Splinters of Scarlet

by Emily Bain Murphy

  January 3, 1867

  Vestergaard Manor

  In my nightmares, I am plunged back into war.

  I am back in the same place, fighting for the duchies again. This endless cycle, like a garish hallway of mirrors that keep reflecting. I was proud to carry the Vestergaard name. Proud to fight for Denmark. Those duchies cost my father his life, and I was not about to let that go to waste if I could help it. It would be like trading the rest of the life I could have had with him, all for land we barely managed to hold on to for a few more meaningless years. So I strapped on my uniform and latched up the leather of my boots, and I marched into war with the rest of them.

  There was gray rain, turning everything cold and wet. Turning mud slick, turning solid ground treacherous. The war is feeling this way too. Firm ground becoming less and less sure.

  And turning my matches soggy. I futilely try to light a cigarette. Then the man standing next to me bends and I hear the snap of his fingers. His cigarette comes alive with flame.

  I turn toward it instinctively. I think of the little boy snapping his fingers in the alley, of the little boy I was, snapping useless fingers in the cold darkness.

  “You know, when I was younger, I used to wish for that,” I say carefully. Magic.

  “Brutal thing to wish for . . .” he says, his lips curling the words around his cigarette. “I’d wish for money, treasure, gold, safe passage home, if I had a wish. A girl to love, perhaps. Or at the very least, an umbrella.”

  I’d wish for my father back. Or my brother. I’d wish I could make my father proud. Make his life sacrifice not worthless.

  “Love,” I say, chuffing. He lights my cigarette with the end of his. “Is that what you’re wishing for?”

  “Nah. I want to be a cartographer. I don’t want to be here, shooting a gun. I want to see Antarctica.” He sticks his hand out. “I’m Jasper.”

  I look at his hand for a beat too long. The only friends I’ve really ever had are Aleks and Tønnes.

  “I’m Philip,” I say quickly, shaking his hand. I gesture to his fingers. “You’ll be glad you can do that—light yourself a fire. When you’re surrounded by hunks of ice in Antarctica.”

  He grins, with gallows humor. “Ice seems to be my destiny. One way or the other,” he says dryly. “What would you wish for now? If not love, magic, or the arctic tundra?”

  The cannons have gone silent. The night cold is brutal, the stench of bodies and sewage awful. I remember the handkerchief I pressed to my face that night in the morgue. Would I have gone along with Tønnes’s idea if I had understood what it meant, to see a man die in front of me?

  I don’t know.

  “Perhaps I’d wish to go back in time,” I say quietly. “Maybe change one decision. One I didn’t realize at the time would be so monumental.”

  “Never too late,” Jasper says, and sucks on his cigarette. “Unless you don’t make it out of here, of course. Then you’re too late, you unlucky bastard.”

  I swallow hard and take a deep breath of smoke. “Can’t go back now. Only go forward and make something out of the wreckage.”

  “That’s a big wish,” he says. “I’d wish for a pound of smoked salmon and butter open-faced on rye. And for the bloody British to get here quicker.” He stamps his feet in his boots. “I thought they’d be here by now.”

  We share a cigarette the next night, and the next. The Prussians are better armed than we are, with a new gun they can reload while lying down. We have to stay standing to load our rifles. As the barrage of cannons continues like pulsing thunder, days bleed to night and the mornings show more and more bodies littering the ground, the trenches, weighing down ambulance carts stuffed with soaked straw. Until we steadily realize.

  “No one is coming to help us,” Jasper says on the fourth night. He leans against the butt of his rifle, dazed.

  He pulls out a cigarette.

  He’s right. The British aren’t coming this time, like they did in my father and brother’s version of this war. Queen Victoria’s already sided with the Prussians. Because of her daughter’s marriage.

  Jasper snaps his fingers, and I see the flame flicking between them, just for a second.

  I’m not the only one who sees it.

  “Want a—”

  The question dies as instantly as he does.

  One cracking shot, and there is brain on my face.

  I’d always thought that magic was power. But magic couldn’t help him, not this far downstream. I look at Jasper’s limp hands, the cigarette he dropped with its magic flame extinguished in the mud. Power has to start much earlier, not on the battlefield, not with magic or tanks or guns, but in the strategizing. In the beautiful gilded state rooms, where words have more potent power than bullets. When it’s still possible to change people’s minds. By the time we’re here, it’s too late.

  I make sure that Jasper gets properly buried. I pay for his cremation, his funeral. I don’t know why he mattered so much to me, when I didn’t know him but for a handful of days. When there have been so many others before him, and will be after him.

  And then I begin to plan.

  What do I wish for now that the war is over and Denmark has accepted defeat?

  I don’t wish for magic anymore. Now I’m going to make sure that Denmark is never abandoned or even threatened again. And that starts with the royals. Playing the games, making strategic and calculated moves, and flexing a powerful influence in those state rooms.

  Yes, more people will die to get there. People like Jasper. But his sacrifice was for the greater good, and theirs will be too. If some people die now, perhaps fewer will die later.

  There’s still a way I can pull something good from all the wreckage.

  That’s why when I wake up from my coma and Helene pays me a visit, I know what I have to do.

  She looks gaunt but strong. Her arms are crossed, her hair pulled back tight, and she’s in a dress that streams down to the floor. She always had a presence that turned every room into a stage. She was the only one who could make gems look dim.

  “Philip,” she says softly. She is holding a gilded envelope in her fingers. “The king has accepted our invitation. But I’m no longer convinced this is the appropriate time for Eve to perform for him,” Helene says. “Perhaps we should cancel. Or at the very least, postpone—”

  “Do you want to get Eve into the royal academy?” I interrupt.

  “Well, yes, of course. If she’s going to be a Danish dancer, on the Danish stage, she needs to be in the academy. Otherwise I’ll need to start exploring other options. Perhaps even in other countries.”

  That does actually sound rather appealing. But I can’t throw away this opportunity with the king. Not after the humiliation of Schleswig and Holstein and how badly we overestimated the support of our allies. We may have lost land and power for the past hundred years, but we hold firm here.

  “We’ll downplay the attack and my injuries. I don’t want to jeopardize anything with the royals or sacrifice Eve’s chance at the academy,” I say smoothly. I sit up and don’t allow myself to wince at the shooting pain across my abdomen. “Yes, we proceed. There are things we need from King Christian.”

  And things he is going to need from us, too.

  Yes. Bring the king to me.

  And together, we’ll make the Vestergaards, and Denmark, invincible.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Marit

  January 4, 1867

  Vestergaard Manor

  “Philip’s awake,” Lara announces when I step into the kitchen first thing the next morning.

  Liljan and I stayed up late into the night. She dyed my hair back to its original color and returned a smattering of freckles to my face. Then we sat between the beds, secretly eating licorice and putting together a plan with two prongs.

  The first depends on whether or not the ballet salon is still happening and whether or not I can procure some Vestergaard stones under the guise of embellishing a costum
e. If that plan fails, we’ll move on to the second, trickier one—a plan infinitely more tricky now that Philip is awake. I straighten out my apron. The first prong better work, and it starts with me.

  Rae, Peder the guard, and Philip’s valet, Malthe, are sitting around the kitchen table with coffee. Everything is a shade duller and quieter now. The clanking of pots is subdued. No one is whispering or laughing or whipping towels at one another. Dorit slept in, and the bread Rae baked is half-burned and sunken.

  “Did Mr. Vestergaard get a good look at his assailant?” Peder asks the valet. I can see the guard’s revolver. He keeps reaching down and touching it.

  “No. Only that he seemed like some vagrant. Medium build, light hair and eyes. Philip says he smelled tangy, like alcohol.”

  A vague description that in Denmark could have been anyone. Helene says she saw nothing; Philip’s information is unhelpful. They could be telling the truth.

  Or they could be covering something for each other.

  “I’ll take that,” I say to Lara, and load a tray with coffee, cream, and, at the last moment, a sprig of violets in a crystal vase. The corridor to the main house is freezing; my steps echo, and the enormous vase on the table in the foyer is empty of flowers and smells slightly of decay. I knock quietly at Helene’s door. The hallway is as still as death.

  “Mrs. Vestergaard?”

  Helene opens the door.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” I say, holding out the tray, “but I wasn’t certain if I should proceed with the salon costumes . . . ?” I trail off at her piercing stare. Surely, after all that’s happened, the event will be postponed or even canceled altogether.

  Helene takes the coffee from me and sips it black.

  She says coolly, “We proceed as planned.”

  Then so, I think, will we. I clear my throat and step into her room to unload the tray. “Then I’d like to propose an idea for the costumes,” I venture. “I’m envisioning Vestergaard stones. I’ll embroider them right onto Eve’s costume, into the fabric.” I lay out the vase of violets and pitcher of cream on the vanity. “Her very tutu will be a piece of jewelry.”

  Helene hesitates, narrowing her eyes. “I do like the idea,” she hedges. Her eyes fix on a portrait of Aleks as she considers. “But I’d like to pursue something else. I don’t want to bother Philip with it now, and I’m not convinced we could get the stones in time. Maybe for another show, in the future.”

  But this salon is the one with the king in attendance. I’m battling my suspicions, wanting to press her, when Eve suddenly slips in through the open door. Her hair is plaited up around her head and she makes a point not to look at me. It makes me feel like a piece of furniture in the room. One that she’s planning to give away.

  “I’ve lost another week of practicing, Helene,” she says tentatively. “You still want to continue with the salon? I’m . . . not sure I’m ready to perform for the king. Perhaps I should simply work on my audition for the royal ballet academy?”

  Helene hesitates and sets down her coffee.

  She turns to look Eve straight in the eye and says, “Eve, I’m not certain that’s going to be possible.”

  “Why not?”

  “As it turns out, after speaking with my contacts at the Royal Danish Ballet about your audition, they feel that perhaps Denmark isn’t quite ready for ballet to . . . change. For the ballerinas to change,” she says bitterly. “As much as we are.”

  Eve stills. “Oh,” she says, as if she can’t quite catch her breath.

  “But if the king enjoys your dancing, then we will force their hand.” Helene’s jaw twitches. “And oh, how I long to force their hand.”

  At the crushed look on Eve’s face, a licking, burning rage ignites within me and drowns out everything else. I’m furious at myself that I managed to hurt her. Furious at these nameless people who would dare take away this chance from her, when she has come so miraculously close to it. There’s a lump in my throat, growing so large that I’m choking on it. The people who love her, and the thing that she’s good at—they aren’t supposed to hurt her. They’re supposed to be what gives her a future. I can’t pretend to understand all the facets of what she feels, but I feel her hurt so keenly within me, like light refracting. Hurting for her is entirely different than hurting for myself. It goes to a separate place and slices deeply and tenderly there. And so I turn the hurt to anger, almost without thinking. It is easier to take a broken heart’s edges and bend them to face outward instead of in. It provides a little relief from their piercing, to turn the jagged parts around and wield them instead as a weapon.

  “So we’ll do the salon,” Helene says firmly. “Marit, let’s plan to discuss other ideas for the costumes.”

  “Shall we practice today, then?” Eve asks quietly. The gracefulness and joy she usually exudes are gone. She moves like rusted tin—hunched and stiff, as if she were trying to protect something soft. I sense her gathering herself as though she’s been shoved over, and she’s mustering the strength to get back up again.

  “I do think we should spend today practicing. But, Eve,” Helene says softly, “before that—have you ever tasted sugar cakes?”

  Eve frowns slightly, then shakes her head.

  “Oh, that won’t do,” Helene says with mock gravity. She hesitates, then reaches out for Eve’s hand, covering it like a glove. “We must fix that immediately.”

  I’m slightly confused at this turn of events, at the suggestion of two ballerinas eating sugar cakes just after breakfast, but I follow along two paces behind them, through the too-quiet house. Helene descends the stairs to the corridor that connects to the servants’ quarters and walks briskly through it, but she pauses at the entrance to the kitchen.

  “Hello?” she calls ahead, as if to announce herself.

  There is such a complicated dance always going on between their upstairs and our downstairs. Part of service is learning the steps quickly and understanding how to navigate all the tricky lines that are both unspoken and uncrossable.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” she says, crossing over the invisible line into the kitchen.

  Dorit is flattening dough over and over with a rolling pin. She looks up without expression. “This is your home, my lady,” she responds dully.

  Helene hesitates. “It is my house,” she corrects. “But this is your space. I’ve hardly stepped foot here in years . . .” The unsaid words hang painfully in the air: . . . other than the bloody day that Ivy died. “Are you certain you’re ready to be back?” she asks, and she slips into her authority again like it’s a garment, her voice becoming gentler still.

  “I need something to keep my mind and hands busy, Mrs. Vestergaard,” Dorit says, pushing the rolling pin firmly against the dough. “Sitting with my thoughts is too hard yet.”

  Helene touches the edge of a towel, straightening its wrinkles. “I know the sting of grief,” she says gently. “It will get better.”

  “Please.” Dorit gestures to the table. I sense Eve tensing for the briefest second, as if she expects to see traces of Philip’s and Ivy’s blood there. “May I fix you something?” Dorit asks, roughly wiping her eyes with a dishtowel. “A cup of tea? A scone?”

  Helene stops her from rummaging through the cupboards. “Actually,” she says, “I was hoping I could cook something. With Miss Eve.”

  Dorit barely masks her surprise. “Oh—well, yes, of course, my lady.”

  “I’ll need sugar, coconut, bay leaves, and fresh ginger.”

  As we spring into action and gather the ingredients, Helene dons an apron and gestures for Eve to put one on over her dress. Eve glances at me out of the corner of her eye, as if she can’t help it. When our eyes meet, she scowls.

  Helene turns to Eve. “You told me, that first day in the carriage, that ‘The Nightingale’ was your favorite Hans Christian Andersen story. Well, ‘The Snow Queen’ is mine.”

  Just like me. Rae instantly sets a saucepan of water to boil, and Helene adds sugar,
bay leaves, and ginger to it as she tells Eve the story of Gerda and Kai, of the devil who makes a magic mirror to reflect the world with pointed ugliness and distortion. “When it shatters, splinters of it—some as small as a grain of sand—lodge into people’s eyes, so that all they can see is the worst of everything around them,” Helene says, stirring in the coconut. “It gets into their hearts; it freezes them to ice. But our heroine, young Gerda, follows her childhood friend Kai after he gets one of those splinters in his eye. She follows him to the palace of the Snow Queen and cries hot tears that penetrate into his chest and thaw his frozen heart.”

  I can’t help but wonder, as I always do when I hear this story, if it was inspired somehow by magic. Maybe Hans Christian Andersen heard about the Firn and made this story, writing a happy ending for us even if we can’t have it in real life.

  “The best stories are always spun around a kernel of truth,” Helene says. “Sometimes it seems like the world has all sorts of glass splinters in its eye. And I want to change that.”

  Helene plucks out the bay leaves and ginger and carefully measures the steaming coconut sugar into small round lumps on a tray. “Sugar cakes, like my mother used to make in St. Croix,” Helene says. “We’ll let these cool, and in the meantime—I’ll need a pencil, please. And some string.” She sets another pot of water to boil. Measures out more sugar.

  “Aleks taught me this trick, to help me understand the way crystals and stalactites form, in the caves of the mines,” Helene says, and I listen with heightened interest. “But it reminds me of ‘The Snow Queen,’ as well.” Helene sends the sugar to swirl like a blizzard into the water. She stirs the mixture until the sugar has dissolved, then pours it into a glass jar.

  “The sugar will crystallize here on the string, and then it will begin to build on itself, little by little. And I think people can let hatred grow, just like this. Letting it build up and harden, forming inside of them.” She ties the string to the pencil, then balances the pencil over the jar so that the string dangles down into the mixture. “But here is the difficult part for us, Eve,” Helene continues. “It’s not letting hatred form in response to hatred. Because what builds isn’t lovely or valuable. Instead, it’s like poison—hollowing out and destroying.” She swallows. “We both know well how concerned some people can be with what we look like on the outside. But we have to make sure we don’t start to look like them on the inside.”