by Lucia Ashta
“It’s all right, Maggie. I understand.” I was sure she didn’t mean to be improper, not that I cared much about these kinds of formalities. “Continue with your story, please.”
“Well, once Marcelo told his Lordship that chances were high that he could cure you, if only he could be left alone to his ways, your father gave his permission. No one else was giving you much of a chance at survival. The next day, they loaded you and me in the carriage. John drove the carriage instead of one of the usual horsemen. His Lordship didn’t want anyone outside of the house to know.
“Marcelo met us at the lake house after we arrived. No one in Lake Creston knows we’re here together except for Thomas, and Thomas doesn’t know who Marcelo is. Besides, Thomas is a little slow.”
Maggie saw the question in my face. “Thomas is the caretaker here.”
Maggie sighed loudly. Mother would have been horrified at her manner and undoubtedly would have declared it unfit for a servant. “That’s all that I know about Marcelo, Clara. And it’s not very much at all.”
I agreed. It wasn’t, especially when it seemed like there was so very much to learn about him.
Swallowed Whole by Perfectly Still Water
Every muscle in my body ached. Even my bones hurt. Maggie didn’t need to warn me to slow down. I had no real choice. My body couldn’t support the activity my awakening brain longed for.
It was the first day without fever and already I was impatient, ready to move on. But there was little to do other than wait.
By the time dusk arrived, I could barely keep my eyes open. After a month of fitful sleep, I slept soundly. Not even the whisper of a dream interfered once I gave myself over to the dark of night.
*
Something beckoned me out of sleep before I was ready to come out of it. I noticed myself having thoughts again and realized I was awake. But why was I? I was still tired.
I flung back the covers, suddenly hot. I arranged the pillows behind me and sat, intending to steal a few moments of stillness before the activity of the day began.
But then I spotted Marcelo hidden within the shadows thrown by the fire.
He sat in the rocking chair Maggie had occupied the day before.
He was looking straight at me and appeared undisturbed by my startled reaction.
I stared back at him. I hadn’t met anyone like him. Everything about him felt different. He appeared to lack a concern with etiquette that everyone else I knew possessed.
He didn’t blink or look away. He didn’t appear embarrassed that I’d caught him watching me while I slept.
In defeat, I closed my eyes to push him out. His gaze searched too intensely and left nowhere to hide.
When he stood, my eyes trailed him as he walked toward me. His cloak was absent. It was the first time I’d seen him without it. His body without the cloak didn’t surprise me, its apparent agility matched the delineation of muscle visible through his shirt.
He reached my bedside and, in a replay of the day before, his eyes traveled the length of my body. His gaze left a flurry of sensations in its wake. My skin pricked and tingled again, abruptly reminding me that I was naked beneath my nearly translucent gown.
The thin cotton clung to my body and revealed everything. I pulled up the covers without knowing whether he realized why. His attention was absorbed, focused somewhere else than on me as a person.
I wondered if and when he would speak.
Again, he looked to the corners of the chamber and then to the fire.
Again, he left without warning.
I waited, although this time I didn’t count on his return.
*
Maggie came instead of Marcelo, and she helped me into a bath. I couldn’t remember a time when the water felt that good as it embraced my body. The water eased my aching and quieted thoughts that kept trying to get ahead of themselves.
The hot water soothed my brain, frayed from a month of sporadic hallucinations. It also seemed to offer the promise of regaining my former self, though deep within I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.
Before she left me alone, Maggie lit two candles to either side of the bath. The candlelight reflected on the water’s surface, beginning to hypnotize me. I didn’t resist. I followed the flames as they flickered and rippled.
I watched one flame until my eyes began to blur, and then I watched the other. Back and forth I went.
Then something unusual happened. The flames multiplied across the water’s surface.
First there were two flames. Then there were four. Then there were eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Then I lost count.
Flames burst all around me.
I barely breathed.
Soon, flames lit almost the entire surface of the water. It was breathtaking, like the sun glittering across the surface of the lake. But unlike the water of Lake Creston that rippled and moved, reflecting the life it contained, the water of the bath was as still as glass.
Mesmerized, I watched.
I didn’t question whether this might be an alluring effect of a mind that had experienced too many feverish hallucinations.
There was no thought. Not a single one.
I observed, detached, void of emotion, until that final duplication.
Then I shouted out.
I writhed in pain, until the pain itself took mercy on me.
It overloaded my system, and I blacked out.
My last memory is of me slipping beneath the water’s surface.
I fell and kept falling, heading toward the bottom of a body of water that had no visible end.
I slipped farther and farther away, swallowed whole by perfectly still water.
A Flood
I lost the rest of the day and awoke the next morning early with the sun. Before I even opened my eyes, I cringed at a searing pain that swept across my skin.
A moan brought Maggie and Marcelo running. As they appeared at my bedside, I realized I was in my bed again.
The look in Maggie’s eyes told me something serious had happened. Concern danced clumsily across her features. She didn’t know what to do to help me.
In contrast, Marcelo revealed almost nothing of his thoughts. But there was something different from the previous two times he’d stood looking at me; I just didn’t know what it was.
“Ah.” I winced in pain. My face contorted as I struggled to sit. Maggie reached out to help, but her attempts were ineffective.
She didn’t know where to touch me. A thick film of ointment covered my entire body from the neck down, and thin bandages protected my skin wherever my nightgown did not.
In the end, I didn’t sit. With or without Maggie’s assistance, the pain was too great.
Finally, Marcelo spoke to me. “What happened?”
I looked at him, stunned. “You don’t know what caused this?”
“No.” For the first time, traces of concern flashed across his face. However, as quickly as they appeared, they vanished. Again, there was nothing.
My eyes grew hot, and I knew the tears were coming. “I need a moment to myself please,” I said to them but looked toward the window. Even though it was closed to the dawning light outside, it was away from them and their piercing stares and probing questions.
Surprised, Marcelo turned and walked away. Maggie lingered, but met my wishes. She pulled the door closed behind her, but I still heard Marcelo’s voice.
“We can give her some time, but not too long. I need to understand what happened to her as quickly as possible. Stay outside her door in case she needs you. I’ll be back shortly to try again.”
Maggie didn’t say anything, but I heard her slide a chair across the floor.
I expected to hear the sound of a horse riding away, but there was none. Marcelo walked in a clipped pace to his chambers and closed the door.
Alone, I allowed myself to cry. The tears were hot with a frustration I didn’t realize I’d been holding back until it burst forth like water crashing through an oppressive dam.
<
br /> I cried because I didn’t understand what was wrong with me, and now even the expert didn’t know. I was tired of feeling achy and ill, of not being able to move around and do what I wanted.
I cried because I was alone, with no one to hold me. Gertrude was far away, and I wanted her to stay that way. I would never forgive myself if she fell ill because of me.
I cried because my parents wanted to marry me away to a bully and because they’d sent me off to the lake house with this man who made me uneasy. I cried because I didn’t understand anything anymore and because I was very frightened. I cried, simply, because I hurt.
I let everything boil over until there was nothing left in me that needed to get out. I shut my eyes in exhaustion, and I willed the relief of sleep to claim me right then.
For once, it did as I asked.
Keep the Secret
The scene from the morning replayed itself. I woke again to find Maggie and Marcelo in my room. They rushed to me when they noticed me awake.
This time, the shutters were open and the midday sun filtered across the space, softening Marcelo’s face, revealing a youthfulness I hadn’t noticed before.
It seemed to soften his demeanor too. “How are you, Clara?” he asked.
I looked at him through swollen, vulnerable eyes and had nothing to say. My eyes threatened tears again and, though I resisted, they slipped through my grasp and rolled down my cheeks. They spoke for me.
“Oh, Clara, don’t cry,” Maggie said. “Marcelo will figure out what’s wrong with you and get you fixed right up.” Again, Maggie reached out to comfort me and reined her hands in. There was nowhere safe to touch. “Isn’t that right, Marcelo?”
Because of the unusual circumstances and close quarters, Maggie treated Marcelo with uncommon informality. Marcelo ignored both her question and the breach in etiquette.
“Clara, how does your body feel?”
“My body?”
“Whatever happened to you in the bathtub burned you severely. All the skin that was submerged was burned. Your face and neck were unaffected. It would appear that the water burned you, yet I already checked the water, and it was unadulterated. Did something happen?”
“What do you mean the water burned me?”
“I don’t know what else could have. You were naked in the water when it happened. You weren’t touching anything, and there was nothing that could have done this near the bathtub. When I heard you scream, I rushed to the bath. I knocked, but you didn’t answer. When I entered, you were unconscious and your face was underwater. I pulled you out of the tub and onto the floor and there you started breathing on your own. But you didn’t regain consciousness again until this morning.”
He paused for a moment, deliberating how to say what he wanted to say next, and in that moment, I synthesized all that he’d just said into “You were naked when I pulled you out of the tub.” To think I’d been self-conscious when he saw me in my nightgown just yesterday.
I was trying to push away my discomfort at the thought of this inscrutable man both seeing and touching my naked body when he continued.
“I put my arms in the water to pull you out, and nothing happened to me. I felt only water, which was barely hot. It couldn’t have burned you like this. At least, not without something else causing it. Are you sure nothing happened to explain this?”
I thought back. I remembered it all.
“Something did happen. But I don’t think that it could have burned me. It’s not possible.”
“Go ahead, Clara. Tell me everything you remember, exactly as you remember. Don’t leave out any details.”
I nodded and drew breath before plowing ahead. It seemed like a bizarre thing to recount, like another of my feverish hallucinations.
“Well, I remember looking at the water and noticing the reflections of the flames of the candles Maggie had set by the tub. There were two of them. The more I stared at the reflections, the more the flames seemed to come alive. They danced and flickered. And then, they just started multiplying. I don’t know why.” I looked into Marcelo’s eyes, searching for his reaction. This is where it began to get strange.
“Maggie, will you excuse us now?”
Maggie startled. I didn’t expect Marcelo’s request either. I could see that she wasn’t happy about having to leave, but she did so anyway. As soon as she closed the door, Marcelo urged me to continue.
“The flames I saw in the water started becoming more and more until they almost covered the entire surface of the water.”
Marcelo nodded, his attention rapt. Keep going.
“That’s it. That’s all I remember. The flames were about to cover the water completely when I blacked out. None of it makes sense. Was I imagining things again? Like when I had the fever?”
“Clara, tell me exactly how the flames reproduced themselves. Did they appear randomly across the surface of the water? Was there a pattern to it?”
I focused again until I could see it. “First there were two flames. Then there were four. Then eight and so on.”
Marcelo seemed surprised by what I said, and his concentration increased.
“Does that mean something?”
“Hmm. It might. Did the reflection of the flames extend all the way down into the water?”
I shook my head. “No, at least not up until the point when I lost consciousness. The flames just covered the surface of the water. I remember thinking it looked like the sunset sparkling across Lake Creston, like it did when I got to watch it as a girl. There was barely any part of the water that wasn’t covered with the reflection of the flames when I blacked out. But the flames were multiplying quickly. I assume that they completely covered the water by the time I passed out.”
Marcelo didn’t say anything. He was looking straight at me, but he wasn’t focused on the me right there in front of him. He was studying the me of yesterday, determined to discover what could have caused water to burn me.
“What do you think?” I asked, attempting to bring him back. I needed to understand. The more I realized that even he didn’t know what happened to me, the more frightened I became.
“I’m really not sure how this could’ve happened, Clara. I’ll have to think about it. I’ve never heard of something like this before. Especially not with someone like you.”
I bristled, despite the seriousness of the situation. “Someone like me? What does that mean?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He brushed it off, but it did mean something. “You’ll need to stay here and rest as much as possible. The burns on your body are severe, and it’ll take some time for them to heal. The more careful you are with yourself, the more likely it is that there’ll be no serious scarring when this is all over.”
“Scarring?” Oh no. “Will I be disfigured from this?”
“I don’t think so. Not if you take it easy and allow your body to do what it knows best. But don’t be fooled. The burns are serious. You need to rest for optimal recovery.”
Great. More rest. As if I hadn’t stayed in bed enough the last month. I sighed in frustration and tried to resign myself to Marcelo’s recommendations.
“I’ll monitor you closely, not only to make sure you heal properly, but to attempt to deduce what happened. In the meantime, you shouldn’t worry too much. It’s unlikely that anything like this will happen to you again. It was most likely an anomaly.”
That wasn’t very reassuring. He hadn’t thought this could happen to me in the first place.
“And Clara, you can’t tell anyone what happened in the water. No one. Not even Maggie.”
He meant it. His tone was severe.
“Clara, you can’t tell anyone at all. Are we clear on this?” His eyes bore into mine, trying to will my compliance with sheer force. The look on my face hadn’t convinced him. No one had ever asked me to keep a secret like this one before.
“Why can’t I tell Maggie?”
“I can’t explain the reasons to you. You just need to know that you shou
ld not utter a word of this.”
“You can’t explain it to me, or you won’t explain it to me?” I could appreciate that he was trying to help me, although my father undoubtedly was paying him generously for his efforts, but I didn’t like him ordering me to keep secrets.
Maggie was my friend and helper. Surely, she would ask me what happened, and I didn’t like having to lie to her. “If you want me to keep your secrets, you need to at least tell me why. You have to tell me something.”
Irritation flashed across Marcelo’s face before he stashed it away. “It’s for your own good. You’ll have to trust me on that. Or don’t trust me and tell everyone you want. Then see what happens and how you like it.”
I was at a disadvantage. I was the one who was sick and needed his help. I was the one who knew nothing at all about what was going on.
“What am I supposed to tell Maggie then? You know she’ll ask me what happened.”
“I needn’t waste my time coming up with girlish stories. I have much more important things to tend to. Invent something.”
Marcelo looked like he was about to leave.
“Wait. I want to ask something of you.”
He stopped his retreat, huffed, and drew close to me again, impatient. His gaze was intent, and I almost lost my nerve. In that moment, he was the last person I wanted to have to ask a favor of, but what choice did I have? I swallowed and squeaked out the words.
“Please don’t tell my parents that I’m better.”
Dark eyebrows cocked in response.
“And why wouldn’t I tell them you’re recovering? They hired me to cure you, you know.”
I steeled my nerve and rushed forward before I lost it. I didn’t want to confide in him. He’d made it clear that he was neither my friend nor my ally and that he had no interest in becoming either of the two. But my parents would marry me off to Winston if he didn’t help me. I looked away from him as I spoke, baring my heart out of necessity.
“Because if I recover during this next month, they’re going to marry me away to an awful person. If they believe I’m still seriously ill by the end of this month, they’ll have to withdraw from the arrangement. The other family has given them a deadline by which I must recuperate for the wedding to move forward. If I don’t become well by that time, they’ll marry their son to someone else.”