Copperhead i-2

by Tina Connolly

  “Oh, that party,” said Alberta. “Sure. But a few folks dropped by tonight after early gigs finished. Some people never really go home. Frye’s too kind to boot them out.”

  Alberta turned and led the way down the hall, gold T-straps clicking on the floor. Helen twisted back to point out the show posters and memorabilia to Jane, but Jane was drifting blankly along. “Do they just stay for weeks?” Helen said. The thought of jumping ship on her life came back again. She could crash on Frye’s floor like the other bohemians. Perhaps she would have to learn how to go onstage. She rather liked the idea of having a hundred people watch her sing a torch song while twenty backup men danced in top hats behind her. Except she couldn’t sing. Still, why should that matter in a daydream?

  “Sometimes they’re here awhile,” agreed Alberta. “Folks between gigs, in the off-seasons. Waiting for that next big role. Course, sometimes she gets tired of us, all at once, and kicks everyone out for a week and hibernates. But right now we’re in the other part of the cycle.”

  Alberta led them up the circular staircase to the second floor. It was not the wild party of the night before, but there were a handful of people crowded around a low table at the landing, playing some sort of game that involved much jumping up and reciting, or bursting into song. Rook was not among them.

  Helen turned to Alberta. “Honestly I was wondering if we could stay over,” she said. “Jane needs to sleep, and she can’t go back to my house. But Frye’s not here to ask, and also I wanted her advice.…”

  Alberta shrugged, the organza poppies rippling on her dress. “Frye would tell you to stay if she were here,” she said. “She always does. My sax and I have the spare room, but the attic has several cots, if you don’t mind that some actor might stumble up and crash there, too.”

  “That’s fine,” said Helen, who was more concerned with getting Jane to rest than complete propriety. She looked back at Jane, who was watching the wallpaper with a good deal of interest. How could she hand her problems off, if no one was able to take them on? “Actually I will take that nightcap,” Helen said.

  “I believe there are martinis in the pitcher,” said Alberta, pointing at the side table. “Door to the attic through there, lamp to the right at the top. Sheets and towels in the trunk.” She folded her arms, watching Helen with her perfect face. Helen dearly wanted to ask if her words from the night before had had an effect, but she knew perfectly well that if she asked point-blank Alberta would tell her no, and retreat. So Helen merely nodded, and poured a martini for herself and a tumbler of water for Jane, and pushed Jane before her up the steep narrow stairs to the attic.

  A chill crept up her spine as she went up the stairs, but she told herself firmly to stop it. This was not the Grimsbys’ attic. She found the oil lamp where Alberta had indicated, turned the key, and then found with relief that this attic didn’t remind her of the Grimsbys’ in the slightest. It had a lot of stuff, true—didn’t all attics?—but there the resemblance ended. This attic was a long rectangle with steeply sloped rafters—you could really only stand up in the middle. And the stuff here was more theatre things—costumes, mostly—hanging on loops of wire nailed to the rafters. Dresses, slacks, blouses, feathered hats and boas, all different styles and decades, separated one cot from the next and afforded a bit of privacy. Trunks and hat boxes were wedged between the cots, but a big black trunk nearest the door had LINENS painted on it in theatrical red and gold. Helen went quietly down the narrow aisle to make sure they were alone, then took Jane and sat her down on the very last cot, where Jane would have to pass her if she tried to go wandering in the night.

  “First some water,” Helen said, and handed the water glass to her sister, setting her own glass down on a trunk by the cot. Jane obediently downed the whole glass. “Now a swallow of this will help you sleep,” Helen said, and handed Jane her martini. Jane began to drink it, too, as though it were water, and Helen cried, “Stop, stop,” and snatched the glass away again. “That should knock you out,” she said. “Maybe you’ll sleep it off.”

  “Sleep it off,” Jane said dreamily as Helen made up the cot and tucked her into it. She closed her eyes and rolled over.

  Helen began making up her own cot, pondering what to do next. She had found Jane, but now what? Jane could not fix The Hundred in this state—nor could she restore poor Millicent Grimsby, even if they knew where to find her. Jane could not even simply be Jane. Helen would have to figure out how to restore her sister to herself, if a good night’s sleep didn’t do the trick. She peeked around the row of costumes. Jane appeared to be sound asleep.

  Helen eased off her heels and sank to the cot. She carefully pried up the bandage on her palm to check the cut. It seemed to be doing well enough, though she thought she should see if Frye had some fresh gauze and tape. It was a shame that she’d done all that warehouse-climbing in that skirt—the seam was ripped open, her shirt was smudged, and mud had smeared across her side and rear. The seam she could fix, but the skirt would need careful soaking and reshaping. Yet that was all she had to wear tomorrow, unless Frye’s generosity extended to letting Helen borrow one of the dresses up here. Curious despite the problems pressing on her shoulders, Helen looked through the clothes that separated her cot from Jane’s, automatically cataloging what period each dress was, and what sort of person would wear it. Lavender sachets hung thickly between the dresses, perfuming the room whenever she touched them. There were plenty of regular Frye clothes in the mix as well—caftans and slacks, neither of which she was sure she wanted to try, even if they would fit. Frye was much taller and more broad-shouldered than Helen. Still, that peacock blue knit dress there could be cinched with the belt she had on and look rather nice. With a few more minutes and a needle she could put a couple of darts in, raise the hem, and have something rather chic.…

  Thought became action, and Helen slid off her ruined clothes and slipped into the knit dress, adjusting it to get it to hang correctly. She crouched under the steep rafters to take the belt from her skirt on the floor, and stopped as something fell from her skirt pocket.

  The telegram Mary had handed her that afternoon, just before Alistair walked in. Helen’s heart raced as she ripped open the seal. What would Mr. Rochart say about what she had told him? And now, Jane was back, and she would need to inform him of the new situation.…

  “PER FOREST, SELF-STYLED BLUE KING IN CITY. MOVING FAST,” it read. “TAKING NEXT TRAIN FOR JANE. ROCHART.”

  Her face paled as she deciphered the cryptic sentences. Blue King—the Fey King, that meant. Confirmation of what Niklas had said—a fey who called himself the Fey King was here, in the city. Rochart had learned it from his strange, dangerous excursion into the forest with Dorie. They must have just returned.

  Helen stood, in a frenzy of what to do. She paced—no, there was no room to pace here, and things everywhere she turned— Energy sent her down the attic steps. The small party had drifted downstairs—they could be heard at the piano. Frye was still not there, nor was she in any of the other public rooms. Helen went back up the stairs and paced the second-floor landing, wanting desperately to talk to someone, to unburden herself, when Alberta stuck her head out to see what the noise was. Her hairdo was still intact, but she was in a pair of men’s blue-and-white-striped pyjamas, smelling of a clean citrusy soap.

  “A telegram fell out of my pocket,” Helen said incoherently. “And things are happening fast, and if Mr. Rochart’s coming to find Jane, where is he going to go? Alistair’s, and I’m not there.…”

  “Did you have too much gin?” said Alberta.

  “None yet,” said Helen.

  Alberta sighed. “Come to my room and tell me everything.” She turned and padded to the guest room, Helen behind her. The small guest room had a double bed, layered with several quilts, a dresser shellacked in shiny black, and hooks randomly spaced around the walls, two of which held a bright yellow and a bright orange dress. Under the window stood a battered metal music stand and an open case
with a silver sax in it. Alberta plonked down cross-legged on the bed and passed Helen a silver flask. “That’s actually decent stuff,” she said, “and if you drink it all you owe me a bottle.”

  Helen took a cautious sip and found that it was, indeed, a decent scotch. “Two nights ago Jane and I almost killed someone,” she said.

  “That’s an opening,” said Alberta. She began taking down her hairdo with its silk poppy. “Go on.”

  Another sip to loosen the tongue and it all came out, all Helen’s worries and fears and questions. “And I thought once Jane turned up I could go back to being her helper—let her make the big decisions. Except I don’t know if she was drugged or what but she’s definitely not deciding anything tonight. So now the question is should I go back to Alistair’s right now and try to meet up with her fiancé or not,” she finished up. “I mean, if he’s there, he could take over. But even if I do go, I can’t take Jane with me. This is really good scotch.”

  “Okay, back up,” said Alberta. “Now firstly, this fiancé guy is a rich man. He’s not going to go straight from the train to your husband’s house, even if he is worried about Jane. He’ll get a hotel. Secondly, if he has the sense given to little green apples, he’ll know things might be touchy at your place. He’ll send a message ’round to you for how to reach him.”

  “And Alistair will intercept that,” said Helen. “No, wait, Alistair has changed.” She took another drink.

  “It’ll be coded,” put in Alberta. “Haven’t you ever had to be dodgy before?”

  “Ppffft. Only when I was trying to get away from that doctor. And the creditors. And those men who would follow me around the dance hall and just watch, you know?” Helen waved a hand dramatically. “Just watch…”

  “I’ll take that, thank you,” said Alberta, and she plucked the silver flask back from Helen, peered inside. “You owe me.”

  Helen studied the pretty face sitting across from her on the bed. It was in fact very pleasant to feel warmed all over, and as though you could just say anything you wanted, without running through all those damn machinations of thought. “So are you going to change back?” Helen said. And the calculating part of her brain thought, well, maybe now is in fact the only time you could get away with asking Alberta that question.

  Alberta ran her fingers over the patterned silver flask. “I don’t know,” she said, and there was a connection, an honesty to the words. “It seems to me I’m completely justified in staying this way.”

  Helen nodded. “In fact that’s true,” she said. “Keep your iron and don’t mind me.”

  “Why haven’t you changed back yet?”

  “So I can convince people against their will,” Helen said. She suddenly grinned. “And so I can stay prettiest the longest.”

  It was the first real smile she’d gotten from Alberta. “Wait,” she said, and she got off the bed, and padded in her blue-and-white pyjamas to the open saxophone case. From a velvet pocket she took out a cheap battered locket and passed it to Helen.

  Even tipsy, Helen had a guess what was in it. “Is this you?” she said. Alberta said nothing, just waited while Helen teased open the locket to reveal two pictures inside. They were faded, the old blue-and-white photos of the pre-war fey tech. One was of an attractive, smiling, dark-skinned girl of about eighteen. The other was a woman a generation older.

  “That one’s me,” said Alberta, and there was a lurching moment where Helen thought she meant the older woman, but then Alberta said, “and that’s my mother.”

  “You look so much alike,” Helen said, and immediately modified, “Looked.” She glanced up into Alberta’s beautiful face and realized then what was hard for her, what had been hard all along. “Is she gone?”

  “It’s an old story, isn’t it?” said Alberta. Her hand closed on the locket, snapping it shut. “The war, you know.”

  “I know,” said Helen, and she covered Alberta’s hand with her own. “I know.”

  * * *

  Helen woke to find Jane standing at the end of her bed, staring at her. It made her sit up straight, which made her crack her head on the steep rafters. “Goodness, Jane, what on earth?” It was morning, and light filtered in through porthole windows on each end of the attic.

  “I know you like dresses and all,” said Jane. “But what on earth are we doing in this giant wardrobe?”

  “Jane!” crowed Helen. “You’re feeling better!”

  “If having one’s head inside a vise is feeling better, then yes,” Jane said dryly. “Honestly, where are we?”

  “The garret at Frye’s. You know Frye.”

  “Of course,” said Jane, and turned to walk toward the door, then suddenly turned white and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

  “Jane!” shrieked Helen, and ran to help her up.

  “I’m sorry.…,” Jane said faintly. “Sort of … dizzy.…” Her face was dead white.

  “When did you last eat?”

  “I don’t remember?” Jane looked even whiter, if possible. “I … don’t remember much, actually. We were at the Grimsbys’?”

  “Oh dear,” said Helen. “That was three days ago. Do you think you’ve eaten anything since then?”

  “It’s all sort of a blur,” Jane confessed. “I remember a warehouse … seeing you there.…” She grimaced. “I don’t remember it having much in the way of eggs and toast.”

  “Let’s go downstairs,” said Helen. She smoothed out Frye’s dress, which she apparently had slept in—well, she remembered doing so perfectly well, it wasn’t as though she had drunk that much—it was more that it was odd in the morning to discover what had seemed like a good idea the night before. She shoved her feet into her heels and helped Jane down the stairs.

  The landing was empty, but clinking sounds emanated from the kitchen, along with a low voice chanting, “Hangover cure, hangover cure…,” until a sharper voice made it stop.

  The kitchen was one of those modern compact efficiency stations. It would be rather dreary, except that Frye had knocked out a wall to meet the small dining room, and painted the remaining studs deep plum. The long-legged piano player from the other night was cheerfully mixing drinks for a small clump of less-cheery-looking revelers. Helen did not think anyone had come up to the attic, so she could only assume they had collapsed in a heap on the parlor divans. Through the gap between the purple studs Helen could see the other piano player, the rumpled brownish one, still looking rumpled in loud plaid trousers and frying up slices of bacon.

  “Morning,” she said, and there was a muffled chorus of grunts in response.

  Alberta looked up from the china cup she was cradling in her hands. Her face was friendly but wary, as if admitting they had had a moment last night, but not particularly sure she was ready to extend that into friendship. “Hangover cure?” she said. “The Professor’s frying up greasy things and Stephen’s making Dead Dwarves.”

  Jane raised her eyebrows.

  “Tomato juice and vodka,” explained Helen to her sister, glad to see a familiar disapproving look on Jane’s face. “And an egg.” Because the egg made it all right or something. Oh, whatever. Now everyone’s looking at you. Hurry up and move past it. “I’d take tea if you have it,” Helen said.

  Alberta nodded at the brown stoneware teapot next to a pile of mismatched cups and mugs. “How’s that bacon coming, Professor?”

  “On in five,” said the man frying bacon.

  Helen found an empty seat. There was a scarlet blanket draped over one of the chairs and she tugged it off and wrapped it around Jane, who looked as though she might faint or be ill at any moment. She provided her sister with toast, and water, and toast again, and then Jane said, “I’d better lie down right now,” so Helen helped her to the nearest divan. After that she finally sat down herself, cradling a cup of precious hot tea in her hands.

  “I’m pretty sure Frye’s up,” said Alberta, but just then Frye swept in in crimson silk pyjama pants, holding a newspaper, her color high.
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br />   Her gaze swept the room, taking in the two sisters. “You found Jane!” she said to Helen. Helen nodded and started to explain, but Frye held up a finger and forestalled her. “Tell me everything in just a minute. This is first.” She brandished the newspaper and proclaimed to the room, “You are all staying here until further notice.”

  “I’m not,” said Stephen, “I play rehearsal piano at the Pine Theatre at noon. Dead Dwarf?”

  “You may go,” said Frye, with a dramatic sweep of her arm, simultaneously taking the tumbler he offered, “because you are a man.”

  “Excuse me?” said Alberta.

  Frye plonked down the newspaper on the table. “Curfew Announced,” it read in big letters, and then below it, a raft of tiny details. “Curfew starts at sundown—which, I might add, is six o’clock this time of year—and it is for all women.”

  “What?”

  “Let me see.”

  “Not just all women with fey faces,” said Frye, indicating herself and Alberta. “All women.”

  Stephen vaulted the chair and looked more closely at the paper in front of Frye. “Not just all women,” he said. “All dwarvven, too.”

  “And probably anyone even remotely different after that,” Alberta said soberly. She exchanged a look with Stephen. The rumpled man frying eggs had come in to watch, and he stood over Stephen’s shoulder, not noticing as grease dripped onto the table from his spatula.

  “This is madness,” said one of the other women, a blonde in wrinkled sea green silk. “How will the shows run? You can’t have The Lady Was Willing without the lady.” She patted her hair.

  “I thought you were playing the best friend,” said a trim, plain-faced brunette.

  “I never said I wasn’t. And the point is the same.”

  “There’s a dozen of us in the Winter Wonderland panto chorus that opens Friday,” said the brunette. “I mean, forget all the leads for a moment. We play the snowflakes and singing skiers and everything else. You take out the chorus and you’d have a pretty sorry-looking show.”