For the first time in the past year, Ariana smiled her full-toothed smile. Ruthie sighed and stood up. “Ya have the most beautiful smile. Full of fairy mischief. Yer eyes...I swear they glow when yer happy. Now, eat that cake. Dr. Ruthie’s orders.”
Ariana’s giggle sounded like the high chime of a bicycle bell. “Yes, Dr. Ruthie.” In a very unlady-like fit of mischief, she shoved almost one-fourth the slice into her mouth, which sent Ruth into gales of laughter.
“It couldn’t hurt if ya showed the Count how much cake you can shovel in yer gob.” Ruthie winked at Ariana, then left.
The two days leading up to the Count’s dinner raced by in a restless, sleepless stupor. Ariana’s mind would not stop spinning. She’d been sleeping poorly for weeks, or rather she felt she’d been awake even while sleeping lately. After the initial dreams she could not remember, the ones just on the edge of her consciousness, she was troubled by the most horrifying nightmares.
All the nightmares were the same, possibly the dreams were, too, but she only remembered the nightmares. In the nightmares, she was in a room she didn’t know, in a dark manor she did not recognize. Though she’d never seen it, she knew it to be Count Repugnian’s home.
She could not find a way out of the dark bedroom, though she knew she must escape. She turned around, only to face a single, open window. The dark purple drapery flapped in the breeze in the frigid winter air. She opened the window to its full width, and leaned her head out. Icy mist coated her raven hair. She looked down, only to see that she was three stories high.
Steps sounded on the other side of the door, heavy steps that pounded fear into her already racing heart. They were his, and if he opened the door, she was his. She would never be his. The knob of the door turned slowly, deliberately. Ariana’s heart pounded harder.
The door cracked open. The creaking of the hinges sent shivers down her spine. She searched the room for another exit, but there was only the door and the window. Count Repugnian’s stooping frame filled the door. Ariana pushed herself up onto the wide window sill, the icy breeze flipped her hair in front of her face so that it waved alongside the purple drapery.
“Arianna, my sweet,” the Count hissed. “Come here, child. It’s time we play.”
Arianna’s stomach turned with his words. She felt them sour and rise up her throat. Suddenly, she knew that she could not allow herself to be cornered like a scared animal anymore. She would not be the frail, silly girl that the man of the house used as needed then locked away when unwanted. The count’s crooked-fingered hand reached out for her. She pushed herself out of the window and fell, like icy nighttime mist, to the ground. She always woke before she hit, but she was too scared to fall back to sleep afterwards.
Now, she had no more time left, no more nightmares or dreams between her and the dinner that would decide her future. The pressure in her body, that bespoke the unpredictable spells to come, already pressed against the skin, muscles, and bones of her body. She felt like a firecracker ready to burst. But this time she would not stop the explosion. For the first time, the pressure rising inside her didn’t feel like helplessness. It felt like power.
Annabeth dressed Ariana very slowly that day. Her hands shook and her eyes were red with tears she shed before coming to Ariana's room. Ariana felt very grateful to her sweet handmaid, who was clearly distressed on her behalf, but when she started sprinkling her green brocade dress in her tears, Ariana knew she would have to say something. Father would be very upset if she came dinner looking less than perfectly groomed. He'd already said as much.
"Ariana, please do try to look nice and behave when Count Repugnian visits,” her father told her when he called her to his study before dinner. “It is different with younger men, men who will find a suitor without trouble, men who have less...influence." Her father's hands were steady as he placed them on her shoulder, but there was something in his eyes that seemed to have died a little. Usually, there was an angry little spark he reserved for her. It was a look that settled somewhere between love and hate. Today, he just looked worried and tired.
It made her stomach flutter uncomfortably. Her eyes started to lose focus, but she pushed back against the pressure of the rising spell, and simply said, "Father, I will do my best."
Her father only sighed, nodded and sent her up to get ready for dinner, his eyes dull and defeated.
Another tear sprinkled her expensive brocade. She patted Annabeth’s hand. "Annabeth, you are showering me. Father will be displeased if I look as though I were standing under a raincloud before dinner."
"Sorry, my Lady." Annabeth sniffled. "I don't mean to. I am just..." Her mousy timidity faltered into sobs that wracked her body, but she stepped away from Ariana's shoulder, so as not to continue to shower her.
"It's not right. You are innocent, miss, and he is an old man. An evil, vile old man! Your father cannot be this heartless!"
Ariana was so thrown by Annabeth's brave criticism of her father that it took her a moment to collect herself. When she did, she stood, crossed to Annabeth and put her hand on her maid's trembling ones.
"Annabeth, I want to thank you for all you've done for me. You have been a good maid and a good friend to care for me." Her words only made Annabeth cry harder.
"But you needn't worry for me. I am not without wits. I may not understand completely what I'm dealing with, but I am not unaware of the danger. I have plans to deter the Count's notice."
Annabeth sniffled and lifted her red eyes to Ariana. "Plans, Lady? You must be careful. Your father..."
Ariana jerked her chin into the air. "My father has chosen not to protect me. I must consent that he made some effort to marry me off to someone less reproachful, but I have no doubt he will abandon me to the Count if it comes to it. I may be young, but I am not stupid. I know whatever love my father holds for me, it will not override his sense of duty to a man more powerful than he. Count Repugnian may be the worst of several evils, but my father would not save me from lesser ones. He has been given the chance. It is up to me, now. And I am not afraid."
Ariana felt power surge under her skin, felt it well inside her, like a match set to her wick. "I am as presentable as I ever will be, Annabeth."
She smiled at her maid, who stood eye-level to her, though she was at least three years her senior. Ariana had always been tall and wispy. "I’m ready." She squeezed her maid's hand once, and the trembling in them abated a bit.
“My Lady, you are a woman, now,” her maid almost whispered. “And not because of all this suitor business. You have grown brave. I only wonder where you get it.”
Her maid’s words fed her power like dry kindling to flame. Ariana wondered where her bravery came from, too. Maybe she got it a little from Ruthie and Annabeth, maybe from her unknown mother. Though, how brave it was to abandon your daughter to the whims of a cowardly father, she could not say.
Quietly, she’d always searched for a very good reason for her mother’s abandonment, a grand excuse for the woman, so that she could say she had at least one good parent. It was becoming harder and harder to understand it. If her mother was not dead, how could she leave her to fend for herself like this? The anger that fueled this thought only intensified the pulsing pressure of her bottled power.
She pushed open her bedroom doors and walked with purpose down the hall to the staircase. She did not notice the smoldering footprints her defiant steps left in her wake, but she did feel the power pull back from her skin a little.
The Count made them wait. Her father was not a man who waited, but he quietly, seethingly waited for the Count's gold-gilded, oak carriage to slow in the drive. Lord Grey forced a smile onto his tight lips and even bowed the man into his home ahead of Annabeth, who he immediately dismissed. The Count followed the maid's exit hungrily with beetle sharp eyes.
Arianna waited from her position behind the open dining room door for the approach of the stooped figure. She dug her fingernails into her palms, hoping the stabbing pain would keep t
he surging power at bay for a few more minutes.
The deep intonations of the men's conversation in the hall sounded forced. Her father's voice was tense and restrained with unfelt politeness. The Count simply sounded as though speaking to Ariana's father was the last thing he wanted to do in a long line of annoying chores.
Ariana hurried to her seat, standing by it, rather than sitting. Her father consistently coached her in niceties of tableside manners. She was not to sit until everyone in the room was present. She had been in a constant state of play acting for the last year, and the irritation she felt at having to perform to an audience she loathed pressed upon her nerves and made the power surge inside her with greater force.
She was so full of the strange energy that she felt sick to her stomach. The room swam before her. By the time the men sauntered into the room, Ariana's knees were trembling with the effort of standing. All of her energy was focused on not combusting. She would not implode. She would explode, and she would prove to the men that she was not a statuette to be passed around, admired, and fondled. She was brain, body, spirit, and power. So much power! It began to ache in her teeth.
Her father waved Count Repugnian into the room with a flourish of his arm. The stooped shoulders of the man filled the doorframe. His figure, however, was not as intimidating as Ariana remembered.
Instead of looming, he seemed hunched. Instead of tall, he was quite average. Indeed, when he moved to greet her, ignoring the place set for him next to her father and taking her not proffered hand to slobber upon with unwanted kisses, she almost met his gaze. She was tall. She was self-possessed, young, and, she realized, strong. He was old and crumpled and frail-looking. Her power surged, and her entire body was wracked by tremors.
Unlike the times before, when her power overcame her, she did not feel weak or helpless. She felt so powerful that the Count's repulsive leer and his lingering touches on her arm only induced rage.
Rage fed her power. She knew that to contain it much longer would cause her pain, might be the end of her. She held out, though, not knowing what to do with the energy or the anger in her heart.
The Count was disgusting, but he’d never harmed her. Years spent denying her own voice told her that she had no right to hurt someone who simply disgusted her, even though she knew she had every right. His reputation, his lingering fingers, his dead wives all told her she was right.
A strange voice filled her head, speaking from the core of her power. "You cannot go with this man, Ari. He would control your power, whisper that you are weak, only human, only female. He would pry with his fingers and eyes and crack you from the inside. Do not allow it. He will try to break you, and you cannot be broken, so you will bend to his will and that is worse. Bending is giving your power. You must never do this.”
Ariana could almost place the voice, the deep whisper of a woman she knew, but could not bring to mind. It was a taunting, fuzzy memory of a ship, dense fog, and a pale face she could not picture. The images of this memory or dream tugged at her, but her father's voice broke her reverie.
"Count Repugnian, I had you placed at my side, so we could converse freely."
Ariana almost felt gratitude for her father’s clumsy attempt to protect her. But he would give her up. She reminded herself that he was putting her in this very situation, with a man he knew had probably murdered or forced his child-wives over the brink, and he would expect her to accept her lot.
"I would love to sit next to your charming daughter, if you will not be terribly affronted, Lord Grey." Count Repugnian answered, seating himself as he did so, not waiting for her to sit, nor her father to invite him to.
Her father sat stiffly, not bothering to give the consent he was not expected to give. His status in this farce had been downgraded from host to third wheel. Ariana had no room for anger or pity for him. She sat stiffly, shaking uncontrollably with the force of the power filling her.
Ruthie brought out the soup course and laid it out in front of the Count first, as was proper. The fierceness for which she lay the bowl in front of the Count sloshed much of the contents over the sides of the bowl. She was only marginally more careful with Ariana's father's soup. Ariana's, on the other hand, was gently placed before her and followed by a discrete pat on the arm. She drew courage from Ruth's quiet but obvious defiance. She put the soup to her mouth and swallowed a spoonful of Ruth's delicious meat and onion concoction.
Anxiety usually kept her hunger at bay, but today she was ravenous. The power was eating at her reserves, like she was a flame burning down a candle, consuming all fuel. She ate ravenously, ignoring her father’s directed glares.
"Your cook is careless, Lord Grey. May I suggest that she is becoming too old for employment? You should follow my lead. I never hire a woman over the age of eighteen. And I dispose of them by the time they turn twenty. Women grow more morose and troublesome with age. They are more pliable the younger you train them."
Count Repugnian slurped the contents of his bowl, not bothering to use the spoon at his side. Soup ran down his white beard, staining it brown. He winked at Ariana over his bowl.
Her father made to follow-up on the Count's unsolicited advice, but the Count spoke again, before her father could reply. "I won’t waste time pretending I don’t have a very clear interest in your daughter, Lord Grey. I would still like to offer to marry your lovely Ariana. I will, of course, be prepared to offer you a sizeable parcel of my land near your own quaint acreage as a sign of goodwill.”
Ariana’s face flushed in rage. Her father sputtered incompetently, muttering something about having to discuss the matter with his daughter yet. Ariana knew that he was more disgusted by the Count’s lack of subtlety than by the offer, and her own outrage pushed her power to the edge. She had to use it or it would consume her entirely.
Count Repugnian turned to her, smirked at her wide-eyed expression, tucked his hand under the table and lay it very high up on her leg. The impropriety of it would’ve normally sent her out of her seat, but all she could feel was rage. Rage that he felt he had the right to have her without negotiation, like a piece of land. Rage that his skinny, mottled fingers were squeezing her in an intimate, sickening way. Though his hand was light with brittle age, it felt as though it weighed a ton, felt as though it was made of molten metal, burning through the thick fabric of her dress.
She imagined that his hand was hot iron, and felt the power in her body respond to her thoughts. Suddenly, his fingers grew stiff and leaden. His hand was as heavy as an iron weight, and it scalded her through the thick brocade of her evening dress. The Count screamed in panic. Ariana pushed his scalding, iron hand off her lap, and jumped away from the table.
She swatted at the smoking fabric of her dress with her napkin, wishing she had water instead of wine with which to stifle the flames, when, suddenly, her napkin grew cold and fluid in her hand. It fell upon the embers of her dress with a sizzle and put them out, soaking into her dress as if it had never been a napkin, but was always icy water.
The dress sported a perfectly hand-shaped hole, which revealed a red patch of burnt skin high up on her thigh. Count Repugnian pushed away from the table, still screaming. He stared, horrified, at his red-hot iron hand, now cooling in the drafty dining room.
Lord Grey sat, pallid-faced, staring at the Count’s new appendage in shock. Finally, he sputtered, “Ariana, fix it.” He sounded as if he were reluctantly admitting that she could use a toy he’d tried to keep hidden.
Ariana realized he was probably right. She could fix it. Count Repugnian held the heavy hand up to her, his beetle eyes frightened. “What kind of witchery is this?”
Lord Grey stood. “Ariana, fix the Count’s hand, now.”
Ariana’s mouth worked a moment before she replied, quite firmly, “I don’t know and I don’t want to.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed in anger, and he stood, regaining a little of his bravado. “Ariana, fix your mistake now and apologize to the Count.”
He
turned to the Count, attempting to explain the impossible. “She doesn’t know what she does, Count Repugnian. She was born with these...problems. It’s why I have been so hesitant to marry her to you. She has yet to train herself to deal with emotions and these spells come out in unpredictable ways. I wished to spare you that.”
The Count cradled his cooled iron hand. “She will be hung for a witch. I’ll see to it!”
Lord Grey’s face paled even further. Ariana could not believe it, but he looked afraid for her. As though he really cared whether or not she lived or died. She sighed then placed her hand on the iron hand the Count cradled. He winced as though she was going to hit him. That made her smile. The great Count was afraid of her, a thirteen-year-old girl.
She thought of the way his mottled, skinny fingers and thin skin felt settling on her thigh, and, suddenly, the iron cracked and fell in clumps to the floor. Count Repugnian flexed and bent his liver-spotted hand tentatively. He stared at Ariana with terror and amazement. He made to speak, but Ariana cut him off.
“No, I don’t want to hear your voice ever again. You will apologize for your rudeness to my father and you will go directly home, without spreading terrible lies about me or him, or I will turn you entirely to ash where you stand. And, from now on, keep your disgusting fingers to yourself.”
She felt hatred surge inside her. The last bit of her power pushed to the surface, “If you touch another woman or child again, your fingers will turn to flame, and you will be consumed by fire like the women you have harmed have been consumed by your lust.”
Glittering red smoke sprung from her fingertips and shot toward the Count. He lifted his hands to protect his face, yelping in fear. The smoke snaked around his hands and soaked into his skin, like rain into dry soil. The Count’s mouth fell open in silent horror. He turned from the room without another word and stagger-ran down the hall and out the door.
Hidden Magic Page 58
