Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  I finally go limp, letting Mama wash me. She tells me to hold my breath and then dunks my head into the water. When my head pops back up, she tells me to close my eyes very tight as she runs the soap through my hair. This is always my least favorite part of the bath, as I feel completely helpless sitting blind in the big pot of water.

  Worse is after the bath, when Mama attempts to comb my hair. This always leads me to screaming as she tugs the comb through the rats that have formed. Though I know I shouldn’t, I wind up crying and sniffling like a baby while Mama continues to work. After she’s done, Mama turns me around, wiping the tears with one finger and flashing a rare smile. “All done now, dear. Can Mama’s brave little girl give her a smile?” I smile in spite of myself, which prompts her to give me another hug. I know I should savor this as Mama is not the most affectionate mother in the world; such affection, especially in public, is not how a “proper lady” acts.

  She carries me upstairs to begin the laborious process of dressing me in my fine white dress. It’s all lace and ruffles that make me feel like a baby again. I know better than to put up a fuss about wearing this, knowing that Mama will say I have to wear the babyish dress so I look nice. The bow she puts in my hair is even worse; I want nothing more than to pull it out and then stomp on it, but that will only incur Mama’s wrath.

  My sisters wait downstairs in the living room, already dressed. Aggie has her hair braided while Sophie’s is pulled into a bun that makes her look older. There’s another person in the room, a scrawny little man with a box of little jars full of paint and brushes. He’s mounted a canvas on an easel in one corner, where he’ll paint our picture.

  Before we can begin, it takes a half hour to position us the way the artist wants. He has Aggie stand beside Mother since she’s the oldest and tallest. Sophie stands in front of them, her hands on my shoulders. “Now try not to move too much,” the artist says. “And no matter what, do not smile.”

  Standing perfectly still is torture. Each minute seems to last an eternity. My legs feel like a swarm of fire ants are climbing up them; I want nothing more than to bend over and scratch them, but I can’t. I have to stand still.

  “How much longer?” I whine after what must have been a half hour.

  “Hush, dear,” Mama says.

  “But, Mama—”

  “Be still, young lady.”

  I try. I really do try to keep from moving. In the end I can’t stand it anymore. I bend down to scratch at my legs. It feels heavenly, at least until Mama jerks my head back by the hair. This feels about a thousand times worse than when she uses the comb on it. I begin to cry, which in turn prompts Sophie to roll her eyes and Aggie to blush.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” Aggie says.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mama says. “Sylvia is going to be a good girl now, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, Mother,” I whimper.

  Again I try to be good, to resist the impulse to stretch my muscles or scratch at the million places that seem to itch. In the end I can’t fight the impulses. I bolt away from the others, determined to go back to my bedroom with its nice, soft bed.

  I get as far as the doorway before Mama shouts something. It’s in a language I haven’t ever heard before, not French or even English. It’s a language known only to a very few people, a language I’ll learn someday, but not for a while yet.

  My whole body seems to turn to stone. One moment I’m running and the next I’m falling forward onto the floor, unable to raise my hands to brace myself. I land with a thud on the tile floor, but there’s no pain. There’s only the humiliation of lying on the floor, being unable to move while Mama squats down next to me.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” she whispers to me as she picks me up. I’m still unable to move as she carries me back to the fireplace to stand with the others. My body has become like a mannequin as she poses my arms and legs into the right position. I try to move, but I can’t.

  It takes two days of this before the painting is finished. Even I have to admit the end result is beautiful. The artist perfectly captured Mama’s dignity, Aggie’s beauty, and Sophie’s seriousness. He somehow even managed to capture the terror in my eyes as I wondered what my mother had done to me.

  ***

  The house soon becomes a prison for me. Aggie spends most of her day in the living room, sewing. Sophie takes up residence in the library, reading. Mama travels in a seemingly endless circle from room-to-room and then outside to check on the rest of the estate. I yearn to go with her, but she says I’m too little to go outside.

  So I have nothing to do but sit up in my room and stare out the window. The vast green fields and forests mock me with their promises of freedom. When I try to escape, I get only as far as the top of the stairs before Mama is there to gather me up and take me back. “Can’t I go with you?” I ask her.

  “No, dear. You’re too little for that.”

  “I am not!” I shout back, but the tears bubbling up in my eyes belie this.

  “When you get older, then you can go outside all you want,” Mama says.

  “When will that be?”

  “Not too much longer, dear.” Mama takes me back to my room and picks up one of my dolls from the floor. She presses this into my arms. “Now you stay in here and be a good girl.”

  I have no choice but to be a good girl, since there’s nothing bad I can do in my room. When I get tired of the window, I begin playing with my doll’s hair, brushing it with my fingers. The hair isn’t human hair—Mama wouldn’t allow that for reasons I didn’t understand until later—it’s horsehair, which is coarser. Still, I imagine that it’s human hair as I braid it like Aggie’s. This comes easily to me, so before long I’m creating more elaborate braids and knots.

  I show these off to Mama later when she comes into the room. She rewards me by patting my head and smiling. “That’s very good, dear.”

  A few days later, Aggie consents to let me work with her hair. Working with human hair, and a much larger head than that of my doll, is more of a challenge. I struggle at first to work Aggie’s golden hair out of the braid Mama tied it in. Soon I find a good rhythm, until her hair is tumbling free to her waist. She gives her head a shake and lets out a little sigh.

  Refashioning it into what would later be known as a French braid is again a challenge. My hands are too small and pudgy for the delicate work needed, so the hair keeps coming loose. I finally give up and start to cry. Aggie pulls me against her chest the way Mama does and pats my head. “It’s all right, dear,” she says, like Mama does. “You tried your best.”

  “I’m tired of being little,” I mutter into her shoulder.

  “You won’t always be little. Eventually you’ll be big like me.”

  After a few minutes of being soothed, I’m ready to give it another shot. I try to tie a normal braid. My hands at first have the same trouble, but then I start to find my rhythm again. Before long I’m finished. Aggie tosses the braid over her shoulder and smiles at me. “It’s very nice,” she says. “Just like Mama’s.”

  At three years old, that’s the best compliment I can receive. Aggie and I hug and then I fall asleep watching her sew. For the moment at least the house doesn’t feel so oppressive.

  Chapter 2

  Aggie lets me continue to practice on her hair. After a year of practicing—and growing a little bit—I can do just about all the fancy braids on her head that I can on my dolls. She asks me to attempt the French braid again for her thirteenth birthday. I need three attempts before I finally get it right. Aggie pats the back of her head and smiles. “It’s very pretty.”

  Just about any hairstyle would look pretty on Aggie. She’s the prettiest girl I know, although that’s in large part because Mama hardly ever lets us leave the estate. She doesn’t even take us to church on Sundays. I didn’t understand what church was until one Sunday when I heard the bells from my window. “Mama, what are the bells for?”

  “Those are for church.”

&nb
sp; “What’s that?”

  “People in town get together in this big building and say prayers and sing songs.”

  “Can we go to church?”

  “No, dear.”

  “Why not?” I don’t really know what praying is, but I do like singing songs.

  “Because we don’t.” Mama’s tone indicates I shouldn’t ask any more questions.

  I save these for Aggie later when I’m tying her hair. “You have to be a Christian to go to church,” Aggie says.

  “Are we Christian?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are we?”

  “We’re just people,” Aggie says. Since we don’t go to church or any other town functions, Aggie’s party has only the four of us and the servants. We all dress up like for the painting and gather in the dining room.

  We don’t have singing, candles, or a cake. We have roast duck, which is Aggie’s favorite. There’s very little conversation, but Mama keeps glancing over at Aggie, as if she expects something to happen. Nothing does, at least not then.

  What Mama was looking for happens two weeks later. I’m again doing Aggie’s hair while she sews a new dress for herself. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get Aggie’s hair to stay flat. It keeps standing up as if there’s a fan blowing beneath her.

  I’m so focused on Aggie’s hair that I don’t realize what’s happening until I’m hovering several inches off the floor. I let out a shriek upon seeing that my feet are suspended in the air. I grab two handfuls of Aggie’s hair while the rest of my body tilts up as if there’s no gravity.

  Aggie cries out with pain and turns slightly to try and see what’s going on. “Sylvia, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m flying!”

  “Don’t be stupid. No one can—” Aggie stops as she grabs a hand mirror and sees me floating in the air, her hair the only thing keeping me from floating up to the ceiling. “Oh my goodness!”

  Aggie screams for our mother, but she’s careful not to move so she doesn’t throw me off and I don’t rip handfuls of hair out of her head. This brings Sophie out of the library. She puts a hand to her lips, her face going pale. This frightens me even more as it’s the most emotion Sophie has ever shown. I close my eyes and begin to sob as I cling to Aggie’s hair.

  I keep my eyes closed until I feel hands around my waist. Mama whispers in my ear that I can let go. “You’re safe now, dear,” she says. I trust her because she’s my mother. I let go of Aggie’s hair and Mama pulls me tight against her chest.

  When I open my eyes, I see that Aggie’s hair is still standing on end, as are the pins, pincushions, thread, and pieces of dress that she’s working on. “Mama, what’s wrong with me?” Aggie shouts, tears in her eyes.

  Mama kneels down in front of her and touches her cheek with one hand while keeping the other on me. “Just calm down, Agnes. Close your eyes and relax.”

  Aggie closes her eyes and after nearly a minute, her hair lies flat again. The objects that had been floating around her crash onto the floor. Aggie keeps her eyes closed, panting as if she’s climbed up five flights of stairs. Mama takes her hand, squeezing it.

  “It’s all over now, dear. You’re fine.”

  But none of us feel fine at that moment.

  ***

  Mama talks to Aggie for a long time in her bedroom. Sophie and I wait down in the living room, where Sophie immediately begins cleaning up the mess left by whatever happened to Aggie. We don’t say anything to each other because neither of us knows what to say. We still don’t have any idea what we saw.

  When we hear Mama’s shoes clicking along the stairs, Sophie and I scramble onto the couch. We both sit ramrod straight, as if someone is going to paint another portrait of us. Sophie has her hands primly in her lap and I follow suit.

  Aggie does not follow Mama downstairs. “Is she all right?” I ask.

  “Your sister is resting. She’ll be fine.”

  “What happened to her?” Sophie asks.

  Mama pulls up a chair so she can sit and look us both in the eye. She says without preamble, “Your sister is undergoing a transformation. She’s discovering her true power.”

  “What kind of power?”

  “Magic,” Mama says.

  “Magic?” Sophie echoes in disbelief.

  “That’s right. Your sister is a witch.”

  “A witch?” Sophie says. “But those are just stories.”

  “No, dear. It’s very real. Agnes is a witch—like her mother.” Mama says a few strange words and the fireplace leaps to life. My eyes go wide at this as I remember the day of the portrait, when Mama spoke words like that.

  I whimper and burrow into the cushions, wishing I could disappear. I’m waiting for Mama to do something terrible to us. When she puts a hand on my back, I scream. She pats my head and whispers, “There’s nothing to worry about, dear. I’m not going to hurt you or your sisters. I love you.”

  This is the first time I can remember hearing my mother say that she loves me. It prompts me to lift my head and look her in the eye again. I can see that she means it. I sit up and let her pick me up, to press me against her body as she usually does.

  She sits back down, stroking my hair while she says, “It’s going to be difficult for Agnes over the next few months. You girls should stay away from her until I help her learn how to control her power. I don’t want either of you getting hurt.”

  Sophie of course is the first one to figure it out. “If you’re a witch and Agnes is a witch, then—”

  “Yes, you and Sylvia will be witches too, but not until you’re about Agnes’s age.”

  Remembering what had happened in the living room, I whimper, “I don’t want to be a witch.”

  Mama pats my head and chuckles dryly. “There’s nothing scary about being a witch. It’s very exciting. You can do things no normal person can do. And you can live for a long time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Why’d you wait for us to find out like this?” Sophie’s voice sounds as angry as I’ve ever heard it.

  “I didn’t want to worry you about it until I had to.”

  “Is Aggie going to be different?” I ask into Mama’s shoulder.

  “No, dear. Agnes will look just the way she does now. Once she gets over the shock, she’ll act the same too.” Mama strokes my hair for a moment before adding, “Magic doesn’t change who you are; it just adds another dimension.”

  Mama takes me upstairs and kisses my forehead. I can see that despite what’s happened she’s still my mother. I only hope she’s right that Aggie won’t be any different, that eventually I can braid her hair again without worrying that I’ll fly up into the ceiling.

  ***

  For three months we catch only fleeting glimpses of Aggie. These are enough for me to see that she’s still pretty, her hair still golden and her eyes still pale blue. Her skin looks a little pale from so much time in her room and she’s a little thinner too. Still, that she hasn’t grown a second head or turned into some kind of lizard creature is comforting to me.

  I try braiding Sophie’s hair, but she doesn’t like it. She prefers the tight little bun at the base of her neck, just the way Mama wears her hair. So while Aggie is recuperating, I have to go back to practicing on my dolls.

  Mama takes Aggie’s sewing supplies upstairs to her room, so Aggie has something to keep her occupied. What else she and Mama are doing in there for hours at a time, I have no idea. I try listening at the door once, but Mama opens it and glares down at me. Behind her, I get a glimpse of Aggie sitting up in bed. She flashes me a tired smile and waves to me before I scurry back to my room.

  Aggie finally returns to us on Sophie’s tenth birthday. She comes slowly down the steps, bearing a light blue dress for Sophie as a present. Sophie reaches out for it at arm’s length, afraid to touch her, as if magic is a contagious disease. I stay even farther back, still remembering what happened in the living room.

  “It’s all right,” Mama tells us. “Agnes
is fine now. Aren’t you, dear?”

  “Yes,” she whispers.

  Aggie is not back to herself, at least not at first. She’s as hesitant to approach us as we are her. When she speaks, it’s in the same shy whisper as on the stairs. This is not my sister, I think. This isn’t Aggie.

  Throughout dinner I brace myself for something to happen. I keep an eye on Aggie’s plate and utensils, waiting for them to float into the air. That doesn’t happen. Nothing unusual happens, except that Aggie is so well-behaved, so much like a “proper lady” that Mama never has to yell at her.

  She goes back to her room after dinner and we don’t see her again that night. The next morning she’s in the dining room for breakfast. Her voice is still softer, but not as quiet as before. “You can sit next to me,” she says. “I won’t bite you.”

  I crawl onto the seat next to her because I know she needs the reassurance that she is still my sister, that I still love her. I don’t even flinch when she tousles my hair. We just sit there side-by-side as Sophie and Mama come down and the servants bring out the food.

  Nothing unusual happens during breakfast, everything seemingly back to the way it had been before she became a witch. I go upstairs for a while to play with my dolls. The door opens and Mama squats down beside me. She puts a hand on the back of my head. “Why don’t you go down to the living room and play with your sister?”

  Though I’m just four years old, I understand what Mama is saying. Aggie needs me to reassure her the way I did at breakfast. I nod to Mama and then skip downstairs to the living room. Aggie is sitting on the couch with her sewing supplies like she had been three months earlier. I crawl onto the cushion behind her and ask, “Can I braid your hair?”

  “Of course you can,” she says with a smile that indicates her relief.

  My hands have a little trouble getting reacquainted to human hair after three months, but before long it’s like old times. As I work, I can’t resist asking, “What’s it feel like?”

  Aggie pauses in her sewing to think about this. “Well, you know when your foot falls asleep and you feel that tingling?”