by Cat Winters
“Who’s Agnes?” asked Percy.
“Shh.” I held my menu over my face and slithered down another inch. “The redhead over there is my good friend’s sister, and she has a loving husband.”
Percy knitted his eyebrows. “How?”
“What do you mean, how? She got married in a church the same way your parents probably did. Her husband is a pro-suffrage man.”
Percy snorted. “There’s no such thing.”
“I’m one,” said Henry.
“Pshaw. You’re just saying that to charm Olivia. All it does is make you sound like an effeminate French sissy, Reverie.”
“Anti-suffrage men are the ones who sound like sissies and cowards,” I said under my breath.
“I still want beer.” Percy scanned one of the menu pages. “What about you, Mr. Suffrage? Are you drinking tonight?”
“No.” Henry shook his head. “I’m performing. No one wants to be hypnotized by a drunk.”
“Oh, criminy . . .” Percy laughed. “Can you imagine what that would look like? Oh . . .” He slapped his hand over his mouth. “I suppose you can, what with that sozzled hypnotist uncle of yours.”
“I’m sure they serve Eiderling Beer at the bar here.” I nudged Percy’s arm and wished him away. “Perhaps you should go order yourself one.”
Percy laughed again. “I thought you were a temperance crusader.”
“You were the one who called me that, not I. If you want a beer”—my desire to catapult him away emboldened my voice—“go get one. You said we’re here to toast youth and rebellion, didn’t you?”
“Yes . . .”
“Then go.” Shoo, I wanted to add, but he was already up and out of his seat.
“Don’t hypnotize my girl when I’m gone, Reverie,” he said with a wink.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, mon ami.”
Henry and I watched Percy bound down the short flight of steps in his quest for Eiderling booze.
I slammed my menu shut. “Hypnotize me back.”
Henry laid down his own menu. “I told you, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Your father only paid me a quarter of his promised fee for your treatment. I can’t get the rest of the money until Tuesday evening, before I board a train for San Francisco.”
“Why?”
“He wants to make sure the cure takes.”
I winced.
Henry reached his hand toward mine on the tablecloth, not quite touching me but near enough to ignite a tingling sensation in my fingertips. “We’re so, so close to affording Genevieve’s surgery. Your father’s payment will get us what we need. It’ll give her a chance.”
“You don’t understand what people look like to me.”
“No, I don’t, but as I said at Sadie’s table, it’s not necessarily a curse.”
“Of course it’s a curse. You try living like this and tell me—” My anger flared; that blasted phrase threatened to shoot from my lips again. I smacked my palm against the table, which prompted two men next to us to turn my way and scowl.
“Hear me out before you get upset with me.” Henry’s fingers inched nearer. “When your father asked me to hypnotize you, he said he wanted you to accept the world the way it is.”
“Don’t you think I remember what he—?”
“But”—he scooted his chair closer to mine—“I didn’t tell you to accept the world the way it truly is, Olivia. I told you to see it.”
“No, you—”
“Think about it. I did.”
I sank back in my seat.
“And you can see it,” he continued, his French accent gone. “Maybe not at every single moment, but when it really matters to you or the person you’re viewing, or during moments of intense emotion, you’ll clearly see that you shouldn’t be with poisonous jackasses like that vampire at the bar.”
I sat up straight. “Percy doesn’t look like either a jackass or a vampire.”
“Yet.”
I picked at the spine of my menu. “I want to see and say things normally again, Henry Rhodes. I’ve never had anyone like Percy show an interest in me before this week, and I don’t want to spoil everything by acting like a lunatic.”
“What do you mean, ‘anyone like Percy’?”
“I know, compared to him, I’m plain and dull and—”
“Plain and dull?” Henry’s voice rose to an embarrassing volume. “Is that what your father tells you?”
“Please”—I scooted my chair away from his—“you’re talking too loudly.”
“It makes me furious when people like that ninnyhammer Acklen make people like you feel inferior to them. Tell me, exactly what type of loving partnership is that supposed to lead to?”
“Please, be quiet. He’s coming back.”
Henry leaned forward again and grabbed my hand. “He’s not better than you, Olivia, and neither is your father. And you’re far from plain and dull.”
I pulled my hand away and sat up straight and proper.
“What’s going on, Reverie?” Percy swaggered over to us with a mug of beer. “Why are you blushing, Olivia?”
“I should probably go.” In his haste, Henry dropped his gloves to the floor. He leaned over to pick them up.
“What happened?” Percy plunked his mug on the table. “Did you say something lewd to her, Reverie? Or”—he bent forward with a grin—“are you attempting to court her by singing suffrage anthems?”
Henry got to his feet. “I can’t stay. I’m performing soon and would like to check on my sister beforehand.” He slapped his hand on Percy’s shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “I said nothing lewd to Olivia, Monsieur Acklen. She’s angry because I told her to run away from people who are poisonous to her.”
“What?” Percy’s brows pinched together. “Who’s poisonous to her? What are you talking about?”
Henry fitted his gloves over his hands. “Thank you for the supper offer. Adieu. Good night.”
And then he was gone, hustling toward the exit as if he couldn’t get away from the two of us fast enough.
Percy plopped down in his chair, still wrinkling his brow. “What was all that about? Was he trying to hypnotize you?”
“No . . . he just . . . it’s hard to explain. He . . .”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Henry returning to us.
My neck muscles tensed. “Oh, no, here he comes again.”
Henry approached our table and handed me something limp and white that I realized was one of my own evening gloves. “I must have accidentally picked this up when I was fetching my own gloves, mademoiselle. Je suis désolé. I am sorry.” His eyes lingered on mine and then darted to the glove, as if he were trying to convey some sort of message.
“Thank you,” I said, resting the glove in my lap.
“You’re welcome.” He left us again so swiftly that the air ruffled my hair and made the night feel even more out of whack.
“Criminy . . .” Percy peeked over his shoulder and watched him go. “My father always says theater people are eccentric and ill-mannered . . .”
I sighed. “You keep telling me what your father says and thinks, Percy. Weren’t we supposed to be forgetting overbearing daddies right now?”
“I give my own opinions.”
“Not really. For instance . . .” I kneaded the fabric of my glove between my fingers and was surprised to hear the rustle of a piece of paper inside the thumb.
“For instance what?”
“For instance”—I set the glove aside on my lap and attempted to ignore that peculiar rustling—“do you truly agree with your father that women shouldn’t vote?”
Percy lowered his eyes.
I lifted my chin. “I read his letter in the newspaper yesterday.”
He flashed a sheepish grin. “Oh, yes, that letter. Father’s public opinion pieces always make me supremely popular with the ladies.”
“But what is your opinion? Do you think women are inferior creatures to men?”
“I think . . .” He scratched the back of his neck, repositioned himself in his chair, took a swig of beer, and hesitated far too long. “I think volatile subjects are best avoided in fine dining establishments, Olivia. Let me call over a waiter and order you a nice meal, and then we’ll talk about a lighter subject more suitable for a sweet little thing like you.”
“But—”
“Waiter.” He waved over a short server with large ears, who was just darting back to the kitchen. “We’re ready to order.”
The waiter scuttled over to our sides and asked what we wanted.
Before I could open my mouth, Percy told the fellow, “The young lady and I will have the salmon and a salad and a loaf of fresh bread, and could you cook the fish a little more than you normally would? So that the ends are charred and crunchy.”
“Could mine be cooked the regular way?” I asked the waiter.
“Oh, you’ll like it my way, Olivia.” Percy handed the fellow our menus. “It’s the only way to eat it.”
“I don’t even like salmon all that much . . .”
But the waiter was gone; my opinion hung in the air, unacknowledged, while Percy dove into a story about his travels.
“Did I tell you we spend our summers down at the beach in California?”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “You said so when you told me about Nanette.”
“I’m a crackerjack swimmer, I’ve discovered. I’ve swum nearly a mile off the coast and never once tired from the waves smacking me around.”
Percy yammered on, and my heart shriveled into a disappointed little prune. I didn’t have to witness his true feelings by seeing any dangerous curved teeth or predatory gleam in his eyes.
I heard it in his voice, clear as church bells—and I’d probably even heard it and ignored it on Halloween night.
Percy thought me inferior.
y the light of a streetlamp outside the restaurant, I found two tickets to Henry’s Saturday matinee show stuffed inside the thumb of my glove. On the back of one of the tickets was scrawled a smudged note, yet I could still make out the message:
Come to the side door of the theater after the show if you’re able. I want you to meet Genevieve.
I heard approaching hooves and looked up to find Percy driving his black buggy around the bend from the side street where he’d parked it. I crammed the tickets into the far reaches of the glove and slid the white leather over my hand, scraping my thumb on a rough edge.
Percy brought the buggy to a stop along the curb next to me and hopped out to the sidewalk. “You’re blushing again. It seems you’re always blushing.”
I shrugged. “I’m just warm.”
“It’s freezing out here.”
“The food warmed me up.”
“Or the company, perhaps.” He smiled and took my hand to help me into the seat above, but I didn’t respond, which I’m sure made me seem like an unfeeling lump of stone.
The ride home started off uneventfully, and the message in my glove kept me from paying attention to our route. In fact, I didn’t actually notice our surroundings until Percy directed the horse and buggy down the South Park Blocks, where wide expanses of moonlit grass separated the east and west sides of the street.
Strange, vaporous wisps of air rose off the damp park ground and drifted into the trees like steam rising from a pot—or spirits escaping graves. I’d seen such mist before; the effect wasn’t one of my illusions, just a mixture of atmospheric warmth and cold and moisture. The sight unsettled me, though. Between the ghostly fog and Mandolin’s footfalls across the soundless neighborhood, I felt like Ichabod Crane venturing through the depths of Sleepy Hollow upon the back of trusty Gunpowder.
“Why are you taking this route?” I asked, staring at the empty path that lay ahead.
“To stretch out the time and make it seem as if we didn’t desert Sadie’s party.” Percy stole a glance at me. “I’m keeping you out of trouble, my pet.”
“Oh. Thank you.” I toyed with the little pieces of paper wedged beside my thumb. “But I’d prefer not to be called your pet, if you don’t mind. It makes me feel like a cocker spaniel.”
Percy didn’t answer.
We came upon the corner of Park and Main, and he gave Mandolin’s reins a firm pull. “Whoa, boy.”
I stiffened. “Why are you slowing down?”
“Whoa, Mandolin.”
The buggy came to a swaying stop alongside the rising mist. Cold air sliced across my cheeks. My shriveled prune of a heart pounded back to life with throbbing intensity.
“Why did you stop?” I asked. “We’re still three blocks away.”
Percy shifted his knees toward me, the upper half of his face masked by shadows, his eyes a knife slash of yellow. “Olivia . . .” His arm slid behind me, across the back of the leather seat. “I really want to kiss you.” He leaned in close, and his sour Eiderling Beer breath flooded my nose.
“I . . . um”—I inched away—“I don’t . . .”
“There’s no need to be so nervous.” He cupped my cheek with one soft-gloved hand. “I’ll be gentle.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you want to play Dracula?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Would that make it more fun?”
My mouth went dry; I shook my head. “No! H-h-how do you mean?”
“I know you’re a good little thing, but you have to admit”—his left hand found the crook of my waist, below my coat—“a girl who’s read Dracula as many times as you have must be aching for the touch of a pair of lips against her neck.” With that, he nestled his ice block of a cheek against my face. His breath tickled its way inside my ear. “Do you want to see what it feels like if I place my mouth against your bare skin? Do you want to be my”—he kissed my earlobe— “Mina?”
I closed my eyes and found my thoughts racing back to the Percy Acklen who had waved me down in the theater lobby with the lights glinting off his cuff links. I remembered those green-brown eyes and the mischief on his lips and the way we’d commiserated about our fathers before darting through the rain to my house.
“I d-d-d . . .” My teeth chattered. “I don’t want to be with someone who thinks I’m inferior to him.”
“I don’t think that.” His breath cooled the upper regions of my neck, below my ear.
“I don’t even like salmon very much, but you never even asked me what I wanted before you ordered for me.”
“Olivia . . .” He slid his bottom lip across an inch of my throat—not a kiss, per se, but a tease that gave me unpleasant shivers. “You’re making too much of everything. Just have some fun. Play with me. Close your eyes and play.”
“I don’t—”
“Just play.” He licked my neck, which almost made me laugh, if it weren’t also kind of awful, but then he cupped his full mouth—wet and soft and warmer than the rest of him—around my neck and sank his teeth against my flesh. Blood rushed through my veins until I seemed to be made of nothing but blood and a pounding pulse—racing, anxious, beating, beating, beating blood he would taste if his teeth bit down any harder. His hand shifted to my posterior and gave a firm squeeze—his grabby hands! Just as Frannie said! Every part of him pressed down on me. His mouth, his fingers, his chest. I couldn’t breathe.
I pushed him away, and his head smacked the buggy’s overhang.
“Ouch!” He rubbed the top of his skull. “What did you do that for?”
“Did you ever grab my friend Frannie’s backside?”
“What? Who the hell is Frannie?”
“Frannie Harrison. She goes to our school.”
“Jesus, Olivia.” He lunged toward me again. “Just close your eyes and let me kiss you. You owe me for what happened in class.”
“But . . .” I gasped. “You said . . .”
He grabbed the back of my neck and squished his mouth against mine. His lips were sloppy and wet, and the beer taste was so obnoxious, I gagged on the fumes.
“All is well!” I pushed him off,
and his head clunked the buggy a second time.
His visage changed—oh, God, how it changed. His eyes sank into the blackened recesses of a gaunt and anemic face. His canines lengthened into the grotesque tusks of a wild boar.
“Why do you keep saying that all is well?” he asked, and his mouth seeped my blood.
“Oh, God!” I snatched his scarf from his shoulders and jumped off the buggy.
“Hey! Where are you going? And why’d you take my scarf?”
“I’m saving both our hides, you idiot.” I wrapped the yarn around my bare neck and fled down the street. “My father will see your tooth marks if I don’t wear your rotten scarf.”
I heard the snap of reins behind me and the galloping rhythm of Mandolin taking off after me with the rattling buggy. I cut through side yards, even though the shortcut meant soaking my shoes and skirts with mud. My pulse hammered in my ears. My breathing turned ragged, but I pushed onward across the rain-soaked grass and dirt.
Percy was already parking the buggy by the time I sprinted up my own brick path. Our house’s tall front windows stared me down—gawking eyes observing my frenzied arrival in the dark. I turned the doorknob but found it locked.
“No, no, no. You can’t be locked. You can’t be locked!”
I twisted the knob and banged on the door. My struggle to get inside allowed Percy to hustle up beside me mere seconds before my father swung open the door.
Father widened his eyes at my sweaty hair and muddied shoes. “What happened?”
“She fell out of the buggy,” said my escort, who looked like Percy again.
“She fell out?”
I gasped. “All is—”
“She leaned over too far, trying to look at something”— Percy took my arm as if I were an invalid—“and tumbled into the grass. She muddied her dress, but I don’t think she’s hurt, sir. Naturally, I’ll let you, a physician of sorts, make the final diagnosis.”
I moved to enter the house, but Father blocked my entrance with his arms.
He nodded toward my neck. “The scarf, Olivia.”
A wave of nausea rolled through me. “I—I—I beg your pardon?”
“Isn’t that young Mr. Acklen’s scarf you’re wearing?” he asked.
“Y-y-yes.”