“Did you find the clothes all right?”
“Yes,” I shout, turning my eyes to the neatly folded pile of clothes on a chair in the corner. A formal day suit—I pick it up—featuring modest peplum-style hip draperies, with velvet bustle in back. Not bad. The center skirt is far too long for my liking, nearly floor-length compared to my usual mid-thigh, but I suppose it’ll have to do. I hold up the jacket. The shoulders are far too wide, grotesquely too wide. Oh well, those who commandeer their way into others’ worlds can’t be choosers, now can they?
I pick through the undergarments, wondering to whom they might belong. Urlick’s mother, perhaps? Though he’s not mentioned a mother. I give the skirt a shake and start to undress.
“There are a few house rules I need to go over with you,” Urlick hollers through the door.
House rules? The authority in his voice sharpens my quills.
“Breakfast is at six-thirty sharp. Lights out at nine o’clock.”
Nine o’clock! I step from my old skirt and yank on the new one, wrestling it up over my hips. I reach for the chemise, afraid to bend over too deeply. That’s unusually snug.
“No one is allowed to roam about the house at night; it’s strictly forbidden,” Urlick continues.
Forbidden? Really. “What do you mean, no one?” I holler back. “I thought it was just your father, me, and you?”
He ignores the question altogether, barking still more rules. “You are never to leave the Compound—”
I tightening the strings on the corset, fasten the buttons of the bodice, dry my face and restack my hair. “Compound?” I say, emerging from the room still fussing with my skirt.
“Yes, Compound.” He turns, indicating the rooms of the house with his hands. “You are never to leave here without a chaperone. It’s simply too dangerous. Do so, and you risk being attacked by roaming criminals or the Infirmed. No one leaves the buildings at all during half-moon to full-moon phases, when the Vapours are at their worst. It’s too deadly, for obvious reasons.” I swallow. “And if and when you ever see my father, which will be rare”—he eyes me hard—“you are never to bother him, never speak to him for any reason. Is that clear?”
“Why?”
“Why?” He turns, tugging at the points of his waistcoat. “Because it is the rule, that’s why.”
That’s the second time he’s done that strange little movement—once outside at the carriage and now again. I’m not sure if it’s his way of emphasizing his point, or just a nervous habit, but before I’ve had the chance to figure it out, his back is turned, and he’s heavy into his tea preparations again. Plucking the tea service off the shelf, he slams it down onto the countertop: first the pots, then the creamers, followed by the sugars and both lids.
I wince, trying not to look disturbed by his behavior; though, truth be known, I am. But no more than I am by staying in a house with blackened windows.
“You are never to climb the stairs to my father’s third-floor laboratory,” he continues, before I can utter a single word. “No matter what sounds you hear.”
Sounds? What does that mean? What kinds of sounds does one emit from a laboratory? Dread curdles in my belly. What kind of laboratory is this?
“We live here alone, my father and I, except for Iris, who prepares our meals and does light housekeeping. They’re her clothes you’re wearing”—he eyes me warily—“but you needn’t thank her. She prefers to be left alone—”
Alone?
“She has her own apartment on the second floor, below my father’s laboratory”—he hesitates, pouring the water from the stove into pots—“which you are never to enter. Do you understand?”
I look up, drinking in his ominous expression. Dread seeps from my gut to my bones. Why all the secrecy? Why such dire instructions? I nod, silently, wondering what’s really going on.
Then, as if there’s been a shift of the wind in the kitchen, his mood lifts. “Sugar?” He sort of smiles, as much of a smile as I’ve seen pass his lips in the two short hours that I’ve known him. What on earth is wrong with him?
I nod and he clatters toward the table, still dark and broody about the edges, tea service rattling loudly in his hands. He places things down, a little confused about their order, changing things twice before settling, offering me endless lumps of sugar and loads of cream.
“Care for a humbug?” He flips his coattails out behind him, joining me for tea.
“A hum-what?”
“A candy?” His brows rise. He shakes the candy bowl in my direction.
Forget the mood barometer. I may need a full psychoanalyst kit to decipher the rapid mood swings of this man.
Reluctantly, I accept the sweet, examining it before popping it in my mouth. It taste of butter and cocoa and fiery peppermint, mixed with something bitterly unexplainable. I spit it out and examine it again, peering through its clear coating for a bug. God only knows what one might serve in a home with blackened windows.
Urlick laughs. Then clears his throat to cover it up. His eyes fall to the pendant at my neck. “Tell me about that necklace,” he blurts.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I snap.
“Surely, there’s a story behind something so unusual—”
“A connoisseur of women’s jewelry, are we?” I tip my head.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he answers slowly.
“Then how would you know?”
“Know what?”
“If it’s unusual.”
“I guess I wouldn’t.”
“Well, there we have it.” I cross my hands and look away.
Urlick clears his throat again, and for a long time we sip our tea in steeped silence—me pondering why he’s asked me such a thing. What interest could he have in my jewelry?
It takes a while, but finally—heads fixed forward, hands warming round our cups—snatches of actual conversation begin to pass again between us, rising through wisps of Earl Grey steam.
“Is that a bruise?” I pause. “On your face, I mean?”
Urlick looks up from his cup. “A birthmark. What were you running from?”
“Trouble. Has it always been that color?”
“Worse. What kind of trouble?”
“The worst kind. How did it happen, exactly?”
“I got stuck. What do you mean by, ‘the worst kind?’” He grimaces. “Is there any other?”
“No. What do you mean you got stuck?”
“In the birth canal. Why is it you’re getting more information out of me than I am you?”
“Practice. And your mother?”
He looks away. “Died, giving birth to me. Yours?”
“Passed.” I run a sad finger around the lip of my cup. “Most recently.”
“I’m sorry.” Urlick’s head drops.
“So am I.” The room fills with the sound of my spoon grating the bottom of my cup.
“What is that about your neck?”
“A necklace. Are they painful?”
“Pardon?” He looks up.
“The marks on your face. Are you in pain?”
“No.” He glances at the gash on my temple. “Are you?”
“No.”
I take a sip of tea, slurping, not meaning to, but slurping just the same.
“You’re not dangerous, are you?” He raises his cup to his purpled lips. “An escaped criminal? Mentally imbalanced? Certifiably insane?”
“No.” I take offense. “Are you?”
“No.” His gaze drifts away from me across the room. “I just look a fright.”
“Interesting.”
He whirls around, scorching me with a look.
“I’d call it interesting, not frightful,” I clarify.
“Then you’d be the only one.” He stands. “More tea?”
Eight
Eyelet
“No, thank you.” I decline Urlick’s offer, my teeth still stinging sweet from the last over-sugared cup.
“In that case, I’ll see you
later.” He stands. “I’m sorry, but I’ve work to do.”
“Wait,” I say, popping to my feet. “I’ll come with you—”
“You most certainly will not!” He tugs on the points of his waistcoat again. “I mean—” his pale cheek turns a lovely shade of crimson, almost matching the purpled one. “It’s man’s work. Too taxing for a lady. You’ll get dirty. And you’ve only just gotten yourself...clean.”
His lips pull into a tight and serious line. This can mean only one thing. The machine. He must be planning to move it inside. Elsewise, why would he care if I shadowed him?
He can’t possibly be willing to leave me alone with the run of the house and no one to watch me, can he? Not after so many rules. Something’s up. He can’t be that dim. Or that trusting? Can he? Oh my goodness, he is…
“So,” I raise a brow. “What am I to do until your return?” I tilt my head, playing stupid. I know exactly what it is I’ll be doing.
He stares at me and hesitates. “I don’t know. Whatever a girl of your fragile nature does with her day, I suppose. Paint. Sculpt. Read.”
My eyes shrink beneath their lids. How dare he assume me fragile! On what grounds? I’ve certainly not appeared fragile since the moment I arrived. Dread rises in my throat again. Please say he didn’t overhear me in the back of his coach.
“The study is over there.” He points to an archway off the side of the kitchen, opposite where he stands. My head swings around taking note of it. That makes doorway number four. For such a small space, this kitchen seems to be filled with opportunity for escape. The main entry boxcar door located behind me, another wooden structure painted red standing opposite that leads to the bedrooms upstairs, the archway to the right he’s just pointed out, which opens to the study, and a mysterious heavy, carved, walnut one that looms behind him, I can only presume at this point, leads some sort of back kitchen.
“I take it you can keep yourself busy in there until lunch is served?” Urlick continues, glaring at me, all hoity-toity like, and I’ve the urge to pinch the smug from his face. How does he keep doing that, switching from nice to nauseous, in so few breaths? Such talent this man possesses.
“Certainly.” I grit my teeth.
“Until noon, then,” he nods.
I return the gesture, slipping him a smirk-tinged grin.
He slinks across the room and throws open the mystery door, exposing a back kitchen—I was right—and off the back of it another door, slightly opened, leading to a long and narrow, darkened hallway. All my senses alight.
He slips through the first door, the curls at the back of my neck tousling as he yanks it firmly shut, abandoning me in the kitchen. Or so he thinks. My blood bubbles with rebellion.
Closing my eyes, I count to thirty—one thousand one, one thousand two...—then sprint across the room and sling back the door—
“Can I help you?” Urlick’s eyes burn like red rays through the darkness.
“Uhhhh!” My hand flies to my chest as I gulp in a breath. “I, uh—” my brain wobbles, searching for a worthy excuse for my presence, spotting tea towels drying on a rack behind his head “I...was just looking for a tea towel. Thought I might do up a few dishes. You know,” I smooth a curl next to my cheek, “hold up my end of our deal.”
For a moment he just stares at me like one would a lying child. “Very well,” he finally says, grabbing a towel from the rack and tossing it over my head. “You’ll find the drying rack under the sink.”
“Thank you,” I say from beneath the towel.
“Don’t mention it.” He slams the door again. This time he trips the lock, turbines churning, followed by the clunk of a deadbolt.
I stand there, humiliated, listening to his shoes clatter up the narrow hallway then down a set of stairs. “OooooOoooo!” I shriek, yanking the towel from my head. “Who does he think he is? Locking me up like this? My keeper?” I stomp my way backward into the study, snapping the tea towel to rest over the back of a chair. “Keep myself amused until lunch is served, eh? Well, we’ll just see about thaaaaaaaaaa…”
… something sharp jabs me hard in the back. A shiver ripples down my spine. I lift my arm to find a giant beak peeking out from under my armpit with nostril holes the size of jewelets. Raising my arm a little higher reveals a giant head, streaming down from one of the longest necks I’ve ever seen.
I turn around to find myself in the company of a giant stuffed ostrich, standing nearly floor to ceiling, tucked in behind the entrance to the study. And not just any ostrich, either: a two-headed, double-winged, four-legged specimen, stuffed and mounted on a dirt-covered plinth, its wings perched mid-flap, legs flailing. One head juts upward while the other juts down. Four sets of giant marble eyes peer from under four sets of feather-long lashes. I shudder at the thought of coming face to face with such a creature in the wild. I imagine the look on the face of the hunter who did.
Who stuffs such a hideous thing to put on display? Better still, who keeps it in their study? I look around. Taxidermy trophies sit everywhere. The room is full of them. And not one of them is normal. A two-headed goat bleats from a tabletop. The heads of double-fanged boars peer down from the walls. A disturbing-looking three-eyed wolf stares at me from over the fireplace, while a snarling grizzly, baring rows of teeth like a shark, hovers in the opposite corner. What kinds of people collect such horrid things? And where did they find so many?
I lurk about soft-footed, searching for an alternate door to the kitchen, worried at every turn I’ll find something new and even more frightening. But I find nothing. There appears to be only one way in and out of this room—the way I came in, past the oversized guard-chicken. The room has only window and it’s been painted black. The room is oddly triangular, with one of the walls being shorter than the other two. Honestly? An isosceles study? Who builds an isosceles study? I push on the shortest wall, shocked when it pushes back.
Must everything here be a mystery?
The room smells of old fur, stale cigars, and formaldehyde. Dust layers every inch of the woodwork. Clearly no one has cleaned this study in quite some time, and by some time, I mean a century. I drag a finger over the bookshelves, regretting it instantly. What lurks underneath the room’s woolly grey coating? I rub my fingers together. I wish I had a Petri dish.
I take in a breath and blow it out, clearing the dust from the top of the vestibule, nearly becoming winded in the process. Corsets only allow so much space for breathing on a good day, let alone on days when lungs are required for cleaning.
A delicious assortment of household gadgets reveals itself beneath the dusty mess. Extremely unusual-looking household gadgets. In fact, I’m not even sure they’re gadgets at all.
One by one I pick them up, examining each carefully, a little afraid of what I might find. Some sort of grater? I turn the first one over. Or perhaps a coffee grinder? I jump when the handle cranks around on the side and a set of cutters mash together like teeth. I’ve never seen a coffee grinder with teeth before. I set it down. I don’t think I should like to see another, either. I let go and it flops around on the top of the vestibule, clunking around in a circle, using the handle as a leg. A possessed coffee grinder at that. How apropos.
I pick up the next item. An apple corer, I believe. I crank the handle on its side and a pair of vertical blades springs into action, slicing the air. A second horizontal wheel snaps up into place, skinning the edge of a pedestal where seven needle-sharp prongs bob up and down.
“Whatever this is, it looks utterly lethal,” I say, tapping the tips of the prongs and drawing blood instantly.
I put the “apple corer” down and suck my finger, picking up what looks to be a pair of harmless sheep shears. I clip them together, jerking back as the shears spin around in a tight cone instead of snapping together, thrusting back open a moment later, spinning in the opposite direction, like the razor-sharp petals of a deathly flower. I put it down, thinking how easily someone could be sheared of his or her own skin.
> What are these? And why are they kept in here?
I select another—a harmless looking rod-type thing, long and thin like a cigarette holder—turning it up on its end. The object hisses, then bursts into a breath of fire, igniting the trim on the nearby faux-curtains.
I rush over, grabbing a pillow from a chair on the way, to swat the fire out. “Good Lord in Heaven, have mercy,” I say, swiping the hair from my damp forehead. I place the smoldering rod carefully back on the vestibule in its holder, noticing several similar burn marks about the carpet. Guess it’s not the first time that’s happened.
I straighten my skirts and return the pillow—singed-size down—to the chair, patting it and waving away the smoke. There, I’m sure no one will notice.
I’m just about to abandon my gadget investigation, thinking it best I get on with trying to find my way after Urlick and the machine, when something on the mantelpiece catches my eye. Something so unusual I must know what it is.
I fly across the room, hand outstretched, running my fingers over the hood of what appears to be a glass bell-shaped jar. It sits perched on a plinth on top of the mantelpiece. Both are coated in dodgy black grime.
Smutch , I determine, rubbing the dark greasy substance together between my finger and thumb. Oily to the touch, it’s made of soot and ashes, spat up from the mouth of the fireplace below. My eyes traipse over the other items on the mantel. Though the smutch seems to have covered only the jar and its plinth. And nothing else? I cock my head. “How very strange,” I whisper.
Curiosity overcomes me. I must know what’s in the jar. Snatching a doily from the arm of a chair, I intend to polish off the rest of the glass, when a sharp crash in the kitchen sends me whirling around. My heart breaks its stride at the sound of footsteps. Clearly, I’m no longer by myself.
Turning, I toss the doily back, snatch the apple corer up off the vestibule, and stalk slowly toward the entrance to the kitchen, holding the corer out in front of me like a weapon. I throw my back against the wall when I arrive and peer carefully around the corner. I find the room suspiciously empty.
Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) Page 7
