Copperhead i-2

by Tina Connolly

  Helen raised her eyebrows at Jane. “Really?” she said. “How long have you been working at this task? Half a year?”

  “Off and on,” said Jane. “But I’ve been studying to do the facelifts, too. It hasn’t been all talking to the women.”

  “And you’ve managed to convince how many of The Hundred?”

  “Well. Six,” said Jane.

  Helen squeezed her sister’s arm. “So don’t be a goose, silly. This is exactly where I come in. Look, I might not be perfectly tactful always—”

  Jane raised her eyebrows at this.

  “—but your idea of tact is to force out the words ‘in my opinion’ as you tell someone exactly what you think of them.”

  “So what’s part two of this grand plan?” Jane said dryly to this tactless comment.

  “I’ve already talked to Millicent,” Helen said, and the words she had told herself to keep in tumbled all out. Her face lit up, glowing with the joy of the surprise of it, with the good she was going to accomplish for Millicent, for Jane. “She’s all ready for you. She wants you to replace her face. Tonight.”

  Jane turned a shocked face on Helen and shoved her younger sister into the nearest alcove to whisper furiously at her. “Tonight? It’s not a haircut, Helen. It’s a serious operation. It’s not something I can just do, just like that.”

  “You can,” insisted Helen, heart rat-a-tat. “But you have to do it secretly, upstairs, while everyone is downstairs. It’s her only chance.” Jane couldn’t say that she was wrong, that she was foolish. This was new Helen, determined to make things come out right. “You have all your supplies, don’t you?” Helen pointed at the carpetbag that Jane carried everywhere.

  “I suppose,” said Jane. “But—”

  “But nothing; you’re just nervous, now that I’ve done it so quickly and gotten everything ready to go.” The words tumbled headlong from her lips. The mad rush, the intrigue, the heady thrill of brink-of-success: it all made her feel so alive.

  “True, but I have justification for nerves,” said Jane. “It’s a dangerous operation at the best of times. To do it with no warning, on a tight timeframe, no room for error?” She shook her head. “You just don’t understand.”

  Helen felt the familiar pressure against her skull in response to people telling her she was wrong, that she didn’t understand, that she couldn’t do something. The pounding in her head thudded as her will rose up, flattening everything before her like the sound of a bell spreading across town. “No, you don’t,” she said, and it was with tremendous effort that she kept her voice low, whispering the words right into Jane’s ear. “Mr. Grimsby won’t let her go anywhere. Won’t let her leave the house. Says it’s unsafe—though with the iron mask it’s perfectly safe—well, at least as safe as it is for anybody. She’s a prisoner, Jane. And she wants this done—but he won’t let her. Says he doesn’t trust you. Something about dwarvven connections and rabid women’s lib ideals.”

  That lit a spark in Jane’s green eyes, as Helen had known it would. It was simple truth, but Helen knew how to deploy incendiary truth.

  “Well,” said Jane. “Well.” She rocked back on her heels. “I will talk to her. Tell her about the procedure. My goal is to help them all, obviously. But tonight, with no warning? Perhaps she will be sensible and let us pick a day next week—do it with more preparation.”

  Millicent wouldn’t, Helen was sure. Poor Millicent Grimsby had begged and begged for an outing, and finally Grimsby had brought her, iron-masked and heavily guarded, to a Copperhead meeting of the men at Helen and Alistair’s house. Safely ensconced in Helen’s bedroom, Millicent had poured her heart out and Helen’s own heart had burst in response.

  It was up to Helen to save her, and it had to be tonight. Jane would just have to understand.

  Helen showed Jane how to slip around to the back stairs and wind her way to the garret. After a suitable interval, she caught Millicent’s eye and gave her the nod. The small woman in the iron mask did not nod, did not move. But Helen knew she knew.

  It was quite dark outside now. The room pressed together, quieting and erupting by turns as people found seats or decided to stand. The room was packed, for which Helen was immensely grateful. She found a spot that seemed perfect for sneaking away.

  Men—leaders—came into the room in a clump. They had been off somewhere with Grimsby. Her husband, Alistair, was among the gang of men. They spilled into the room like a pack of hunting dogs, jostling each other as they moved to the front. Before Grimsby stirred them into a passion over Copperhead, they had spent all their time drinking and gaming. When they moved, when they tumbled and rolled, she saw the puppy dog in them still. Helen was glad she did not have her mask on, obscuring her vision. The electricity was at half the brightness it had been for that dance in the spring. It was dim yellow, unlike the familiar blue light of her childhood. Before the Great War.

  The men straightened as they drew closer to the front and the strange sheet-covered lump in the middle of the room. They no longer reminded her of anything tame, but something fiercer, colder, and they stood straight around each other as if they were one pack surveying their quarry. Everything drew still as their presence filled the room, all eyes turned to the front. Helen searched around, checking for her escape route, and in doing so caught a tiny flicker of movement by the window—a lithe man in closely fitted black leaned on the windowsill as if he had always been standing there. But what then would have drawn her attention?

  Boarham and Morse—Grimsby’s two particular right-hand men—moved to flank the machine. Morse was stoop-shouldered and pinch-faced, the meanest of them all. Boarham was heavy, lumpy, toadying. “We will begin,” said Boarham, “by updating you on the preparations that have been made as we remain under siege by the fey. Later in the evening will be the event you are most anxious for: Grimsby will reveal his new weapon that—we hope—will eventually annihilate the fey for good.”

  Breath caught at the word, at the hope. Annihilate.

  “We move ever closer to our goal,” Boarham said. “One People. One Race.” All around her, fingers flicked out to touch their hydra lapel pins in solidarity. “But first a moment to remember James Morrow, who since our last meeting was a casualty of the fey blight, when the blue carpeting his front garden turned out not to be powerless bits of many different fey, but one whole fey, lurking in wait with a concealed fey bomb.…”

  Now.

  It was not Helen’s style to move quietly. She moved by chatter and misdirection. But for this moment she needed to slink, and she did, moving like a bit of sunlight falling noiselessly through canopy leaves.

  Her blood pounded as she climbed the garret stairs, slipped through the door.

  The garret was irregular and pocked with gables. A cluster of candelabra lit the area with the most headroom; the rest of the garret fell away into dark piles of unwanted things as it sloped to the black wooden floor. It smelled of mildewing wood; of the sour poison of mothballs; of beeswax. Millicent lay in the center of the light, a small dark figure on a daybed draped with a white sheet. Jane worked efficiently around her, setting out her tools on a heavy scarred chest. No matter what nerves Jane had professed, as always, her sister seemed as cold as ice.

  It was going to be done. Her plan would work. Helen wanted to clap her hands and burst into speech, tell the two women a million things, but she restrained herself, moving noiselessly over to the white daybed, still like falling sun.

  Helen remembered the day Mr. Rochart had worked on her—the small white room, the deep sleep as he etched around the skin of her face to replace it. She had had such peculiar dreams. Strange to think that her sister had learned to carry out the same fey-powered operation.

  Millicent had been staring out the slanted skylight at the fog that obscured the stars, but now she turned her face to see Helen, and pressed her hand. “It will be all right,” she said softly. “I have told your sister everything. She will help.”

  “Excellent,” s
aid Helen, wondering what “everything” was.

  Jane turned from her preparations. “You did a good thing by setting this up,” she told Helen.

  Helen warmed at the praise. She felt almost holy in that moment, filled with doing things right.

  “We’re going to get her out of here tonight. And then deal with you-know-who.” Jane and Millicent exchanged a significant glance.

  “Good,” said Helen. “Wait, what?”

  “Millicent has to get away from this house for good,” said Jane. “As soon as I make her safe from the fey.”

  Helen did not like Mr. Grimsby one bit—the Copperhead leader seemed the coldest of any of Alistair’s friends—and heaven knows none of them were worth much; but still, she was shocked. “Leave her husband?”

  A small tap on the door, and before the women could react, it opened and a little boy sidled around the splintering doorframe, a jar clutched in his hand.

  “Oh dear, Tam,” said Millicent Grimsby, and she sat up and hurried to the small figure at the door. She bent down so he could whisper in her ear, his hand clenched on her dark skirts. In the flicker of candlelight, the contents of the other jar appeared to be moving.

  “I’m sorry,” Millicent said, standing up again. “Tam is supposed to be asleep, but he saw Miss Eliot from the staircase and wanted to ask her about her iron. He’s really a sweet child—I’m so sorry, I know it’s quite inappropriate, but you have no idea how stubborn he gets.”

  “I can imagine something of it,” said Jane with a rueful smile, and she knelt by the boy, one flickering taper in hand. “My face has iron in it,” she said. “Do you want to touch it?”

  Tam put his free hand to Jane’s face, considering. “What does it do?” he said.

  Helen saw Jane search for an explanation, not because she was flustered—Jane was much better with small children than Helen was—but because it was complicated to explain. Jane had been an “ironskin,” one of those hit with fey shrapnel during the war who wore iron to cover the grotesque, poisonous scars. Rochart had made her a new, fey-perfect face to replace her disfigurement. Now Jane had thin iron strips set right on top of the fey skin in her face to keep the fey from taking her over. At least Helen could remove her iron mask when she was indoors, but poor Jane would never look normal again.

  “The iron helps keep me safe from the fey,” Jane said at last. “Like the iron strips around your door and windows.”

  Tam looked up at Mrs. Grimsby, puzzled.

  “This house was built post-war,” Millicent said to the boy. “It’s too new to have iron. Your father is working on the problem, but with the fey suddenly everywhere, iron’s gone short again.”

  Helen saw Jane roll her eyes at that and she hastened to intervene before Jane could go off on one of her rants about how the city folk didn’t have any sense, building without iron in the first place. “I just realized that’s a bug jar,” said Helen to the small boy. “Are you collecting bugs?”

  “For my snake,” he said. “I found a little garden snake. He’s green.”

  Helen shuddered in delight. “And you collect live bugs for him? My goodness.”

  Tam offered her a shy smile, possibly uncertain whether she was teasing him. “Do you want to feed him one?”

  “Not now, Tam.” Millicent Grimsby shook her perfect face and Helen saw again how very young she was, younger than Helen herself, who was barely eighteen and a half. (Though she felt she had aged a lifetime in the last six months; it was a mercy her fey face didn’t show eye bags and wrinkles or she was sure she would have them.)

  “After we visit with your mother,” promised Helen.

  “Tam is not mine,” Millicent Grimsby said quietly in response. “His mother died in a motorcar accident, poor thing. I’m the second Mrs. Grimsby, you see. Married last winter. My mother thought he was such a catch.…” Her voice trailed off, lost, and Helen overflowed with sympathy again. What kind of mother would tell this poor girl to accept frightening, fanatic Mr. Grimsby, wealthy though he might be?

  “Can I stay and play with the birdcages?” said Tam.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” said Millicent. She led the boy to the door and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and squeezed her fingers before plodding back down the staircase. Millicent Grimsby stared after the small disappearing form, her fingers knotted together. She wheeled and turned on Jane, her mousy form straightening, filling with iron. “You need to make them all safe, Jane,” said Millicent. She moved into the light. “Make them listen to you.”

  Jane pressed Millicent’s small hands. “That’s where Helen comes in,” she said. “She’s going to help win all of The Hundred over to our cause. And soon.”

  Warmth flooded a tight knot in her chest. Jane did want her to help. Jane trusted her. Jane saw that Helen was worth something. And deeper, inside—don’t screw up this time.

  Millicent turned her big brown eyes on Helen, and even Helen, with her own fey charm, felt the fey allure. “I’m so glad you’re on our side,” Millicent said. “You know what it’s really like to be attacked by the fey. You can be a real leader of the cause.”

  Jane was the real leader, thank goodness, but Helen was not about to rile up Millicent before the dangerous surgery. “Of course I will,” she said easily. “But did you say you’re going to run away?” She could see it now, little Millicent and her small frightened boy, in flight, on the run. A dangerous mission, fleeing through the cold winter winds …

  “Not run away,” said Jane. “She is her own person and Mr. Grimsby does not own her. We are leaving for her own good.”

  Helen waved semantics aside. “And it must be tonight,” she added, seizing onto the new plan. “Mr. Grimsby won’t let Millicent have her iron mask, so she can’t leave on her own. She needs your help.”

  Jane nodded. “I must make her safe and then we need to go, now, while we still can. We’ll take Tam with us. You will go downstairs and pretend not to know a thing.”

  “I am excellent at that,” said Helen. She turned back and said, “Wait, though. What’s this about convincing The Hundred soon? These things take time, you know.”

  Millicent and Jane exchanged a significant glance as Millicent got back into position on the daybed. “There’s movement afoot,” Jane said. “Things are about to come to a head.”

  “Things?”

  Jane whispered over Millicent’s body. “The fey, Helen. The fey are rising again. Some follower of the dead Fey Queen, we think, has riled up the fey—is planning to infiltrate the city just as the Fey Queen had planned, by taking over the women. We can’t allow this opening for a foothold. We need every one of The Hundred safe as soon as possible.” Jane looked at Millicent for confirmation, who nodded. Jane stretched out a hand and laid it on Helen’s, a reverse of when Helen used to comfort her during times of ironskin stress. “But the walls have ears … and we must hurry to get Millicent and her son out of here. Come to my flat tonight after the meeting and I’ll tell you the rest. You promise?”

  Helen was not at all sure how her plan to give Millicent back her face had snowballed into Helen going down to the wharf to find Jane’s flat in the frostbitten November night, but she nodded to quick skip over the part where people wanted her to promise things. Promises were such cold, hard-hearted, rigid things.

  Millicent Grimsby lay down. Then she sat up, took Helen’s hands, and squeezed them. “You won’t let him find out you helped me escape, will you?”

  “Who, Mr. Huntingdon?” said Helen, startled by the woman’s concern. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  Millicent set her lips and nodded.

  “Now just relax,” said Helen.

  Millicent Grimsby lay back down, closing her eyes. Her thin hands clenched the sheets, the knuckles white.

  Jane carefully took some of the precious fey-infused clay from the water bag inside the carpetbag and smeared a thin layer on her hands, adding to the power she could control. Jane placed one hand on Millicent’s forehe
ad and one hand on her heart, till the woman’s eyes fluttered, and finally stopped. Her breathing and heartbeat slowed.

  Then she was as still as marble.

  “One hundred of them,” Helen said softly.

  “And you’re key to this,” said Jane. “You have one purpose for the next week. Convince every last one of them. Be single-minded. I’ll do the rest.”

  Helen swallowed. “But what if—?”

  “No buts,” said Jane. “I’ve got my own plans that have to happen. Scalpel, please, and then you’d better go. You’ll need an alibi—isn’t that what the detectives call it?”

  Helen wiped the scalpel with carbolic disinfectant and passed the handle to Jane. In her fey trance, the woman seemed like a lifeless doll, as if there had never been a mind activating that beautiful, silent face.

  * * *

  The crowd downstairs was on recess as Grimsby and stoop-shouldered Morse fiddled with the machine under the sheet. It might be a meeting, but it was still society. The earthy smell of liver pâté trickled by as more of the homely maids passed canapés and drinks. What was this fashion for unpleasant-faced girls? thought Helen. But she supposed it was Grimsby’s grim fanaticism again. Fey had always been drawn to beauty in humans—the faces that The Hundred wore were fey-beautiful. The ugliness of the serving girls was proof. No fey here. Grimsby himself was perhaps the perfect Copperhead leader in that regard. He had a hard, unfriendly look, and his features were too sharp and jutting to be at all pleasant.

  No fey here.

  Nervous energy coursed through her as she wended her way through the crowd, smiling and nodding. As she had told Alistair, going without the mask made her the prettiest woman there, and it was obvious in the way heads turned to track her passage. Normally she would have basked in the attention—the pleasure of it hadn’t completely worn off, when among these people who hadn’t been quick to welcome her after her marriage. But tonight she did not want attention. Tonight her heart beat a steady thrum at what her sister was doing upstairs.

  Helen was determined to help Jane. She remembered full well the moment of fey takeover. Only Jane’s quick action plunging an iron spike into Helen’s arm had killed the fey inside her, saved her life. Helen had roused from her fey trance a day later to find a team of the best doctors in the city hovering over her bed, waiting for any movement.