Dorie’s were modern—wall and ceiling papered with an intricate silver pattern, the trim and furniture crisp and white. The dining room was in between—heavy dark furniture, oppressive scrolled paper on the walls. Jane ignored the fey-blue flicker of the chandelier glancing off the dark paper and hoisted Dorie into her high seat.

  “Little Miss Trouble, were we now?” said Cook. She leaned on the back of Dorie’s chair and gestured with a wooden spoon.

  Jane stood up for Dorie—she wasn’t sure why. “She’s not a bad child,” she said. “She just gets frustrated because her way is so much easier and better than mine. She doesn’t get it.”

  Dorie wafted her milk glass over, sloshing milk on the table in the process.

  Cook snorted and wiped the table with her apron. “It’s kind you are to think so. A regular terror, I say.”

  A tall figure entered the room and Cook straightened up immediately, jamming her wooden spoon into her apron pocket and feigning innocence. “Evening, sir,” she said, nodding. Mr. Rochart looked down at her until she turned and fled, muttering something about the potatoes.

  Dorie jumped down from the chair, buried herself in her father’s knees. “Did you manage all right this afternoon?” There was worry in his dark eyes as he gently stroked his daughter’s hair.

  “I’m not giving up yet,” said Jane. She stopped Dorie’s chair from falling over, steadied the table.

  “No, of course you wouldn’t,” said Mr. Rochart. He was still in the worn wool slacks he had on earlier, though now they were covered in a faint white dusting of powder. A similar smudge streaked one shirt cuff. He ruffled Dorie’s curls and lifted her up. “You’re too stubborn for that, aren’t you? You don’t back down.”

  Jane felt pleased by his accurate assessment—and that made her feel cross and prickly. She was not going to roll over like a puppy dog just because he seemed to be paying attention to her, Jane, and not her, the ironskin. She said, “How do you know I don’t?”

  Mr. Rochart’s black eyebrows drew together at her tone, shadowing his eyes once more. “A less principled girl might’ve sought refuge in her sister’s new home,” he said, laying out his chain of thought for her. “And no one would’ve faulted her.”

  “Except the new husband, who might not want an extra mouth to feed,” retorted Jane.

  “So stubbornly this wisp of a girl seeks gainful employment,” continued Mr. Rochart, “and she will not be turned from doing it to the best of her measure. Not be frightened off by all the demons in hell.…” He looked down at Jane, and she took a step backward from the peculiar warmth in his eyes. “You are indeed determined to help us, are you not?”

  “Of course, sir,” she managed, chin up. “Have I given you reason to doubt it already?”

  He still studied her face, and she was surprised to find that it did not feel like he was judging her deformity, but was simply curious what made her tick. “When what you hope for appears on your doorstep, there is every reason to doubt its reality, Jane.”

  She did not know what to say to that, but then from the front of the house the twisted doorknocker sounded, just as Cook bustled in with the potatoes.

  “What, at dinner?” Cook said, but a glance from Mr. Rochart forestalled any other protest.

  “Have them eat,” he said, setting Dorie down. He strode off toward the front of the house.

  Jane took Dorie’s arm, guiding her back to the dinner chair, but Dorie wriggled free and was suddenly trotting after her father. Jane grabbed for her frock but missed, the cotton skirt slipping through her fingers.

  Jane took off through the maze of rooms and halls after the fleeing girl, caught up with Dorie just behind the sapphire curtains that opened onto the foyer.

  Dorie was peeping through. “Pretty lady,” she said, and clacked.

  Jane stopped, looking at the foyer through the narrow gap Dorie had made. The short butler was saying, “An’ ye be human, enter,” and the woman swept over the threshold. Mr. Rochart bent to bestow a kiss on the visitor’s hand. “Miss Ingel,” he said. “The honor is mine.” She had kind eyes; she smiled and corrected him: “Blanche.”

  An odd pair, Jane thought, for the woman, though more smartly dressed than Mr. Rochart, looked unformed next to him. Perhaps his hair stood up, perhaps his cuffs were mended, but still he wore his clothes and they did not wear him. Whereas the woman’s figure was good enough, and her coat and frock were smart, but she looked ill at ease, lost inside her fur and aquamarines, almost nervous. Her brilliant bobbed red hair was frozen into stiff pin curls that did not suit her face, which was plain, with pouched eyes and a large smashed nose like a prizefighter. Her eyes lingered on the sapphire curtains, then slid away, as Mr. Rochart ushered her into the red room of masks.

  Mr. Rochart turned as he entered the garnet curtains. He glanced at the darkness behind the sapphire curtains, and even buried in shadow, Jane was suddenly positive his eyes fell on hers. Embarrassed at being caught spying, she drew back immediately, grabbing Dorie by the back collar of her dress and propelling her down the hall toward dinner.

  Nerves made her wobbly on the worn soles of her old workaday boots. Dorie twisted free, scampering back toward the dining room, and Jane slid on the smooth floor of the hallway, which was poorly lit. Indeed, though there were rows of sconces, there was only one blue fey light left, at the far end of the hall. Dorie had already disappeared around the corner, so Jane set off firmly toward that, chin raised. She did not want to get lost on her way to the first good meal she’d eaten all day.

  She was nearing the wall sconce when it suddenly winked out, and Jane found herself in the grey-black of a windowless hall at twilight. There was a dart of wind past her hair, as if dry leaves had flung past and departed, and a crackle that sizzled in the air like after-lightning. And then nothing, nothing to show that the fey technology had been there, except a bare copper sconce on the wall, barely visible as her eyes adjusted. She had seen the aftermath of fey lights or bluepacks winking out before, of course, but it was rare to catch one the moment when it fizzled and died. Always abruptly; no transition between something working and not—not like a candle that sunk into itself, giving you warning of its coming death.

  And now here she was, in a black hallway, and no dinner in sight. Her jaw set, her teeth ground anger out as she willed herself calm. This was not the end of the world, just the end of a very long and trying day.

  A small touch on her skirt made her gasp, almost shriek. In the dim light she saw a tiny figure with blond curls stretch out
a hand.

  At the other end of the hallway.

  No smile crossed that doll-like face, but Jane’s skirt tugged again by that invisible hand, and Dorie turned and set off around the corner.

  Patience, Jane counseled herself. Patience.

  She followed the invisible tug on her skirt all the way back to a hot dinner.

  Chapter 3

  SEQUINS AND BLUEPACKS

  The first month went very slowly. So did the approach of spring, which refused to fully commit itself to the moor. Wind and rain ground on outside of the nursery window, and Jane and Dorie’s days continued in a relentless impasse. It occurred to Jane that she and Dorie were circling each other like two wounded creatures wanting to drink from the same stream, each wary of the other’s intentions, each unwilling to either strike or run away. The stream was the house they had to share, or perhaps it was the positive regard of the man who ran it. Dorie adored her oft-absent father, and Jane … Jane wanted to do a good job in her new position, that was all, end of story.

  Dorie was not interested in anything but being left alone to amuse herself with flying dolls and light pictures, as she had been for all the five years of her existence. She did not start the day stubborn, and if Jane did not try to make her change, all was well. But she resented any attempt on Jane’s part to make her do even simple activities with her hands. As Jane had said that first day to Cook, Dorie’s way of doing what she wanted was so much easier that she had no reason to try Jane’s.

  There were, however, two neutral territories.

  Dorie would cheerfully walk or run around outside on the moor, anytime the rain lifted—though Jane had to keep a strict eye on her whereabouts to make sure she didn’t run into the forest. And she liked dancing. The gramophone’s bluepack had long since died, but someone had rigged it with a hand crank. So Jane sat and turned the handle, and Dorie danced. And if she danced a little too gracefully for a backward five-year-old … well, Jane could ignore that.

  But dancing ability seemed little compensation for everything Dorie lacked. Of course, what she might be extra clever in was the fey talent.

  But that would not serve her well. She would be shunned the first time she left the house. If people could not stand looking at Jane and the other victims, what would they do to a girl who moved dolls with her mind? At the least she would be an outcast, at the most.… Jane had heard of a few fey captured, their flickering blue forms studied in secret as the scientists tested for ways to fight back. A gruesome thought when it was the enemy you were talking about. If the subject were a tiny five-year-old girl … Jane shook her head.

  Each night, Jane ran through the days in her head, assessing where she’d gone wrong, considering where she’d gone right. Dorie liked new things, and so when Jane found new activities, there was a short window of time where Dorie would try the new game before getting frustrated. Small progress, though hardly sufficient to introduce Dorie to the world.

  Jane wondered if there was something she could withhold from Dorie, but what would that be? Her meals? The child was used to having everything she wanted, just the way she wanted. And in the case of meals, that meant eating with her fey tricks—wafting food through the air to her mouth—and not with fingers or fork. Jane told Cook to start sending a set of silverware up with Dorie’s meals from now on, but so far Jane had only placed the silverware beside Dorie’s plate, and not insisted. She had not quite had the fortitude to go into that inevitable battle.

  After one not-too-terrible morning of watching Dorie dance in time to the three-quarter beat of a waltz, Jane started to wonder if Dorie had any natural math ability. Sometimes children afflicted in one area were extra clever in another, Jane knew—there had been a girl at the Norwood School who could hardly speak or look you in the eye, but she could add sums with startling proficiency.

  Jane brought up a jar of dried beans and tried counting. Dorie liked counting. She could count to a hundred, and Jane’s estimation of her human skills went up. But when Jane asked her about adding she shook her head. Bolstered by the good morning, Jane decided to find out what it would be like to try to teach Dorie something.

  “This may be new, but I know you can do it,” said Jane. “It’s just like counting.” She had found two crystal buttons in her dresser and she brought them out now.

  “Pretty,” said Dorie, and Jane perked up at this show of interest.

  “Yes,” she agreed. She put the two buttons in Dorie’s palm. Dorie’s fingers did not close around them, but lay as stiff and unmoving as if her hands were porcelain. “Do you know how many buttons are here?”

  “Two.”

  “And how many here?” Jane put two green buttons in Dorie’s other palm.

  “Two.”

  Jane pushed Dorie’s hands together. “Now count how many.”

  Dorie clacked and shook her head. She turned her arms till the buttons slid off her palms and clattered to the wooden floor.

  “Let’s have another go.” Jane separated the buttons into two piles on the floor. “How many buttons here?”

  “Two.”

  “And how many in this pile?”

  “Two.”

  “So if you have two buttons and you add two more…”

  Dorie threw the buttons across the floor in a flash of blue light.

  Jane sighed and picked them up. The one that went under the white chest of drawers came back covered in dust. The other one rolled to the windowsill, and Jane saw a flash of movement through the window, a shadow disappearing into shadows, as she stooped to retrieve it. She straightened up and looked more closely.

  Dorie’s window faced west into the forest. The forest was dark today; it was always dark. Grey pine, blood-dark cedar, and black briar tangled through its undergrowth. Thin strips of the silver birches the estate must have been named for glinted in the darkness, but even they looked oppressed, their branches swallowed in poisonous mistletoe. The forest stretched across the entire back of the estate and curved down its sides as if it were encroaching on the house, year by year. A creeping arm of forest came so close to the damaged north wing that Jane was not even sure if you could walk between them. The forest had a foothold it would not relinquish.

  So surely she hadn’t seen a tall form slip between those thorny locusts; surely no one would choose to be swallowed up by the dark.

  Jane turned away from the window, painted buttons in hand. Dorie’s chin was lifted toward the window, her perfect face expressionless and smooth. “Father,” she said calmly.

  Jane looked back, but the shadow was gone—and she was pretty sure that Dorie couldn’t have seen the shadow on the ground from where she stood.

  “Let’s go back to counting,” she said, but the attempt at math had gotten Dorie’s back up.

  “Father,” Dorie said mutinously. “Father, father, father.”

  “Perhaps he’ll be at dinner,” said Jane, though truthfully he hadn’t been down in days. She looked out the window at where she thought she had seen the figure. Was that Mr. Rochart? Of course, the man was allowed to walk around his own estate. But to deliberately go into the woods, the dark woods where the fey had lived, hidden in the twists and turns of the dark branches, inside the knotholes, between the thorns of the locusts … No, the fey had not been seen for five years, since the war ended. But they had not been openly vanquished. Merely they had disappeared one day, leaving a breathless taut waiting for the next attack that never came.

  “Counting,” Jane said firmly, turning back to Dorie.

  But Dorie was gone.

  There was one stone-cold moment when Jane thought the girl had literally vanished. Then she heard small feet pounding on the staircase and her heart came stuttering back to life. Jane took off from the room, shoes skidding as she hurried after Dorie. Most unladylike, she thought to herself as she hiked her skirts up to better maneuver the slippery stairs. Small wonder so many governesses had given up. It wasn’t the fey after all—it was the lack of dignity.

&n
bsp; Jane chased the small creature out the back door. Her first shout of “Dorie” had gone completely unheeded, so she saved her breath and remaining shreds of dignity to run silently after the child, who was running pell-mell toward the black forest. The old saying sprung sharply to mind: Don’t go into the woods past the last ray of sunlight. Her iron mask threatened to slide around her head as she ran, so she held it with one hand and grabbed her skirts with the other. Jane pounced on Dorie about ten feet from the edge of the clearing. Her foot slid as she caught Dorie’s shoulders—Jane stumbled to one knee, nearly knocking Dorie off her feet.

  So much for dignity. Jane held Dorie there, panting. “You are not to go into the forest,” said Jane firmly. “It is not safe. Your father would be worried.” She looked past Dorie into the dark woods, but saw nothing but trees, trees and the flat black shapes between them. Sunlight did not reach very far in these woods.

  Dorie turned under her arms and twisted to look at Jane. With Jane on her knees, the two were nearly at eye level. “Father?” Dorie said wistfully, and Jane felt a small tender twist at her tone.

  Jane squeezed Dorie’s shoulders. Through the layers of skirts her knees turned damp in the grass. “Your father is very busy,” she said gently. “He can’t always be around to play.”

  Dorie’s shoulders slumped. She pulled away from Jane and went slowly back toward the house, kicking stiff legs through the clumps of wet grass. Jane heard a sharp clicking sound—Dorie clacking her tongue in frustration, in time to her steps.

  Crossness rose as Jane stood and followed—but it was for Dorie this time. Where was her father, and why couldn’t he come down more often for Dorie?

  The hair rose on the back of her neck as a low voice said behind her, “I thought she was going to run straight into the forest.”

  Her dress suddenly seemed too warm for the foggy day, all hot and constricted around her wrists and throat. “She might have,” Jane said, and tried to sound calm and firm, a wise and skilled governess with no grass stains on her skirt. “But I caught her.”