A Winter's Promise

by Christelle Dabos

  This little ritual somehow comforted Ophelia in its predictability. These weren’t the foibles of a pregnant woman; this was Berenilde’s true face.

  From one day to the next, all visits to the manor ceased. Ophelia, who could at last stretch her legs around the property, understood why when she came across a daily newspaper: Mr. Thorn announced yesterday that his Treasury would remain closed indefinitely. Complainants, review your schedules accordingly! His secretary informed us that he will withdraw “for as long as required” to be beside his aunt, favorite among favorites, whose health is said to be declining. Might Mr. Thorn be a more caring nephew than he seems? Or maybe this hardened accountant wants to ensure that Berenilde’s testamentary provisions remain favorable to him? We’ll leave it to our readers to come to their own opinion on the subject.

  Ophelia frowned. Thorn really wasn’t a popular man . . . With just the news of his return to the manor, the place had emptied.

  When she was released from her brace, she automatically massaged her neck. If it meant that soon she’d be able to see something other than the walls of her room, day in, day out, she wasn’t about to complain. While she’d been shut away, she’d not slept well.

  As soon as Berenilde learnt that her nephew would soon be arriving, she became ruthless with the servants. The whole place had to be aired, the bedding changed, every carpet beaten, all chimneys swept, the furniture dusted. She proved to be so persnickety, so intransigent over insignificant details, that a young maid ended up bursting into tears. Ophelia found Berenilde’s behavior incomprehensible: she was making more of an effort to welcome her nephew than she had for distinguished guests. It wasn’t as if he never came to see her, was it?

  The following day, early in the morning, Thorn crossed the entrance to the manor. His arms were loaded with such a stack of files that one wondered how this tall, thin man could still keep his balance.

  “It’s raining at yours,” he said by way of a greeting.

  “You’ve brought all that work here?” Berenilde gently chided him as she came down the stairs, one hand on her stomach. “I thought you were supposed to watch over me!”

  “Watch over you, yes. Sit idly by, no.” Thorn had replied to her in a monotone without even glancing at her. He was looking higher up, to the top of the stairs, where Ophelia was busy tying the laces of her boot. When she noticed that Thorn, laden with files, was staring impassively at her, she politely nodded at him. All she could hope was that this man wouldn’t have the same treatment in store for her as Berenilde’s.

  That morning, they breakfasted together. Seeing Thorn at this table again didn’t please Aunt Rosaline, so she thought it best to maintain a dignified silence. Ophelia, however, was secretly in seventh heaven. For the first time in an eternity, Berenilde had forgotten she existed. She was all over her nephew, winking charmingly at him, teasing him about his thinness, showing interest in his work, thanking him for rescuing her from boredom. She didn’t seem to notice that Thorn was both replying and eating reluctantly, as though forcing himself not to be rude.

  Seeing Berenilde so animated, her cheeks flushed with contentment, almost amused Ophelia. She was starting to think that this woman had a visceral need to be someone’s mother.

  The atmosphere changed abruptly when Thorn opened his mouth: “Are you unwell?” He was addressing not his aunt, but his fiancée. At this moment, it would have been hard to decide who, out of Berenilde, Aunt Rosaline, and Ophelia, was the most flabbergasted.

  “No, no,” Ophelia finally stammered while staring at her fried egg. She knew she’d got thinner, but did she look so sick that Thorn himself was shocked?

  “Unlikely, that girl’s pampered!” sighed Berenilde. “It’s rather I, in fact, who am exhausting myself instilling a little education into her. Your fiancée is as taciturn as she is stubborn.”

  Thorn threw a suspicious glance towards the dining room windows. The rain was pouring endlessly down, casting an impenetrable veil over the landscape. “Why is it raining?”

  It was the strangest question Ophelia had ever heard.

  “It’s nothing,” Berenilde assured him with a winning smile. “My nerves are just a little on edge.”

  Ophelia now saw the rain, beating soundlessly against the windows, through different eyes. Did the weather here reflect the moods of the lady of the manor?

  Thorn pulled off his napkin and rose from the table. “In that case, you can give your nerves a rest, aunt. I’m taking over.”

  Ophelia was immediately requested to go with her godmother to the library. This didn’t particularly thrill them: after the lavatories, it was the chilliest room in the place. Thorn had already methodically arranged his files on a desk, at the back of the room. He opened one window wide and, without a word to the ladies, folded his endless legs behind his desk and threw himself into studying a schedule of repayments.

  “What about us?” demanded Aunt Rosaline.

  “You pick a book,” muttered Thorn. “It seems to me that there’s no shortage here.”

  “Couldn’t we at least go outdoors a little? We haven’t set foot outside for an eternity!”

  “You pick a book,” Thorn repeated with that hard accent of his.

  Exasperated, Aunt Rosaline furiously grabbed a dictionary, sat as far away from Thorn as possible, at the other end of the room, and started to examine the state of the paper, page after page.

  No less disappointed, Ophelia leant on her elbows at the window and breathed in the odorless air of the garden. The rain, which was bucketing down, disappeared the moment it splashed on her glasses, as though the illusion had reached its limits. It was really strange to get water that didn’t wet on one’s face. Ophelia stretched out her hand; she could almost touch the rosebushes in front of her. She would have preferred a real garden with real plants and a real sky, but she still had a burning desire to climb out of this window. Hadn’t her punishment lasted long enough?

  She watched Thorn from the corner of her glasses. Too cramped behind the little desk, his shoulders hunched, forehead low, sharp nose buried in a file, he seemed indifferent to everything other than his reading. Ophelia might just as well have not been there. Between Berenilde, who had a real fixation on her, and this man, who seemed barely conscious of her existence, it was definitely going to be hard for her to find her place within this family.

  Ophelia took a book, sat on a chair, and got stuck on the first line. There were only scholarly tomes in this library, and she understood not a single word. Staring into space, she stroked her old scarf, rolled into a ball on her knees, and let time wash slowly over her. What, in the end, do these people want from me, she asked herself, deep in thought. They make me only too aware that I’m not up to their expectations, so why go to such lengths to burden themselves with me?

  “Are you interested in algebra?”

  Ophelia turned towards Thorn, looking amazed, and then massaged her painful neck. Sudden movements weren’t recommended, but she’d allowed herself to be taken by surprise. With his elbows on the desk, Thorn was looking sharply at her; she wondered for how long those metallic eyes had been dissecting her in that way. “Algebra?” she repeated.

  Thorn indicated with his chin the handbook she was holding. “Oh, that? I picked it randomly.”

  She drew her feet under her chair, turned the page, and pretended to concentrate on reading. Berenilde had mocked her enough over The Morals of the Tower; she hoped Thorn wasn’t going to torment her with mathematics. A treasurer like him must be unbeatable in that subject.

  “What’s going on between my aunt and you?”

  This time, Ophelia considered Thorn with utmost seriousness. So she wasn’t imagining it—this man really was trying to engage in conversation. She glanced hesitatingly at her godmother; Aunt Rosaline had dozed off, dictionary on knees. Ophelia gathered up her scarf, put the algebra handbook back on its shelf, and
went over to Thorn’s desk. She looked at him straight on, he seated, she standing, but found it pretty annoying that she was still the smallest of the two of them. This man truly was the embodiment of austerity, with that over-angular face; that excessively combed pale hair; those eyes tapered like razor blades; those eyebrows forever frowning; those thin hands he held crossed; and that sullen mouth that never smiled. Not exactly the kind of person who instantly made one feel like confiding in them.

  “What’s going on is that your aunt hasn’t forgiven me for my getaway,” declared Ophelia.

  Thorn let out a derisive snort. “That’s putting it mildly. This downpour is symptomatic. The last time the weather deteriorated to this extent, the matter was resolved with a duel to the death between my aunt and a courtesan. I’d rather avoid seeing you going to such extremes.”

  Ophelia’s glasses blanched. A duel to the death? Such practices were beyond her comprehension. “I have no intention of fighting with your aunt,” she reassured him. “Maybe she’s missing the court?”

  “Farouk, more likely.”

  Ophelia didn’t know what shocked her the most: Berenilde carrying the child of her own family spirit, or the disdain that she’d discerned in Thorn’s voice. This Farouk certainly inspired the most contradictory feelings in his descendants. She stroked her scarf ruminatively, as she would an old cat. And this man, seated at the desk before her? What should she think of him, after all?

  “Why do the people here hate you?”

  There was a flash of surprise in Thorn’s piercing eyes. He was doubtless not prepared for such a direct question. He remained silent for a long time, frowning hard enough to split his forehead, before unclenching his teeth. “Because I respect only numbers.”

  Ophelia wasn’t entirely sure she understood, but supposed she’d better accept this explanation for now. She found it surreal enough that Thorn had made the effort to answer her. She had the impression, maybe a misleading one, that he was no longer as hostile towards her as he had been. That didn’t necessarily make him amiable—he was just as morose—but the atmosphere was less tense. Was that due to their last conversation? Had Thorn taken into consideration what she’d told him?

  “You should reconcile with my aunt,” he resumed, narrowing his eyes. “She’s the only trustworthy person, be sure not to make an enemy of her.”

  Ophelia allowed herself a moment to think, which Thorn took advantage of to bury his nose back in his papers. “Tell me about your family’s power,” she decided to ask.

  Thorn looked up from a report, his eyebrows raised. “I suppose by that you mean my father’s family,” he grumbled.

  As no one ever mentioned it, Ophelia tended sometimes to forget that Thorn was the illegitimate offspring of two families. She feared for a second that she’d made a faux pas. “Yes . . . well . . . if you possess this power yourself, it goes without saying.”

  “Not in its strongest form, but I do possess it. I can’t give you a demonstration without hurting you. Why that question?”

  Ophelia felt a vague uneasiness. There was a sudden tension in Thorn’s voice. “I wasn’t prepared for what your sister made me suffer.” She thought it best to remain silent about Berenilde’s headaches, but Thorn caught her unawares:

  “Does my aunt use her claws on you?” With fingers linked against chin, he was watching Ophelia carefully, expectantly. It was probably an optical illusion, but the scar across his eyebrow made his eyes particularly piercing.

  Embarrassed, Ophelia couldn’t answer this loaded question. If she said, “Yes,” with whom would he really be angry, in the end? With his aunt, for giving a rough time to his fiancée? Or with his fiancée, for betraying his aunt? Maybe he wouldn’t be angry at all, and this was mere curiosity on his part. “Tell me about these claws,” she asked, evasively.

  A draft caught her ankles. Ophelia sneezed hard enough to make every bone in her neck ache. After a good blow into her handkerchief, she deemed it more polite to add: “Please.”

  Leaning on his fists, Thorn extricated his extendable body from behind the desk. He rolled his shirtsleeves up to the elbow. His thin arms were riddled with scars, similar to those he had on his face. Ophelia tried not to stare at them too much, for fear of seeming rude, but she was puzzled. How could a treasurer who held such an important position be this battered?

  “As you can see,” said Thorn in a gloomy voice, “I don’t bear the distinctive mark of the clan. However, I’m the exception that confirms the rule: all nobles have one. Always systematically locate the tattoo on every person you encounter. It’s the location that counts, not the symbol.”

  Ophelia wasn’t particularly expressive, yet she struggled to hide her astonishment. Thorn had initiated the conversation, and now here he was answering questions! Curiously, it didn’t ring true. This effort seemed to come at a price for Thorn, as though he were forcing himself not to dive back into his files. It wasn’t for pleasure that he was being talkative, so why?

  “The Dragons bear the mark of the clan on their hands and arms,” he continued, meanwhile, undaunted. “Avoid crossing their paths and never respond to their provocations, however humiliating they may be. Trust only my aunt.”

  That was easily said . . . Ophelia looked at the window that Thorn had closed. The fake rain was beating against it now, unnervingly silent, never leaving the slightest trace of water behind. “Torturing remotely,” she whispered, “is that another kind of illusion?”

  “It’s much more brutal than an illusion, but you’ve grasped the principle,” Thorn muttered while checking his fob watch. “The claws act as an invisible extension of our nervous system, they’re not really tangible.”

  Ophelia never liked speaking to someone without seeing their face. She wanted to look up at Thorn, but she could go no higher than the buttons on his mandarin collar. She still had some stiffness in her neck and this man was outrageously tall. “Your sister’s brutality felt very tangible to me,” she said.

  “Because her nervous system directly attacked yours. If your brain is convinced that your body is suffering, then your body will adapt so that’s effectively the case.”

  Thorn had said that as though it were the most basic of blatant facts. He might be less curt, but he’d lost none of his condescension. “And when one is attacked by a Dragon,” murmured Ophelia, “up to what point can the body play the game of the brain?”

  “Pains, fractures, hemorrhages, mutilations,” Thorn enumerated, dispassionately. “It all depends on the talent of the person attacking you.”

  After this, Ophelia no longer dared to look at his scars at all. Was it his people that had done that to him? How could he speak of talent? She nibbled at the seams of her glove. Generally, she didn’t allow herself to do so in front of anyone, but now, she really felt the need. Augustus’s sketches came back to her like a slap. Those hunters with their hard, arrogant look, capable of killing Beasts without using weapons, they would be her new family. Ophelia simply couldn’t comprehend how she’d be able to survive among them. “Now I’m fully grasping the significance of your words in the airship,” she admitted.

  “You’re afraid? That’s not like you.”

  Ophelia looked up at Thorn in surprise, but her neck protested and she had to lower her head again. The brief glimpse she’d caught of him, however, left her thoughtful. Those razor-blade eyes watched her from on high and from a distance, but it wasn’t really condescension. Rather, a remote curiosity, as though this little fiancée was turning out to be less uninteresting than expected. Ophelia couldn’t stop herself from feeling annoyed. “How can you claim to know what’s like me or isn’t? You’ve never made the effort to try to get to know me.”

  To that, Thorn didn’t respond. The silence that had suddenly fallen between them seemed eternal. Ophelia was starting to feel awkward, stuck here in front of this man, who was rigid as a monolith, arms dangling, too tall
for her to see the expression on his face.

  A resounding bang, from the other side of the library, saved her from her predicament. Aunt Rosaline’s dictionary had slid off her knees and slammed onto the parquet. The chaperone awoke with a start, casting a dazed look around her. She soon spotted Thorn and Ophelia beside the window. “What on earth is going on here?” she protested. “Kindly step back, sir, you are too close to my niece! You can do whatever you please, once you are united by the sacred bonds of marriage.”

  The Ear

  “Sit down. Stand up. Sit down . . . No, not like that. We’ve practiced this movement a hundred times, dear girl, is it that hard for you to remember it?”

  Berenilde herself sat down on one of the sitting room’s bergères, doing so with the natural grace that enhanced every movement she made, then stood up again with the same elegance.

  “Like so. You can’t just plonk yourself down like a sack of potatoes, you need to be as harmonious as a piece of music. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. Stand up. Sit down. No, no, no!”

  Too late—Ophelia had fallen off the side of her chair. All that sitting down, again and again, had made her dizzy. “Would you mind, madam, if we left it at that?” she asked, picking herself up. “We’ve been repeating this exercise too much for me to do it properly.”

  Berenilde raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows and fluttered her fan, smiling knowingly. “I’ve observed a fine talent in you, my child. You’re very good at concealing your insolence behind those little submissive looks of yours.”

  “And yet I don’t consider myself to be either insolent or submissive,” Ophelia calmly responded.

  “Berenilde, let that poor child breathe! You can see perfectly well that she’s ready to drop.”

  Ophelia smiled gratefully at the grandmother, busy knitting by the fire. The old lady was as slow and silent as a tortoise, but when she did intervene in a conversation, it was often to take Ophelia’s defense.