by Everly Frost
“Whoa, Caroline.” His face was flushed, his eyes bright, and his jacket wet with dew.
I grabbed him to stop myself falling back against the wretched chair. The iciness of his skin stung me. “You’re freezing.”
“I’ve been out.” He laughed. “Really cold. But it was worth it.”
“What was?”
He set me straight and grabbed up the chair. “Where are you taking this? Alice got it so she could sit by your bed. She found it somewhere. I don’t know where. She seems to produce all sorts of things at the click of her fingers, that woman.” He hefted the chair. “Where do you want it?”
“I don’t.”
“Huh?”
“I, um… Do you want it?”
“Of course not. It’s a girl’s chair. I don’t want it. Why don’t you want it?”
“Look… Can you help me get rid of it? Chop it up or something?”
Timothy put the chair down and speared me with his expression. Flinty, sharp, and piercing. “This was our mother’s chair. I’m not chopping it up.”
“Our mother’s chair? But you said you didn’t know where Alice found it.”
He shuffled. “Well, I don’t. But it was Mom’s, all right? So, I think you should take it back to your room. Put it back there and don’t talk about cutting it up ever again.”
I glared at him, snatched a corner of the chair, and dragged it behind me as I wobbled back down the corridor to my room. In the next moment, Timothy lifted the chair up behind me and it floated over my head.
My bedroom was further down the hall. Once there, Timothy placed the chair in the middle of the room. I scowled at him, but all he did was shrug at me.
When he left, I glowered at the hapless chair. Then I gave it a good kick. It lunged back against the new rug, teetered, and almost toppled.
I jumped around until my toe stopped smarting.
There was no getting rid of the chair so I pushed it into a corner, waiting for it to stop bouncing up and down.
Cold for the first time, I sat on my bed.
It was my mother’s chair. I shouldn’t hate it.
But it wasn’t my mother who’d sat in it, pressed her sharp finger into my face, and told me I should die. Or… was it?
I became very still, trying to remember everything I’d heard. How much of it was real and how much of it was a dream? Maybe I scratched myself and the rest of it was all made up in my head. I pressed my hands to my forehead, the rocking chair still swaying at the corner of my vision.
If only I could make sense of it all: the cuts on my face, the wild dog, and the shadow chasing me—the same shadow, shrouded and murky, that I’d seen when I was a little girl.
As I rocked in time with the chair, the other me hummed at the back of my mind, soft and sweet, as though she was trying to comfort me, lulling me into calm.
I managed not to jump when Rebecca appeared and laid a gentle hand on my arm, tugging me to my feet, stroking my hair out of my face. I wished her touch would smooth away my thoughts.
“I’ll help you get dressed.”
I didn’t say “no.” Instead, I focused on the gentle patterns of her shirt and the deep blue of her new jeans. She gave my hair a last pat and opened the closet.
A bunch of new things hung in a neat row: jeans, shoes, a blue dress, and a loose-looking tracksuit. I pointed to the tracksuit, not ready to try anything tight across my still-sore skin.
When I was dressed, Rebecca helped me downstairs and we headed to the kitchen. She placed a bowl of oats in front of me and got out the ironing board, watching over me while she worked. I managed to finish the meal and rocked back in the wobbly kitchen chair, daring its old legs to break under me, until an unfamiliar voice interrupted the pleasant silence.
“Well, this will never do!”
A stocky woman occupied most of the space in the doorway.
I stared at her, wondering who on earth she was and why she was so upset. She had a plump face and graying hair, pulled up under a staunch, white cap. The source of her displeasure seemed to be the kitchen and everything in it, including Rebecca, who rushed to return the iron to the shelf.
“Young miss,” said the stocky woman. “This is not the place for you no longer.”
Rebecca stared with ever widening eyes as the older lady entered the room and flapped her hands with all the civility of an agitated mother hen.
Heading to the door, I was wise enough to stay clear of the older lady—even if I didn’t have a clue who she was. The look on Rebecca’s face told me she was torn between the desire to avoid those swishing hands and the need to do as she had always had to do: keep ironing.
In the end, she left Dad’s shirt, half pressed, on the table and retreated toward the door with me, an expression on her face that was half irritation and half relief, and probably a little bit amused squeezed in between. By the time she reached me, she clutched her stomach and the giggles escaped.
The older woman closed the door on us as if she was completely scandalized.
“That’s Mrs. Drew,” Rebecca said, catching my eye. “Our new housekeeper. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about her.”
I met her look with two raised eyebrows. “I think you shocked her.”
“Well, Aunt Alice can’t have kept the state of this place a secret. I’m sure the woman had enough warning.” She widened her eyes at me. “We do our own ironing! Shock, horror!”
“Yes, dear sister.” I put my arm through Rebecca’s and led her away, putting on my most hoity-toity voice. “But the proof of it must have been so much more disturbing.”
Rebecca laughed. “Oh dear. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to go into the kitchen again.”
I leaned toward her as our elbows knocked. “Not likely. Did you say a proper goodbye?”
“To the kitchen? Not likely.”
As we sashayed our way toward the back of the house to find a place in the sun, two other strangers raced past us, one of them muttering in French and the other ghostly pale. Rebecca and I made ourselves scarce, pressing up against the wall, as the two young women scampered toward the kitchen.
“Collette and Victoria.” Rebecca peered after them. “They arrived a week ago and they’re still in a fluster by the look of things.”
“Let me guess… Collette is the French one with the blond hair, and Victoria is the pale one who looks like she’s never seen the light of day.”
Rebecca smiled a sly smile. “Too pale, I think. Perhaps she’s not really human.” She yanked on my arm and propelled me out the back door. “I don’t even know if we’re allowed to talk to them.”
I shrugged. As the sunlight hit my face, my mood swung around on me, dampening as the light brightened. “I don’t think we’re supposed to talk to anyone anymore.”
Unless they’re rich. My Aunt’s pact with my father resurfaced—the deal to find us men who would decide our futures for us. I wasn’t sure if Rebecca knew about it. For a moment, I thought about telling her, but underneath her annoyance at being flung out of the kitchen, I sensed a sort of happiness in her. I couldn’t ruin it.
I made my way to the rickety wooden bench perched under the only tree behind our house—a cherry tree that harbored wasp’s nests more frequently than it bore fruit. I checked for spiders underneath and on top of the bench before I sat down. I suspected that Robert would drag the bench away soon and add it to the pile of firewood.
Rebecca stood over me. Her next words were not a question. “You don’t like it.”
“Having a housekeeper? Staff?” I stared past her to the house. “Having strangers here? It makes me feel… displaced.”
Rebecca sat beside me, playing with the gold chain around her neck while matching earrings sparkled in the sunlight. The chain was new and so were the earrings. I wondered when she’d had her ears pierced. “Caroline. It’s change, I know, but change can be a good thing.”
“I don’t know. Maybe…” I kicked the dirt with my bare foot and inhaled the musky
swirling earth. “At least Mrs. Drew didn’t see my feet.”
“Yes. I imagine dirty, bare feet would have been worse than the sight of me ironing. She probably would have had a heart attack. Maybe you should start wearing those new shoes Aunt Alice bought you, so we don’t have an old, dead housekeeper on our hands.”
When I didn’t answer, Rebecca put her arm around my shoulders and we stared out across the expanse of grassy land surrounding our house. The grass was cut short but not yet landscaped.
My shoulders slumped. “It’s all about to change. Aunt Alice—she’s going to change everything.”
“Yes.” Rebecca said with a gleam in her eye. “She is.”
Chapter 8
AFTER THAT, there wasn’t a day when a truck didn’t pull up and workmen jump out, brandishing tools, lugging new items of furniture, hauling boxes of stuff into the house—from elaborate paintings to feather-filled blankets that floated over us while we slept. New SUVs rolled up and our beaten up trucks disappeared.
The floor was repaired, new rugs arrived, and our old furniture was chopped up for firewood to feed the pot-belly stove in the workmen’s lodge. A large pile of wood accumulated at the end of the dirt path from our house.
The bathrooms were renovated one after the other in record time and the interior painting took place within the space of a week. We were each thrown out of our bedrooms as the painters worked their way through the upper rooms, but I didn’t mind sharing Rebecca’s room, even when she complained about the cold I brought with me.
Each night, she yelped as I worked my way under the fluffy new covers, and each night she shouted, “Caroline, your feet—they’re freezing! Why don’t you wear socks?”
I grumbled something about holes.
She giggled. “Holy socks.”
I rolled my eyes at her attempted profanity. “Don’t complain about my feet. Sharing a room with me means you don’t have to share with Edith.”
I wriggled until I was comfortable and then settled down. At first, I missed the tang of camphor that used to fill our heavy woolen blankets, reminding me of snuggling through cold winter nights or gazing through the window at the stars in summer. But I’d decided that new bedding wasn’t so bad.
Rebecca punched her pillow, upsetting my position. “Oh, that wouldn’t be so terrible since I know, for a fact, that she wears socks.”
I smiled and stroked her hair. In all the busyness, the other me had become quiet, a vague glimmer like the final wink of sun before dusk falls.
But now I wasn’t completely sure that it was my hand stroking my sister’s hair, like I would stroke the hair of a child. Her hair was so soft under my fingertips that I didn’t mind, even if the movement felt strange, foreign, and not really mine.
Rebecca was silent for a while. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
I stopped. “Who? Alice? She loves you. You’re the one who does everything she says.”
“No, Edith.”
I stared at the ceiling, muted with the shadows of the tree branches outside the window. I shrugged beneath the covers. “She doesn’t like any of us.”
Rebecca sighed. “I guess she had to take on a lot of responsibility after Mom died.”
“I suppose so.” The tree creaked, the shadows swayed, and I snuggled closer to my sister. “For what it’s worth, I think she likes Timothy the least.”
“Yes,” said Rebecca, her eyes meeting mine in the dim light, “and you next.”
“Do you think so?”
“Uh-huh, most definitely.”
“But, Samuel best.”
“Always Samuel best.”
“Do you think Alice will replace the toilets, too?” I asked.
This drew a snicker from under warm feathers and she was quiet for a long time.
I lay in the dark until I couldn’t contain it anymore—the question that threatened to choke me, the question I’d never asked. I bit my tongue, but I had to know whether my aunt had been telling the truth.
I asked, “Did you ever see our mother’s face? Do I look like her?”
The only answer was the rattle of the wind against the window, my sister’s quiet breathing, and the dancing shadows of the tree outside.
Chapter 9
I WOKE TO a light touch on my shoulder. The pale girl—the one with black hair like mine—stood at the side of the bed. “I beg your pardon, miss. Your aunt sent me to help you dress and do your hair.”
I checked on Rebecca, still fast asleep, before I slid out of bed.
I frowned at the girl. “You’re Victoria.”
“Yes, miss.”
As I continued to stare at her unearthly, pale skin, she repeated, “I’m here to help you dress.”
“Um, help me what?”
“Dress, miss.” She pointed at a blue dress draped over the chair in the corner of Rebecca’s room.
“What is that?” I asked carefully, taking glances from the corner of my eye.
Victoria picked up the blue shift dress. A navy, long-sleeved top and matching knee-high boots lay beneath it. As Victoria fussed around the dress, it dawned on me that I was actually supposed to wear it. I gulped. I’d grown up in jeans and t-shirts. The last time I wore a dress was when I was a little girl—one of Rebecca’s hand-me-downs.
“Um… Are we expecting visitors today?”
“No, miss.”
“Then… why…?”
“Your aunt suggested you wear this today, miss, to match your eyes.”
Her cold hands gripped my shoulders, turning me around.
My horror increased. “Stockings?” I’d never worn stockings in my life.
Victoria’s expression was stoic, but she was gentle around my wounds and didn’t pull the belt too tight around my waist.
By that stage, Rebecca was awake, watching me with bleary eyes filled with amusement.
I scowled at her. “Why isn’t someone making you wear a dress?”
Rebecca laughed. “Collette will be here any minute.”
Soon enough, I was trussed up and ready for breakfast. Or, so I thought, until Victoria wielded a hairbrush in the knots and tangles of my hair, transforming it into a neat bun at the back of my head. I gazed into the mirror and had to admit that it didn’t look bad. I’d have a headache later on though. There was a pin in there somewhere that already dug in.
Rebecca disappeared after breakfast and I eventually found her sitting with Alice in the living room with the side doors open, allowing in a shaft of sunlight, setting the room on fire with yellow and orange.
I did a double-take at what I saw. “Painting?”
Rebecca glided to me with her hands outstretched and a glow on her face. “Alice is teaching me. When she isn’t working on her special project, that is.”
“Special project?”
Rebecca led me to a third easel. “Come and try, Caroline. It’s amazing what you can do with light and dark.”
I glanced over at their paintings before I sat, bewildered, in front of a blank canvas. Another thing I’d never done in my life. Art wasn’t useful on a farm.
Aunt Alice created the shapes of a bowl of fruit on hers. Slashes of red, yellow, and green. Rebecca painted the same, but in black, white, and shades of gray.
Pots of many colors and paintbrushes of multiple sizes sat before me on the easel. I picked one of the brushes and held it like a pencil, imitating my sister as she stroked her canvas.
Aunt Alice glanced in my direction. “The doctor will be out this afternoon to look at your cheek.”
I dabbed at my canvas, sloshing the paint around, knowing I was making a mess of it. The harder I tried, the messier it got.
Rebecca smiled at me. “That really is a nice dress. Victoria’s done well with your hair.”
I stared at her, feeling like I was suddenly in a 1950s movie—one of the old black and white ones we used to watch on the box-shaped TV before it gave up the ghost and stopped working. I grumbled about the pins and Rebecca laughed.
“You’ll have to get used to it sooner or later. The whole world’s coming and we have to make a good impression.”
I stopped trying to paint. “Why do we care what other people think?”
Rebecca’s cheeks flushed. “Caroline, you don’t want to stay here for the rest of your life, do you?”
“I guess not, but…”
“You’re nineteen. I’m twenty-one. Other girls our age are dating and going to college. Not—” She grappled with the words. “Living in a place like this.”
I jabbed at my canvas. “Well, then… how are we supposed to meet people when we aren’t allowed to leave?” I glared at Aunt Alice, daring her to admit her deal with Dad.
Rebecca glanced at Alice, too, who said, “We had to make sure you were well first, dear. Since you’re recovering nicely, I’ve convinced your father to invite some of the most influential families to visit in a month’s time. We’ll host an event—a proper one with a dance.”
My eyes narrowed. They had to ‘make sure I was well.’ There was something about the way she said it, as though there was something wrong with me.
I knew there was. Something very wrong. There was someone else inside my thoughts, pushing my feelings around like snow in winter. And there was someone outside me, too, like a mirror reflection of the other me—a shadow that stalked me, hidden in every dark corner, telling me to die.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “So soon?”
Rebecca’s retort was sharp. “It’s enough time for everyone to arrive.”
I bit my tongue. My eyes dropped to the pots of paint. It meant a lot to Rebecca. I could see that. But the thought of parading before other people filled me with terror. What would they think of the terrible scar on my face? Would they look past it and see me underneath? Or would they judge me based on something that was done to me, something I had no control over?
The only thing I could control in that moment was my voice. “Who is everyone?”
Rebecca put down her paintbrush. “All of Dad’s colleagues in cities around the country. I had no idea until Alice told me. Dad has millions of dollars of investments in houses and companies. Millions. When they were first married, our parents were at the center of everything; hosting events, parties, going to the races. Dad owns racehorses, Caroline.”