The Breaker Queen

by C. S. E. Cooney

  “To make sure I don’t break anything expensive,” Analise finished, scowling.

  Elliot shook his head. “Oh, Ana, no.”

  “Well, he acts like it. He looked like he wanted to pick me up and put me out the door when he saw I was here.”

  “I think. . .” Elliot hesitated. “I think he’s here to protect us. In his way. It’s hard to tell. He insists it’s because he’s afraid of his Aunt Tracy.”

  Analise scoffed. “Gideon? Isn’t afraid of anything. Except his own sculptures.”

  They looked over at their friend, where he leaned against the cherub-festooned mantelpiece. Gideon’s wiry arms were folded across his chest. He frowned fiercely at the floor, listening to but not partaking of the conversation between Chaz Mallister and Mr. Harlan Hunt Mannering, master of Breaker House. Those gentlemen were sipping aperitifs and talking politics.

  Phrases such as “labor legislation” and “bleeding hearts” and “goddamned liberal conspiracy to hike wages,” rose and fell until Gideon abruptly raised his eyes and stared at both men with such angry incredulity that Elliot was surprised Chaz, at least, did not combust on the spot.

  This he failed to do, but he did fall silent, downing his drink so quickly he choked.

  Mr. Mannering did not notice.

  “Gideon’s the only one who can shut Chaz up,” Elliot observed, shaking his head in disbelief. “I wish I could. But I suppose one has to be an Alderwood of the Seafall Alderwoods to get away with such fulminations and impertinences.”

  Analise’s laughter was as near to mirthless as he’d ever heard it. He wondered why she bothered to pretend with him. Partly, he guessed, it was due to the uncomfortable sphere they moved in at present.

  “It’s not because Gideon’s an Alderwood,” she said. “It’s because Gideon’s Gideon. I think he could’ve been raised by wolves and the result would have been the same.”

  With a short sigh, Analise turned her back on the object of their conversation, and hunched her shoulders against him, as against a raw salt wind.

  Elliot had never understood the fraught relationship between his two best friends. He thought they probably knew each other better than anyone else in the world, but would both have been far happier had they never met.

  “If I could paint like Gideon can sculpt,” he said slowly, “I would not only not destroy my work, I would murder to keep it safe.”

  “Well, that’s the difference between you, isn’t it?” Analise asked simply. “You scrimped and saved and sacrificed to be able to make your art. It’s your livelihood and your passion. But Gideon? The work possesses him. His creations come upon him like fits. He has no desire to continue. When he tries to stop, he starts sleepwalking. Stops eating. Dreams awake. That’s why he left his mother’s house and slums in a city garret pretending to be a pauper…”

  The arrival of Miss Desdemona Mannering and Countess Lupe Valesca interrupted further conjecture. Both women dripped gems and trailed furs. The Countess immediately silked over to Mr. Mannering and slid her arm through his.

  “H.H.,” she murmured.

  That was all he heard before Miss Mannering cried, “Darlings!” and flung herself into Analise’s and Elliot’s, arms.

  She lingered longer in Elliot’s embrace, kissing him on one cheek. She left a sweet scent of powder on his skin that renewed the fever he’d first felt with the maid Nixie. Her cheek was as soft against him as her evening gown. Both gown and skin were a satiny, tawny brown. Miss Mannering’s private seamstress, imported to Seafall all the way from Damahrash, had seen to it that the embroidery accenting bodice and skirts perfectly matched her mistress’s sable pompadour and slashing black eyebrows.

  “Are my artists happy?” Miss Desdemona Mannering asked them. “Do they have something yummy to drink? Gracious, how ferocious my cousin is looking! Is Daddy talking about Unions again? What a bloodbath. Dear me, what is that on Cousin Gideon’s jacket? Oh, clay. Of course. Poor boy.”

  Desdemona rolled her large eyes. They were full as dark as Gideon’s, but merely glittered, Elliot thought, where her cousin’s flashed. He did not know if the glitter concealed shallowness or depth. He found it hard to despise anyone who loved his paintings, but her presence—despite the perfume and the kisses and the solicitude—never failed to make him want to go on a long, lonely walk back home on the moors that begat him.

  Desdemona linked her arm through Analise’s and strolled her over to where the others were, asking, “Dearest Leez, how many chapters did you write today?”

  “I didn’t write at all.” Analise smiled guiltily. “I took the Cliff Walk below the house until I came to Three Bridges. I found the exercise refreshing.”

  Desdemona tickled her with fingers that flashed topaz and rubies.

  “Naughty girl! Though it is quite a breathtaking promenade, isn’t it? Daddy had it paved just last spring. But you must promise to write tomorrow! I want your next novel dedicated to me. Due entirely to your stay here at Breaker House!”

  Gideon stuck a fingernail into a golden cherub’s carved eyelid and dug in. Elliot flinched in surreptitious sympathy. He rubbed his own eye.

  “Miss Field,” said Gideon, not looking up from his vandalism, “may never write again. Why should she? Her first novel sold more copies than Memoirs of the Last Courtesan. She may rest on her laurels until she dies. And then, embalmed and entombed amongst the great literary minds of the New Century, her monument shall still read, Analise Field, Authoress.”

  Desdemona giggled. Chaz and the Countess tittered, their tones matching so precisely that Elliot suspected Chaz of mocking Lupe Valesca as much as he mocked Analise. Mr. Mannering just grunted and refilled his glass.

  Only when Analise tugged her arm free of Desdemona’s did Gideon let his fingers fall from the cherub’s desecrated eyeball. Elliot took a step toward them, then stopped. To intervene in their fights was like stepping bodily between two opposing cannons.

  “I shall write a book about a coward,” Analise spat, “who dies bitter and alone, leaving no good works behind him, no friends to mourn him, and no mark on the world except a scratch in the dirt where they bury him.”

  “How very modern, Miss Field,” Gideon sneered. “Mother will love it. Mind, she won’t read it, but she’ll pass it right along to her publisher friends who’ll give you a half million advance and their firstborn children besides.”

  “I didn’t ask you to give my first book to your mother!” Analise’s freckled face had turned a bright, hectic red. “I didn’t know that’s what you intended when you asked me if you might read it. It wasn’t even a finished draft. It wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready! For any of this!”

  “Ready or not,” Gideon spread his hands, “here you are.”

  Analise snatched the aperitif from Mr. Harlan Hunt Mannering’s fingers and dashed the remaining contents into Gideon’s face.

  “Ana!” Elliot said involuntarily. A single look from Gideon acted like a blow to the face. Bile flooded his throat, its acids eating any further protests.

  “I was invited,” Analise said, tears streaming down her face. “Damn you, Gideon, I was invited.”

  “Uninvite yourself,” Gideon suggested, gentle as sleet falling. “Breaker House is not for you.”

  Analise turned and fled the room.

  Into the startled silence that ensued, Chaz drawled out, “I’d say it was about time for dinner, wouldn’t you?”

  The Countess tittered again. “Oh, my yes!”

  “I don’t know where you find ‘em Des,” her father rumbled, offering Desdemona his free arm and escorting both her and the Countess to the table. “Well—I know where he came from,” he added, indicating Gideon with a jut of the chin. “The Alderwoods always did run to the eccentric. Did you know, Tracy once fancied herself something of a pianist? But her sense of rhythm was rotten, Dessie, just foul. And one day I had to tell her. Your mother attended, of course. Never touched finger to ivory again, did she, and never missed it for a day, I
’m sure.”

  Elliot saw Desdemona’s face as her father seated her at his right hand. For a moment he saw also what the glitter in her dark eyes kept hidden. The sharks swimming there.

  “I’m sure you are right, Daddy,” she said. “As always.”

  “When will Tracy be joining us?” The Countess’s heavy-lidded eyes lowered, a curious smile suppressed upon her red mouth. If Elliot had been a betting man, he would have wagered Mr. Mannering’s hand was on her thigh.

  “Mother comes tomorrow,” Desdemona replied, with an airy shrug of her bare shoulders. “Chaz, darling, come sit next to me and nibble my ear, would you?”

  “I’d rather nibble the shrimp, dear one,” Chaz replied. “But if you insist—“

  “I do.”

  “I am your most humble servant. Do you mind if I deep-fry it in coconut batter first?”

  “So long as you deep-fry an equally sensitive and fleshy part of your anatomy, my pretty Chaz.”

  Elliot hesitated before taking his own seat, wanting to join Gideon by the mantelpiece.

  Perhaps grab him by the shoulders and shake him.

  Perhaps knock him to the floor.

  He watched as Gideon’s hands came up to cover his face, his fingers trembling. When they dropped again, Elliot saw that Gideon’s face was gray and weary, as if he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes. He looked up and blinked at the room as if surprised to find it there still, and caught Elliot’s eye. Elliot stood, transfixed and slightly repelled by the distant, dying look on his friend’s face.

  He would dine with the others, he decided. Right now. He would turn his back on Gideon, as Analise had done. Wise Analise.

  “Howell,” said Gideon in a voice so soft that it lured Elliot closer despite himself.

  “Alderwood?”

  Gideon’s hand reached out to touch the side of Elliot’s face. Gideon rarely touched anyone. Now Elliot knew why. He thought his skin would begin to sizzle and slough off if Gideon didn’t release him soon.

  “If Ana tries to go. . .” Gideon set his forehead against Elliot’s and pressed. “Don’t stop her. Please. I’ll make it up to her. I promise. I might even apologize. But this place. . .It’s bad for people like her. For you too, Howell,” he added, with a tinge of regret. “But you have a sensible streak beneath all your dreams and visions. It anchors you to this world. Ana, though—Ana pretends to be all sturdy, sensible farm girl. But pierce that skin, and her internal landscape is. . .wind and fire.”

  Gideon shuddered. His hands fell away from Elliot’s face. He stepped back.

  “Wind and fire,” he repeated. “Breaker House will open its walls to her. And she will walk through them. And be swallowed.”

  Elliot’s vision washed blue-black. Eyes. Wings. Claws.

  Midnight is the breaking hour. Any door will do.

  “Gideon,” he said tightly. “I don’t understand you when you talk like this.”

  Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve gone over, you know. And come back. But you don’t really ever come back, do you?”

  Ducking his head so that his dark hair fell into his face, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo, and cleared his throat. When he next spoke, his voice was free of strain, clipped and nonchalant as ever.

  “I’m for bed myself, Howell. Make my excuses to the others, will you? I find I am not hungry.”

  “You’re never hungry,” Elliot replied. “Ana’s the only one who can make you eat.”

  His voice low and harsh, Gideon said, “I would eat from her hand like a dog.”

  When Elliot raised his eyebrows, Gideon made a face as though he had bitten into a bad fruit, and left the room without another word.

  ***

  Dinner was long, delicious, and a little like what Elliot imagined the Second Hell to be, where you ate your fill forever but only ever felt hollow. He would paint his impressions of the night, he decided, in a triptych. “Banquet of the Breaker House Condemned.”

  The first panel would show Countess Lupe Valesca, Chaz Mallister, and Father and Daughter Mannering all gorging themselves until the weight of their own excesses moored them to the floor.

  The second panel, a self-portrait. Of sorts. It would depict the demons coming to cart our dear, departed, approximately whale-sized artist away to become the next meal for the other doomed gourmands. The primary expression on the artist’s face, Elliot decided, would be one of relief. This stage of hell indicated absolution; for once he was consumed by the damned, shat out again, and broken down by fiend beetles, he stood a chance at being reborn.

  The third and last panel would be of Bana, the Bone World, where goblins dwelled. Bana stood between the Seven Hells and Athe, the world of mortals. Between Bana and Athe there shimmered only the thinnest, most delicate Veil, another world itself, where the Gentry Folk dwelled. An army of fiend beetles, bearing the artist’s soul on their backs (now, how would you sketch a soul? Elliot pondered) would be shown crawling up a bone ladder, passing through the rainbow-spangled Veil, and thence to a portal into Athe. Above, in the mortal world, a pregnant woman, looking very much like Elliot’s own mother, asleep upon her mattress, fitfully awaiting to receive her baby’s old, tormented soul.

  All through the port and cigars, Elliot made sketches on the notepad he kept tucked in his pocket. Chaz and Mr. Mannering, lost in a foul cloud of cigar smoke and politics, paid no mind to the shabby young man in the velvet coat, scribbling away in the corner. Elliot preferred it that way.

  But when the women rejoined the party, Desdemona Mannering made a beeline for the settee where Elliot had secluded himself. Her dark eyes were dangerous with curiosity.

  “Oh, are you doodling, dear thing? Do show!”

  Chaz called from the fireplace, “The Maestro’s used so much charcoal since you left him, H.H. will have to empty his mines at Candletown to refill his supply.”

  “Charcoal pencils do not come from coal mines, idiot.”

  Bowing, Chaz murmured, “Beg pardon, Desdemonster.”

  “Cousin Gideon’s the only one allowed to call me by that name, Charles,” Desdemona said coldly. “And only because he knows I won’t strike a family member in the face.”

  During this interlude, Elliot stuffed his notebook and charcoal stick away. He offered Desdemona his arm, and smiled at her in a manner his mother claimed was “Hell on the heart, kid.”

  “When it’s ready, Miss Mannering, you shall be the first to see it, I promise. Likely I won’t be able to do anything with the idea for a while. After all, I’m here to paint your picture, not indulge my idle fantasies.”

  “Oh, but that’s just commissioned work!” Desdemona’s sharp smile softened for him. “I want you to be inspired here too. You know I’ll buy whatever you paint at Breaker House… But not before I host a great unveiling for it and drive all my friends wild with jealousy that the work is already spoken for.”

  “You are very generous, Miss Mannering,” Elliot replied, vowing privately never to show the triptych in public. Let the world discover it post his particular mortem please, where it couldn’t hurt him.

  They followed the others into the music room, where Desdemona joined the Countess at the baby grand and chose a piece for both piano and harp they might play together. When the music began, Elliot slipped onto the terrace, and descended into the gardens. He skirted the fragrant flowerbeds, though he inhaled deeply and thought upon the maid Nixie, how she must smell just like this, like night-blooming flowers and a night-fallen sea.

  Lost in this reverie, he let his feet carry him where they wanted to go. This, apparently, was to be the long gravel drive in front of the house. He peered into the darkness, wondering why his feet had chosen this place. Elliot’s trust in his feet was implicit, no matter that their reasons for doing anything were often obscure to him.

  At the end of the gravel drive, the massive gates of Breaker House stood open. A taxi idled in the tree-lined street.

  Then the gravel around h
im washed golden with light as the front door to Breaker House opened. It closed quickly. Darkness reestablished itself. Elliot said, without turning, “You shouldn’t let him get to you, Ana. Stay if you want. You don’t have to talk to him.”

  The answering silence was grim.

  Elliot sighed. “All right. It’s probably for the best anyway.”

  Analise came to stand beside him, suitcase in one white-knuckled hand. “What did you mean,” she asked, her voice flat as a penny on a train rail, “when you said you thought Gideon was protecting us?”

  Elliot shrugged. “Ana, I don’t know. Don’t ask me. I—I sometimes say things, and they seem to make sense until you think about them, and then they don’t.”

  “And then they do again,” Analise retorted, “about a week later, when you look back on how some weird or catastrophic series of events unfolded. Don’t think I don’t notice these things, Elliot. You’re a queer soul.”

  He put his arm around her. “We all are, aren’t we? That’s why we’re here.”

  “There you go again!” She allowed her head to rest a moment on his shoulder. She was trembling with what Elliot supposed were stifled sobs, but all he heard was a single wet sniff before Analise broke away. Wiping an impatient hand across her face, she straightened her spine. “Well. I’m not here anymore. Or I won’t be in a minute. Gideon gets what he wants again. For whatever reason he wants it.”

  “He says he’ll make it up to you,” Elliot offered. But in his ears the words sounded thin of substance, and even in the gloom he could see the dubious crook of her eyebrow.

  “Elliot. I know how Gideon Alderwood pays his debts. Bring him soup once when he’s ill and he thinks he has to get your first terrible novel published.”

  “I like your novel,” Elliot said softly.

  There was a miserable pause before Analise replied, in a small voice, “I liked it too. Once.”