by A. G. Howard
Willow listened, too stunned to respond. This wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. She remembered her father. Bedtime rhymes and dancing on his feet. The mosaics he used to help her craft out of the treasures she would find beneath the circus benches. The day he bought Tildey … bargaining with a man who wanted the same doll by giving him free circus tickets. Then her most vivid memory: watching the life drain from his hazel eyes as a club dented the back of his head and toppled him to the ground—her gentle and steadfast hero as empty and used up as a crushed cigar. How could such tenderness, such self-sacrificing love, have been a lie?
“Concentrate, Nadia.” Louisa squeezed Willow’s chin, bringing her back to the present. “You must make Carmelo believe there is nothing in this world you want more than to get to know him. That you’ve been seeking him all your life.” A smug quirk turned her lips. “You look so much like your mother, you shall have him eating from your hands from the moment he sees you. You are to ask him to teach you the family business because you wish to follow in your parents’ footsteps.” She laid the dress on the bench behind her and turned back to Willow with comb in hand. “That business would be stealing, my little vagabond. Something you already have an innate knack for. It is in your blood from both sides, simple as that.”
The tugs on Willow’s scalp from the comb barely registered this time, overshadowed by her inner turbulence. Could this be real? Had her mother been a thief, married to a thief? Could that be why Willow had a tendency to sweep her morals beneath the carpet?
In a daze, Willow stared across the compartment at Nadia’s ghostly form. If this was all true, if Willow was Nadia, who was the dead girl drizzling water on the floor across from her?
Louisa coaxed Willow to stand so she could slip off Julian’s shirt. When the sleeves stuck on Willow’s bound wrists, Louisa took a piece of glass from the butterfly box and ripped the seams so the shirt fell away. Even in her vulnerable state, even with goosebumps lifted along her arms and torso from being exposed to the air, Willow didn’t attempt to cover herself. She didn’t even question her captor when she rolled up Julian’s shirt with Uncle Owen’s precious pin-watch still attached. Willow let Louisa continue her ministrations, numb and oblivious to anything but the ghost. She tamped the inner fires scalding her chest—saving the burning questions for Nadia. For this dead girl knew the answers to each and every one.
As if reading her thoughts, Nadia came to her side in a rush of cool air, the scent of perfume potent enough to sting Willow’s tongue.
“Get rid of Louisa,” the ghost said. “We must talk.”
Louisa looked up from working Willow’s legs free of her trousers, her nostrils quivering as if she smelled the perfume, too. Her face paled and she glanced at the shoes on Willow’s feet. She shook her head, whispered something about erratic imaginings, and continued to rip the seams of the trousers until Willow stood with nothing on but her pantalets and the shoes.
Willow waited for Louisa to conceal her bared breasts in a strapless corset. Her small curves formed an hourglass as Louisa fastened the loops and posts of the busk in front then laced up the back. Satisfied with her modest covering, Willow cleared her throat. “There is a way to take off the shoes.”
Louisa set aside the torn trousers. Her blonde lashes curved downward as she regarded Willow’s feet.
“I know Sala fears them,” Willow continued. “I suspect he is not even aware that they are in your possession. How are you to explain why I am wearing them? They certainly don’t compliment the dress.”
An amused smirk flitted across Louisa’s face. “What do you suggest? I cut off your feet at the ankles?”
Willow ground her teeth to hold back a nasty retort. “You will need a spoon, and some lard. Try the dining compartment. Surely they have such articles in the kitchen car.”
“I suppose I’m to grease up your skin and pry them off at the heel? The lard will ruin the fabric.”
“What does it matter? The diamond latchets will be left untouched.”
Louisa’s gaze fell to the shards of glass on the floor. “Such a clever girl. Trying to get rid of me so you can cut away your ropes.” She looked up, smiling. “Just like a thief, ever resourceful. You are going to fit in beautifully with our troupe.” She bent down to pick up the glass. “But for now, ‘tis best if I just remove temptation, aye?” After wrapping the glass inside the scarf that had earlier served as Willow’s blindfold, she took Willow’s hands and secured her wrist and ankle ropes to the rungs of the iron ladder. Willow was forced to stand between the bench seats with her arms over her head, unable to move in any direction.
Louisa gathered up the glass and strode to the door. “I shall return with a spoon and some lard. Should it fail to work, it can suffice as your lunch.”
Then she was gone.
Willow jerked against the ladder, but it didn’t budge. Her shoulder muscles stretched and burned at the awkward positioning. She met Nadia’s bewildered gaze. “Could you get these ropes loose for me?”
“It shan’t do us any good. Newton is in danger now. You have to do as Louisa says.”
Ever since Willow had first met the ghost, something had always seemed familiar about her. Only now, having at last put all the pieces together, did she understand why. “You’re Vadette.”
Her childhood companion sighed and flopped onto a bench, wringing water from her sleeve cuffs. “Yes. I always wondered what became of you after you left the children’s home.”
The air in Willow’s lungs grew heavy and cold. “Oh Lord. You took my place.”
Vadette said nothing, every bit as good as a confirmation.
“Is Sala who Louisa says he is?”
This time, Vadette’s wet lips framed an answer. “He is your father, by blood.”
Even without the answer, Willow already knew it to be true. Why else would her abductors have been so careful with her? Why else was she sent a gift on each birthday at the orphanage? Her captor was intimately familiar with that date, for he had been present at her birth.
Newton’s image drifted into her mental periphery. His dark, bottomless eyes … his round face … his black hair. Nothing registered as similar to the ghost’s. Though in truth, he looked little like Willow, either. But there was one thing which had tied her to him from the very beginning. An intense connection, an instantaneous bond which had surprised her. Something had always drawn her to him. She thought it was their similar situations—the fact that they had both been orphans or perhaps even his inability to speak—that had roused the intense maternal instincts. But there was more to it. He was her brother. The sibling she’d always longed for. Her heart would have brimmed over with happiness if not for her present predicament.
“How did it happen?” Willow asked.
“You remember our caregivers? The farmer and his wife, their in-laws?”
Willow nodded numbly.
“They were terrified after they lost you that day in Manchester. Not only for their lives, but for their funding. Sala had been paying them highly for keeping you. He wanted you safe and hidden away until he finished some thefts in the Orient. He was coming for you the very week of your escape, and upon your transfer into his hands, had promised the farmer enough sterling to make his family wealthy for the rest of their lives. Sala had not seen you since you were two. Being as you had trained me in acrobatics and taught me a fair share of Italian, I was the perfect doppelganger. They rinsed my hair with henna so it would be closer to the color of yours. They had a tattoo etched into my back to match Tildey’s. They forced the other children to call me Nadia, and pawned me off as you. And I was happy to comply. Remember all of those presents you received for your birthdays and threw away unopened?”
Willow nodded, numb with shock.
“I dug them out of the rubbish bin each time and kept them as my own. They were splendid. Cashmere shawls, velvet mantelets with French lace, jeweled hairpins, silk petticoats and stockings in bright colors. I knew the man coming for you was we
althy beyond imagining; and I embraced the opportunity to better my station in life. I pretended for eleven years to be his Nadia.”
Tears banked behind Willow’s eyelids. “So you had a good life. You were loved.”
“I was.”
“But the way you spoke of him in steerage … as if you hate him. You said he would corrupt Newton. I thought perhaps he took your life.”
Vadette scoffed. “No. He would never have harmed—” She turned her eyes to her dripping, bared feet. “I was angry with him. At times, I still am. You must admit, this lifestyle is not ideal for a child. It is why your mother left Sala all those years ago. And the man you thought was your father, he was a detective who had fallen in love with your mother while tracking Sala’s thefts. He was the only one who had ever found any proof. But before he turned in the evidence, your mother went to him and asked him to run away with her instead. They had to go into hiding since you were with them. Your mother’s choice won Sala his freedom, but cost him his family. And it nigh broke him. So, no. I do not hate him. I love him. Too much so.”
Pressing her spine against the ladder to ease the pressure on her wrists and shoulders, Willow studied the ghost, trying to read her expression in spite of the white wall showing through her. “You said Newton is in danger. Yet you vow your love for Sala. It makes no sense…”
“Newton is not in danger from his father. It’s … a complicated tale.” Nadia’s image shuddered. Whether caused by the shadow of the passing trees which had thickened to a forest outside, or the dead girl’s nerves, Willow couldn’t be sure.
“You have to understand.” Vadette’s ghostly complexion appeared to pale, if that was possible for a ghost. “Sala thought from the beginning that I was his daughter. I knew from the first day we met that I was not. Over the years, as I spent time with him, saw his gentleness with me and the other girls … saw his devotion and protectiveness … his generosity and cunning. I-I grew into feelings for him beyond a daughter’s love.” She sniffed. “I knew it was wrong, but yet it wasn’t.” Her eyes met Willow’s, a plea for understanding. “It truly wasn’t. For he was a man, and I was a woman, and there was nothing standing between us but a lie. A lie, that even should I have confessed, Sala would never have been able to look beyond. It was hopeless.”
Moisture gathered in the corners of Willow’s eyes.
Vadette slumped on the bench. “I took comfort in Sala’s pride. I was turning out to be a natural thief. He told me I was just like my mother. Your mother…” Vadette sniffled. “But Sala became overprotective after Newton’s precarious birth. He started leaving me with Newton and a governess in London while he went away with the other girls to do the jobs. When Newton turned five, Sala gave up thieving completely to spend more time with us. But I had always wanted to perform one more job, and to perform it alone, to convince Sala that I was better than your mother. Better than the other girls. So when he took me and Newt to Spain for a holiday, I arranged the Fontianna theft—dress, shoes and all—behind Sala’s back. I chose that particular prize because of the folklore tied to it. The illegitimate daughter that never truly belonged to the Spanish prince. I thought it fitting.”
Vadette stood, leaving the velvet seat wet from her clothes. “I hid in the rafters when the museum closed. Then I slipped to the floor, found the display, put the costume on beneath my clothes, and hid again until morning when I joined a tour group and walked out the door wearing the stolen costume, including the shoes concealed beneath my long skirts. I kept it from Sala as we travelled back to London a day later. Within a week, news had leaked of the theft. One night, I donned the costume and walked into his room, prepared to show him my prize, to win his accolades.” She buried her face in her hands. “He was in bed with Louisa. At some point, they had fallen in love. Sala tried to explain that it was all right because she was so much older than me and they weren’t related.” When Vadette looked up, the agony in her gaze was palpable. “He was embarrassed, scolded me like any father would his child. I screamed at him; told him that I wasn’t his daughter either. I told him my true name, everything about the switch, everything about my feelings, then ran out to escape the unbearable shame.”
Tears slipped down Willow’s cheeks—a hot race to her jaw where they clung for an instant before falling to the floor. “You threw yourself from a bridge. You drowned, didn’t you?”
“It was late at night … and no one was about. I stripped out of the stolen dress and left it on the street as I ran. I kept the shoes on … couldn’t bear for Sala to reap the spoils of my hard work. But I wanted him to be left with a reminder. A reminder as incomplete and empty as I felt in that moment.” She sobbed. “I would never have jumped had I known Newton was behind me … had I felt him grab my petticoat. He had been so attached to me his whole life … magnified by the blood transfusion. He had the Fontianna brooch in his hand. Had taken it from the dress. I suppose trying to return it to me.”
The thought of Newton’s tiny body plunging into gushing water from dizzying heights made Willow so cold her tongue stiffened like ice.
“Sala chased us,” Vadette continued, looking at the scenery now. “But he is terrified of heights and can’t swim. He saw us both fall and disappear into the dark waters. He cried out for help. Louisa came up behind him on the bridge in the same moment the heaviness of my petticoat dragged me beneath the churning currents. When I came to, I was hovering above Newton who was sitting on the river bank in dry clothes, holding the shoes in his hands. It was a full day after the event. Somehow, the shoes had drifted onto the banks—undamaged by the water. He looked up and saw me, and grabbed me in a hug. I realized I was dead when I could hear him forming words. He had been unable to speak his entire life. For me to hear him without his mouth even moving, I knew. Somehow my spirit had been entwined with the shoes, and my body remained at the bottom of the lake.”
“You were your own murderer.” Shock, pity and astonishment thawed Willow’s tongue. “How did Newton survive?”
“Louisa. She dove in after us. It was too late for me, but she rescued him. So I cannot completely despise her for what she did thereafter. She’d never approved of Sala leaving the business. It was easy for her to convince him that she couldn’t find his son in the blackness … that she couldn’t save him. That way, she could go back to the lifestyle she craved. She took the Fontianna brooch Newton held clamped to his chest in his unconsciousness. Took it as proof of his death, and so she could reunite it with the dress. She also sought the shoes, but didn’t find them. Perhaps they were still upon my feet beneath the water, or perhaps somehow they hid from her purposely. I cannot say. She carried Newton to a church, leaving him on the doorstep. She pinned a note to his wet clothes, claiming his mother was a widow giving up her child for adoption, knowing that without him being able to write well or speak, he could never tell anyone otherwise. The next day Newton awoke on a hospital cot. He escaped his room and went back to the river to search for me. That’s when he found the shoes on the banks … when we were reunited. Once he told me what Louisa had done, I took care of him from then on.”
“You’ve been chasing Sala for a year.”
Vadette shook her head, as if angry with herself. “Not me. Newton. Even in death, I cannot be away from Carmelo. Newt won’t let me.”
“Yet you won’t let Newton reunite with him.”
Vadette’s jaw clenched. She rubbed away a stream of water from her forehead. “I fear what Louisa would do were Newton to come back into their lives. Now that she knows he’s here, you will have to do as she says, or endanger him. Having the entire Fontianna costume united, all but the pin, has only made her greedier. She’ll not let him ruin her way of life again. She is the one who’s a threat to our brother.”
Willow’s hands had started to tingle, falling asleep from their unnatural pose. “Not anymore.” A smirk started to curl her lips. “Newton is safe. Soon he’ll be well on his way to our manor in London with my brother, Leander.”
; “You are mistaken.” Vadette glanced toward a window and the scenery flashing by outside it. “Newton’s on a train right behind us. He’ll be in St. Louis come tomorrow. Your lover is planning to trade him for you.”
“So, you’re to hand the boy over?” Judge Arlington barked. “Just like that.”
“Of course not. And would you shut your bonebox? He mightn’t be able to speak, but his ears work just fine.” Julian folded a napkin in his lap and glared at the judge before looking over his lenses at Newton’s back turned to them. The sleeping mouse stirred beneath a blanket on a bench seat in their private first-class car.
“You know, you’ve been an unbearable ass ever since Miss Willow has gone missing.” Judge Arlington took a bite of the thick, soft gingerbread Julian had brought back from the dining car for a pre-dinner snack, dribbling crumbs across his bulging belly. “I would think you’d be more beholden to the one who kept you out of the brig for destroying a stateroom on a passenger liner. If it weren’t for that tiny lad, there, I would’ve already absolved our partnership.”
Julian felt a pang of contrition. The judge was right. He had been cross and difficult to everyone. Well, everyone other than Newton. Pushing up his spectacles, Julian plucked off a corner of bread and nibbled it—though he couldn’t taste the sweetness or the spice. He’d hardly eaten anything over the past day and a half. His appetite suffered the same slow demise as his spirit. Life without Willow had no flavor, and he no longer hungered for it.