“OK,” said Belle, repeating to make sure. “Invite that man, a snack for Christian. Got it.” It seemed too easy. Belle didn’t understand why Madame Vileroy hadn’t given this gift to her in the first place. The chores seemed harmless enough. She wondered if she should give it more thought, given what she knew of her governess. She looked up and caught the bearded man craning to look at her. Across the aisle, she caught a glimpse of Thomas, with Lucy on his other side, stroking his hand. For a second, Belle’s gaze caught his, and he quickly looked away. She looked down and coughed, and the woman next to her left her seat to find another. An usher tripped on a tear in the carpet and sent a stack of programs scattering to the floor.
“OK, deal.”
Ten soldiers stand in the dark cellar with their rifles pointed at the family. Terror and panic are frozen on the faces of the children. The father holds his wife like a mannequin holding another mannequin. In front of the firing squad, a cloud of smoke lingers in the air, not dissipating. Bullets from the rifles hang in space like a perfectly still swarm. One has already struck the tutor in the thigh. Another is about to enter Aleksey. It is poised no more than two inches from his shoulder.
She steps into the silent scene from a dark corner, from behind the clock — its hands frozen in time. The clacking of her shoes on the stone floor is the only sound. Her bracelet, black onyx, was handmade here in Russia, a gift from the czar — over there holding his wife — before this ugly revolution. She steps through the clutter of suspended bullets; some fall to the floor. She cannot save them all, the children she has raised as her own. Already she knows she’ll have to begin again, somewhere else, as governess to other royals. In frustration she points one soldier’s rifle toward another soldier standing off to the side. When time begins again, they will shoot each other, and have no idea how or why. All the same, she knows Aleksey will never be strong. Anastasia is clever, though. She adjusts the bodies of the horrified family, moving them like dummies. Anastasia will be shielded by her family, possibly even survive this firing squad. The blond woman sighs and walks to the stairs. As she enters the endless summer, she snaps her fingers, the rain begins to fall again, a clock ticks its own life away, and the sound of gunshots begins to hammer into the forgotten night.
The house was as silent as a morgue. Any other house with five teens, even in New York City, would be a carnival at that time in the evening. But not the Faust house. No sounds of vacuums or microwaves, no conversations. No buzz of TV or cars outside. No animals, no mice in the walls, no birds perched on the eaves. No creak in the floorboards. No music. None of the noises of life were in that house, only cold silent stillness.
Bicé’s room was musty and littered with the last of the sunflower seed shells and pastry wrappers she had stashed away. It was pitch-black. Bicé was in the corner, huddled with her books, holding a flashlight like a phone on her shoulder, mumbling things to herself, constantly frightened by the stillness of the dark all around her. Still, she was used to them, these long silences. In the house where all the children had ambitions, deadlines, and big plans, Bicé wandered aimless and alone. But in her books, she could talk to the faceless, ageless friends who loved her, friends who didn’t find her strange.
Hiding, that’s what Vileroy called this. The most special gift of all, the ability to hide in the creases of time, like the comforting folds of a mother’s skirts.
A spider hung motionless in the door frame, as it had four minutes ago. She knew those four minutes hadn’t gone anywhere. She knew everything had stopped because she had wanted it to. Now the whole house, maybe the whole world, was her silent cave where nothing was moving, not even time. She was terrified of bumping into someone, because she never knew where they’d been when she stopped them. They would be frozen like dead bodies found after a blizzard thaws, expressions of a moment carved into their faces, backs bent in uncomfortable positions. At first they had seemed funny, like rag dolls. She would stroll around the house, put food in Victoria’s constantly open mouth, slide Valentin’s finger in his ear. Then they began reminding her of city ruins like Pompeii. People covered permanently in ash while trying to escape the wrath of a volcano. Belle looked like a mother curled over one of her old dolls, trying to save it. Christian running in his room looked in the middle of running away. Time had stopped still, and Bicé was in a ruined world.
The last time she was alone like this, she had spent what seemed like hours watching the frozen Belle. She had examined her new face, her new body, and wondered, Is this my Belle? Is she in there somewhere? She had touched her face and wondered if she could rub past this mask and find her sister. She had felt Belle’s blond hair and closed her eyes, trying to remember all those times she had brushed it when they were little. It didn’t feel the same. She felt her own hair to compare, keeping her eyes closed. For a moment, the old Belle had come back in Bicé’s imagination, and then she was gone, leaving Bicé feeling like half of her had died.
Bicé cradled her empty stomach. She hadn’t eaten in what seemed like days. If she were to faint, she didn’t know what would happen. If she was conscious, she could let the world begin again. If she hit her head, maybe everything would remain lifeless — except for her body, incapable of healing itself, slowly but surely decaying in the constant flow of time. Maybe a spray of air freshener would last longer than she would. The droplets would stay like glass beads draped across the air above her as she lay unconscious — her cells screaming at breakneck speed toward oblivion.
She opened another textbook, a volume of Persian poetry. Her hair was ratty, her fingernails dirty and jagged. But no one was around to see her, and no one could hear her — except for the Singer, the elderly Persian poet in her book. He could hear her, but only when she spoke Farsi. That’s what she was learning with the book, while talking to the void. She could hear him too, a gentle voice to fill the lonely hours. “Hello, my friend,” said Bicé in Farsi. She turned the page.
The Singer said something back. Bicé squinted. The Singer leaned in, just to the border of the light, where Bicé only got a glance of his beard. He whispered, “A bird stole my pen.”
Bicé grabbed another book, a dictionary. As the Bs flipped past, she wondered what thought Belle was having, which thought she was never finishing, all this time. “How will you write your letter to the king?” she asked the black room in beginners’ Farsi. She saw a dull twinkle like a plaque-encrusted smile.
The Singer said in a sad, gravelly voice, “She doesn’t want me to write my letters.”
“But she’s only a bird,” Bicé practiced, her pronunciation near perfect.
“No,” said the dark, mumbling some more in the old tongue.
And then, the Singer’s voice changed. Gone was the grandfatherly poet she knew.
Something else whispered her name. “Is someone there?” she asked.
“Yesss,” said the dark. Bicé recoiled.
A flash in the blackness. Bicé looked at the silhouette of the old man, his kind smile wicked now, his eye suddenly changed. It was the burned and branded eye.
“Stop.”
But the void continued to taunt her, its voice higher. “No place here for a little girl. No place to linger.”
“Stop, Vileroy, stop!”
The house began to speak again. Appliances resumed their cricket hum. Outside her door, someone as heavy as Christian lumbered past. Bicé gasped for new air, starving for food, terrified that she could never fully escape the governess. The bodies were alive again. She was still afraid to turn the light on, afraid of all the noise. But she was relieved. Even though every squeak from a door hinge, every rustle of a skirt, jolted her, at least she wasn’t alone anymore — alone with the dark. She’d have to clean herself up before she went out. She’d have to face the motion of time again, but that wouldn’t be so horrible. Because at least the world of the living was a devil she knew.
When she opened the door, Madame Vileroy was waiting. Bicé didn’t say anything. Madame Vil
eroy held out a glass vial. Bicé snatched it from her hand and swallowed the deep green sludge that slowly crawled out when she tipped the bottle. She looked at the governess, annoyed that she’d stood there to watch her drink it all.
“Well?” she said.
And Madame Vileroy said, “Good,” and walked away.
At the breakfast table, the four others looked tired, as if the night had gone too fast. Christian felt as if he’d closed his eyes to sleep and opened them a second later for his alarm. Belle was staring into a hand mirror, looking for bags under her eyes. Victoria took pills to keep her alert since she had stayed up studying or filling out scholarship forms.
“You slept late,” said Valentin when Bicé walked in.
“Very,” said Bicé. She grabbed at the bacon, eggs, and pancakes. She spoke to herself in Farsi as she chewed some smoked sausage.
“Great,” said Victoria. “Now we can go to school with a mumbling cab driver.”
Belle hit Victoria in the arm and mouthed, “Stop it!” Leave her alone or else, she thought, in case Vic might be cheating.
“Hey, Bicé, let’s go to one of those Korean nail salons, and you can tell us what they’re saying behind our backs!” said Belle.
“I think she’s speaking Arabic,” said Valentin. He slipped a hand into his pocket.
“All right, fine, let’s go to an Arabic salon.”
Suddenly Valentin broke out into hysterical laughter. Belle, Victoria, and Christian looked at him like he was crazy. “That was hilarious!”
“What?” said Belle.
“Oh, man, sometimes I’m too nice to you guys.”
“You little rat!” Victoria whispered to him, grabbing his collar. “I know what you did.”
“No, you don’t,” he whispered back.
“Uh, yeah, I do. I just heard you play it over in your head.”
“What, what is it?” said Belle, trying to hear what Vic and Val were talking about.
“Don’t do that again, Val. I’m serious,” whispered Victoria, crossing her arms.
“Oh, come on, it was just a joke.” Valentin leaned close and touched Victoria’s chin, trying to win her over. Valentin was convinced that Victoria was the most sexually repressed girl in the world and that given the right circumstances, he could change her point of view on a lot of things. But she pushed his hand aside.
“If you keep playing like that, Bicé will know. And if she knows, she could ruin things. Is that what you want?” Victoria said through clenched teeth.
Christian looked up from his food. He’d been eating the whole time, content to stay out of another fight. But Victoria and Valentin looked very suspicious just now.
Valentin scoffed at the false memory of what could have happened in a thousand possibilities for a future that only he could see — and Victoria could cheat off.
“I only wanted to know what Bicé would do if she knew our secret. I went back and changed it.”
“Maybe so, but it’s dangerous.” said Victoria, “Remember, she can play with time too.”
“Hiding is different.” Valentin seemed insulted. “She can only make things stop. It’s not the same. Besides, don’t you want to know how she reacted?”
“I saw it . . . in your head.”
Belle touched her cheek. For some reason, her flesh was raw — where she may have been slapped by her sister in a past that never happened. She looked over at Bicé, who smiled lazily at her.
“Stop whispering, you two,” said Belle.
“Stupid Val’s playing God again!” Victoria yelled.
“Vic,” said Christian, trying to calm her down. “Whatever he did is no big deal. Can we just have some peace?”
“It is a big deal!” shouted Victoria. “You don’t know anything. He could rewind and do anything he wanted.”
Valentin couldn’t help smiling.
Belle said, “He wouldn’t do anything.”
“He would,” said Victoria. Then she turned to Valentin. “Just remember that I know everything you do, you stupid punk. You’re too arrogant not to tell yourself all about it later.”
Valentin was still smiling. Victoria’s comments had barely affected him. She just glared at him, crossed her arms, and lowered her voice to a whisper again.
“You just do whatever you want. You don’t care who it hurts. I guess that sort of thing runs in your family.”
Valentin’s face turned white. Victoria could see the hurt in his eyes when she referred to his family, and somehow his reaction calmed her, made her feel better. When he spoke, his voice was different, a bit strained. “Wow, Vic. You’re a real piece of work.”
Suddenly Belle started to sob. “I hate this house,” she said softly, somehow emotional from a slap that never happened, a betrayal that was never discovered. “Why can’t we just live in the guest house permanently?”
“That’s so like you, Belle, thinking that a prettier house would make you happy,” said Victoria. “I would never live in that house. It’s not real.”
“Neither is this!”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it’s not!”
Suddenly the entire kitchen table lifted into the air, turned on its side, and crashed to the floor. The plates and glasses shattered on the ground in a splatter of food and juice. Belle let out a little yip. The four of them sat, dazed, in their seats, in a circle. Christian stood in the middle, his chest heaving, his eyes on the floor. He didn’t say anything, only stood in the center of the circle after his sudden splurge of violence. After a long pause, he said in a soft, regretful tone, “Stop fighting.”
Then he bent down and picked up a bagel from the floor. He walked out.
“Happy family we have here,” said Valentin.
“Shut up,” said the other three, almost in unison.
Valentin just shrugged, grabbed a piece of toast, and got up to leave. As he walked down the hall, he noticed Vileroy walking beside him, as if she had been there all along. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I still need help.” He crept close to her, letting his cheek touch hers as he spoke, his stray hairs mingling with hers.
Madame Vileroy glanced at Valentin’s hand, which darted into his pocket and emerged with a folded white cloth napkin that seemed to be pulsing in his hand. Valentin always carried it with him.
“Have you been practicing?” she asked, encouraging his ever-flirtatious manner.
“All the time.” Valentin opened the napkin instinctively. Inside was an old-fashioned stopwatch. It looked worn, beaten up, and weary with overuse. It beat with an unsteady rhythm. Like a defective metal heart.
“Let’s see,” Madame Vileroy whispered in his ear. Her breath made him shiver.
He began reciting her a poem. A love sonnet he had not fully memorized. Each time he messed up, he went back, trying to make it as seamless as possible. For her, he wanted to make it perfect. He was always willing to put on a show for his beautiful governess, the one who had given him so much.
“Why can’t I get it right?” he asked when she informed him that the tic was still there.
She sighed. “You’re not patient enough, Valentin.” She put a long finger to her lips. “You don’t go all the way back. You don’t dare to grab that perfect moment, and so you flounder, grasping at the moments around it. And then what happens? It always seems like a stutter.” She leaned toward him. “Choose an object to focus on. You need some small movement that you can track constantly.”
“But it’s impossible to know what time I want to return to beforehand. Once I know I’ve messed up, that moment’s already passed.”
“Yes,” said Madame Vileroy with a satisfied grin. “That’s why you have to track something all the time. You can’t suddenly remember that you need it after you mess up. By then it’s too late.”
“That’s really hard,” said Valentin.
“It’s a tricky business, Valentin. That’s why it’s called lying. You have to remember a lot of details to pull it off.”
“Well, in a way. You see, Valentin, there is no such thing as time. It’s just a road, a path that people travel on. But most people can’t go back and forth on this path. Most of the world is on a train, traveling forward all the time, speeding toward death, with a set schedule and someone else in charge. You, my dear, are the only one who gets to be on foot. You can go back and forth and experience things again and again. Sometimes you can do things to reroute the train. But people still feel how it should have been. They somehow sense the lie. That’s why you have to be careful, or else they’ll know, and hate you for it.”
“I’ve been using this old watch,” Valentin said as he ran his finger over the worn timepiece. “It’s always lagging, and the rhythm keeps changing. I try to memorize the missed beats.”
“That’s a start,” said Madame Vileroy.
Valentin inched toward her. “Wanna practice together?”
“No,” said the beautiful governess, and walked away.
Valentin looked down at the watch perched in the palm of his hand. Even with all that power, the smallest rebuff weakened him, made him feel like a little kid. He hated that feeling the most — that he was disposable, unloved, nothing special. Nothing special to her. Slowly he closed his hand around the fitful old watch. It snapped in his hand and stopped beating. He heaved a long sigh and walked back to the empty breakfast table. He sat down in a chair soaked with juice, surveyed the food covering the floor, the crushed gears in his hand. He closed his eyes and brought it all back — to the way it should have been, to a moment when he was having fun.
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it’s not!”
Suddenly, and again, the entire kitchen table lifted into the air — and even the milk from the pitcher followed the same arc as last time, Valentin noted — turned on its side, and crashed to the floor. Then Christian said, “Stop fighting.”
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