Snow

by Tracy Lynn

  “Even us? Even now?”

  Snow just looked at the floor.

  She thought she heard Raven’s body relax, his arms drop as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

  “She’s really all better?” he finally asked, trying to soften his tone some.

  “She … seems it. They put her in a sanitarium and gave her all sorts of medicines….” She told him about how she found out about the duchess’s presence in town, the orphanage, her desire to make amends. She told him about the day they spent together.

  “Anne—”

  “Who?”

  “The duchess. The duchess Anne, She wants me to come visit her at her apartment. Next Wednesday, at noon, I would like to go,” she added carefully.

  “Do you want to go back?” he asked, looking her levelly in the eyes.

  “Well, of course I—” Then she realized he meant back back. Back home. To the estate. To her life, to Jessica Kenigh, duchess and heir of Kenigh Hall, To a new mother and an old father, to old friends—except for Alan—to dresses, money, servants, and animals who were pets or pests, not roommates. “I—don’t know,”

  Raven gazed at her for a long, hard moment, then turned and walked away.

  Snow felt a surge of emotions—confusion and sadness. Something was about to break, some decision had to be made, and she had no desire to do that just yet.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  RETURN

  Raven did not tell anyone else. At least, none of the others approached her about it. Snow realized she was only pretending to debate with herself whether to visit the duchess again in her apartment; she would go, she would just feel guilty about it.

  “I am going to see if she really is changed,” she told herself. “I need more evidence.”

  “I want more news from home,” she told herself as she scrubbed the floor.

  “All right, maybe I want to see how I look in the dress,” she told herself as she stirred the stew. But even this was a false admission.

  Snow had a vision that she kept buried at the bottom of her thoughts like a golden guinea in a pocket, only taken out for brief looks. In it, the duchess really had changed. She would bring Snow back to Kenigh, full of apology and indignation at the life her stepdaughter had had to lead while in London. Her father would have missed her. Alan would hear about her triumphant return and come back. And, most secret and unlikely of all, she would introduce the Lonely Ones to everyone at home, and they would be rewarded for their care of her. They would be welcomed and could give up stealing. Cat could live with her like a sister or a maid. The Mouser could be introduced to the society he seemed to want to join, and Raven …

  She knew this was close to being an impossible dream.

  But if the duchess is changed, why not everything else?

  The next Wednesday she took less care than she had originally planned for visiting the duchess at her apartment, not wishing to draw attention to herself, She smoothed the wrinkles out of her dress as best she could with her hands and brushed her hair a little more carefully than usual, but that was all. Raven walked through once and caught her eye, but she couldn’t read what was written there; sadness, maybe, deep thought, definitely.

  When the Lonely Ones were asleep for the day, Snow snuck out and made her way to the wealthier part of town. She felt strange and out of place. She tried to walk like a maid and pass unnoticed as a member of the servant class like many other young women around her, even though she was visiting the duchess, as a duchess herself, to try on elegant, voguish clothes befitting a member of the modern royalty. Am I walking too loudly and slowly? Her legs longed for the delicate, long strides of the Lonely Ones, the carefully balanced run of the night.

  She watched all of the other people hurrying or strolling down the streets. Not a single one would guess I sit on rooftops, or occasionally run at night with a pack of half-animals, unheard and unseen.

  She felt like everyone was staring. But what would they accuse her of—being a duchess in maid’s clothing? A maid pretending to be a duchess? A freak who consorted with thieves, unwelcome and uninvited in the daylight hours?

  When she mounted the steps and slipped into the shadow of the duchess’s apartment, Snow breathed a great sigh of relief An old woman answered the door, a short, stout and stern housemotherly sort. One representative of a very familiar race. Snow didn’t need to awkwardly explain why she was there; the woman immediately recognized her and brought her in.

  The apartment was tiny but sumptuous; the hall, the waiting room, and the dining room were all miniature versions of the ones at Kenigh. The interior was very much like a dollhouse decorated by a fastidious and wealthy little girl. The walls had pretty painted stripes and designs on them, the rugs were rich and new, the furniture was smaller than their country cousins but burnished to a professionally butlered shine. Vases of exotic flowers stood on every open surface. More kinds than at home in the country!

  She was led to a room that had no particular function, or maybe several; the only real features were two bay windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, whose long red velvet curtains created a pleasant nook with benches. It could have been a dining room or a sitting room—what a waste of space. Yet she envied it, thinking of the one common-room basement she shared with the Lonely Ones.

  In the nook was a small table set with gorgeous little hors d’ouevres and niblets, a crystal decanter of sherry and two tiny glasses, and a steaming pot of tea. Another table, toward the back of the room, was put to a use so familiar it made Snow smile; it was covered with glassware, beakers, equipment, silk screens, and wire. She takes her hobbies wherever she goes. There was a quiet humming from a wood and metal box, and an occasional snapping sound accompanied by a small blue flash. Copper tubes ran from its back like worms, squirming their shiny way through racks of beakers and test tubes with pale golden liquid.

  “You came! Oh, I knew you would.” The duchess seemed unable to keep her initial excitement and glee out of her voice and expression before her face reset itself into its usual mask of courtly perfection.

  Snow had not heard her come in; she was fascinated by one particular piece of the equipment that sat on the tea table, connected to the box: a golden orb with wires coming out of it, slightly tarnished and imperfectly symmetrical, just begging to be touched.

  “Oh, you’re looking at my latest experiment,” the duchess said with a slightly arching eyebrow and smile. “I will show it to you later. Come, though; your dress came this morning. It would be so much easier for us to talk if you were dressed properly.”

  Same old duchess. Shallow to the core. But Snow smiled a little herself as she was led to a changing room. The older woman was dressed less lavishly than usual; her dress and jacket were tight, so plain as to almost be utilitarian, and of dark colors.

  Snow’s dress, on the other hand …

  A pair of maids helped her unwrap it and put it on—layers of crinolines, slips and petticoats, which the teenage Jessica had hated, but which as Snow she kind of missed. The fabrics were expensive, rich red silk velvets. The underclothes were as soft as Raven’s feathers against her skin.

  She sat patiently as two silent girls did her hair, and she mused over the old woman who had greeted her at the door; even her voice seemed universal and familiar. It was nice to be taken care of. When they were done she looked in the mirror. Her hair was perfect, romantic and lovely, a half knot on her head with trails of hair falling down her back. Almost as black and shiny as Cat’s. Tendrils fell over her ears like vines. She grinned despite herself, wondering what Chauncey, the Mouser, or Raven—especially Raven—would think if they saw her now.

  When she was done, and sprayed with a splash of perfume, flowery and light, she presented herself to the duchess, walking in as dignified a manner as she could, head held high, neck unmoving.

  “Oh, you look beautiful” she said in admiration. “You could be my daughter” The comment hung in the air, awkwardly, until both women shi
fted in embarrassment.

  “Let us—let us have some tea,” the older woman finally said, indicating the table with her hand and sitting down smoothly in one of the stiff-backed, poofy-seated chairs.

  Mmmmm. She could barely control her thoughts—almost as much as the dress, Snow had been looking forward to the edibles. Though she had eaten like a mouse—no wait, I have seen the Mouser eat—though she had eaten very little her last few years at Kenigh Hall, her appetite had grown considerably since she had moved in with the Lonely Ones. And the tiny sandwiches looked so very good…. She waited, though, until the duchess poured the tea and took a sip herself. From much experience she knew that the older woman would not indulge in any of the food. More for me. Snow was shocked to realize that she was actively wondering how she would be able to stuff a few sandwiches for later in her new dress, which had no pockets.

  “I feel I should explain something to you,” the duchess began hesitantly as she poured.

  “Yes?” Snow wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any explanations. As far as she was concerned, they were starting all over again.

  “I … want you to understand some of the thoughts behind my insanity, what drove it. I feel it would be useful to you, and most instructive.”

  Snow still didn’t want to hear anything, and was getting more uncomfortable by the second. She stuffed an entire sandwich into her mouth to hide her discomfort—worse, the duchess didn’t notice.

  “I wanted to give your father a child. If possible, a male heir.”

  Snow’s ears burned. She was unused to anyone speaking this plainly about babies, especially the duchess. This was so different from the time she had coldly dealt with Jessica, when she was thirteen….

  “This probably would have been bad for you,” Anne went on calmly. “English law doesn’t deal fairly with female children and heirs. Nonetheless, your father wanted a son, and frankly, I wanted children myself.”

  So far, this all made sense to Snow. She suspected the insanity was coming soon.

  “I am … an older woman, Jessica.” The duchess sighed, as if this was a weighty admission. “I suppose it was folly for me to even try. Some would say that it has been my manlike tinkering in science, my hobbies, which has taken away some of my vital female essence.”

  Snow frowned. “That’s silly. Just because you like, ah—” Don’t say toys! She indicated the tubes, beakers, and boxes instead. “Didn’t the Greek huntress Atalanta run and hunt like a man, and eventually marry?”

  Anne chuckled, “An excellent classical reference. I thought you didn’t take well to your studies.”

  “I like myths, and stories,” Snow said peevishly, looking for a radish and butter sandwich. Those were her favorite, “Even math. It’s geography and history I hated. Never understood the point—one is always changing the other.”

  The duchess chuckled, “So many things I never learned about you,” she said distantly, almost to herself. Snow kept her eyes on the sandwich plate.

  “Anyway, I suppose my desperation fed some incipient germ of madness that lay hidden somewhere in my spirit, waiting for the right circumstances to grow,”

  Snow thought the comparison a bit overdone, but it was interesting to hear the usually concise duchess wax eloquent.

  “In my madness, I believed that eating your heart would enable me to have a baby,”

  Snow choked.

  “And for that, I am terribly sorry,”

  The duchess could have been talking about how she had punished Snow unjustly, or told a vicious lie about her, or any one of a number of more prosaic things.

  “But understand this: As mad as I was, there is some truth in what I am about to tell you,” Anne leaned forward. Her eyes were cold, “My desperation to have a child, my obsession with my looks—these are merely a mirror for society at large. Society has only two uses for women: as young and beautiful things, and as baby machines. You are only wanted or useful as long as you fill one of those two roles.”

  “That’s not true,” Snow blurted out. “Women are wanted for the same thing as men—to be kind, to be wise, to work hard—”

  “Maybe in a perfect world, Jessica, but not here. Not now”

  “What about your experiments? What about yourself, Anne? You have done great things—”

  “All of which I have had to keep secret or publish under a man’s name.!” the duchess hissed. “Like Georges Sand, Margaret Murray Huggins, Nettie Stevens—all in the shadow of their husbands or of fake masculine names.”

  “What is your latest work, there?” Snow asked pleasantly, trying to change the subject. She stirred her tea neatly and delicately, the way she knew the duchess liked. Inside, her mind was racing. I don’t think she is completely cured, after all There is something broken there. She didn’t disagree with anything the other woman had said, but the look in her eye as she said it was mad.

  She had chosen the right subject. The duchess’s eyes lit up and she smiled.

  “Ahhh. I’m glad you asked. This fits right into our discussion.” She indicated the golden orb that had been sitting tantalizingly close to Snow. “Pick it up.”

  An inkling of doubt slowed Snows hand, but she reached for it anyway.

  “It’s too late for me to have children, and perhaps too late to remain as beautiful as I once was,” the duchess said, “But not for you”

  “Why do you care about remaining beautiful?” Snow asked distractedly, turning the orb over in her hands. It was warm, not quite the temperature of flesh, and very pleasant to hold. Rather like a skull, she thought despite herself. “Father loves you”

  “Perhaps, But you do not know your father very well”

  “What do you mean that its not too late for me?” Snow suddenly asked, looking up from the golden ball.

  The duchess smiled, and hit a switch.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  FALLING ASLEEP

  The orb grew hot, but she was unable to let go. Licks of invisible flames climbed up Snow’s arms.

  “My latest experiment—the chronofin. I realize the mixing of languages is a little gauche, chronos from the Greek for ‘time’and fin from the French for ‘end,’ but it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  The flames crawled up her neck, through her scalp and into her head. She felt her hair being lifted and separated by forces she couldn’t see. Her mind slowed down and could not force her mouth to move, but one overriding thought was clear: She is mad. She is still mad.

  “There are energies coursing through your body now, fixing it. They are putting a halt to the things that age us; they are cleansing your body of any traces of time. Your humours will be filtered, your muscles and filaments washed clean.”

  The duchesss spoke casually, but her eyes were intently watching Snow for some outward signs or symptoms.

  Snow concentrated on her hands, willing them to open, to drop the golden orb. She saw her fingers twitch, but that was all. She couldn’t move her neck and had to strain her eyes to see.

  “I really hope this works,” the duchess said, with just a touch of nervousness. “Then you shall be always as you are now—a young, beautiful woman. That should more than make up for my violence toward you in the past.”

  While the thought of remaining young forever was of passing interest to Snow, still she panicked. A woman who thought that eating someone elses heart would confer upon her the victims youth and abilities would obviously not make a very good scientist. Ever, Snow wondered if she was going to die. The licks of heat and tingles of things she couldn’t see came down through her head like she was fainting, and cricked her neck. Horrible things like ants crawled over her eyeballs, which she was no longer able to move. She was forced to stare at the duchess.

  “And if it doesn’t work—it seems to be taking longer than it should—well, then at least you are a link in the chain of progress. Better you than me, as it were.”

  The duchess rose and moved out of Snows vision. She could hear clicks and whirs as
the older woman adjusted dials and knobs. She tried to scream, forceing herself so hard she thought she would wet herself, but nothing happened. The flames ran down her throat. In their wake they left a deep peace, a silence after the fire, buzzing, and storm. An absence of feeling.

  The duchess moved back into her sight.

  “It should be done by now.” She clicked her tongue in exasperation, a habit Snow had never seen before, “Katherine!” she called.

  The old house woman shuffled into view, and from her walk Snow suddenly realized why she had seemed so familiar.

  The woman from the orphanage! she realized. Her thoughts were muzzy and circuitous, like the moments just before sleep. But the orphanage isn’t here, is it? And shouldn’t she be running it …?

  There is no orphanage. It was a trick. The woman is just the duchess’s servant. It was all a trick to lure me here. There was no trip to a sanitarium, no doctor from Prussia. No one hack home knows what she tried to do to me.

  But why me? Why not some other victim?

  How did she find me?

  How did she find me?

  How did she find me …

  The duchess was giving orders.

  “We must go to their—lair—immediately. Whether or not this” she said, indicating Snow, “works, I can give her a cantrip that will cloud her mind and leave her a fuzzy memory of what occurred. But if it fails, this might be our only chance to catch them,”

  Lair?

  The Lonely Ones? She knows about them?

  Her legs burned with the remaining fires, but the rest of her was dead with lethargy. She could not even feel the orb anymore; her skin was dead. The cold followed, closing around her eyes with a will to sleep….

  The duchess turned to her.

  “I think we can call this a failure« I was really hoping it would work, and you would thank me, and I could use it on myself safely; and we would all live happily ever after» Alas, I think we had just better make you forget about everything, just in case you actually ever recover.” The older woman took a forked golden wire and stuck two of the ends into her own mouth so they hung out the sides of her lips. Snow couldn’t see what she did with the other metal tail. The duchess’s tongue stuck out a little, and she lisped a strange language.