Ironskin

by Tina Connolly

  The train jerked to a stop and Jane disembarked, thinking of the exercises she would have Dorie try. With the tar in her bag, suddenly all the frustrations with Dorie seemed possible to overcome. New ideas, new methods, spilled through her mind, firing her with new energy. She was startled to see a tall shadow spill over her, to hear a voice near her ear.

  “Ah, my little soldier is returned to fight by my side,” said Mr. Rochart. “Miss Eliot.”

  “Sir,” she said, and she composed her suddenly trembling fingers by dint of shoving them in the wool coat’s patch pockets. Her heart seemed to leap at seeing him, but she reminded herself that that was merely her excitement over Dorie’s paste. The man was aggravating, with his hideous masks, his disappearing act, his Prime Ministers’ wives.

  Even if his conversation was more intelligent and entertaining than anything she’d heard the whole week in the city.

  He loomed over her, a tall figure in a coat just as worn as hers, she suddenly saw, powdered with more of that white dust that followed him in a fog. A button was loose—didn’t he have anyone to mend it? She was cross at herself for wanting to put it right. She was not allowed to be this relieved at returning home. Home? No. Returning to her job.

  “You forget us for an entire week,” he said in a low, mocking voice. “I myself brave the moor and damn the last bluepack to fetch you at the station, and I merely rate a respectful ‘Sir?’ Oh, Jane, Jane.”

  “In that you have the advantage of me,” she said demurely.

  He laughed—a sharp bark at odds with his foreboding appearance. “So I do. Well, Jane, my given name is Edward and you must call me it from now on. I am tired of this ‘Rochart’ nonsense.” His black brows lifted, knit. “I believe you should have a trunk, little one.”

  “Indeed I do,” said Jane. “But you mustn’t carry it yourself; you will throw your back out.”

  He looked at her sharply, as if trying to decide if she had really called him old. Jane smiled politely, feeling that in some obscure way she was staying level with him; that two could play the game of aggravation, and that by being sticky she was staying more truly Jane. It was a brief thought, with little time to untangle it, for he was speaking again, moving, his eyes searching her face.

  “As soon as we are in the black beast,” he said, gesturing to the motorcar, “you shall take off that veil. I dislike it when I cannot see your eyes. I am certain they are laughing at me now.”

  The sparring was a stimulant to her train-deadened wits, and Jane’s spirit rose. The contrast between his sense of humor and Alistair’s could not have been sharper. He did carry her trunk, and he hefted it into the old car, ushered her in, and closed the door.

  “There’s no top,” he said, though that much was obvious. “We are both ancient—there, I will say it so you do not have to.” The car was indeed so ancient Jane wondered it didn’t need cranking. It clearly had been old even before the end of trade almost a decade ago. “We’ll drive slowly so you don’t get mussed.”

  “Not for my sake,” said Jane. There was an undercurrent of warmth to the spring air tonight; it caressed her fingers clinging to the metal ridge of the door, promised summer ahead. The car lurched forward and the wind blew her veil back, and she let it.

  “What’s on your mind?” he said, and she felt him looking sideways at her.

  A million things, but one the most pressing to tell him. “I have an idea for Dorie,” Jane said. “I don’t know if it will work, so I don’t want you to get your hopes up. But I need to ask you something before I try it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can Dorie safely touch iron?” Jane thought the answer must be yes, or he would’ve warned her about it the moment she entered the house. She tapped on the rim of her iron mask anyway, for luck.

  He nodded. “Certainly. She may have difficulties, but she is still human.”

  “Good,” said Jane. “I’d like permission to try an experiment with iron and Dorie, then.”

  “I will support anything you do that is trying to get her to be more human,” he said. “You’ve found that slow going, haven’t you?”

  His kind words made her admit in a rush: “Truthfully, yes. How do you get that child to mind?” And then she reddened at how exasperated she sounded with his offspring.

  “Very poorly,” he replied. He sighed. “I love her greatly, but I confess every fey-touched thing she does pains me, makes me remember—” He bit off that thought and with an effort raised his spirits again. “But though I am wretchedly busy, shut away in my studio, you mustn’t be afraid to come to me. Seek me out, make me listen. Anytime you have trouble with her.”

  “I have trouble,” Jane said dryly. “But I have a feeling the iron might help.”

  “You have my full support in anything you do to rid her of those fey traits,” he repeated. “It’s why you are here. You have my trust.” He was driving, so he did not look meaningfully at her when he said it, but all the same Jane felt her breath catch in her throat. It closed off any words she might have said about her experiment, or about Dorie’s behavior.

  When no more information was forthcoming, he said: “Well, keep your secret for now, but report to me within the week.”

  “I will,” said Jane.

  “Did you enjoy your sister’s wedding? I let you off the leash for it, so I propose the answer should be yes. Though on second thought, I don’t wish you to have enjoyed it so much that you will leave us for another wedding in a week.”

  “That is my only sister, sir.”

  “Carefully avoiding a real answer. I suppose there were a good many fine ladies and gentlemen there?”

  Before Jane could stop her tongue, it leaped forth with “Do you know the Prime Minister and his wife?”

  “Your sister travels in fine circles,” said Mr. Rochart. “Yes, I do. She was a client of mine last summer.”

  “A client,” said Jane. Surely he couldn’t mention her so casually unless “client” was the entire truth.

  “She sat to have a mask painted,” he said in answer to her implicit question.

  “It must have been a beautiful mask,” said Jane. She could not imagine that woman wanting a hideous one, to wear or to hang on the wall.

  “It was,” said Mr. Rochart. “Do you know they have five children? She told me at length about all of them. I was tempted to make the mask with a permanently open mouth.”

  Jane looked up at him, startled—then laughed.

  “So you can laugh,” he said. “I was worried that our gloomy house would wear you down. That the black moor would swallow you whole. Or perhaps your week in the city has refreshed you, and you shall be hungering to return soon for more of its lavish pleasures.”

  “Not a chance, sir,” said Jane.

  “I am selfishly pleased,” said Mr. Rochart, and then they were both silent. Silent—but the air seemed charged. Small tendrils of happiness curled off the spring air, coiled around Jane’s skin.

  The sun was setting now. For a rarity the clouds were thinned enough that the sunset could be seen, and its pink and orange rays lit the underside of the white-grey sky. The moor was transformed, each blade of grass clarified, each clump of heather gilded with pink. Here and there daffodils ran along in drifts, bending in the evening breeze.

  It was an odd happiness, and Jane couldn’t tell where it came from, only that it danced through the golden light, the air, thrummed in the quality of the silence between the two of them. She could not break that silence for anything, and when he did, it was half pleasure, half pain as she leaned into his voice, cupping each word to see what would be revealed there.

  “When I was young I painted the moor,” he said. “When I was your age. No—younger, even.” Her heart shattered and swelled at the same time, his words both worse and better than they could be, even if she could not have said for the life of her what worse and better would have been in that moment.

  The house was in sight now, the ancient car nearing its drive. The
black walls soared overhead, and now she had to speak, and her words would undoubtedly fail him—supposing that he even cared what her words were. But she knew nothing about art—no, worse than nothing, for as Gertrude had pointedly reminded her she had had no money for tutors, for training, and so she was treading on a subject she would love not to be ignorant in, and yet, could not help but be. She remembered a series of grainstacks she had seen at a museum once, the same grainstack in shifting lights, seasons. “Did you paint it frequently?” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, and stopped the car at the front door. “But my travails are a story for another time. Come Jane, you are home again, so take up your coat and come see what Cook has prepared for us. Why, what about this black fortress has brought a smile to your face?”

  Home, thought Jane, stepping from the car. Home.

  Chapter 7

  HANDS OF IRON

  Jane woke the next morning with renewed purpose. She was almost joyful as she jumped from bed. The white walls of her room seemed fresh rather than sterile; the dark-paneled halls were warm and inviting. She munched the toast and tea that Martha left outside her door while she dressed and settled the iron mask and fresh padding on her face.

  If this worked, she would have a way in. A way to reach Dorie, a way to convince the girl to learn things before she was hopelessly behind. Stubborn Dorie might be, but if her fey skills were taken from her, she would have few options. Jane ran scenarios of Dorie’s stubbornness in her head while she coiled and pinned her hair, looping locks of it over the leather straps of her mask. The one white lock outlined her skull, twisted a pattern in her coiled bun.

  An hour past dawn, and Dorie would surely be up and eating breakfast.

  Time to tackle the lion. The lion cub? No, no lion—just a mule.

  Jane hurried down to the kitchen. Martha was fitting the teapot onto a loaded tray, talking over her shoulder at Cook. “If he’d keep those late hours for good. But no, now it’s up at dawn. It’s bell-rings. It’s Martha where’s my tea. He won’t eat the fish.”

  “You just take the kippers along anyway,” said Cook. “Sure and you’d think we were in the poorhouse already from the way he starves himself. Tell him if he doesn’t eat those they’ll be going to the dogs and hang the expense.”

  Martha shook her head at Jane as she bustled past her with the tray. “You. Put him in a good mood,” she said. “Don’t know as I like it.”

  Jane grinned. Morning light lit the kitchen stone, softened the folds of her dress. She wondered if Martha were right, if she could possibly take credit for something so lofty and far-removed as the moods of Mr. Rochart. “He’s not an early riser?” she said.

  “Stays up near to cockcrow, sleeps till lunch,” said Cook. “Unless he gets excited about something, then Katy bar the door.” She eyed Jane, but Jane turned to Dorie, who was waving her hand and wafting raisins from a blue-striped stoneware bowl into her mouth, one by one.

  Last time for that.

  Jane scooped up the bowl. “Come on, Dorie,” she said. She half expected a mental tug on the bowl, but Dorie was not an intractable child at heart. She was willing enough to see what they were going to do next. It was only when “next” involved “hands” that everything went to hell in a handbasket.

  “Maybe I’ll take these, too,” said Jane, nodding at the raisins.

  “Suit yourself,” said Cook.

  They made their way up the stairs to Dorie’s playroom, Jane studying the girl as they went. As she had told Niklas, Dorie seemed to use her hands to direct her fey curse. Though she did not use her fingers in any dexterous sense, she often waved her stiff hands in the direction of what she was mentally moving, or to direct the light pictures she made.

  It did not necessarily mean that that’s where the fey curse resided—especially since there were no visible signs of the curse—but it gave Jane hope. After all, if Dorie had to be entirely covered with paste from head to toe, that wasn’t a workable solution any more than Niklas’s trenchant suggestion of eyes or mind.

  Once inside the white-and-silver playroom, Jane took the precious jar of iron-flecked tar paste out. Dorie looked interested, until her eye fell on her Mother doll. She wafted the doll through the air and started it turning somersaults.

  Jane smeared paste on the back of her hand and studied it, considering. Iron was a barrier to fey—the iron on her face kept the poison sealed in just as the iron in the threshold kept the fey out. Or a feyjabber in a fey-ridden corpse killed it for good.

  Jane realized her hand was shaking. Nonsense! Dorie went in and out all the time over iron. Mr. Rochart—Edward—had said it had no effect on her.

  The experiment might fail, but it would not harm Dorie. Jane was really very sure of it, but it didn’t seem to calm her nerves.

  “Dorie,” she said. “We’re going to try a little experiment. Does my hand feel cold to you? Touch it very carefully.”

  Dorie looked suspicious at this directive, but curiosity trumped it. She touched the tar with her flat palm. “Funny,” she said. Jane regarded her closely, but she did not shriek or shudder, and when Jane picked up Dorie’s hand and studied her fingers, they were free of blisters and scars.

  The iron on Jane’s own face didn’t hurt her at all. It merely stopped the fey poison from leaking its power past the barrier. If iron had the same effect on Dorie’s abilities, no one might have noticed. There were few enough people like Dorie, or like Jane—and so no real exploration into how they could live normal human lives, besides what they themselves figured out and shared with each other, what Niklas shared with those lost souls in the city. Besides, everything iron during the war had been melted down to make strips for windows and doors, for shields and feyjabbers. There was little enough of it for Dorie to come in contact with when she was sitting in the middle of her room playing with Mother.

  Jane patted the brown tar all over Dorie’s hands, smoothing it around her fingers and up her arms, checking several times—“Does that burn? Does it feel cold?” But Dorie said no, interested in this messy new game.

  Jane was dying to see if the tar worked. But if she asked Dorie to try her light pictures and she failed, Dorie would immediately connect that with the tar. Better to carry out her plan of distraction. She quickly cranked up the gramophone with Dorie’s favorite piece—a cheerful ditty from the Southern Continent with a bunch of made-up words like jumbuck. “Show me the dance you do,” she said to Dorie over the music. “I want to learn it.”

  This remarkable novelty swung Dorie’s attention away from her sticky arms. She demonstrated her made-up dance for Jane, and even seemed faintly interested in Jane’s inability to do it properly on the first try. But Jane could tell the wheels in her head were turning.

  Jane took them straight from the jolly jumbuck song into a Gaellish one about cockles and mussels, and then into another of Dorie’s favorites. About then, she saw Dorie’s steps fading, her attention growing focused on her arms. So she brought out her pièce de résistance: a new dance record her sister had been tired of. That caught Dorie’s attention.

  “But first, some blocks,” said Jane. Her stomach tensed with the coming conflict. She got down the blocks and started forming pyramids. “Now your hands will make the blocks sticky. Isn’t that silly? It’s a new game.”

  Dorie touched a block with her palm and saw that, indeed, the tar made the block sometimes stick to her hand without her moving her fingers at all. Her expression grew interested. For the moment she had completely forgotten their usual point of conflict, captivated by this game that was halfway between using her hands and not.

  This was an unexpected bonus, and Jane made the most of it, encouraging, joking, distracting. For the rest of the morning, Dorie tried building with blocks with Jane. Jane alternated between triumph and tension—Dorie working with her hands was brilliant, but nothing had been proven one way or another.

  And then Dorie’s block house fell. And then the next one. Her attention shifted, and J
ane clearly saw the moment when Dorie’s inner eye focused, as she attempted to rebuild the blocks in her preferred way.

  Breath held, world stopped.

  Nothing happened.

  Tension poured out, turned into cautious triumph as Dorie’s face blanked out, her focus caught by what was not happening. This time Jane saw the tiniest of blue lights scatter over the blocks and die away.

  And still nothing happened.

  Dorie’s mouth opened in a wordless, taut cry, and she kicked the blocks across the room in frustration.

  “Dorie, bring those back, please,” said Jane.

  Dorie stomped her feet and clacked. She kicked the remaining blocks, stack by stack, banging them across the room.

  “Bring them back this instant,” repeated Jane. She levered the kicking girl to her feet. “Blocks. Now.”

  Dorie kicked and squirmed, freeing herself, and Jane’s temper rose to match Dorie’s. She caught one of Dorie’s sticky angry arms and forced it down to pick up one block and bring it back. Another. “No more disobedience,” said Jane. “No more throwing blocks.”

  Dorie’s mouth opened in a silent howl.

  One by one Jane marched her to pick up every single block. Dorie was a sticky dead weight in her arms, her arms and legs stiff and her jaw set. When the last block was picked up Dorie collapsed on the floor, as if Jane had destroyed her.

  Martha’s knock on the door was a relief. “Bean soup,” the maid said. “Cod in white sauce.”

  Jane’s heart sank. She looked at the sauced fish and porcelain bowl of stew on the tray.

  Dorie stared up mutinously. Jane knew that look. The look of trying to waft the tray through the air.

  But the tray would not go.

  Dorie looked down at her tar-covered arms and wailed, a thin miserable sound. She raised her arms—rubbed them furiously together, trying to scrape the paste away. But her motions were clumsy and the tar sticky. Her scrapings only smudged the paste around.