Pantomime

by Laura Lam

  "Only Bart and Damien are horrible," I said without thinking and pressed my lips together.

  "So you do know them."

  "I do."

  "You know a group of nobles. By first name." Her voice was flat. "Who the Styx are you?"

  "I'm Micah Grey now. It doesn't matter who I was before."

  "It does matter."

  Nerves gnawed at my stomach. "I only knew them because they came to my father's shop. He was a luminary," I said, the lie coming far too easily to my lips. "He sold glass globes like the ones in the circus tent, but more sophisticated. Some of the rarer globes have been shaped, like flowers and dragons and the like. They're very popular with the nobility."

  "So why do you know them by first names?"

  "When we were younger, our differences in social standing did not matter so much. We would play together sometimes, when their parents came to the shop. Sometimes they'd leave their children there while they did their other shopping, knowing that my mother would keep an eye on them."

  She looked away from me. I did not know if she believed me or not. I hated lying to her. I had been lying to her every day, and as we grew closer I could not help feeling that she did not know me at all. How could I know she'd accept who and what I really was? Was I willing to risk losing her? I needed to tell her everything. And soon. But how?

  "Let's go. We might be late for practice," she said. I sighed, letting the questions drift away for now.

  My hand was still in hers. I did not pull away. "I'm sorry for what he said. You were brilliant though, to stand up to him. He's all talk and bluster. His father's a politician."

  She relaxed into my embrace. "That explains a lot."

  I laughed. "And besides, it's true, you do have nice legs," I said, shocked at my boldness. I wondered if I was being too forward, but she laughed in surprise and slapped me on the arm. "Come on," I said.

  We returned to the circus, hand in hand.

  17

  SPRING: THE CRACKED TEACUP

  "Once, a wolf girl fell in love with a human. She wished and wished that they could be together, and she wished so hard that the Lady of the Moon let three stars fall from the sky and onto the wolf girl's fur. Even though the moon was little more than a scimitar in the sky rather than a full moon, she transformed into a beautiful woman. The Lady cautioned her that she must leave her beastly nature behind and remain a woman, and the former wolf girl promised. She wore three diamonds around her neck.

  The man she fell in love with loved her in turn, and they married beneath the light of the full Penmoon, with the girl's pack watching from between the trees.

  Their marriage was a happy one, until one night a man crept into their home, aiming to steal all they had. The robber grabbed the diamonds from her neck, and she turned back into a wolf and fell upon the man like the beast that she was. Her husband, though grateful that she saved him, could no longer be with her, and she escaped into the forest, realizing that she was happier there. Much as one wishes, one cannot escape one's nature."

  "The Man and the Jeweled Wolf," HESTIA'S FABLES

  A few nights after the debutante ball, I woke up hungry. I was always hungry during that time of my life. Every morsel of food seemed to go toward helping me grow taller rather than fuller. I crept downstairs to the pantry and made myself a sandwich from the leftover roast from dinner and had a bowl of spiced plums and cream, gulping the food down. I made myself a cup of mint tea to take to my room with me before I fell back asleep. When I was nearly to the servants' staircase, I heard voices from the parlor. I recognized my parents' voices, raised in anger. They must have been there as I passed earlier, but had not been shouting. I thought I heard my name.

  I pressed my ear to the crack in the door.

  "Of course this is what must be done," Mother said, her voice firm.

  "None of the others suggested such a radical course."

  "That's because all of the specialists we have seen are useless and have recommended nothing at all!"

  "Nothing like this has been done before. We don't know the risks. What if it makes things worse?"

  "How can it be worse than it is now? As time passes, she is growing more masculine. I see her changing right before my eyes. The Hawthornes have made an offer for Iphigenia's hand for Oswin. This is our only chance to make things right. For Iphigenia to marry as a woman." My stomach tightened.

  "Perhaps things are already right. Perhaps Iphigenia is meant to be masculine rather than feminine, or somewhere in the middle," Father said. "Perhaps we are being too hasty in marrying her off to the first family to make an offer, even with their good standing. You're so quick to see the worst in everything. This is how Iphigenia was made. I believe it is the will of the Couple."

  "Yes, yes," Mother said, and her dress swished as she paced the room. "I know you think Iphigenia is special how she is, and that is why you agreed to take her into our household without my consent, merely because some doctor came into your office and begged."

  My tea cup fell to the plush carpet, bounced, and the mint tea bled over the Arrasian hall rug.

  Father sighed. I could just imagine his round form reclining on the settee, a hand stroking his whiskers, the other holding the pipe he was never without in the evenings. A short glass of brandy would be on the bedside table. He was up late every night in that study, reading a book of law or history. I had always found it amusing that he conformed in nearly every way to the stereotype of what a lawyer and minor nobleman was meant to be like. Perhaps he cultivated that image, like Mother did with the inflections of her voice.

  "He hardly begged," the man I had thought to be my father said. "He reasoned, very logically. You could not have a second child. You were elated until you discovered her… condition."

  "An' you were mighty grateful for the money he threw at you for her," Mother said, her cultured tones roughening about the edges.

  "As I recall, you were far more interested in that than me. You were so proud about that extra title, for the possibility of an estate in the Emerald Bowl."

  I could not even blink.

  "I am grateful for that money. And I'm grateful for Iphigenia. You know that. But I'm not grateful that as soon as we discovered what she was, this Doctor Pozzi was suddenly nowhere to be found. Yes, it is a condition. A condition that now has a cure."

  "I'm still not convinced this is a cure."

  "Iphigenia can become a girl. Only a girl. Doctor Ambrose is positive that the surgery would be successful. She'd have a bit of scarring, but he says it will be minimal. Between that and some daily medication, she would be female."

  "I don't think Gene could ever be wholly female, considering how fond she is of boyish things, especially as of late. Besides, wouldn't removing… half… affect her in some way?"

  "It may result in her not enjoying the marital bed as much as another woman…" She cleared her throat, embarrassed at mentioning such an indelicate subject. "But at least she would have a chance at a marital bed!"

  I could not breathe. My vision swam and I slumped against the wood paneling of the hallway. I cupped my hands between my legs and shuddered. I did not like what I was, but I liked this proposed cure even less. Deep down, I had known that one day it might have come to this.

  "You do have a point," Father said grudgingly. "No man will want her as she is." Tears pricked my eyes as I thought of Damien. He had not wanted me.

  "We are financially secure as of now, but if we have to keep Iphigenia on as a spinster her whole life, she will be a drain."

  My breath caught in a muffled sob. I pressed my fingers so hard against my lips the edges of my teeth almost cut my mouth.

  "That still won't begin to negate the money we were given. I don't like this. What if we were not meant to do this to Iphigenia?"

  "Then he would have said something to you about it. Iphigenia was probably a child he fathered on a woman he was not meant to, and the Couple created her like this as a punishment, and the man decided to m
ake her our burden to bear."

  A hot tear slid down my cheek.

  She sighed. "You don't have to like it, Stuart. You just have to realize it is the best thing for Iphigenia. You want what's best for her, don't you?" Her voice became sly and wheedling, and I knew my fate was sealed. With enough effort, Mother could get Father to agree to anything.

  I darted up the stairs, not caring that I had left the teacup on the floor.

  I awoke far too early the next morning, hoping that it had all been a dream. I lay in bed, curled into a small ball beneath the covers, convinced that it had been a horrible nightmare. The husband and wife downstairs breaking their fast together were the man and woman who had born me. Cyril was my brother. The doctor did not have a cure.

  I slid out of the warm cocoon of my bed and tiptoed down the hall. I pressed my ear to the crack in Cyril's door and heard his soft snoring. It was just dawn.

  My worst fears were confirmed. The teacup was still on the floor. It had rolled into the corner of the hallway, which was lucky. If it had not, Mother and Father would have seen it when they left the study. The mint tea had not left a stain on the rug – another stroke of luck.

  I picked up the teacup. A crack ran along its side. Cradling it in my hand, I took it to my room and sat on my bed. This innocuous little teacup proved that my entire family was not my family, that I was a strange unwanted freak born to an unknown man and an unknown woman. That whether I stayed or whether I left, my life was about to change.

  The sun continued to rise and stream through the windows of my room. I looked around with new eyes. How many of my possessions had been bought with the doctor's money? My desk with its delicately carved legs and large, etched mirror? The little pots of cosmetics that I never touched? The large bed and its canopy, the blue damask curtains? The wardrobe filled with uncomfortable, stiff dresses?

  Anna's words came to me, her voice echoing in my head: You've gone up two titles in the past ten years! It's rare for families to move so quickly after being at the same level for so long.

  And why did a doctor give me away? With a sudden twist of dread, I wondered: was I nothing more than an experiment?

  "Iphigenia!" Lia called through the door, startling me from my thoughts.

  "Gene," I corrected her. I hid the broken teacup under a pillow.

  "Good morning, love. I awoke a little later than usual today. I will have to dress you quickly."

  Lia opened the wardrobe and took out a brown linen dress with dark blue velvet piping. I smiled; it was my favorite.

  "Not too tight today," I said as she laced my corset. "My stomach has been upset."

  "I thought you seemed a little unwell this morning," Lia said.

  "Just a bit of a sore belly," I said. "I'll be fine."

  As Lia brushed my waist-length hair, I fingered my pots of cosmetics until I came across the flesh-colored one for "hiding imperfections." I dabbed some beneath my eyes and smoothed it with my fingertips until I looked a little more human.

  Lia did not say anything, seeming to realize that I was not myself. She plaited my hair into a plain queue. When she was finished, she gave my shoulders a squeeze, a quick kiss on the cheek, and left to do her other morning chores.

  My family was all silent at the breakfast table. I did not know what to call them in my head anymore. They were not my mother, my father, or my brother. What were they? Calling them Stuart and Veronica sounded wrong. I gave up. Mother and Father snuck looks at me in between bites of porridge. Cyril noticed the tension, perplexed, but focused on his food. With the cast on his right arm, it was harder for him to eat.

  I barely touched my porridge and left the table as soon as I could. During my lessons, I did not pay attention and doodled instead, drawing crude renditions of my parents with coins for eyes looking at a baby, a dark man in shadow behind them.

  That afternoon, Father returned from work early and came to see me in the drawing room. I was half-heartedly playing a song on the piano, but the piano was out-oftune and my tempo uneven. The song trailed off when he entered.

  "Hello, Iphigenia," he said and paused. I looked at him, wondering what he wanted.

  "Hello, Father."

  "I had the afternoon off and thought I would come home to see you. Would you like to go have an ice cream, like we used to?"

  Going for an ice cream was a fond childhood memory. There was a parlor not far from where we lived and we had gone every week after church, just me and him and Cyril, if he did not go somewhere else with his friends. It had been over five years since we had last gone.

  "Of course, Father," I said, but my stomach sank in dread.

  Father already had the carriage ready. I put on my bonnet, my gloves, and my cloak and climbed into the carriage. Father sat across from me, hands folded across his bulbous stomach. He cleared his throat a couple of times as if he were about to speak, but in the end remained silent. I stared out of the window, swaying with the motion of the carriage.

  We walked into the ice cream parlor. A few young suitors were there, the nobles with a guardian pretending not to notice the way the lovers' fingers intertwined under the table. Three children were happily eating sundaes in the corner with either their mother or a nanny, though more of the ice cream had managed to splatter their faces than reach their stomachs.

  The young waitress came over and father ordered two dishes of ice cream with caramel and chocolate sauce, sprinkled with walnuts and dried cherries. I was touched that he remembered what we used to order five years ago, but I no longer liked walnuts.

  I ate a couple of spoonfuls of my ice cream when it came and I ate the walnuts anyway, though their bitterness ruined the dish. Father ate most of his before setting down the spoon.

  "We have not been able to talk much as of late, you and I," he said, his moustache twitching. "All of a sudden you have grown so much. You are almost an adult, now."

  "Not quite yet," I said. The knot was returning to my stomach, and I wish I had not had the ice cream. The cloying sweetness lingered on the roof of my mouth.

  "You are almost of an age to be betrothed," my father said.

  "We both know that may be a little difficult to achieve," I said, forcing my voice to stay even.

  "It may not be so difficult as that," he said. "You have had an offer or two already."

  Yes. Oswin Hawthorne. I could not believe their family had already made an offer. Had Oswin asked them to? The night at the debutante ball with him had been enjoyable, but not particularly romantic. Not yet. But the Hawthornes were of a higher social standing than ours…

  I looked closely at my father. Just how much money had Father received for taking me into his home? And how had they done so without the entire nobility finding out? There had been rumors of my mother disappearing from society for several months and returning with me. People had been surprised; she had not looked pregnant when she left.

  "Who has made an offer?" I asked.

  "Now, now, they have not been acted upon quite yet, as we thought it too early," he said, interrupting my thoughts. "But next year, I think, will be soon enough," he continued. "In the meantime, you must fill your dowry chest. Your mother tells me you have fallen behind in your embroidery."

  "I have been practicing music and sketching more, Father." I managed to say. My fingers gripped the edges of the table until my nails blanched.

  "Well and good, my dear. Well and good."

  I toyed with my spoon. My hands were shaking. I used to yearn for a close relationship with my father, but I had given up on the dream long ago. We were different creatures.

  "Your mother and I will both take you to your appointment tomorrow," Father said, taking another bite of ice cream.

  Dread rose within me. "Why?"

  "To support you. I feel I have not been involved enough with… those proceedings." He was very good at dancing around a subject without saying what it was directly. I supposed that was why he won many cases despite seeming out of touch with reality most
of the time.

  "What will my appointment entail?" I asked, determined to be more direct.

  "It's just another appointment. A consultation, if you will," he said, smiling and shrugging, the spoon in one hand.

  He was lying. I looked into his face, his seemingly candid eyes. He was a good liar, but I could tell.

  "Can I visit Anna Yew after the appointment tomorrow?" I asked.

  "You may be a little tired after the appointment. It would be best if you came straight home with us," he said, benign.

  I felt so sick to my stomach that, had I been standing, I would have doubled over.

  They were going to operate on me tomorrow, and they were not planning on telling me.