A Winter's Promise

by Christelle Dabos

  “I would prefer not, sir,” she replied, declining as politely as she could.

  Archibald took off his hat and, with his finger, fiddled with its crown, which flipped open like a tin. “As you please, but take great care of yourself, little Denise. The Citaceleste is not the best place for a young woman alone, whether married or not.”

  Ophelia crouched down and picked a poppy. She twirled the downy stalk, which seemed so real, between her fingers. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d meet anyone at such an hour,” she murmured. “I just wanted to walk a little.”

  “Ah, but we’re not in your lovely mountains, where day and night mean something! Up here, any time’s a good time for dancing, maligning, and plotting. As soon as one gets involved in the social whirl, one loses all control of time!”

  Ophelia pulled the flower from its stalk and folded down each petal until it looked like a little doll in a red dress. Agatha had taught her this trick when they were both young. “And do you enjoy that life?”

  Archibald now also crouched and took the poppy-doll out of her hands with an amused curiosity. “No, but I know no other life. Little Denise, may I give you some advice? Advice that you can then pass on to your cousin from me.”

  Ophelia looked at him with astonishment.

  “She must never, but never, go near our Lord Farouk. He’s as capricious as he is unpredictable—she’ll be ruined.” He had said this with such solemnity that Ophelia started seriously to wonder who this family spirit was to prompt such mistrust in his own descendants.

  “Tell me instead, sir, to whom my cousin might turn without fearing for her life and virtue.”

  Archibald nodded his head approvingly, his eyes like sparkling water. “Fantastic! You’ve finally grasped how our world works.”

  A metallic creaking told them the lift was approaching. Archibald pulled Ophelia’s hood back over her head, opened the folding gate, and pushed her gently into the lift’s padded interior. This time it was an old lift operator, so lined, so shaky, and so hunched that he must have been a hundred. Ophelia thought it shameful to make a man of that age work.

  “Take this lady down to the warehouses,” instructed Archibald.

  “You’re staying here?” asked Ophelia, surprised.

  The ambassador bowed and raised his gaping opera hat in farewell. “Me, I must return to loftier heights. I’ll take another lift. Goodbye, little Denise, and take care of yourself . . . Oh, a final warning!” He tapped the tattoo between his eyebrows, with a big, mocking smile. “Also tell your cousin not to spout everything and anything to those who bear this mark. It could backfire on her one day.”

  The lift’s gate closed, leaving Ophelia deep in thought.

  The Sister

  As the lift slowly descended, floor after floor, Ophelia leant against its velvet wall. The ambassador’s parting words were still ringing in her ears. What had he meant by saying that? She was no longer so sure to have taken him in with all her lies.

  Whether it was the effect of that glass of champagne, the lack of sleep, or all those illusions, Ophelia didn’t know, but her head was spinning. Suddenly shivering, she rubbed her arms. The contrast with the summery warmth of the garden was stark. Unless that was where the illusion stopped: while she’d thought she was hot, her body had caught cold. She noticed the record player, which was churning out a little violin tune. “How on earth,” she thought, “do these people manage to live, day in, day out, in this irritating atmosphere?” In comparison, her mother’s hysterics seemed restful.

  In the meantime, if Ophelia didn’t get back soon and her room was found empty, her aunt would die of worry. From inside her hood she observed the old lift operator, with his red livery and enormous white side-whiskers sticking out from his elastic-strapped hat. He was gripping his lever as a skipper does his tiller.

  “Sir?”

  The man took a while to understand that this murmur was addressed to him. He turned two eyes sunk deep in their sockets towards Ophelia. From his dumbfounded look, she realized that no one had ever called him “sir” before.

  “Yes, miss?”

  “How does one get to Lady Berenilde’s from the warehouses, please?”

  “It’s not just next door—miss should take a stagecoach,” the old attendant suggested. “Miss will find one near the big covered market, on the other side of the warehouses.”

  “Thank you.”

  He checked his floor counter, on which the numbers were diminishing, and then turned his pale eyes back to Ophelia. “Miss is a stranger, isn’t that so? You can hear it by the sound. It’s so rare to come across any around here!”

  She just nodded timidly in agreement. She was definitely going to have to change that accent and her manners if she wanted to melt into the background.

  When the lift arrived at a landing, silhouettes could be seen through the mesh of the gate. The old man jammed on the brake and opened to them. Ophelia pressed herself against the padded wall. A couple with three children entered the lift, asking for “the tearoom.” They were all so impressive in their fur outfits that Ophelia felt like a mouse among bears.

  The boys, who were rowdy, jostled her without even noticing her. They were as alike as three peas in a pod, with their shaven heads and wildcat smiles. Squashed at the back of the lift, Ophelia wondered whether these little savages went to school. She was hoping the parents would restore a little calm among them, but she soon realized that they had other concerns.

  “Try to distinguish yourself, just for a change!” the wife said, bitterly, to the husband. “The doors of Clairdelune will be forever closed to us if you’re incapable of coming up with a single witticism. Think of our boys a little and their entrée into society.”

  With hands deep in a muff, she wore a dress of honey-hued mink that would have made her look stunning if her face hadn’t been distorted by spite. Her twitching lips; her pale hair pulled tight under her fur hat; her nose sticking up like a thorn; the line etched between her eyebrows—each feature of her face spoke of constant displeasure, a dissatisfaction rooted deep inside her. So much tension emanated from her body that Ophelia got a headache just looking at her.

  The husband scowled. His huge blond beard blended in so well with the fur of his coat that the one seemed an integral part of the other. “And yet I don’t believe that it was I who split the ears of the countess. With your tantrums, my dear, you’re not doing our social life any favors.”

  That man had a mountain torrent instead of a voice. Even without shouting, he was deafening.

  “She had insulted me! And I have to defend my own honor, since you’re too cowardly to do so.”

  Ophelia kept a low profile in her corner of the lift. She allowed herself to be jostled by the quarreling children and abandoned any thought of complaining.

  “But . . . we’re going down!” the woman suddenly shouted, outraged. “We asked for the tearoom, you senile old man!”

  “If madam and sir would forgive me,” said the lift operator, bowing respectfully, “first I have to drop miss off at the warehouses.”

  The wife, the husband and the three children turned towards the little shadow desperately trying to disappear into its cloak, as though they were finally noticing its presence. Ophelia hardly dared to meet their razor-blade eyes, so high above her. While the man was the tallest and most imposing of them all, with his long blond beard, it was of his wife that she was particularly wary. She wasn’t sure how, but this woman gave her a terrible headache.

  “And why should you take precedence over us?” the latter spat out with disdain.

  Ophelia was afraid that her accent would betray her yet again; she just shook her hood to make them understand that she wasn’t that bothered about this precedence. Unfortunately, her approach didn’t seem to meet with the woman’s approval.

  “Just look at that,” she hissed, appalled. “It
would appear that this young person deems me unworthy of a reply.”

  “Freya, calm down,” the husband sighed into his beard. “You’re far too touchy, making a scene over nothing. Let’s make a detour to the warehouses and say no more about it!”

  “It’s because of weaklings like you that our clan is destined to decline,” she snapped, spitefully. “We cannot let a single insult slip by unchecked if we are to be respected.” Then, turning to Ophelia, she added: “Come on, show us your face. Is it because you’re Mirage that you hide your eyes like a coward?”

  Spurred by their mother’s agitation, the children were laughing and stamping their feet. Ophelia just couldn’t understand what she’d done to land herself in the soup again. The old attendant, seeing that the situation was turning nasty, decided it was time to intervene: “Miss is a stranger, she won’t have really understood madam.”

  Freya’s fury was snuffed out like a flame. “A stranger?”

  Her pale, narrow eyes scrutinized Ophelia’s glasses, deep in the shadow of her hood, intently. For her part, Ophelia noticed the woman’s hands, which she had revealed by relinquishing her muff. They were covered in tattoos identical to those of Berenilde. These people belonged to the Dragon clan. They were her future in-laws.

  “Are you what I think you are?” asked Freya in a muted voice. Ophelia nodded yes. She had understood clearly that, in her current situation, it was better to be who she was than to pass for a member of a rival clan. “And might one know what you’re up to here?” The surprise had made Freya’s face smoother. She looked ten years younger.

  “I got lost,” whispered Ophelia.

  “Take us down to the warehouses,” said Freya, capitulating, to the great relief of the lift operator and her husband.

  When the lift reached its destination, Freya allowed Ophelia to leave first, following close on her heels. “Haldor, go on ahead with the children,” she said, closing the gate.

  “Er . . . are you sure, my dear?”

  “I’ll find you in the tearoom once I’ve accompanied this girl to her destination, safe and sound. It wouldn’t do for her to encounter the wrong sort of people.”

  Ophelia glanced at the grandfather clock in the waiting room. It was too late now to sneak back into her room. Everyone at the manor must be awake by now.

  As they were going through the warehouses, Freya lifted her mink dress to avoid the puddles. “I presume it’s Berenilde you’re staying with? We’ll take a carriage.”

  They cut across the covered market, already teeming with people. The smell of fish made Ophelia feel nauseous; right now, it was strong coffee, not fish, that she was dreaming of. Freya hailed a carriage, and settled on one seat. Ophelia sat down opposite her. As the carriage set off, an uncomfortable silence fell heavily between them—the tall, haughty blonde and the small, awkward brunette.

  “Thank you, madam,” murmured Ophelia.

  Freya smiled, but there was no light in her eyes. “Are you enjoying the Pole?”

  “It’s all a bit new to me,” Ophelia replied, choosing her words carefully. She’d realized what a touchy character Freya was, so best to avoid offending her.

  “And my brother? Is he to your taste?”

  Freya was Thorn’s sister? True, they had the same eyes, full of thunder. Ophelia looked out of the window in the carriage door, now vibrating in the strong wind. The carriage had just burst out into the open, the real open. It rattled along a narrow and precipitous cliff road, jolted up to the top of a rampart, and came back down the side of the Citaceleste. Daring to glance down below, Ophelia saw the night paling in the distance, beyond the conifer forest, where the snow was undulating. It was the sun, the real one, the treacherous one, that was pretending to rise but would turn tail before even reaching the horizon, abandoning the Pole, as it did every day, to its winter. After a turning, the carriage plunged back into the bowels of the Citaceleste.

  “We don’t yet know each other very well,” Ophelia finally replied.

  “You will never know Thorn!” jeered Freya. “Are you aware that you’ve been promised to a bastard, an opportunist, and a schemer? It’s public knowledge that he hates women. Trust me, as soon as he’s got you pregnant, you’ll seem no more important to him than an old trinket. You’ll be the laughing-stock at court.”

  Frozen to the bone, Ophelia rubbed her gloves together. Thorn wasn’t a saint—that she’d seen for herself—but malicious gossip had always annoyed her more than anything else. She suspected this unsubtle woman of serving her own personal interest in wanting to put her off the marriage. And she was starting to give her a headache again. It was strange to describe: it was like a hostile tingling all around her. “Without wishing to offend you, madam, I’d rather make up my own mind.”

  On the seat opposite, Freya, hands in muff, didn’t move a muscle, and yet an almighty slap flung Ophelia against the window. Completely dazed, she stared wide-eyed in disbelief at the blurred figure before her—her glasses had fallen off her nose with the force of the slap.

  “That,” Freya said, icily, “is a kindness compared with what that man will have in store for you in private.”

  With the cuff of her sleeve, Ophelia wiped the blood trickling from her nose down to her chin. So was that the Dragons’ power? The ability to hurt at a distance? She felt around on the floor for her glasses and returned them to their perch. “It’s not as if I’m being given the choice, madam.”

  The invisible power hit her other cheek with full force. Ophelia heard the vertebrae in her neck protesting in unison. In front of her, Freya’s face was distorted by a smile of disgust. “Marry that bastard, dear girl, and I will personally see to it that your life is hell.”

  Ophelia wasn’t sure she could survive a third slap from Freya. Luckily for her, the carriage was just pulling up. Through the mist on the window, Ophelia didn’t recognize the colonnaded facade it had stopped outside.

  Freya opened the door for her. “Think about it with a calm head,” she said, curtly.

  With the snap of a whip and the clatter of hooves on cobbles, the carriage disappeared into the fog.

  Rubbing her sore cheeks, Ophelia contemplated the frontispiece, all marble and columns, that stood before her, hemmed in by two rows of houses. Why had Freya dropped her off here? She warily climbed the stairs leading to a splendid gilded door. A plaque at the entrance read:

  MADAM BERENILDE’S MANOR

  On the day they’d arrived, Thorn had taken them in through the back door. Ophelia should have known that the manor house would have a proper entrance. She had to sit down for a moment on a step. Her legs could no longer carry her. And she needed to collect her thoughts.

  “Everyone hates the Treasurer,” Archibald had said. Ophelia had just got the measure of how true that was. That hatred was already being turned on her without her being afforded the smallest chance to exist in her own right. She was Thorn’s fiancée, full stop. That was already too much in the eyes of others.

  Ophelia pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and snorted away the remaining blood in her nose. Then she removed the pins from her hair in order to cover her bruised cheeks with a thick curtain. She’d wanted to see the world that awaited her? Well, she certainly had. It had been a painful lesson, but that would be the reality of her life. Best not to wear blinkers.

  Ophelia got up, dusted down her dress, went to the door, and tugged the bellpull three times. A metallic clinking rang out from the other side, the sign that someone was using the little spy hole to identify the visitor. The butler’s voice called out, “Madam! Madam!” in the distance, and after a long silence, Berenilde herself came to open to her.

  “Come in. We were taking tea while waiting for you.”

  That was it. No accusation, no reprimand. Berenilde’s expression was soft as velvet, but behind her golden curls and flowing silk dressing-gown, there was a rigidity. She was
much angrier than she seemed. Ophelia understood that that’s what being a society lady was: covering one’s true feelings with a sweet smile. Ophelia went inside and entered a stylish little room in which the stained-glass windows threw warm colors onto three harps and a harpsichord. Taken aback, she recognized the music room. Berenilde closed the door of what Ophelia had always thought was a large sheet-music cupboard. Were there other passages between the manor and the outside world?

  Before Ophelia could utter a word, Berenilde cupped her face in her lovely tattooed hands. Her big, liquid eyes narrowed in the shadow of her eyelashes as she examined the bruises on Ophelia’s cheeks. Holding her gaze, knowing that, sooner or later, she’d have to explain herself, Ophelia let her carry on without daring to tell her that she was hurting her; her neck was but a tangle of knots. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror, but Berenilde’s intense stare spoke volumes.

  “Who?” was all she asked.

  “Freya.”

  “Let’s go to the sitting room,” said Berenilde without blinking. You’re going to have to speak to Thorn.”

  Ophelia put her hands through her hair to draw it back over the bruises. “He’s here?”

  “We called the Treasury as soon as we noticed your disappearance. It was your scarf that sounded the alarm.”

  “My scarf?” stammered Ophelia.

  “That thing woke us up in the middle of the night by knocking over all the vases in your room.”

  The scarf must have been panic-stricken when she didn’t return; Ophelia felt stupid for not thinking of that. She would have liked a rest before confronting Thorn, but she had to accept the consequences of her actions. So she followed Berenilde without making a fuss. As soon as she entered the sitting room, Aunt Rosaline swooped down on her. She looked like a ghost, with her pale yellow skin, dressing gown, and nightcap.