by Mary Weber
I check my reflection in the kitchen window and almost laugh. Why I expected it would’ve altered since the last time I wore it is wishful thinking. I look like a fae doll dressed up for a funeral. I drop my gaze and swallow the embarrassment threatening to rise. It’ll have to do.
After grabbing one of Mum’s shawls from the wall hook, I slip it on, then pause to brace my spine and chest before I set my hand on the door to her room. You will not cry, you will just breathe.
I swallow and purse my lips. Come on—you cut up corpses and run tests on rats. Facing your mum is not unbearable. But my hands still sweat, and my throat clenches and I want to throw up. Because all I usually feel in these moments is scared and angry and weak. And this time is no exception.
I just want the mum I’ve always known back. Healthy. Vibrant. Strong enough to steady me when I don’t know how to steady myself on certain days. And to hold me when I don’t know where I belong—because lately, more than ever, I think I belong nowhere.
Instead, I end up holding her—the slowly fading body of skin and bone that is my mum—and I’m so desperately grateful she’s there to hold, yet so desperately terrified that I cannot hold on tight enough. I can’t fix her. And when she goes . . . I won’t know how to fix Da.
With a deep breath I straighten, choke back a sob, and tap on the door.
5
Mum is sitting in bed, in the lantern-smoke-stained room, with her head resting on an elevated pillow. Even in her tired state, she looks as lovely as the northern nymphs that come out at full moon. The light from her lamp is low but still strong enough for the flickers to illuminate her soft brown curls and to smooth her sallow face as she breaks into a wide smile.
“You look beautiful.” Her voice is an ocean tide trickling over rocks. “Are you headed up to Sara’s party?”
I nod and sit on the edge of her rusty metal bed.
“Good. You’ll have a marvelous time,” she says gently.
I stay quiet so as not to say anything that will make her homesick to attend. She used to have her own marvelous times, too, when she was younger. She never says so, but I know she misses it. The parties, the dresses, the fancy lights, and the food. As a child of an Upper, Mum grew up in luxury with her sister—my aunt Sara—until Da came along. Never mind he was brilliant and clever, and his university cadaver cleanup position allowed more of an education than the actual students even got. Mum was disinherited the moment she married him. And even Aunt Sara and Uncle Nicholae forbid Da from their home, although they still send Mum and me invites.
In eighteen years of marriage, Mum has never once gone. She does, however, insist that I attend.
I inch closer and give her cold hand a squeeze. She gives a feeble squeeze back, and I refuse my heart to squeeze along with it lest it begin to feel things and then fall apart. “I just wish you were coming.”
“And let the lot of them think they’re above your da? Hardly. I made my choice, and I’d do it again today,” she says, because it’s what she always says. She smiles. “Will Kenneth’s son be there?”
“He will.” I keep my voice even and hold her hand as I casually search her wrist and neck with my gaze. Her fingers are weak in mine, and I can’t tell if the skin beneath her left ear is darker. Bruised around her lymph nodes.
“Think he’ll fill up your dance card?”
I force a grin even though the idea of such a thing with Vincent nowadays makes me feel like I can’t breathe. “I expect so.”
“His mother was an old friend.” She tries to move her fingers to pat mine. “Vincent’s a good boy. You two have always been compatible.” The look on her face says her hopes haven’t changed that I’ll nab him as a good boy for my own. Before she and Da get too much older. And before she gets too much worse.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that we’re not quite so compatible these days. Since about fourteen months ago, to be precise. And even if we were . . .
My mind flashes awkwardly to Lute. To the flush he brought to my neck earlier. The way he looked at me as I talked about dead things, and how he didn’t look at me when Mrs. Holder talked about humiliating things.
Mum lifts a brow and her eyes search mine. “Unless . . .?”
“There are many good Upper boys,” I say quickly, just to see her mind ease—even while I feel the guilt that says I’m probably giving false hope. It’s not uncommon for Upper boys to marry Lower girls. Unlike an Upper girl marrying a Lower boy, which is, to quote Mum’s father, “utter ruination.” Thus, I’ve tried to find interest in the Uppers for the financial sake of my parents, and specifically in Vincent King, whose passion for science was the same as mine until last year. Only now . . .
I lift my gaze back to Mum’s smile and swallow. Only now, I don’t know about any of that.
Because here I am. In this moment. In this reality. Where a large portion of my heart is dying right here in front of me—and some days I’m not sure there’ll be enough of me left to give away to a boy, let alone for a future. Not when my mum’s own future is uncertain.
Not when I can continue trying to do something about it.
Not when the test cure we created is actually working on Pink Lady.
I glance across the room toward the direction of the port, as if I can peer through the walls to the people there. To the hunger they feel—like the hunger I have—for the world to be different. I bite my cheek. You don’t need to worry about me finding a husband, I want to say. I promise I’ll give you something better. I’m finding you a cure instead. But I don’t say it, because I can’t promise her that any more than I can hand her the moon. So I just lean down and kiss the top of her head and try not to notice if her frothy hair seems thinner today. “Mum, I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Take your time.” She chuckles. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I close the door softly behind me, but right before it shuts, she whispers, “I love you, Rhen.”
I blink nine times and swallow back the tempest in my throat, then yank her shawl around me tighter and stride for the front door.
I love you too, Mum.
A cacophony of noise carries up from the lower streets when I step outside. People are banging on metal drums, and loud voices are hollering amid groups of footsteps running. I frown. Parties for the festival have been going on for days, but the laughter and shouts floating up almost sound angry. What did Will and Sam find out about the commotion earlier?
Forget Aunt Sara, my mind says. Go see what the problem is.
But my mind also says, Seleni will rip your face off and Mum will be disappointed if you don’t show. The noise is just heightened excitement.
And it probably is. If it’d been anything major, they would’ve been rioting earlier when I was down there—not talking in whispers. More likely, Sam and Will and a host of others are at Sow’s pub challenging each other over drinks, with half the town cheering them on. The Port people are nothing if not proud of their boys, and they’ve been taking bets for weeks on who’ll bring home the win. Even though the Lowers have only won seven years out of the past fifty-four. Tonight is their send-off before it all begins tomorrow.
I chew my lip and, for a moment, debate joining them.
Instead, I turn and start up the road as the lights twinkle across the bridge leading to the Upper district and Aunt Sara and Uncle Nicholae’s event of the year.
The beautiful manors and pastures, with their gardens and mini rose forests, sit like crowns overlooking our seaside town and shore. Even in the evening dim, they make a picturesque statement beneath a jewel-crushed sky.
I shake off the familiar fear of what else sits in that dimness and what will happen if its moor ghosts catch scent of me. I can feel their tendrils already—their auras reaching out along the tributaries and roads in search of foolish travelers to pull into the underground cemeteries.
A shrill scream rattles the air and about makes my skin peel off. It’s from somewhere out over the o
cean—a siren looking for prey. I say a quick prayer for lost sailors and then, with a loud gulp, clutch up my skirts to keep the material from snagging and make my way quick and quiet along the hedge of cattle nettles and berry vines.
Dust stirs up and horses neigh and wheels crunch the gravel as guest after guest drives past me on the road that weaves up to my uncle’s mansion, which sits five estates below the towering hill of Mr. Holm and the famed Holm Labyrinth. The coaches’ swinging lanterns look like fireflies in the dark, and it’s not hard to notice how many more there are than usual.
Seleni says the night before the equinox is the time to host a lavish event—especially if you have a young lady you’re hoping to marry off. Let the last impression in the future businessman’s mind be of red-stained lips and lilac-scented skin. Because whether the families win or not, they’ll remember the way that girl and party made them feel—like they could accomplish anything. Which I hear is a desirable quality in a spouse.
I carefully open the inner gate and tighten the string in my hair before I maneuver through the path in my aunt’s underused garden that, as a child, I was enamored with. Seleni and I used to make worm hospitals in the mud and rocks here—dissecting the invertebrates in order to “learn how to save them.”
Until her parents found out and recoiled in horror at what kind of children would do such a thing. “Possessed ones,” I had whispered, just so we could snicker at my aunt’s reaction. From then on they decided my visits would consist of Seleni’s nanny teaching us cross-stitch—something far more appropriate for young ladies with clearly too much morbid time on their hands.
I let out a smile at the slip of memory as I round a cluster of elf bushes and overgrown trellises, to arrive at Seleni’s back entrance of warmly lit windows and double doors.
The indoor scene is golden. Like something from my aunt’s collection of children’s fairy books. Candles in crystal chandeliers sparkle through the windows above the space. Tapestries, fireplaces, and bouquets of fresh flowers give the room a rich ambience, as does the assembly of servants carrying silver trays loaded with pastries and drinks. My stomach growls. The guests are filling their plates around food tables and fountains, and the savory smell slipping out promises plenty of rich stews and hot vegetable platters.
I inhale through my nose and smooth my ill-fitted bodice. Then lift a hand to knock.
The door swings open. “I thought I saw you slinking up, you minx!” Seleni crows. “Come save me,” she adds in a whisper, and grabs my elbow to drag me through the doorway and into the shiny, marble-floored room.
Light and music splash over us. A waltz is being played on a harpsichord that, from my assessment, sounds as perfectly tuned as the guests’ nerves look. I start to smile until I spot her mum, my aunt Sara, standing behind Seleni and peering from beneath a pile of brown curls that seem to be set in some type of hair topiary. I nod, curtsy, and hurry to shut the door to keep in the warmth. “Aunt Sara, thank you for the invitation.”
“Of course, dear. How’s your mother feeling?” Aunt Sara’s features falter as her eyes take in my still-damp hair and crumpled skirt. She leans in and sniffs, then straightens with a frown. “Rhen, dear, did you bathe in the ocean again?” Her voice is intended only for me even as her pale cheeks tinge pink.
“I bathed at home but had to rush. I was working on something with my da, but . . .”
Aunt Sara’s gaze falls. She sighs and flips her hand as if to ask why she even tries. “Please take some food home to your mother when you go.”
I nod, apologize again, and duck from her before the sense of shame that sometimes plagues my bones when I’m here can flare and leak onto my neck and face. I hustle for the other side of the room, where a fireplace bigger than the five men standing in front of it roars and toasty drinks are being served.
Seleni is right behind me, every hair in place, draped in a cream dress that looks like a cupcake, with a tight waist that’s bordering on scandalous in the way it hits just above her ankles. “It’s okay. Mum was appalled because I looked ‘too winded’ when I got home. She had Nanny spend a solid hour fixing my ‘atmosphere’—whatever that is.”
“She means well,” is all I say. Because I believe it’s probably true. Or maybe it’s just that my aunt believes it’s true—that everything she’s done has been because she meant well. It’s not her fault that most of the world can never be presentable enough to earn her and my uncle’s approval.
“I do try,” I’d told them once many years ago.
“Try and succeed are simply degrees between how badly one wants a thing,” was my uncle’s reply. “We can only provide profitable opportunities for you, child. It’s up to you what you make of them.”
Which is the same thing he said when he found out Da was pulling me out of classes to homeschool me. Just like my short-lived internship at Mr. Holder’s papery, my educational struggle wasn’t a matter of trying—it was due to my problem with the letters and numbers shifting places in my head. And even though the schoolteacher agreed that Da’s idea of repetitious science and documentation was precisely what was needed, and the two years since had brought about enormous progress, it didn’t matter to my uncle. He simply couldn’t understand.
Ahead of me, Seleni grabs a glass of mulled tea off a serving tray and offers it, which I down in five gulps as my stomach loudly reminds me I’ve not eaten all day. “Come on. I’ll introduce you around. There’s a host of Beryll’s friends I’m determined you’ll take an interest in. Oh, and some of Daddy’s famous political associates are here too,” she adds with a soft squeal.
“Did Beryll’s parents come?” I glance around for the politicians she referred to.
Seleni gives a sharp laugh in answer, then tucks her arm around mine.
“Well, they’re fools then. Because who wouldn’t want to spend time with you?”
“Exactly.” She sniffs, then pats my hand and leads me toward the group of her friends, a few of whom I recognize from past events.
They’re chatting in a circle beneath a vibrant mural of Caldon’s royal castle, wearing the same type of fancy outfits and hair grease as the people in the painting. I shyly eye the lace-draped girls perched beside impeccably dressed boys who are surrounded by a fog of cologne. If the parents’ preening looks being shot their way are any indicator, at least ten of the boys are going for the Holm scholarship.
“Hello there,” a girl in black ringlets and a stiff corset says. “I like your dress. The brown matches your eyes.”
I brace and wait for the sarcasm to follow, but it doesn’t. She just keeps smiling, and after a second I return the grin. “Thanks. I think the same of yours.”
“I’m Moly.”
“Rhen.”
“I know. Seleni’s told me about you.”
“Ah, there they are.” Beryll clears his throat and holds up a fresh-scrubbed face that gives no indication he was carousing with corpses a few hours ago. “Miss Lake, I was just informing our friends here how you two have never missed a single Labyrinth festivity.”
“Not a one. Even when I was deathly ill with fever.” Seleni jokingly swipes a hand across her forehead. “Mainly because I’ve made it my life’s work to discover the true identity of Mr. Holm.” She releases my arm and slips over to Beryll, where she takes his drink from his hand and sips it. Then nuzzles close to him in a way I recognize as her still feeling insecure about his parents.
“Ah, the elusive Holm. Man of mystery or murder? That is the question,” a tall boy to Seleni’s left says. I peer over at him and my nerves prick. The guy could probably grow a full beard to match his impeccable dark eyebrows if he wanted, but it’s his eyes that make him stand out. They’re cold. Detached.
Calculating.
I shiver and decide to avoid any dark corners near him.
“Definitely misery, Germaine. Haven’t you heard my brother talk about the contest from two years ago?”
We all cringe at jolly-faced Lawrence and the story
he’s told both times I’ve seen him—about how his brother made it into the top three contestants and would’ve won if he’d remembered the correct equation for harmonic oscillation. But he didn’t and instead tried to steal an opponent’s place, and when he emerged shrieking from the Labyrinth, the only thing he’d say about it was that a ghoul had climbed inside his head and whispered, “Cheaters eventually meet their maker.”
He went on to attend a less expensive university and, from what Beryll’s said, has never been dishonest since, for fear his conscience will push him into insanity.
“Which is exactly why I find Holm creepy.” Eloise looks up primly from her spot at Lawrence’s arm. “My mum says he communes with the dead.”
“I’ve heard he isn’t real, but the invented persona of two Stemwick graduates,” a boy with a giant plate of cake informs us.
“Well I’ve heard he’s a death wizard.” Seleni drops her voice and slowly raises her hands to curl her fingers into claws while the light flickers through them. “He comes out at night on the eve of the autumnal equinox to drink the blood of his victims. And when he’s done? He paints his Labyrinth with the screams of their souls. It’s how his magic is reborn each year and how he keeps his Labyrinth beasts fed.”
I chuckle along with the group. Seleni made that story up one autumnal eve years ago, and we’ve scared each other and every child we can with it since.
It wasn’t until we got older that we realized there might actually be some truth to it.
Just like the intermittent deaths of scholarship contestants, the rumors of strangers who’ve wandered near his place at night and never returned aren’t just folklore. Sam once told me that his mum heard screams coming from Holm’s grounds early one morning.
“She thinks it’s his obsession with experimenting,” he’d said. “Was probably conducting tests on some poor chap.”
