A Dress for the Wicked

by Autumn Krause

  Two red spots stained Cynthia’s cheeks, and her hands, folded in her lap, shook just a little bit.

  “Of course,” Madame Jolène continued, “there are risks to hiring young girls. They are so . . . ambitious.”

  A gasp escaped from my throat, strangled and alarmed. She knew. She had to know. Yet Madame Jolène’s attention was fixed on Cynthia with such intensity that she didn’t even seem to remember Sophie and I were there. Sophie’s fingers touched mine again and I closed my eyes for a second, trying to collect myself even though I knew each passing second was bringing us toward disaster.

  “Well, I did hire some of your former contestants to work for me,” Cynthia said. Despite her gravelly, uncertain cadence, she went on. Unable to hold still, I fidgeted, lacing and unlacing my fingers. “Of course, they had plenty to say about you. But I hardly think it’s fair—it’s terribly hard for a woman to run a business and not be, well, a little snippety.”

  Madame Jolène’s eyes hardened, and Cynthia straightened up, a gleeful smile coming to her mouth. I’d never seen anyone get under Madame Jolène’s skin before. Weak as she seemed, Cynthia was surprisingly sly.

  “Now, I understand you need a gown.” Madame Jolène ignored Cynthia’s insult, her eyes as cold as her voice. “Since this will be the first piece of mine that you’ve worn in quite some time, it will need to be special. Something fresh and fashion-forward, to commemorate our renewed relationship.”

  “I agree,” Cynthia said. She matched Madame Jolène’s stony tone. Their polite words contrasted with their taut faces and icy voices. “Something magnificent for the Parliament Exhibition.”

  I took a raggedy breath and my knees went weak. Step by step, they were inching toward the truth—the truth they both so obviously knew.

  “I have some ideas,” Madame Jolène said. “How about a dress like this?”

  She picked up the sketchbook and flipped it open. There, right underneath the cover, was a loose piece of paper: my sketch for Cynthia’s gown. The air in my lungs escaped out of me in one single breath, and a heady sense of disbelief rushed over me.

  “It’s lovely,” Cynthia said. A satisfied smile settled onto her face. “It’s exactly what I had in mind.”

  “That’s what I thought. Cynthia, will you excuse us for a few moments?” Madame Jolène asked. With a breezy huff, Cynthia stood up and swept out of the room. Madame Jolène didn’t say anything until the door closed.

  “Where did you get that from?” I asked, stumbling but trying desperately not to sound like I was. “That’s a sketch I was doing for fun.”

  “For fun?” Madame Jolène spoke in a slow measured pace. “So, was it just for fun when you contacted Cynthia and offered to make her a new gown under a different label? Your label?”

  “I . . .” I glanced at Sophie, but she was still, her face as white as mine felt. “There’s been a mistake.”

  “Cynthia came to me,” Madame Jolène said. “She requested a custom gown in exchange for information about my Fashion House Interview candidates. And imagine my horror when I learned that you two had told her you were starting a new fashion line. I had Francesco ask around—it seems the Eagle and even the Times were invited to some sort of fashion debut. Even Tilda has been strangely jumpy—at the slightest questioning, she started babbling on about you, Emmaline, and how she didn’t steal any beads. I had her look in your sketchbooks, and this is what she found.”

  Slowly, deliberately, she crumpled the sketch in her hands and tossed it aside. It landed at my feet, rolling to a stop just a few inches from my red heels.

  “I—I was just trying to design something beautiful,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

  “So you betrayed the Fashion House? Aligned yourself with desperate social climbers? Even as the Fashion House clothed you and fed you?”

  “What did you expect?” My voice was a strange echo of itself. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say, I just knew that I had to speak. “My whole life I’ve admired you. All I wanted was to come to the Fashion House and show you I could be one of your apprentices. But you never gave me the chance, even though you know I can design.”

  “This is my Fashion House.” Madame Jolène’s tone dripped with passion I’d never heard before. “I create it and make it what I will, and I will not answer to anyone else. You understand things in your silly, dim way. You don’t realize that your very existence here signifies that I’ve—” She stopped, and I saw her drawing her persona back to her in the way one puts on a garment, her face cloaking itself in coolness and control. “That things are changing.”

  “We are talented,” Sophie cut in. Anger, unbridled and undisguised, flared in her face, distorting her beautiful features. “You know we are.”

  “You are two stupid little girls who think you can start a new fashion line based on talent alone. Your line is nothing more than a pesky fly that will be squashed.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. Telling her no, that she wasn’t right after all this time, was almost like being underwater—for a moment, everything was still, weightless, suspended. “You’re terrified of us. You’re terrified of what we can do.”

  Madame Jolène laughed then. She laughed so hard that she tossed her head back, her lips peeling back to show her perfect teeth. My moment of conviction was gone. Instead of being held still underwater, I was tossed about by it, tumbling without stop, out of control. Both Sophie and I stood, watching her. Finally, her laughter subsided into small hiccups and then to nothing at all. She moved to stand near me and, for an alarming second, I thought she was going to hit me. Instead, she put her hands on both of my shoulders and pulled me close, so close that her lips were right by my ear. As she held me near, all I could see were the black buttons running up into her collar like dozens of eyes staring at me.

  Madame Jolène lowered her voice to a whisper. “You, Emmaline,” she said, “are terrified of yourself.”

  Her words struck me more than any blow could have. I raised a hand to my ear, right where her breath had warmed it. Madame Jolène smiled, satisfied, and then took a few steps back so she could see us both.

  “Get. Out.”

  As though through a fog, I saw Sophie turn and walk toward the door. I followed her, dumbly.

  I had come so far. What could I do now?

  Sophie opened the door, and for the first time since Cynthia had entered the room, our eyes met. She touched my arm. I didn’t know if she was trying to comfort me or herself.

  We stepped onto the landing outside Madame Jolène’s chambers. Cynthia stood there, hands on her hips, chin raised so high I could see up her nose. As soon as we stepped out, she brushed by us, rushing to get back to Madame Jolène.

  Then I heard Madame Jolène: “Leave here and never come back.”

  The sound of Cynthia’s protestations cut through the air, but I barely heard them.

  Francesco was waiting in our chamber, his head turned away as though he couldn’t stand the sight of us.

  “You, Emmaline?” he whispered, and for the first time, crippling guilt washed over me. No matter how cruel Madame Jolène was, Francesco had always been kind to me.

  Out of everyone, I wanted him to understand.

  “I’m—” I started to speak, but he raised a hand, silencing me.

  “Get your things. Both of you!” He stared up at the ceiling, sniffing. “You are only to take what you brought with you. Anything you’ve made or acquired here is Fashion House property.”

  He left as we scrambled for our possessions.

  “Do you have a place to go?” Sophie’s voice cracked as she opened her vanity drawer.

  “I’ll have to get home somehow.”

  I pulled my old carpetbag out from behind my wardrobe and unlatched it. Almost everything I had belonged to the Fashion House. I sank beside the satchel, staring into its depths.

  From where I sat, I could see a bit of my charmeuse skirt poking out from underneath the bed. We had been s
o close.

  “Sophie.” She gazed at me from where she stood by her vanity. “Sophie, we can still do it.” I pushed myself up and stumbled on my skirts, almost falling to my knees again. I barely caught myself, hands outstretched for balance.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice as weak as mine.

  “Is there someplace we can go to finish the collection? Just until the debut? It’s our only hope. Otherwise . . .” I didn’t dare finish. Probably because it was too frightening to contemplate. But if we didn’t try, we would never design again.

  “I . . .” She stopped, running her fingers agitatedly through her long black hair. Her movements were fast and sharp. “I can’t go back to Alexander’s manor. And we don’t have enough money left to get a flat.”

  I took a breath, sucking air deep into my lungs so I sounded strong when I spoke. We couldn’t both be afraid.

  “Do we have enough for tickets to and from Shy?”

  “Yes.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder in a decisive swoop. “We do.”

  Shy. Home. Ever since arriving at the Fashion House, I’d fought those two words. They symbolized defeat—a return to who I was before.

  And, more terrifying, a return to who I would have to be again.

  A waitress in a pub, in a place that hated the thing I loved most. The whole time I’d been at the Fashion House, going back had meant becoming a cautionary tale, a repeat of my mother: a girl who went to the city and returned humiliated.

  No.

  I would go back. But on my own terms. My mother’s story wasn’t mine—and going home didn’t have to be defeat. Not just yet.

  “Will your mother let us finish everything there?” Sophie asked. “Wasn’t she upset that you came here?”

  “Yes. She was.” I still hadn’t heard from her. Not a word. Her silence was stronger than any letter might be. “But we don’t have any other choice.”

  She would understand. I would explain things to her. I would show her not so much in words but in garments; the garments spun out of my mind and into sheer skirts, leather bustiers, pleated gowns. My designs. When she saw them, she would have to understand.

  “We need to take our collection.”

  I lay down on the marble by the bed, reaching underneath it and yanking out bolts of fabric and half-finished dresses. My movements seemed to spur Sophie to action, and she ran to her bed, sprawling forward on her stomach to pull pieces out.

  I piled our collection up, as though it was nothing more than dirty laundry, and grabbed my carpetbag. I struggled to force the garments into it. It seemed like the more I stuffed, the more they poured out over the floor.

  Sophie grabbed one of the several pillows piled in a soft mountain on her bed. She pulled the pillow out and tossed it aside, clutching the gold-tasseled pillowcase, and began stuffing our collection into it.

  “What is going on here?” Francesco shouted from the doorway, his charcoal-darkened eyebrows raised high on his forehead and one finger pointed threateningly at us. “You are not to take anything that doesn’t belong to you!”

  I stopped, clasping the pillowcase and my carpetbag. Sophie slowed, one gown draped over her shoulder and two held in her hands.

  “Drop it,” Francesco commanded. “Drop all of it right now.”

  Looking over at Sophie, I said, “Run!”

  Sophie, holding two pillowcases full of our gowns, bolted toward the door. I ran after her, straight toward Francesco. He grabbed at me and his hand nearly closed around my carpetbag. I ducked past him at just the last moment.

  We ran down the stairs, our feet slipping on the rug, the pillowcases and carpetbag bouncing against our sides and legs. We burst into the Fashion House lobby. Customers and a few of the candidates wheeled around to stare at us in shock. Kitty called out, “Emmaline!”

  We charged through the front doors, leaving them swinging behind us, and raced into the courtyard, gravel spitting out from beneath our heels.

  Sophie and I didn’t stop running for two blocks. Then we collapsed against a brick wall, our chests heaving. Sweat poured down my forehead, gluing my hair to the back of my neck. My feet screamed from running in heels, and I gasped for air, bent at the waist, limply clutching the carpetbag. Still, we couldn’t rest.

  “We need to keep going,” I said. “Come on.”

  We ran through the side alleys that threaded between the boutiques. As we rushed by maids and shop girls, they flattened against the walls to let us by, probably terrified we were thieves.

  Finally, the clean, well-cobbled streets started to give way to the unpaved roads of the Republic District, and we slowed down to a brisk clip. I limped in my heels until we both came to a stop, panting.

  “We need to call a hack,” I said. “We have to get to the train station.”

  “I know,” Sophie replied. “It should be safe now. None of the drivers in the Republic District will care who we are.”

  As we waved to the hacks passing by, I caught my reflection in a gritty windowpane. I was wearing a stylish gown from the Fashion House, my hair was mussed, and I had a carpetbag and two gold-tasseled pillowcases at my feet.

  I let out a frantic, hysterical-sounding laugh. The sound was snatched away by the bustling street and gusting wind, but it didn’t matter. I’d never felt like such a disaster in all my life.

  Part III

  Chapter Eighteen

  WE DIDN’T SAY MUCH ON the train ride. Probably because we both knew that if we did, we’d have to acknowledge what was happening to us. That we’d been kicked out of the most powerful fashion house in the world. That our chances for becoming designers were next to nothing. That if we could, we might just go back and do everything differently. It was easier to catch up on our sleep than to talk about—face—our uncertain futures.

  I was relieved once we arrived in Evert. I wouldn’t have to sit still with my anxious thoughts any longer. We stepped off the train, pillowcases in hand. Sophie peered about.

  “Where on earth is the station?”

  “This is it.” I motioned to the simple wooden platform and small ticket booth. A handwritten sign was propped in the booth’s window: Back in twenty minutes. “This is the station.”

  The familiar song of the country greeted me. The wind rattling in tall trees. The last of the summer beetles buzzing in the weeds. The far-off baaing of sheep. Gone was the ceaseless clatter of hacks on the streets, the shouts and calls of people, the sounds of business being done in quick order.

  “Everyone says things are small outside of Avon-upon-Kynt. But my word, I didn’t realize they’d be this small. Now, where are the hacks?”

  Sophie looked this way and that, as though expecting to see Avon-upon-Kynt’s black hacks gliding up and down the dirt street.

  “There aren’t any. We have to walk.”

  “Walk?” She gaped, as though I’d suggested we fly. “What do you mean?”

  “Think of it as promenading.” With a confidence I didn’t possess, I lifted my carpetbag and one of the pillowcases and gestured to the dirt road leading from the platform. “We’ll be there before you know it. Shy is only two miles south.”

  I led the way. I knew exactly where to go. It was a strange sensation, an old one. In the city, I was lost—in every sense of the word. But here, even though I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I belonged.

  We trudged along in silence, pausing here and there to rest. We hadn’t changed clothes since the day before, and our heels were rickety in the dirt. Each step seemed harder and heavier than the one before it, especially when we reached the outskirts of Shy. What would my mother say when she saw me? When she heard what had happened and what our plans were? We’d always been inseparable. Yet just one argument followed by a month and a half of silence seemed to have changed all that. I’d never known our bond could be so easily broken.

  “Emmy? Is that you?” A person emerged from around the bend in the road that would lead us into Shy.

  I squinted at the broa
d-shouldered figure. “Johnny?”

  Johnny Wells came to a stop in front of us. His tall form blocked out the descending fall sun and threw a long shadow over us. I stared up at him, surprised by how comforting it was to see his familiar face.

  “Are you . . . all right?” He looked from me to Sophie to the satin pillowcases in our hands. “Weren’t you in that fancy competition in the city?”

  “Yes. But I’m back now. Just for a short time.”

  “Ah.” He nodded slowly. “Your mother said you weren’t ever coming back.”

  “She did, did she?” My grip on the pillowcase and my carpetbag loosened, and they dropped to the ground, black tulle and gray chiffon spilling out of the pillowcase’s mouth. “Is she . . .” Furious with me? But I couldn’t ask that. I didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back. You look so . . .” Now he trailed off. I thought he might be surprised by my gown. It was a Fashion House dress, after all, and nothing like the simple dresses worn in Shy, but he didn’t look at it. His eyes were fixed on my face, as though the peculiarities of my appearance—my dirt-stained designer gown, my pillowcases, my undone hair—didn’t matter to him. “You look nice.”

  Nice. He wasn’t the most eloquent of speakers, but the simple compliment warmed my heart. No one in the city ever offered compliments so freely.

  “Thank you.” Next to me, Sophie gave an impatient sigh. “Oh, this is Sophie Sterling.”

  “Nice to meet you, miss.” Johnny pulled off his cap, revealing his sun-lightened brown hair. He didn’t quite meet her gaze. Sophie gave a brisk nod. “Are you heading to the pub?” he asked, addressing me once more.

  “We are.”

  “Here, let me help you.” He took our pillowcases and easily swung them over his shoulders and picked up my carpetbag.

  “Thank you.” I didn’t realize just how heavy they were until I wasn’t holding them any longer. I rubbed my aching shoulders and neck. With long strides, Johnny started off down the road. We followed him, passing by flocks of sheep and the wooden boxes where the cuttleworms spun their silk. Soon, though, Shy’s small buildings emerged from the land to line the main street. There weren’t any signs for the Fashion House contestants. I wasn’t surprised. Such flash and focus on fashion went against Shy’s simple ways—even if one of their own was competing.