Dove Keeper

by Emily Deibler

  Jehanne crawled forward and tapped the servant’s shoulder. “Give me that.”

  “Why?”

  “I can do it, I think. Just give it here.”

  Though Clair was hesitant, she complied, and Jehanne pinched the warm thinness of the needle for a moment, and though she only remembered movements and not a full memory, mending the gown came easily to her.

  Clair warily eyed Jehanne’s handiwork. “Your father would kill me if he knew I let you do this.” Jehanne stared at her, startled, so the servant elaborated with what seemed to be a laugh under her breath. “I mean that it is my place to mend clothes, not yours. It wouldn’t take so long if the master invested in a sewing machine, but I am, of course, glad to do honest work.”

  Jehanne didn’t want to give up the gown, but she supposed she didn’t need it now. “Here you go then.” With a grunt, she returned the gown, the needle, and the thread. Clair cast it all aside and stood. She crossed the room, and after Clair pulled books off the shelf to the bed’s left, Jehanne asked, “What are you doing?”

  Clair sat on the edge of the mattress, which released a soft groan, and gestured curtly to Jehanne. A book was open in the servant’s lap. “I’ve been instructed to help you read.”

  Jehanne sat beside her and looked at the pages, and it burned because none of the lines made any sense. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear Lord.” Symbols, letters, words, yes. What they needed to be was obvious, yet she couldn’t understand them.

  Clair searched her face and the page. “What is it?”

  Words, tiny little black worms crushed together, squirming and slipping away until they gave Jehanne a dull headache. “I don’t understand.” She clutched her hair and tugged on it, hoping an errant piece of mind would fall into place. “How gone am I that I can’t remember how to read? What happened to me?” As her voice rose, Clair maintained her calm, expression straight and unyielding.

  “All will be well, you’ll see, but first we must start. You’ve made it this far. Best not to linger on the past, only recovery.”

  “I haven’t done much at all. It’s all too much.“ Jehanne sniffed, drew her wild doubts inside and buried them in her chest.

  “Let’s take it step by step. I’m sure you’ll learn again in little time.” The encouragement was rigid. Dejected, Jehanne pressed and balled her hands together, and she flushed with heat at the persistence of Clair’s stare.

  “Please stop looking at me,” Jehanne said, and the servant shifted and lowered her eyes.

  Before Jehanne could dismiss her servant, Clair opened her mouth. “Your father told me to take you to him tomorrow.”

  Jehanne flooded with light, her melancholy forgotten. “Really?”

  Clair beamed, or rather it was her version of a smile where the corners of her lips dimpled for a second before smoothing. “He’s what a father should be. You’re blessed to have him.” Her pseudo-smile faded. “Some fathers sell their daughters, you know.”

  Jehanne wrinkled her nose, but she couldn’t let this matter rest, especially when she’d never seen this sort of wistful sentimentality from her servant. “What do you mean?”

  The chill slinked back into the servant’s voice. “It was just a meandering thought, nothing of import.”

  “Oh? And what’s my father like? I hope he won’t sell me if I’m too mouthy.”

  “If he ever did, I suspect the buyer would return you shortly.”

  Jehanne threw a tasseled pillow, and it landed far to the left of Clair. “You are the worst servant in the world. In history, even.”

  “I’m certain I am, as certain as I am of your historical expertise.” Jehanne ruffled. “Anyhow, to answer your question, your father’s kind.” Clair paused, and her mouth twitched like she wasn’t sure what to say next. “He—he’s a bit scrambled from the war.”

  That tickled Jehanne’s head a bit. “What war?”

  Clair pursed her lips, she did that a lot, and gripped a book page so hard it tore a little at the top. “The Great War between the Germans and their friends. Your father served for a time.”

  “Is the war still happening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did he leave?”

  “He had a nervous breakdown, so you should be gentle with him.”

  “But he’ll be okay, won’t he?”

  Clair narrowed her eyes, maybe noting the strangeness of someone recovering from an illness being more concerned for another’s health. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  Jehanne resolved to focus on her lesson.

  When Clair finished, she let Jehanne keep the book and left for her own quarters, which she had mentioned was in the attic when she didn’t need to watch an unconscious Jehanne. That stirred Jehanne’s pity, but for now, her eyes stayed on the pages and pictures before her. The book was heavy on her cramping leg, and when she went to rest, she couldn’t help but have it beside her and mouth what little she did know about the words.

  Though her eyelids drooped, she leafed through the hefty book and stared at the blurring words, those black, thorny little secrets on the yellowing white. On one page, there was a single vibrant picture: a red-haired woman leaned on a tree with a solemn frown. Sobbing women circled a dead crowned man covered in furs. One of the women with a gold cloak and gold crown cradled his head in her lap, and another in black cradled a tome next to him. The king wore a white tabard with a black dragon sigil.

  As Jehanne closed her eyes, the dead king and the mourning women imprinted the black with red and purple. She drifted into a half-dream with a sword and fire and men singing, and she was sitting cross-legged on the dirt.

  A howl broke over the hills, and Jehanne snapped awake. Clair’s name rose to her lips, but the sound didn’t repeat itself, so she settled her head down again. Though the room was quiet, she couldn’t bring herself to turn the bedside lamp off, and she stared at the door, at the knob’s bronze, churlish gleam. A sound echoed in the back of her mind, a boy’s scream.

  3

  Marcy

  Marcy stood in the kitchen and choked back the pressure bubbling up her throat. She was thirteen, old enough to marry and have children. In the eyes of the laws that made her father execute men, she could consent to be with André like any other woman. Really, marrying young would be considerably less bloody than other family habits.

  I’d rather see her dead than with you.

  The day had been going splendidly too before she made her mistake. Before she kissed André and saw Maman in the living room with her hard stare and frosty blue dress. Marcy had only her back to defend herself from the chill, then.

  But before that, she joked with Papa as they always joked, as he never acted with anyone else, except maybe Maman when she was more relaxed. They played with Jolie and brushed her coat. Papa referred to Marcy as an old woman, since she found herself to be more mature than she’d ever been, which was not incorrect. She had replied, “Your birthday’s closer than mine. How old will you be?”

  “I’m hurt you don’t know.”

  “I can’t think that far back,” Marcy had said.

  Papa mussed up her hair, not that she kept it spectacularly well-kempt at home. She saw no need to keep it pinned up and perfect all the time.

  Marcy’s mind wandered as she leaned her cheek on Papa’s arm. “Can I learn to drive?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should ask your mother.”

  Marcy sighed against his warm sleeve. “Why?”

  “Poupée.” Papa shifted and cupped her chin in his gentle hand. “She loves you.”

  “I know, but you know she’d never let me do it.” The dog nudged her hand. “She’ll look at me like I kicked Jolie.”

  Marcy faded back to the kitchen, feeling like a shade. The soft morning made the room pink, which was Marcy’s favorite color. That was good. She could do this; she could ask Maman to go to the park. With a war and old anxietie
s coming true, Marcy’s acute pangs weren’t the world’s end, but they hurt like the pinch of moving a hand stuck with a splinter. War, death, sadness, and still, Marcy couldn’t tell if her feelings for André were true or a need for something different, something exciting that’d touch her core. She couldn’t discern when jokes became possibilities.

  All she wanted to do was kiss him because he looked like sea salt, but he tasted like old coffee.

  One foot after another, avoiding where the kitchen tiles were the creakiest, Marcy edged herself to the kitchen’s threshold, where it met the living room entrance. Maman was on the couch reading, and since Marcy had stood in the kitchen, the pink had gone silver, which made Maman look unreal in her blue dress. Maman looked pretty this way, Marcy thought. Her mother was beautiful, no doubt.

  When Marcy checked the bedroom earlier, Papa was gone, maybe for groceries, maybe for a job, which was a shame, because he gave her yeses easier.

  “Maman.”

  “Good morning, poupée.” Maman gave her a tired smile, though that was normal; her mother never looked fully rested.

  “I had—I have a question.”

  “I would presume I have an answer.”

  Marcy looked down at her shoes. “I want to go to the park. On my own. To, you know, walk around.”

  Maman frowned. “You can’t walk around here?”

  So it began. “I just want to go somewhere different.”

  “Poupée, there are children going missing. Did you read the paper, the story about the butcher’s boy?”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  “The butcher’s boy disappeared at night, didn’t he? I won’t be out when it’s dark, I swear.” Marcy swallowed. “Maman, please, trust me. I wouldn’t make you and Papa worry.” She should’ve touched Maman’s shoulder, or maybe Maman should’ve come over and touched hers.

  “I’m not so certain you should leave unsupervised. It’s improper for a young woman to be out alone.”

  “You would do it, wouldn’t you?”

  Maman stared at the space behind Marcy’s head. “Years ago, and everything was safer then.”

  Marcy persisted. “Then it’s fine now. It’s not that far, and Papa’s been letting me do it for a year. I’ve been doing it for a year, and nothing’s happened, has it?”

  “No, but—”

  “Maman, I know how to be careful. I’m not stupid.”

  With a sharp breath, Maman raked one hand through her hair and furled the other in her lap. “Have you ever thought it’s not your actions I worry about, but everyone else’s?” That was a possibility, yes, but it seemed like a lie. When Marcy was little, Maman would keep her distance, flinch away, and wear gloves when holding her. It was as if Marcy was diseased and Maman tried to keep herself clean.

  Deep down, if Maman hated her and wanted her gone, she wouldn’t care if Marcy disappeared, and she wouldn’t worry at all. Yet, something was broken, something Marcy couldn’t fix on her own.

  “André can come with me.”

  “No, he cannot.”

  “Why? He’s grown. He can probably fight.” He probably couldn’t, but Marcy could run quicker than him if someone assaulted them, so Maman really couldn’t argue with her there. André had never caught her when they played.

  Shaking her head, Maman curled a hand on the couch arm. “I don’t trust him with you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t see why I should explain myself.”

  Marcy muttered, half-intended for only herself, “Papa’d let me.” She wanted to run to him now, to smell the tobacco she hated and the wool coat and cologne she loved, the cologne Papa made himself. She wanted to continue to goad him to stop smoking because of his doctor’s orders and lean against him in the garden. He understood.

  Maman caught what Marcy had said under her breath. “I’m not your papa.”

  “I can take care of myself. If I’m ever in trouble, I know how to find help. You know that, don’t you?”

  In less than a minute, Maman had gone from stiff and impassive to slouched and fraught. Her face was an arrangement of knots and dark shadows, and she was no less distant, no less lost within herself. Maman could have this faint, ethereal charm, but her head was stamped with last century’s ghosts. Maman acted as if Marcy carried something contagious, and Marcy wanted to understand. She knew what Maman had gone though, but that knowledge wasn’t enough. It was like lightning had split Babel open when Marcy was little, and their one shared language had been lost.

  Marcy stepped forward until she was by the couch, and her mother looked wary. This could or couldn’t work. Marcy put a hand on her mother’s knee.

  “Maman, please.”

  Please, so I can be away from you.

  Maman faltered, awkwardly patting her daughter’s hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I promise nothing bad’ll happen to me. You taught me too well.”

  Maman looked helpless and small when she averted her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “But that isn’t enough, and you know it.” Marcy could only watch as Maman rubbed her eyes with her fingers and released a heavy sigh. “If you must, just please go out earlier in the day, when it’s brighter.”

  “Thank you!” Marcy embraced Maman, pressing her cheek against her mother’s. Maman stiffened, before raising her arms to return the gesture. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

  “Yes, well, you must promise me you’ll take your coat so you don’t become sick.”

  They separated. “I will, Maman.”

  “And your hat—”

  “I will.”

  “And in case it rains, you’ll need your boots so your feet won’t . . .”

  Weary, Marcy nodded. “I know, Maman.”

  Maman bowed her head, looking to the side at something Marcy couldn’t see.

  Marcy’s victory was a little sour. With the unspoken walls between her and Maman, she suspected, even if this ended well, this wouldn’t be their last quarrel. The next, she suspected, would not go as well as this one.

  4

  Jehanne

  The second Clair entered the room, Jehanne pushed herself off the pillow and said, “Did you hear something last night, something like a scream?”

  “Let’s prepare you for the day,” Clair replied, retrieving the hairbrush on the vanity.

  “And now, back to my question. The one you just glossed over.” Jehanne may’ve been bedridden for days with little recollection of past events, but she surmised someone hearing about screaming would express concern. Intrigue, at least.

  Clair’s brow furrowed as she strode to the side of the bed. “Please.” It shocked Jehanne how soft her voice was, a different kind of quiet. “Let’s get ready for the day.”

  “You know, I don’t need a maid.”

  “You wouldn’t have said that if you saw yourself covered in sweat and excrement.”

  Jehanne’s face flooded with heat. Her illness, her near-death, her loss of memories.

  “You’re the servant, and you think it’s proper to talk to me like this? I could tell Father.”

  Clair shrank as if preparing herself for a blow.

  “I ’didn’t mean disrespect.”

  “Oh? You used my sickness to avoid a basic question. I take that as an insult.”

  “I don’t know. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Jehanne grabbed her sleeve. “You know it isn’t. Why would I want to hear that of all things? Who would be satisfied with that? Why wouldn’t you just say no?”

  “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

  Jehanne pulled away. She wasn’t sure. Her dreams were vivid, after all. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything when I’m disallowed my own memories or to see my family. What about when I thought I saw Father? He cried by my bedside, didn’t he?”

  Clair sniffed and put down the brush so she could straighten her sleeve. “He might’ve. You’ll see him
soon, so no use pondering on it.”

  “Soon? You said today.”

  “I know, and it’ll be today, but there needs to be prep—”

  “Right now. I’m going. Goodbye.” Jehanne tossed off her covers and, after momentary dizziness, stormed away from the servant.

  Clair followed. “Your hair—you aren’t even dressed—your father’ll be furious with me if I let you leave without his consent.” When Jehanne reached the bedroom door, her servant showed remarkable new speed and stood between her and freedom. “Please, you must be patient. He’s worried. He hasn’t come because he was afraid he might provoke your senses too much, and you’d have a fit and end up right where you were.”

  Jehanne squinted. “Why? I’m not having a fit right now, and aren’t I upset enough?”

  “It’s stupid to overwork yourself when you shouldn’t.”

  “I’m not stupid!” Jehanne shouted, raising both hands. Clair flinched and jerked up one hand, as if defending herself from a blow. Jehanne paused. “What’s wrong?”

  The servant lowered her hand. “Calm down. You’ll give yourself a fit. I’m here to fulfill your father’s wishes. To protect you, to keep you safe and happy. You’ll have shelter, food, and comfort. That’s more than most can ask for in an hour, much less a lifetime.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me what I have to appreciate, and I most certainly don’t have to listen to you, especially when you called me stupid.”

  Clair’s throat moved as she swallowed, and her temple had a cold sheen to it. “Very well, my apologies.”

  Jehanne stiffened and dropped her hands from her hip. “As you should be.”

  “Could you find it in yourself to forgive me?”

  “I’ll have to think about it. You did call me stupid.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t try to take it back. You should at least claim it.”

  Clair rubbed her forehead. “You mustn’t exert yourself. And as for your question, well, the manor is old. It creaks.”

  “This wasn’t a creak. It was something.”

  “Very well. Anyhow, if you wish, I’ll ready you to see your father.” Jehanne’s eyes widened, and Clair met her gaze warily. “Isn’t that what you want?”