by Rose Szabo
“Yes?”
“Rhys has been looking for you,” I said. “I’m not sure exactly why, but he seems obsessed.” My face flushed as I said it, not wanting to say much more than that. “It would probably be better if you weren’t alone with him.”
His scarred lips stretched back over his smooth, perfect teeth.
“I’m not worried about Rhys,” he said.
“Maybe you should be. I know you’re used to us, but he’s being … strange.”
“You mean he’s in love with me.”
I’d expected him to recoil from the idea, but he said it so calmly. I was stunned. “I mean, you could call it that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You all go through a phase like that.” I thought about Lucy Spencer, but he went on. “I’m familiar, but I’m not family. I’m friendly enough. I’m around but not too often. It doesn’t have anything to do with me at all.”
“But what if he hurts you?” I asked.
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“But what if he kills you?”
He laughed, more harshly than I’d thought he was capable of. His voice bounced off the cliffs. The sun had already sunk below the tree line, but improbably, some red light seemed to strike him, making his papery skin glow.
I knew that I loved him, and I knew that he’d never believe me if I told him that. He’d think I was just like my sister and my cousin: liking him just because it was easy, because he was there. Not because of who he really was. As his laughter died away, he seemed to notice the dismay on my face.
“I do like you, Eleanor,” he said. “But you remind me very strongly of your grandmother, and that’s … difficult.”
Maybe he did miss her, then. I could see them sitting in front of the fire together, the way they’d played chess, their dry humor. Maybe this was his apology. I could be his new her, if that was what he wanted from me.
“Well, we can start slowly,” I said. “Maybe you could play chess with me sometime.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said. “But I should warn you: I always win.”
We turned toward the house on the hill. From here, we could just see the top of the central tower, its windows ablaze with the setting sun. I stuffed my socks hastily into one shoe and my underwear into the other, and we climbed up the staircase together. Arthur took each step first with his good leg, and then brought his other one up to meet it. It was a mystery to me why he seemed so feeble sometimes and so strong at others. I found myself looking at his face for signs of age, trying to guess whether he was as old as my father. Younger? Older, maybe? But he gave nothing away, not even that.
At the top of the stairs, I told Arthur I was going to sneak in the back and change. He grinned at that. His teeth glinted in his skull.
“I’ll stall your grandmere,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I started for the back garden, and he started to turn away, but at the last second he swung back and caught my wrist. His hand was so cool, but his grip felt impossibly strong. I imagined him lifting up my father and swinging him around.
“You’re going to want to be careful,” he said. And before I could ask him what he meant, he strode away. He moved quickly on the even ground, disappearing almost immediately around the side of the house toward the front door.
I let myself in through the garden gate and skirted around the rows of shoots and leaves that were starting to come up. Nobody had touched the garden since Grandmother Persephone had died, but she had worked on the soil for years, and the plants kept coming up without any help, at least for now. There were weeds, too, and I thought maybe tomorrow I’d come down and tend the garden, do a little watering and weeding, make sure I could keep it up. Maybe I could practice on these easier plants, figure out the snake lilies, and things would go on as they always had. Maybe with Grandmere to help me find my way, I could still turn things around.
Upstairs in my room, I tried to dry out my hair, but it was crusted with salt and started curling around my shoulders. I opened the window to let the breeze in as I scrambled out of my wet clothes. I wiped salt water off of my arms and legs, and looked at the black dress draped over the trunk.
I laid my uniform over the back of a chair to dry. It looked so strange without me in it. I shimmied into the black dress. In the trunk I found black silk stockings and shoes with a small heel. I slipped them on, and turned to the mirror to examine myself.
I looked like a stranger. I brushed out my hair and let it fall over my shoulder, like Luma’s. No, that was no good. I piled it all on top of my head and pinned it into place. That was better. I looked older, sterner. I looked …
I jumped. There in the mirror, for just a second, I’d seen another face. Young, white-haired, but not my own. When I looked again, the other face was gone.
I forced myself to take a few deep breaths. I was thinking about Luma, I reasoned. Her bad mood had infected me, and now I was seeing things. But the more I thought about it, the more that idea seemed flimsy. I’d felt the cold breeze. I’d seen the pots rattle in the kitchen.
But I couldn’t deal with it tonight, because it frightened me, and I couldn’t be frightened right now. Grandmere was here, and I had to be at my best if I was going to convince her to stay.
The breeze from the window fluttered the poems I’d tacked to the wall. I went into my suitcase and fetched my copy of Eliot’s poems. At least I could make this small thing right.
When I went down to the front hall, I found Arthur and Grandmere standing in the front parlor. They were speaking quietly, their heads bent close together. They both glanced up when they saw me. I had to hold on to the banister to walk down the stairs, the little heels of the shoes tripping me up.
“There she is!” Grandmere said. I had never seen anyone smile so widely for me.
I held my skirt with one hand and concentrated on feeling for each step with my shoe. They watched me, Grandmere’s face proud, Arthur smiling faintly. But the toe of one of the shoes caught on one of the stairs, and my foot came out, and I took a wild step forward into the air. As smoothly as a machine, Arthur stepped forward and put his hands out to catch mine and steady me. The book clattered to the floor between us. I clung on fiercely, and as I did, I heard Grandmere give a little startled “Ah!”
I gathered myself up, got the shoe back on, and gave both of them a winning smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “I just need a little practice.”
“What’s this?” Arthur asked, bending to pick it up.
“It’s for you,” I said. “It’s not the same one I cut up. But it’s…”
He wasn’t looking at me, but holding it and staring down at the cover, his mouth moving without speaking. I trailed off, and in the silence, Grandmere stepped forward and embraced me.
“Eleanor, dear,” she said into my ear, “you look so lovely tonight. We really must work on your balance, though.” And she let me go, and swept on ahead of me into the dining room.
Arthur turned to me. “Thank you,” he said.
I realized I was blushing. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“As always,” he said, and I almost laughed at the joke. He offered me his arm to walk into the dining room. I took it gratefully; I was still wobbly on the shoes.
Mother and Father were already waiting at the table, standing behind their chairs. Mother had dried herself off and was fully dressed, the water barrel gone. Her polyps, shriveled, clung close to her skin, but she smiled wanly when she saw me. I’d never seen her out of the tub for this long. I’d assumed it was impossible.
“Where are the children?” Grandmere asked when she entered. She bustled to the foot of the table and sat down. “The boy and the girl?”
Rhys and Luma came stumbling in from the front hall, dressed for dinner but hair askew. Grandmere glanced up at them, and so did I. Rhys had a spreading red-purple bruise around his eye, and Luma kept poking her tongue around in her mouth as though testing a loose tooth
. They must have been scrapping silently, maybe in the corridor between the music room and the library. I wondered who had started it. I’d have to ask Luma after dinner, make sure she was alright. Arthur didn’t seem to notice her. He seated himself next to me.
And at last, Grandpa Miklos came in. He was tying his tie, his face bearing a fresh scratch from the woods. He wandered in half aware, and then stopped and stared at Grandmere. His whole body went rigid, his face filled with anger.
“Ah, you must be Miklos,” Grandmere said. “How nice to finally meet you after all this time.”
Grandpa Miklos took a halting step forward, and then froze in place. He looked like he was straining against something.
“Grandpa,” I said, “Grandmere is here to visit us for a while. She’s a visitor.”
He nodded in a dreamy sort of way. He took his seat at the head of the table, looking pained and confused. I wondered what was wrong with him. He’d let Father Thomas come to our house, but he was enraged at the presence of this old lady?
“Let’s have a pleasant dinner,” Grandmere said. Grandpa seemed to relax at that. He settled back in his chair. I looked at her in awe. She already seemed to know exactly the right things to say.
Margaret came in, carrying a tray with an enormous roast fowl on it. She set it down in the center of the table while I tried not to think about the vulture from a week ago.
“Oh, Margaret,” Grandmere said, without looking up. “Please carve that for us.”
I braced myself. Any minute now, the low moan would start up, would rise to a shriek, would threaten to bring the house down around us—
It never came. Instead, I heard the sound of clinking cutlery, and then Margaret was cutting the duck into slices.
I looked up at Grandmere, trying to read anything on her face. She was beatific. Calm, patient, an elderly woman waiting for dinner. But there had to be more to it than that, I thought. She’d done in a sentence what Grandma Persephone hadn’t been able to do in a lifetime: she’d pacified Aunt Margaret.
Maybe she was a witch, too, I thought. It would explain some things: how she’d known what to bring me, how she’d showed up without any help with all those trunks. But I’d need to know more to be sure.
Grandmere talked during dinner, pausing between bites to lay her fork down.
“It’s so wonderful to be here,” she said. “I must say, Paris has lost some of its charm for me. Maybe I stayed too long.”
“I wish I could have gone to Paris,” Arthur said. “By Miles’s account, it is a charming city.”
Father glanced up sharply. He mouthed something at Arthur that I couldn’t discern.
“Oh?” Grandmere said. “I knew Miles was in France, but I didn’t know you had not gone as well. Were you exempt?”
Arthur’s jaw made a clicking noise, faint enough that I wasn’t sure anyone else could hear it. He shook his head and tapped the side of his face. His teeth were grinding together, almost inaudibly. Now that I recognized the signs, it seemed impossible to ignore. I couldn’t see how Rhys and Luma could sit there snarling over duck legs while he struggled to open his mouth. What was it that was stopping him from speaking?
“I see,” Grandmere said. “I’ve asked too much. My apologies.”
“Let’s talk about more pleasant things,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“But of course.”
The conversation moved on, mostly between Arthur and Grandmere. Mother jumped in now and then, but as dinner wore on, her voice got scratchier, until finally she excused herself early. Grandpa didn’t speak at all, just chewed the same mouthful of duck. Finally, he got up from the table without excusing himself and slipped out to the kitchen. I heard scratching at the back door, and then a creak as Margaret opened it for him.
“I hope I haven’t offended him,” Grandmere said.
“He can be like that,” I said. “He’s a little impulsive.”
“Strange, in an older gentleman,” she said.
“Not at all,” said Arthur. “The old have less to gain from denying themselves. I’ve often noticed that the older you are, the more you become yourself.”
Grandmere smiled. “By your measure, I must be very young.”
“Ever-youthful,” he said.
After dinner, Father said, “Arthur, may I have a word? We should discuss our finances.”
Grandmere’s head snapped around to look at Father. She looked like she wanted to kill him. I almost regretted telling her about the slap.
“We should all talk,” I said. “Father—”
“Oh, business can wait,” Grandmere said. “Since I am imposing on your hospitality, I intend to supply you with all the funds you need to entertain me. As long as I am here, you shouldn’t fret over such petty things. Let’s sit in the parlor and enjoy one another’s company.”
A silence descended on the table.
“Mère,” my mother said at last, “that’s too generous of you. How long are you planning to stay with us?”
“Well, as long as you need me,” Grandmere said. “You have just suffered such a loss, I will let you all tell me when you need to be alone again. Until you send me away, I will stay and do my very best to help you all get settled once again.”
I felt a little in awe. She had said it so perfectly: that she was here to stay, but only as long as we wanted her here.
“I know we could use some help getting back on our feet,” I said. “Thank you, Grandmere.”
My mother gave me a worried look. I refused to meet her gaze.
“That is generous, Madame,” Father said.
“Oh please, do call me Mère,” she said. “I am your wife’s mother, after all.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Girls,” Grandmere said, “why don’t you sing us something? I understand Eleanor plays piano.”
“Luma’s a fantastic singer,” I said.
“We’ll see!” she said.
Grandmere and Father and Arthur stood around in the dining room talking while Margaret laid out Arthur’s coffee. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Grandmere say something I couldn’t quite hear, and then Father laughed. At least she was being cordial to him.
The grand piano that Miklos had bought for Persephone had been draped with black since her death, and the parlor, unused since the funeral, smelled faintly of dust. I started to pull the drapes off of the piano, but Luma caught my wrist and began to dig her nails in. I could feel them changing, growing downward into my arm.
“Stop that!” I said.
“I saw you look at Arthur,” she said. “Do you like him?”
“What?”
“Is he your Mr. Rochester?”
“Luma, not everything is a gothic novel,” I said. “And no, I don’t like him. He’s your, I don’t know, Heathcliff.”
She retracted her claws and yanked her hand away. I looked down at the red marks on my wrist.
“Well,” she said, “you should be more careful around Grandmere. You know Grandpa’s afraid of her. I can smell it on him.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I couldn’t imagine Grandpa Miklos being afraid of anything. “You can’t possibly smell that.”
“I can smell a lot,” she said. “For example, you stink of fish right now.” She took in another breath. “And something else, too. Are you sure you don’t like him? You smell strange.”
I felt suddenly hot and panicked.
“I was thinking about a boy from school during dinner. Do you really need to know that?”
“You’d better not be lying to me,” she said.
I steadied my voice like I learned to in boarding school and said, “Well, I’m not.” Her sense of smell was going to be a problem. How was I supposed to protect her from the way I felt if she insisted on sniffing it out?
“Good,” Luma said, and I fought the urge to sigh with relief. She flicked the light switch on and off a few times until the shaky electricity kicked in. The man who had done the wiring for the hou
se hadn’t been very good. I had a sudden memory of him running out of the house and into the woods, and Grandpa Miklos following after. I shook my head to clear it. There were too many of these kinds of memories for me to get upset about just one. And anyway, Grandmere was in the house now. Together we were going to change things.
I opened the lid of the piano. Luma stepped closer to me, still sniffing.
“Didn’t you go to an all-girls’ school?” she asked.
“It was someone I met at winter formal. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Winter formal last year had been a disaster; I’d stood in the corner in a borrowed dress while other girls twirled around with boys. But I looked right into her eyes and willed my lie to work. I knew with her the trick was to be shameless; she was not particularly clever, but she could smell sweat and she could hear heartbeats. I breathed in deeply and held it to slow my heart down. It was part of a set of skills that felt dangerous to use, foreign from what the rest of the family had. But it gave me an edge with Luma; she didn’t really understand lying. She’d never really needed to lie. She’d always just gotten what she wanted.
I wished I could tell her about all of this. I didn’t like having to be the mature one, the one who sacrificed. I wanted to be a little girl again, have her hug me and tell me I was silly and everything would be alright. But Grandma Persephone had told me to take care of her, along with everyone else. She was innocent, in a way. If she lost that, I’d failed. Must be nice, I supposed, to live in a big house away from the world, where everyone you saw was someone who loved you.
We called in Grandmere and Grandpa Miklos and Arthur. Rhys came sulking in, too, and stood in the corner with his arms folded over his chest. I sat down at the piano and played a few chords experimentally, testing my fingers. My piano teacher at school had said my webbed thumb made my span too short, and if I ever wanted to be a professional I would have to get it operated on. In response I’d developed a way of leaping along that gave my playing a little bit of a lilt. I won a prize for a song I performed, a Bible with real gold on the edges of the pages. Where was that now? Probably still in my dormitory room where I’d left it when I fled. Or taken by the police as evidence, if things had gone that far.