by Amy Plum
I lifted a hand and touched his arm. It was as cold and hard as a store mannequin’s. Recoiling, I cried, “Vincent?” He didn’t move. “Oh my God,” I whispered, horrified, and then my eyes fixed on a framed photo sitting on the table next to his bed. It was of me.
My heart stopped in my chest, and holding my hand to my throat, I backed away until my shoulders hit the marble chimney and I let out a terrified scream. Just then, the door burst open and an overhead light switched on. Jules stood in the doorway. “Hi, Kate,” he said ominously, and then, turning the light back off, he nodded and said, “Looks like the game’s up, Vince.”
Chapter Eleven
“YOU’LL HAVE TO COME WITH ME.” JULES WORE A grim expression. When he realized that I was incapable of movement, he took my arm and led me toward the door.
“But Jules,” I said, my shock worn off enough to allow me to speak, “Vincent’s dead!”
Jules turned to me and stared. I must have looked like a trauma victim. I know I sounded like one, my voice coming out all quivery.
“No, he’s not. He’s fine.” He took my hand and pulled me into the hallway. I jerked it back.
“Listen to me, Jules,” I said, starting to sound hysterical, “I touched him. His skin is cold and hard. He’s dead!”
“Kate,” he said, sounding almost annoyed, “I can’t talk to you about this right now. But you have to come with me.” He took a gentle hold of my wrist and began leading me down the hallway.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Where should I take her?” he asked himself. It wasn’t in a pondering tone, like people use when they ask a question they already know the answer to. It sounded like he didn’t know and expected someone else to answer.
My eyes widened. Jules was crazy. Maybe he had been brain-damaged in the subway wreck, I thought. Maybe he was criminally insane and had murdered Vincent and left him on his bed, and now he was taking me somewhere to kill me, too. My thoughts were spinning out of control: I was now in slasher-film mode. Terrified, I tried to yank my hand from his grasp, but his grip tightened.
“I’m taking you to Charlotte’s room,” he said, answering his own question.
“Who’s Charlotte?” I asked, my voice wavering.
“I’m not trying to scare her!” Jules said, coming to a stop. He turned to me, looking exasperated. “Listen, Kate. I know you had a shock in there, but your being in that room is completely your own fault. Not mine. Now I’m going to take you somewhere to calm down, and I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Can I just leave?”
“No.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t help myself. I was too confused and frightened to be calm, and too horrified that I was crying to look at him: Looking weak or fragile was the last thing I wanted. I stared at the floor.
“What now?” he said, dropping my hand. “Kate? Kate?” His rough manner softened. “Kate.”
I met his eyes as I wiped my tears away with shaking fingers.
“Oh my God, I’ve terrified you,” he said, taking his first good look at me. He stepped backward. “I’ve done this all wrong. I’m such an idiot.” Be careful, I told myself, he might just be acting. But he’s sure doing a believable job with the remorse.
“Okay, let me explain”—he hesitated—“as much as I can. I’m not going to hurt you. I swear, Kate. And I promise Vincent will be fine. It’s not what it seems. But I just need to talk to the others—the other people who live here—before I can let you leave.”
I nodded. Jules was acting a lot saner than he had a few minutes before. And he was looking so apologetic that I almost (but not quite) felt sorry for him. Even if I want to run, I thought, I can’t get past the security gate outside.
He reached his hand toward me, this time in a peaceful way, as if he wanted to place it comfortingly on my forearm, but I recoiled.
“Okay. It’s okay,” he soothed, raising his hands in the air in an I surrender gesture. “I won’t touch you again.”
He looked really upset now. “I know,” he said, speaking to the air, “I’m a total moron,” and began walking down the hallway toward the foyer. “Please follow me, Kate,” he said in a downcast voice.
I followed him. What other choice did I have?
He led me up the winding double staircase to the second floor and down a hallway. Opening a door to a darkened room, he flicked on the lights and stayed in the hallway as I walked in. “Make yourself comfortable. I might be a while,” he said, avoiding my eyes. He pulled the door closed behind me. The lock clicked.
“Hey!” I yelled, grabbing the handle and twisting it. It was definitely locked.
“I had to lock it. We can’t just have her wandering around the house.” Jules was talking to himself again, as his footsteps grew faint.
There was nothing more that I could do, besides leaping out the second-floor window and scaling the front gate. That’s just not going to happen, I thought, and resigned myself to the fact that I was powerless to do anything else until someone unlocked the door.
You could have done worse for a prison, I thought, looking around. The walls were lined with a patterned rose-colored silk, and heavy mint green drapes were tied back on either side of the windows, which had upper panes in the shape of hearts. Delicate painted bedroom furniture was arranged around the edges of the room. I sat down on a silk-upholstered daybed.
My shaking calmed, and after a long while I let myself stretch out and put my head on a cushion, drawing my legs up off the floor. I shut my eyes, just for a second, and the effects of the stress and fear had their way with my brain. I was out like a light.
It must have been hours later when I awoke. I could see a night sky approaching dawn through the window, and for one delirious moment I thought I was back in my Brooklyn bedroom.
Then my eyes flicked upward to a large chandelier with arms ending in impossibly delicate glass flowers. The ceiling was painted to look like a cloudy sky edged with fat baby angels carrying armloads of ribbons and flowers.
For a second, I didn’t know where I was. Then, remembering, I sat up.
“You’re awake,” said a voice from across the room. I looked over to find its source. It was the girl from the café with the cropped blond hair, the one who had saved me from being crushed by the falling stone. What is she doing here? I thought.
She sat curled up in an armchair next to an ornate stone fireplace. Slowly and hesitantly she unfolded herself and walked carefully toward me.
The light from the chandelier shone through her hair, making it glow like burnished bronze. Her cheeks and lips were the color of the velvety pink roses in Mamie’s country garden. High cheekbones set off her beautiful eyes, their irises a bewitching green.
The girl stood next to me now, and timidly held out a hand to take my own. “Kate,” she said with a shy voice, squeezing my hand and letting it go. “I’m Charlotte.” I sat on the edge of the daybed, looking up at her in awe.
“You’re the one who saved my life,” I murmured.
Laughing, she pulled up a chair to sit in front of me. “That wasn’t really me.” She smiled. “I mean, it was me, but I’m not responsible for saving your life. It’s kind of complicated,” she said, crossing her legs impishly. Around her neck hung a leather cord with a silver teardrop-shaped pendant.
So this is the girl Vincent was so close to, I thought with dismay, my eyes traveling from the necklace back to her elegant face. She was around my age, but a bit younger. Vincent had said she was just a friend. I couldn’t help wondering how close they had been.
“Welcome to my room,” she said.
My heart fell. She lives in his house?
“It’s stunning,” I managed to eke out.
“I like to surround myself with beauty,” she said, flashing me an embarrassed smile.
Her boyish haircut and long, thin figure, dressed in tight black jeans and faded striped T-shirt, couldn’t disguise her striking feminine beauty. Although it looked
like she was attempting to do just that. She doesn’t even have to try, and she’s breathtaking, I thought, mentally surrendering as I realized I would never have been able to compete with Charlotte.
I couldn’t speak, my throat was closed so tightly with jealousy over the thought of this girl getting to see Vincent every day. Of her waking up in this beautiful room and knowing that Vincent was there, in the same house as her.
And then I remembered how he had looked in the bed downstairs, and I tried to shake myself out of my pettiness. Even though Jules said he wasn’t dead, he had sure seemed dead to me. I didn’t know what to think anymore. But being jealous of this girl wasn’t going to help anything.
“What happened to Vincent?” I asked.
“Ah. The million-euro question,” she said softly. “And the one I’ve been specifically requested not to answer. Apparently the boys don’t trust me. Discretion and tact are not among my strong points. However, they asked me to stay here with you, in case you freaked out and tried to run away once you woke up.” She hesitated, waiting. “So . . . are you going to freak and run?”
“No,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I mean, I don’t think so.” And then, alarmed, I blurted, “My grandparents! They’ll be panicking! I’ve been gone all night!”
“No, they won’t,” she said, smiling. “We texted them from your phone that you were spending the night with a friend.”
My relief was replaced by a chilling thought. “So I can’t leave? Are you keeping me prisoner?”
“That makes it sound a bit melodramatic,” she said.
Her eyes looked as if they were used to taking much in, while giving little away. The eyes of an older woman reflecting the spirit of a little girl. “You saw things you shouldn’t have. Now we have to decide how to handle the situation. You know . . . like damage control. You’re the one who took the bite out of the apple, Kate. Although with a serpent that handsome, I can’t say I blame you.”
“You’re not going to hurt me?” I asked.
“You answer that question,” she said, and placed her fingertips on my arm. A warm rivulet of peace seemed to flow from her touch, and I was suffused with tranquillity.
“What are you doing?” I asked, looking at the spot where her skin touched mine. If I wasn’t feeling so relaxed, I’m sure I would have leaped to my feet in dismay at the weirdness of her gesture. She didn’t say a thing, but the corners of her mouth curved up slightly and she removed her hand.
I looked her steadily in the eye and asked, “No one else is going to hurt me either?”
“I’ll make sure they don’t.”
There was a knock at the door. Charlotte rose. “It’s time.”
She held out her arm for me to link mine through. I couldn’t help but glance at the pendant again, and hesitated.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, and touched the silver teardrop.
Something on my face must have told her, because her expression changed as she said, “Vincent told me you picked out my necklace. I’m glad he had you there—I never know what the boys are going to come up with.” She smiled and pressed my hand in a friendly gesture. “Vincent’s like my brother, Kate. There is absolutely nothing between us . . . except a long history of boring birthday presents. You broke my losing streak. It’s the first time in years he’s given me something besides his favorite recent CD.”
She laughed, and the jealousy that had been pricking me like needles eased a little. She certainly spoke of him like someone would a brother. I took her arm.
As we made our way to the door, I noticed that her walls were hung with the same jumble of photographs that I had seen in Vincent’s room. But this collection was set in pretty painted wood-and-enamel frames and attached to the wall with ribbons.
“Who are those people?” I asked.
Her eyes flicked casually in the direction I was looking, and leading me through the door, she said, “Them? Well, Kate, though I can’t take credit for saving your life, those are the people I did save.”
Chapter Twelve
CHARLOTTE LED ME DOWNSTAIRS AND THROUGH the servants’ passageway into Vincent’s room. She tapped on the door and, without waiting for a response, led me directly to Vincent’s bed. My steps faltered when I saw him sitting up, propped against pillows. He looked very weak and as pale as a sheet. But he was alive. My heart leaped in my chest—as much with excitement at seeing him alive as with fear. How was it possible?
“Vincent?” I asked cautiously. “Is that you?” Which sounded a bit stupid. It looked like him, but maybe he had been possessed by . . . I don’t know, some kind of alien being or something. At this point, things were strange enough for me to believe almost anything.
He smiled, and I knew it was really him.
“You’re not . . . but you were dead!” I had to force the irrational words out of my mouth.
“What if I told you I’m just a deep sleeper?” his low voice came, slow and with great effort.
“Vincent, you were dead. I saw you. I touched you. I know. . . .” My eyes filled with tears as I had a flashback to the Brooklyn morgue and my parents’ bodies laid out on stretchers. “I know what ‘dead’ looks like.”
“Come here,” he said. I inched my way toward him, not knowing what to expect. He lifted his arm, slowly, and touched my hand. He wasn’t as cold as before, but he didn’t feel quite human, either.
“See?” he said, the corners of his lips curving upward. “Alive.”
I stepped back, pulling my hand from his. “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice mistrustful. “What’s wrong with you?”
He looked resigned. “I’m sorry I ever got you mixed up in this. It was selfish. But I didn’t think it would turn out this way. I didn’t think . . . at all. Obviously.”
My feeling of general alarm was replaced by a creeping sensation of fear of what would come next. I couldn’t imagine what sort of revelation he was going to come out with. But a little voice inside me said, You knew. And I realized that I had.
I had known that there was something different about Vincent. I had felt it, even before I saw his photo in the obituaries. It was something just a little east of normal, but too obscure for me to put my finger on. So I had ignored it. But now I was going to find out. A frisson of expectancy caused me to shudder. Vincent saw me tremble and frowned regretfully.
We were interrupted by a tapping at the door. Charlotte rose to open it and moved aside as, one by one, people stepped into the room.
Jules walked up to me first and, gently touching my shoulder, asked, “Are you feeling better?”
I nodded.
“I am so, so sorry for how I handled things before,” he said with remorse. “It was a knee-jerk reaction, trying to get you away from Vince as soon as possible. I was rough with you. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Really. It’s okay.”
A familiar figure walked up behind him and jokingly pushed him aside. The muscular guy from the river turned to Jules and said, “Trying to hog her for yourself?” and then, bending down to my height, he held out his hand. “Kate, enchanted to meet you. I’m Ambrose,” he said in a baritone voice that was as thick as molasses. Then, switching into a perfectly American-accented English, he said, “Ambrose Bates from Oxford, Mississippi. It’s nice to meet a fellow countryman in this land of crazy French people!”
Clearly enjoying the fact that he had surprised me, Ambrose laughed deeply and clapped me on the arm before sitting down next to Jules on a couch and giving me a friendly wink.
A man I had never seen before stepped toward me and gave a nervous little bow. “Gaspard,” he introduced himself simply. He was older than the others, in his late thirties or early forties. Tall and gaunt, he had deep-set eyes and a shock of badly cut black hair sticking up in all directions. He turned and walked away toward the others.
“This is my twin brother, Charles,” said Charlotte, who had stayed by my side as presentations were made. She pulled forward the redhead copy of herself. Bow
ing and giving my hand a mock kiss, he said sarcastically, “Nice to see you again, now that it’s not raining masonry.” I smiled unsurely at him.
I don’t know if it was my imagination, or if everyone actually took a step backward, but all of a sudden it seemed like the only people in the room were me and the man I was facing. It was the aristocratic gentleman from yesterday—the owner of the house. Though everyone else had greeted me in a somewhat friendly manner, my host was not smiling.
Standing before me, he bowed stiffly from the waist. “Jean-Baptiste Grimod de la Reynière,” he said, looking stonily into my eyes. “Although the rest of my kindred may reside here, this is my house and I, for one, feel that your presence here is very unwise.”
“Jean-Baptiste,” came Vincent’s voice from behind me. “None of this was intentional.” He lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes, seeming to have used all his energy with those six words.
“You, young man . . . you were the one who broke the rules by bringing her into our house in the first place. I have never permitted any of you to bring your human lovers here, and you flaunted my injunction most egregiously.”
I felt my cheeks flame at his words, but wasn’t sure which I was responding to: the “human” part or the “lovers” part. Nothing made sense anymore.
“What was I supposed to do?” Vincent argued. “She had just seen Jules die! She was in shock.”
“That was your own problem to solve. You shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place. And now you are going to have to clean up your own mess.”
“Ah, lighten up, JB,” said Ambrose, leaning back and casually draping his arms along the entire length of the couch back. “It’s not the end of the world. We’ve checked her out, and she’s definitely not a spy. Plus, she’s not exactly the first human to know what we are.”
The older man shot him a withering look.
The one who’d introduced himself as Gaspard spoke up in a timorous voice. “If I may be permitted to clarify . . . the difference here is that every other human interacting with us was . . . ah . . . was individually chosen from families who have served Jean-Baptiste for generations.”