“Alicia?” Ellis said, blinking. “Are you all right?”
“And how else would you have me be?” Alicia replied with a mischievous grin.
Ellis threw her arms around Alicia. “I am so sorry for what happened to you!”
“Ellis, stop it!” Alicia laughed as she pushed Ellis away. “You’ll ruin the dress.”
“You … you were dead … both of you,” Ellis stammered, blinking as though to comprehend what her eyes could not believe.
Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “Is madam playing one of her tricks again? It is in poor taste for her ladyship to be jesting in such a manner.”
“No, Margaret … Alicia … please,” Ellis said quickly, her words coming in a rush. “I’ve got to find Jenny!”
“But of course you do. We all do,” Alicia replied. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it? We’re all looking for Jenny!”
“What?” Ellis shook her head. “No! I’ve got to find her and get out of here!”
“Be calm, your ladyship,” Margaret said, her eyes narrowing critically. She turned toward Alicia with a critical frown. “It’s that old trouble flaring up again. Perhaps you should go and fetch the doctor…”
“NO!” Ellis shouted, her voice demanding and firm.
Both Margaret and Alicia glared back at her.
“I mean,” Ellis said carefully, “I am in no need of the doctor. I am perfectly well. I just need a little time to myself before … before…”
“The reception, madam,” Margaret prompted.
“There is a reception?” What game are these two playing at? she thought.
“Yes, madam; before the masquerade.”
“Yes, of course,” Ellis said carefully. Her eyes remained fixed on Margaret. “Thank you, Margaret. You’ve been a great help.”
Margaret hesitated, giving a glance sideways at Alicia that was not returned.
“I am sure you have other duties to attend to,” Ellis said in measured words. “Alicia will attend to me. That will be all, Margaret.”
“Your ladyship,” Margaret protested, “it is my duty to see that you are properly dressed and prepared for this evening’s—”
“I have a private matter to discuss with Miss Van der Meer,” Ellis said, her voice strong and brooking no argument. “That will be all, Margaret.”
“I’ll … I’ll return in half an hour, your ladyship.” The woman frowned but curtsied slightly before she left the room, closing the door behind her.
Ellis took in a deep breath, her eyes shifting to Alicia.
“Miss Kendrick, it seems, had taken the liberty of choosing the costume for madam this evening,” Alicia said through a pleasant, if insincere, smile. She crossed the room toward the party dress draped over the chair. She swept it up in a single motion, holding it up for Ellis’s inspection as though she had taken up Margaret’s role as her lady’s maid. “I believe it will draw out the color in madam’s eyes.”
Ellis drew in a breath as she gazed at Alicia.
“Ellis,” Alicia asked in a cautious voice, “what is it?”
“Alicia,” Ellis said carefully. “Who are you?”
“You are in a mood tonight,” the woman replied, her brows knitting slightly and her eyes narrowing as she spoke. “You know better than anyone who I am.”
“No, Alicia, I mean who are you supposed to be?” Ellis glanced around the room. “What’s your part in this charade they call life here?”
“I am your best friend.” Alicia’s lips parted slightly and she spoke through clenched teeth. “I travelled with you when you were so ill abroad. I am your companion and confidant. I am here for you, Ellis. It was your husband who brought me here to stay with you during your recovery.”
“I don’t have a husband,” Ellis said.
“You don’t remember a husband,” Alicia said through a crooked grin. “Practically the same thing. Rather daring of you, I must say, to have a husband. It’s never been done in our circles and no one is really sure what to make of the idea. But you are Lady Ellis after all. Who are any of them to question your behavior—especially me?”
“You hate it, don’t you,” Ellis said. “You hate serving me.”
“We all have our part to play, Ellis.” Alicia looked away and sighed, her hands running longingly down the smooth silk of the white dress in her hands.
“Alicia,” Ellis said softly. “What part am I supposed to play?”
Her friend looked up sharply. “You are Lady Ellis, mistress of Echo House … as you have always been.”
“Alicia, no!” Ellis took a step toward the woman, her eyes pleading. “I’m Ellis … just Ellis. You helped me try to escape Gamin. We tried to flee on the train—you, me and Ely—but the train brought us back into the town. The demon found you—killed you—and now it’s the train all over again in a house that never ends. I don’t want to play this terrible game anymore and I think you don’t want to, either.”
“This game?” Alicia burst out the words as a laugh. She carefully replaced the dress over the back of the chair. “This game is all there is. It’s all there ever will be.”
“That’s not true,” Ellis replied.
Alicia gestured to the small stool in front of the makeup table. “Will you please sit down?”
“Alicia, why are you…”
“Please.” Alicia cocked her head slightly to the right, her voice adamant as she again made the gesture with emphasis. “Sit down.”
Ellis stood looking at the immovable Alicia for an interminable time before drawing in a long breath and sitting on the stool facing the mirror. Alicia swept up a towel from off of the chair next to her and moved behind Ellis almost at once. Ellis thought it odd that the woman should be obsessed with getting her hair dry when her clothing was still so obviously soaked through.
“Look, this party is being thrown by your husband as a celebration of your return to the house,” Alicia said quietly as she worked the towel about Ellis’s hair. “However, having been abroad for so long a time, perhaps her ladyship has become … unaccustomed to the rules of polite society.”
“And, I trust”—Ellis spoke the words as lightly as she could manage—“you have been instructed to guide me in these matters?”
“It should be my privilege to do so, your ladyship,” Alicia continued, tossing the towel back toward the chair. She took up a long-toothed comb from the table and started the work of untangling Ellis’s hair. She moved the comb carefully through Ellis’s tangled locks, taking the time to gently unravel the snags. “Now that you are home, we would not want you to embarrass yourself or the house with inappropriate behavior.”
“Indeed?” Ellis said, her voice quiet. “And what if I don’t want to behave appropriately?”
The comb stopped in Alicia’s hands. Her voice was quavering as she spoke in almost a whisper. “No, Ellis, please! They’ll find out … he’ll find out.”
Ellis, frustrated, looked about her. There were knobs to drawers on either side of the table. She snatched at one of them, pulling on it sharply.
The table scraped against the hardwood floor with a terrible squeal.
“It’s fake,” Ellis said to Alicia under her breath. “Not even the drawers are real … they’re just painted on.”
“I’ll ring for the handyman,” Alicia said with a slightly distracted tone. “He’ll have those fixed in no time.”
“That’s not the point!” Ellis snapped. “There’s a cheery fire in the fireplace in this room but it’s not giving off any heat! It’s as though we are living in a doll’s house.”
“You didn’t give him enough time,” Alicia said in a rush of whispered words. “This is a very old Book and he wasn’t prepared to change the Day. He’s never had to build anything this quickly before. It will take him time to get the details right.”
“Who? For who to get the details right?” Ellis demanded.
“The lord of the m-manor,” Alicia stuttered slightly as she replied. “Your husband, of course.�
�
“And just who is this ‘husband’ I’m supposed to have?” Ellis asked, both knowing and dreading the answer.
“Lord Merrick,” Alicia whined, drawing back as though Ellis might strike her.
Ellis hissed her words through clenched teeth. “He set this up so that I am the lady of the house and he is the lord? How very convenient for him!”
“He’s just trying to please you,” Alicia burbled. “He’s just trying to please us all.”
“Please you?” Ellis was astonished at the statement. “Alicia, you more than anyone else know what is at stake. You’ve seen the madness of this place. You wanted to leave it as much as I. If you could only just—ouch!”
Alicia had tugged sharply on a tangle in Ellis’s hair.
“Sorry,” Alicia said. “That was my fault.”
“Stop pretending, Alicia.” Ellis pushed on in earnest, turning to face the woman. “We can do this. Together, with your help, we can find our way to the Gate.”
“No, Ellis,” Alicia implored. “Don’t speak of it!”
“You were there,” Ellis continued. “I don’t remember much but I do remember you were there when I left. You saw what happened. We found the Gate together once and we can find it again. We can leave this place…”
“No!”
“Why not?” Ellis demanded.
Now it was Alicia’s turn to shiver in the room. “Don’t you know what happened to me after I tried to help you in Gamin? I was cast out. Out into the … into the Bad Place. The Nothing Place. Those were the rules, Ellis, and you made me believe I could break the rules. But I can’t. I can’t go back there again and you can’t go back either.”
“Why?” Ellis asked. “Why can I not go back?”
“I don’t know,” Alicia said simply. “It’s a rule.”
“Rules!” Ellis turned in exasperation away from Alicia. “Merrick’s rules! Rules he makes up that benefit only him and punish the rest of us. It’s hopeless!”
Alicia stepped hesitantly back toward Ellis as she spoke. She leaned close to her ear as she whispered, her hands resting gently on Ellis’s shoulders. “No, not hopeless, Ellis. There are rules that were written before Merrick; rules that cannot be changed or ignored. There must always be a Gate. Whoever’s Day we are playing, somehow I know that they must obey that rule. Maybe Merrick likes to hide the Gate and maybe he’s gotten quite clever at it but he cannot destroy it and he cannot keep us from it.”
Ellis reached up and laid her hand on Alicia’s.
Alicia considered for a moment. “The soldiers know about the Gate and so does Dr. Carmichael. Maybe that friend of yours…”
“Jonas?” Ellis said, her voice flat as she spoke the name.
“Yes.” Alicia stepped again behind Ellis and, hesitantly at first, began again to untangle her hair.
“I don’t know who Jonas is,” Ellis replied. “At least, not yet. I know who he says he is, but I don’t trust him any more than I trust Merrick.”
“It’s your funeral, Ellis.”
Ellis considered for a moment. She still did not remember who she was or from where she had come. She was not even sure whether she was alive or dead. All she had were the words of others telling her who she was and those from people she no longer trusted.
You can’t win the game until you know the rules …
Ellis closed her eyes. It was a memory from long ago. It sounded in her mind like a woman’s voice but there was no name or face or place associated with it.
You have to learn the rules before you can break them …
Another voice in her memory and this time a man’s voice. A voice that made her smile. She tried desperately to hang on to the memory but it was gone as a wave retreating from the shore. Nothing more.
“Alicia, just when is this masquerade?” Ellis asked.
“Within the hour, I believe,” she replied.
“Indeed.” Ellis nodded. Ellis eyed the costume dress still draped over the chair. “You say I’ve been mistress of this house before?”
“I don’t believe there were any others before you,” Alicia said more cheerfully.
“Was I a good mistress?”
The strokes of the comb through Ellis’s hair hesitated for a moment before continuing.
Ellis considered for a moment and then rephrased her question. “Perhaps what I meant to ask was, ‘Was I good at playing the part of the mistress?’”
“You were always the best in your Day,” Alicia replied.
You have to learn the rules before you can break them.
“Thank you, Alicia,” Ellis sighed. “Let me rest for a few minutes and then come back with Margaret to help me dress.”
“Of course, dearest friend,” Alicia replied.
Ellis turned toward the window. She could not see through the sheets of rain pelting the glass to anything that may be in the darkness beyond. “I guess the weather will prevent us from going outside.”
“Outside?” Alicia giggled. “What a fanciful notion! May I be of any further service, Ellis?”
“Not now,” Ellis said with a smile playing at the edges of her lips. “But perhaps later.”
3
MASQUERADE
Ellis set her jaw and started up the stairs. The treads were covered in a deep pile, crimson carpet held firmly in place by bright brass carpet runners. The mahogany railings on both sides were ornately carved and polished to a gleaming shine. The newel posts at the top of the railings each supported a golden candelabra, each of which was fitted with a plethora of small electric bulbs that filled the space with bright illumination. At the top of the stairs was a landing, the back wall of which was composed almost entirely of a stained glass window that rose nearly fifteen feet to the coffered ceiling overhead. It was a bright and inviting space that seemed to gently beckon her toward the upper rooms.
Ellis took every step with dread.
She wore the costume that Margaret had laid out for her. Despite Alicia’s repeated assurances that Ellis had chosen the costume herself, she had no memory of doing so.
Ellis hesitated on the stairs and smiled grimly to herself. It would not have been the first thing that she had forgotten. Indeed, it seemed far more likely that she would have no memory of something than that she should recall it. Nevertheless, she felt certain that this would not have been a costume that she would have chosen for herself. The outfit was perfectly tailored to her form but there was something about this costume in particular—a black-on-white rendition of a clown—that she found distasteful and slightly obscene. But her own clothing was soaked and this was the only option that presented itself.
Besides, she reminded herself, if one were to learn the rules of the game, one had to play the part.
“Ellis, are you all right?” Alicia, only a step or two behind her and slightly to her left, reached forward and took Ellis’s elbow in her hand as though to steady her.
Ellis turned and smiled at Alicia, conveying a gentle humor that she did not feel. “Quite all right. Perhaps just a little overexcited.”
Alicia, resplendent in her Egyptian accoutrements, smiled sweetly back at her in reply.
I wonder if she is lying to me as much as I am lying to her, Ellis thought as she turned and continued up the staircase.
Her eyes became fixed for a moment on the stained glass window. It was a beautiful design with an intricate, high level of detail. It was a curious depiction and yet somehow familiar. There were two figures: one each of a man and a woman. The man was shown wearing a powder-blue morning coat and pants while the woman was in a long gown of a matching color. They stood side by side with their arms extended slightly from their bodies, their palms facing outward. From their open hands, great swirling patterns of glass and color flowed, spiraling outward, forming patterns on either side of them that when taken together reminded Ellis of the wings of a lunar moth. As she reached the landing she could make out minute details embedded in the glass more clearly: ruins, castle towers, forests,
jungles, desert dunes, schooners, along with buildings and towns of every era and description. One in particular caught her eye. It looked almost exactly like the home that she had occupied in Gamin with her cousin, Jenny, before the world had gone mad. Ellis leaned in closer as she thought she had seen figures moving in the glass depiction of her seaside home.
“Ellis, please hurry,” Alicia urged. “Everyone is waiting for you.”
Ellis turned reluctantly away from the stained glass. The landing led to a pair of staircases on either side that doubled back to either side of a balustrade that overlooked the stairwell. Ellis could hear the loud clatter of her heels against the stone treads echoing about the stairwell. There seemed otherwise to be a terrible silence, as though the house itself were holding its breath.
At the top of the stairs was a set of double doors with frosted glass into a pattern of leaded panes. Beyond the glass, shadows shifted back and forth.
Ellis hesitated.
“What is it now?” Alicia demanded.
For a moment, Ellis wished that she were back in Gamin. There, at least, the world largely made sense. She knew little more now about herself than she did when she had first arrived at that train station. But at least in that seaside town she had some hope of normality. Now, however, she was in a world where she could trust nothing and no one.
You have to know the rules before you can win the game …
She furrowed her brow and then stepped resolutely toward the doors. She grasped both handles, turned them and pulled.
The sudden cheer startled her.
The room beyond was crowded in the extreme, packed tightly with costumed revelers from blue wall to blue wall. All of them turned the caricatures of their masked faces toward Ellis, each adding their voice to the tumult that struck her like an unexpected wave on the shore. She was confronted in that moment by a dizzying array of costumes and false faces. The woman whose gown was that of a shepherdess but whose mask resembled the visage of a lamb. A samurai wearing a grinning Kabuki mask. A figure in pantaloons covered entirely in pinfeathers with the hood that obscured their face in the shape of an owl’s head extending down into a cape resembling wings. The strange menagerie poured out through the double doors, chattering, screeching and burbling as they surrounded and engulfed Ellis.
Unhonored Page 2