Ironskin

by Tina Connolly

  Cook shook her head. “Just a married sister. I tell her she should be visiting home more to find herself a man, but she just grunts.” She shrugged. “Who am I to say a shiftless village fool husband’s better than good honest work on your own, not I.…”

  “True,” murmured Jane.

  So the attic would have to wait until Dorie’s naptime, assuming they would let Jane go up at all, assuming this was not an intentional obstacle. Jane went back to her room, idly wondering what eccentricities Cook had that were being overlooked, like Martha’s late hours and Jane’s mask. Or perhaps Cook just had an old-fashioned sense of loyalty.

  She sat on her bed and thumbed through the blue book of Ilhronian city-state politics. It seemed to be a treatise on the best ways to use treachery to hold power. Not really Jane’s cup of tea. She had three books in her trunk, all read a hundred times. A Child’s Vase of Cursing Verses was a classic nursery book: rhymes and stories about dealing with the other—mostly the fey, but a few of the stories were about dwarves, dragons, and other creatures. Even before the war, Jane had been fascinated by the way the book ranged from utterly real and practical advice—how to avoid the copperhead hydra—to things that were surely just tales—who, after all, had ever seen a giant?

  The other two books were excellent novels, full of excitement and adventure. Kind Hearts and Iron Crowns was a cheap, yellow-backed, acid-tongued mystery that had been printed in Bowdler Street by the thousands. And The Pirate Who Loved Queen Maud was gloriously exciting, an extremely rare family heirloom from the time of Queen Maud herself, written by one of the famous dwarf authors that lived at court and were part of her infamous salons. (Queen Maud’s son had been less than pleased by the lurid tale, and he later ordered all copies burned on sight.)

  Still, Jane had read them all. She could not get the gloves yet, Dorie would not wake for another hour, and she needed a distraction to stop thinking of him and that humiliating moment in his studio when the beautiful woman sailed out of his back room. Jane picked up the blue book on politics, intending to go to the library.

  But when she left the room, Dorie was out in the hall.

  “You’re awake!” said Jane. “Well. Good.”

  Blue eyes looked up and through her, mutinous and steady.

  Jane’s heart sank. Today was going to be just as miserable as yesterday.

  Well. She’d known that, right? This was just the hard work part. She could do this.

  Jane took Dorie’s hand and led her back to the nursery. “We’re going to start by eating breakfast,” she said to the little girl. “With a spoon.”

  * * *

  The tar made it so Dorie couldn’t do a repeat of the applesauce incident. But it didn’t make Dorie cooperative. By lunchtime she had eaten a quarter of her morning oatmeal and thrown the rest on the floor. At least she had to use her hands to throw it, Jane thought, trying to see the bright side. Progress was progress, even when it involved oatmeal on the dressing table. Jane opened the door so Dorie could see her lunch waiting, hardened her heart—and then made Dorie wipe up every single oatmeal blob that she had thrown.

  The girl fell asleep in the middle of cleaning up the last of the oatmeal from under the bed. When Martha came back to take the lunch tray, she found Dorie asleep under the bed with her legs sticking out, an exhausted Jane with her head pillowed on her knees, watching her, and a full lunch tray still sitting outside the door.

  “What the—?” Martha shook her head, as if indicating this whole mess was Jane’s affair. “Should I leave it?”

  “We’ll eat it after her nap,” Jane said. Wearily she rose from the sticky, oatmealy floor, took a bun from the tray. “Can you take me to the north attic now? I have permission.”

  The maid nodded.

  They wound through the house, a twisting maze of stairs and turns. Jane was not sure she could find the way back by herself, even if she had been allowed to go alone. All the dark and puzzling features of fey architecture were clear as they twisted higher, through steps that went nowhere, halls that curved imperceptibly, cleverly subtle mirrors that reflected extra doors.

  Jane caught her breath as they went up the steep ladderlike steps to the north attic, Martha’s blue-lit lantern flickering in front of her. She did not know what she expected—a row of skeletons, a murdered wife, a madwoman with a mysterious laugh? The nameless terror of her nightmares?

  But Helen’s lurid imaginings were not to be found. It was an ordinary attic, dim and crowded with the history of generations. The air was hot and close, as attics seem to be even in April.

  Martha gestured at a grouping of wardrobes, trunks, and hatboxes, covered in dust. “Years of things,” she said, in her usual succinct fashion. She tapped a chewed-on hatbox with her foot. “Got to set more mousetraps.”

  “A two-syllable word,” Jane said absently.

  Martha looked at her suspiciously. “You look while I sweep. Cook says don’t snoop.”

  Jane ignored this and immediately opened the nearest hatbox, the one that had been chewed on. She couldn’t very well find gloves without snooping, could she? But inside was the tattered folds of what might have once been pillowcases, or anything at all, and the remains of a mouse nest. Another hatbox was better equipped, with mothballs and what looked like a fancy pair of men’s breeches, a hundred years out of date. A third hatbox actually held a hat, but no gloves.

  “Do you think Grace’s clothing is really still here?” said Jane. “Maybe her family took it.” No particular reason why they would—Jane was probing.

  “She just had a da,” said Martha, who was attacking great swathes of cobwebs with her broom. “No need for her things.”

  “Poor man,” Jane said, thinking of her mother’s grief over Charlie. “Was he from town?”

  “One town up,” said Martha. “They had a shop. Don’t think he has it no more.” Her prods at the spiders dislodged a great pile of dust from the rafters, sending Martha into a coughing fit as it settled to the floor.

  Jane had her eye on the large wardrobe against the far wall, and she used the distraction to make a beeline for it, in case Martha would have stopped her. The wardrobe was dark walnut, old and burled. A heavy, old-fashioned piece, massive against the plaster wall. The brass key hung loosely in the lock, and Jane turned it with a click and opened the door.

  Inside were rows and rows of gowns. Jane gasped softly at the sight.

  They tended toward the cool colors—silvers, blues, and greens, with some gold thrown in for good measure. Jane pulled the nearest one out and found it to be a sapphire blue silk in a corseted style from a hundred years ago. The next one was a cream muslin with green flowers and an empire waist—that style was probably a hundred and fifty years old, or more. Dress after dress, myriad different periods. But the dresses appeared to all be new, or at least stored so immaculately that no fading or yellowing had occurred, and not a single moth or insect had invaded them.

  She studied the beautiful dresses, puzzling over them. The obvious answer was that they really were a hundred and two hundred years old—dresses collected from generation after generation of the ladies of the household. Their condition amazed her, but perhaps some fey technology she had never heard of kept the wardrobe sealed and insect-free.

  If they did all belong to the former Mrs. Rochart, then she had had odd tastes. Beautiful, but odd. Jane wished Helen were here to see the dresses and give her opinion on their age. She could probably deduce other clues that Jane could not; find the tiny details that hinted at the wearer’s status, or know what kind of outing the dress was for.

  Jane’s fingers lingered on the dress she was studying. It was beautiful—the color of a golden flame. She pulled it all the way out. It was one of the most modern ones—pre-war styling, shapeless with layers of golden chiffon floating from the shoulders and dropped waist. Glass beading trimmed the handkerchief hem. It must have been expensive. She held it up to herself, smoothing the gauzy fabric against her plain day dress, wonderi
ng if it would fit.

  The wardrobe doors had rows of drawers along the inside. Still holding the golden dress, Jane opened them one by one and found plenty of gloves, along with gilded fans, satin ribbons, paste jewels, square shoe buckles. She found a beautiful cream-colored pair of gloves in poor condition that would work perfectly for Dorie. The left glove was marred by a dark red wine stain that splashed up the forearm like blood. Jane held it up to the golden dress, imagining how it would all fit together, the gown, the gloves, the night.…

  Martha whistled and Jane looked up, guiltily dropping the folds of the golden dress. The maid leaned on her broom, studying the ball gown with an oddly wistful expression, and Jane suddenly remembered that despite Martha’s sternness and angularity, she was younger than Jane herself. “I saw her once,” Martha said. “I was eight, and she came to town. I thought she was so fair. Wore deep blue silk like a queen. Saw her just once—no more.”

  “And then she was gone,” breathed Jane, recalling the horror that Edward had described to her. Pregnant with Dorie—killed and taken over by the fey.

  Martha shook her head, seeming to recall herself to her purpose. “You got your gloves,” she said. “I think you’re done here.”

  “I need some linen I can cut into child-sized gloves,” said Jane.

  “That box, if the rats ain’t et it.” Martha stared down at Jane with folded arms till Jane and her booty were on the way out of the attic.

  * * *

  Dorie was still under the bed when Jane got back. Jane’s heart leapt to her throat in the first instant of seeing those legs stick out from under the bed, for all the world like a rag doll, like something dead. What if the iron was poison after all?

  Heart thumping, Jane kneeled down and lifted the bed skirt, looked under the bed.

  The girl’s eyes were open. Dorie was staring blankly at the underside of the bed, tar-smeared hands flat on the floor.

  “Dorie?” said Jane. “Are you all right?” Carefully she pulled the little girl out from under the bed, out into the room. “Do you want to eat lunch?”

  A hint of a shrug.

  “You must be hungry,” Jane said. She levered Dorie to a sitting position, surprised that the girl offered no resistance. “Let’s check your arms and eat our lunch.” With her rag she made sure that the flecks of iron covered every bit of Dorie’s fingers and up her arms. Then she wiggled Dorie’s fingers into the long cream gloves from the attic, smoothing the bloodred stain of the left one up and along the arm. Dorie sat passively and watched.

  Jane brought the tray in from the hall. In accordance with her request yesterday, it was mostly simple finger foods—the first spring peas in their shells, cut in half. A bun, that Jane tore into bite-sized pieces. A small bowl of applesauce—Jane cringed.

  She pushed the tray toward Dorie. “Let’s eat the bread and peas,” she said gently.

  Dorie sighed, slumped. One gloved hand came out and grabbed a piece of the roll, ate it. Then the next bite. Then the next. Not looking at Jane, she ate everything on her plate, then looked at the applesauce.

  A waver—a flicker of blue. The light in Dorie’s eyes flickered up in response … and then died away.

  Sighing, Dorie held out her hand, and Jane placed the spoon in it. Spoonful after difficult spoonful Dorie went through the applesauce until it was all gone.

  Jane looked down at the silent girl in astonishment.

  This was victory, sure enough.

  So why didn’t it feel like it?

  * * *

  Jane felt unsettled by her odd triumph with Dorie. Uneasy from her encounter with Mr. Rochart. The nightmares came again—sometimes she was Jane, sometimes she was her brother, stiff on the battlefield. They were coming every night now, coalescing on a scene she wrenched away from, knew she didn’t want to see. But when she pulled away from the vision of the battlefield, the terror came sliding in through her cheek, poured itself through her like water, until she woke up panting.

  In the past there had been Helen to soothe her when she woke in terror. Now there was no one. Jane felt as though the ground were shifting under her feet, a sliding back and forth of uncertainty. Perhaps if she could just see him—she could talk to him about his daughter. Talk to him—just talk to him.

  The days passed and still he did not come.

  Jane looked for him in every shadow of curtain, every stroke of the clock. She lay awake in the blackest hour of the night, unable to let her failures or successes go, her mind flicking through each day’s events, relentless.

  Dorie on her stomach, slumped on her gloved elbows, listlessly working on her letters.

  Lunch: soup with the last of the put-up vegetables, the first spring peas on the side.

  Martha shutting a gossip magazine with a snap, Cook gesturing with a wooden spoon at a full mousetrap and grinning.

  Mr. Rochart, where her thoughts always landed. But she hadn’t seen Mr. Rochart. Hadn’t seen him since he was with that redhead, Miss Ingel.

  But that just recalled the incident in the studio, a week ago. Awake now, Jane writhed under her quilts, tormented by jabs of humiliation. Why had she thought she could be his equal? The entire time he let her try out her silly flirtation, he had that woman in the back room. He knew that she liked him, knew why she turned her face away. He probably thought she was standing that way in the sunlight, in that dress, to do … what Alistair had suggested.

  She thumped her pillow angrily and rolled over. She would not let her thoughts turn inward. She would resist. She didn’t like him, she wasn’t that foolish, and she wasn’t here for that. She was here to help Dorie, and that was it. She did not expect anything else.

  Did not, did not. Did not … but why did that redhead in his studio look so familiar? Someone Jane had seen at her sister’s wedding? No, it was mostly the name that was familiar. Jane’s eyes flew open. Of course! The woman who had come on Jane’s first day. Her name was Miss Ingel—Blanche Ingel. She even looked like this one, as near as a charcoal sketch looked like an oil painting. That Miss Ingel had had the same red hair, true, but had not been beautiful in the slightest. The two might be cousins, she supposed.

  Odd, but explicable. Why did it make her so uneasy? Her damn cheek, that’s why. It was unnerving her, and she couldn’t trust her reactions. As if in response, it fired again. She pressed the back of her cold hand to it and thought of standing at the window in his studio, watching the woods and imagining him studying the shape of her blue dress. Shame tormented her belly like cold claws scuttling through her gut.

  Nothing. She expected nothing. He wasn’t even avoiding her—he simply didn’t care. He hadn’t even noticed that he hadn’t seen her for a week. Maybe she was worth speaking to when she stood there, but when she was gone? Then, she was like the book she had taken from the library and still not returned. Because would you notice if Ilhronian History of the 16th Century was missing from a shelf? Not very likely. It was the sort of book you wouldn’t even remember owning, seeing, or reading. And it certainly wouldn’t lure you with a pretty blue spine, not when its contents were so unspeakably dull.

  She was going back to sleep now.

  Think of nothing.

  The quilts strangled her with their heat, and the nose-tickling scent of the jar of iron-flecked tar was intolerable at this hour of night. Jane kicked the quilts off one by one, twisting her bare feet into the cooler air of the room. It was too warm for a night in April.

  At last she untangled herself from the bedclothes and padded in bare feet to the window.

  She thumbed on the fey-tech light and unfolded the most recent letter from Helen in its faint blue glow. She had started out hoarding its mini-bluepack, but when it winked out recently, surprise, surprise, Martha had produced another. “Aren’t out yet,” is all the maid would say, curtly, and so Jane thought: Fine. If they won’t tell me, then I’ll use as much damn light as I please.

  She had been interrupted somewhere toward the end of the party description by
Dorie waking up from a nap. Now she skimmed the repetitive descriptions of dresses and flirtations until she found her place.

  “But enough of my popularity,” Helen wrote. “What is merely good is short of perfect, you know, and Alistair reminds me that we had a setback to a proper upbringing. We are so good for one another, Jane. He has promised me that he will give up gambling at horses with that rough set, and for my part, he is finishing me off to perfection and you would be so delighted to see how I take to it. I work every day with the skin scrubs and the creams, and am performing the newfangled calisthenics to stay fit for my lovely slinky dresses. There is alas nothing I can do about the bump on my nose, but Alistair assures me he has a plan in mind, and he is quite clever.”

  What bump? thought Jane.

  “The endless round of parties, dinners, &c I have just described for you seems less droll lately. I suppose the amount of catch-up I have to do fatigues me, for I am always treading on someone’s toes, and then Alistair takes me to task, as if I were not more cognizant of it than he himself! You have little experience of masses of women friends, but I tell you it is quite shocking the way they can cut you down with a word or a lowering of the eyelids. How pleasant to be you in your solitude, I am sure!”

  Jane snorted. She pressed the soles of her feet to the painted wood table legs, cooling them.

  “I am trapped between two worlds, Jane, do you know what that’s like? Perhaps you made the right decision to stay humbly in our place after all. And yet—no. No, I would not return to governessing for the most beautiful face in the city.

  “You must come soon. Ironskin or no, I miss my strong-hearted sister more each day. Lock yourself in with me and we will face the world down together.

  “Yours, Helen.”

  Jane dropped the letter to the desk. It was always difficult to get at her sister’s real feelings; she insisted on burying them under a layer of decorative nonsense. Helen had always been fond of saying silly things passionately, like “we must have new ribbons,” or, “you must eat that cake.” Perhaps her willful gaiety had been good for Jane; but then, Jane’s serious determination had probably been good for Helen. Certainly she had always tried to be a steadying influence. Mr. Huntingdon, however … Was he the reason the letter seemed sharp and sad all at once?