Chapter Text
The road to Nevermore was long, and they rode in a carriage her mother had hired for what she believed would be the next exciting thing in her life.
But Enid did not complain.
She chose to look out the window. To watch the landscape change as August began to draw to a close and summer started to peel away. To listen to the steady clatter of the horses’ hooves. To her mother, speaking lightly with the coachman.
She had celebrated her seventeenth birthday a few weeks ago.
Now she was on her way to a ball, hosted by the family of a boy she had met entirely by chance.
She had met him on the very day of her birthday. She had been outside with her little brother and her best friend, Yoko, when Enid felt eyes on her from the side. And there, by the fountain in town, stood a carriage. Leaning against it was a handsome young man, speaking to the coachman while his gaze rested on them.
Though there were three of them, his eyes did not leave Enid. He smiled at her, his look like that of a scholar who had at last found the answers he had been seeking. He wore clothes that could only belong to someone of good birth. His smile was too captivating, like the smile of someone accustomed to getting whatever he wanted.
The next day, she saw him again. This time, outside her home, with the same charming smile upon his face. She did not know how he had learned where she lived, but before she could ask, he drew from his spotless satchel a black envelope.
The fine envelope bore a single name: Yuson.
And beneath it, in smaller script, “To the Sinclair family.”
Then, when she lifted her eyes to him, he simply explained, “This is an invitation to the End-of-Summer Ball at my home, next month. The date is inside. I do not yet know your given name, but I would be pleased if you came, so I might learn it then.”
Surprise fell over Enid. A boy was inviting her, of all people, to an End-of-Summer ball? Who was he, and why her?
He produced two more envelopes. “Two additional invitations. For your parents.” He glanced past Enid. When she followed his gaze, she saw her mother standing in the doorway, watching them with eyes both suspicious and curious.
And then, without demanding Enid’s name, or an answer, he took her hand and bent to kiss it. “I shall see you there, my beautiful lady.” He inclined his head, then turned on his heel and returned to the carriage from which he had come.
When Enid went back inside, her mother’s piercing gaze was hot on the back of her neck. And when Enid finally showed her the invitation, her mother nearly fell from her chair at the sight of the envelope. The Yuson family, it turned out, was among the most respected families in the country. Yet the reason was not something her mother revealed to her.
It did not seem to matter to her in the slightest. Her mother seized the opportunity at once.
She reread the invitation with wide eyes.
“Nevermore. Yuson. This is our chance, Enid. Your chance at a better life.” She rose to her feet in the way Enid had long learned to recognize as the beginning of a lecture.
“We will go. We will present ourselves to all the respectable families. Perhaps there will even be something to offer you. You are young, of course a virgin, healthy, and well-mannered.”
Her mother spoke in rapture, yet in Enid’s ears there was only the sound of ticking, growing louder and louder. Time, it seemed, was something to cherish.
It passed quickly.
And with it, so many other things.
No matter what she felt, no matter that she did not know the boy, or even his name, Enid knew this was a battle she would lose from the very start.
So she nodded. As she always did, the obedient girl she had been.
Otherwise, she had already seen what would happen to her brother. Or at the very least, she had heard the sound of the blows.
She swallowed, trying to gather courage. She could not be there alone, especially now that her mother had inserted herself into the picture. It made sense. She was only seventeen. And still, her father had been the kinder one in that house. Journeys with him had been different. Calmer.
That had changed. If journeys or travel happened at all, it was no longer the same. The house had grown too quiet. The warmth had gone with those sacred trips that had once been everything to her, back in a time that now felt far too distant.
A bitter taste rose in her mouth at the memory.
She would not survive a day at her mother’s side. Certainly not more than that.
“Mother,” she asked, lifting hopeful eyes, “may I please bring Yoko with me?”
Her mother studied her, and Enid could see the conflict sitting there.
Until, at last, she nodded.
“Only if she does not ruin everything.”
Was there anything to ruin, when the amount of information they had was so close to nothing at all?
Enid chose to thank her mother, and not say it.
The next thing her mother did was drag Enid to the local dressmaker.
They were a family that stood on its own. Not wealthy, but not begging either.
And still, her mother was not the sort to spend money on just anything.
Enid saved the cents she received as birthday gifts, and the daily chores that nearly made her forget it was her birthday at all only hardened the habit. She saved it all to buy cheap fabric and sew different things with it. For herself. For Yoko. Sometimes for her brothers.
Yoko came with them, because, according to her mother, just like Enid, her best friend had to look worthy of taking part in something like this.
“But Mother, I can still wear one of the dresses I made,” Enid tried, after the dressmaker told them what the cost might come to, and kindly reminded them there would still be fittings and alterations, because on an evening like this, everything must sit exactly right.
Esther Sinclair stopped what she was doing and looked at her daughter. “The dresses you sew cannot possibly be enough for an occasion like this, child. This is a respectable family. We have no way of knowing who will be there, and for some reason I do not know, you have bewitched the son enough that we were lucky enough to receive an invitation in a black envelope.”
“Bewitched?” The word left Enid’s mouth in a whisper.
“Of course, Enid. Do you think they look at people like us? Like me? Like you?” Her mother said it as a fact. Her voice did not rise, it only stayed steady.
And still, it felt like a stab, the kind that truly hurts.
“I do not know what the young Yuson was doing in a town like this. They look for girls from families of rank and respectability, child. And you, you must behave accordingly. And then perhaps we shall be lucky in this life.”
Lucky. The word grated in her ear, repeating like an echo.
Her mother turned back to the dressmaker, turning her back to Enid, marking the end of the conversation.
Enid knew, in her mind, what would come next.
After the ball, everything would return to what it had been, and her mother’s complaints, that Enid had forced her into this step and made her spend money they did not have, would chase her through the very house Enid was desperate to leave.
In one more year she would be eighteen, Enid told herself.
Would anything change by then? Would her mother finally see her as grown enough to make decisions on her own? Or would it only give her greater permission to hurt her, to force her into things and tasks, to be the only daughter who would never be worthy?
Either way, the girl said nothing.
Even if it felt as though her heart had begun to bleed.
Enid stood on the small stool while the dressmaker wrapped a measuring tape around her waist and pinned the fabric with tiny pins that flashed in the window light. Beneath her clothes was a thin chemise, and over it, the corset her mother would not allow her to do without, the laces pulled tight in back until it seemed every breath required permission.
“Enid, back straight,” the dressmaker said softly, then touched the rigid edge of the corset as if it were simply another fact of the world. “There. There. That is how it will sit properly.”
Enid tried five different cuts and fittings, but none of them sat as they should. Sometimes it was the bust, sometimes the waist, and sometimes it was simply the feeling that she could not move without the fabric pulling her backward.
“You need to lose weight,” her mother said suddenly.
Enid saw Yoko’s eyes widen for a brief second, but she only lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.
It was nothing new.
“It is all right. We will look for another pattern, Mrs. Sinclair,” the kind dressmaker said.
Her mother drew her brows together, thinking. “Fine.”
The dressmaker presented another dress, blue, in a shade that reminded Enid of her eyes.
It was…
“Oh. That is perfect!” Esther declared.
The dressmaker placed the dress in Enid’s hands. The fabric was soft and pleasant, light enough, something meant for evening, not for day. But now the true test was the comfort of everything. How it sat over the corset. Where the hooks would fasten. And how she was meant to walk when beneath the skirt there would also be a light hoop frame to hold it wide, and another petticoat to protect the beautiful cloth.
When she put it on, it clung close enough to make her forget how to breathe, but after the dressmaker helped her fasten it, hook by hook, and then gently pulled the seams into place, there was no doubt. This was the dress.
She looked across at Yoko, who lifted her thumbs with an approving smile. "You look beautiful," she whispered.
Enid blushed, but the smile was there anyway.
They purchased it, and the dressmaker promised one more touch before the trip, so it would sit on her as it should. She even mentioned, almost as an aside, that Enid ought to find thin gloves for the evening, “because that is how young ladies go to a ball.”
The first thing her mother had ever bought her in her life was a dress for a ball in a family of higher standing.
And despite what would come afterward, the complaints and the harsh words, her heart bloomed.
The days went by, and then the day came when the three of them were to travel to the other town, Nevermore.
The journey carried them through the heat of the day and into the setting sun. When they finally arrived, Enid felt a particularly unpleasant current pass through her. A Gothic entrance at the edge of a high hill was the first sight that met them. Yellow flames along the roadside, people dressed in colorless clothing, and a silence so complete that even the softest breath seemed to tear it.
They reached a respectable boarding house for women only, and even on the way there, people looked at the three women with judgment and cold eyes. And yet, at the same time, it seemed to be the norm in a place like this.
They ate supper at the boarding house, then went up to two small rooms, luxuries for one night only.
Two beds, one for her mother, and one for Yoko and Enid. Rooms smaller than the widow at the desk had led them to believe, but tolerable enough, given the meager budget they had left after the dresses and the carriage.
Enid was grateful she had remembered to bring along one of the books she had read recently. While the girls she had gone to school with read Jane Austen, Enid found herself reading slightly different books.
Her mother was already in bed in the other room when Enid sat in the armchair by the window, moonlight spilling in, too absorbed in her book to notice Yoko’s shadow falling over her from the side.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who reads St. Elmo, Enid.”
A startled breath left Enid as she looked up at her friend. “Yoko.” She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.
“Tomorrow is the big day,” she said, changing the subject. “Are you excited?”
Enid drew her brows together, then lifted one shoulder after a moment’s hesitation. “I suppose. I’ve never been to a ball before.”
Yoko nodded, her eyes studying Enid for a second too long before she let out a breath and looked away, almost hesitant, almost pained. “You need to sleep, Enid. Tomorrow is waiting for you.”
Enid could not help rolling her eyes. “Please, Yoko. Not you. Don’t start sounding like my mother.”
Yoko didn’t answer, but her gaze remained on Enid, leaving her with the same smile she had worn since their schooldays.
At last, her friend went to bed, leaving Enid alone with the moonlight, until she, too, finally went to sleep.
The big day arrived.
They had a few hours to spend getting to know the town, and that was exactly what they did. Her mother stayed at the boarding house while the two of them wandered through the alleyways, stepped into the church at the top of the hill, and even fed the horses hitched to the carriages.
Enid felt the townspeople’s eyes on them, two young girls laughing loud as thunder in a town that looked almost as dark in the morning as it did at night. But she did not care. Everything was new, like the books she read.
Books about love, happiness, and new lives.
She and Yoko were walking back toward the boarding house when a carriage, black from end to end, appeared before them. It was drawn by a black horse, and a coachman as pale as a wall sat perched on the box. Yoko was in the midst of telling Enid something that went in one ear and out the other, because for some reason, something, some instinct she could not name, caught Enid’s gaze, her whole attention, and held it to that black carriage, singular in its way. In a town so drained of color, they stood out most of all, simply because they seemed to carry even less of it than anyone else.
Her eyes followed the carriage until, at last, it revealed the passengers inside. Four people, two parents on the opposite bench, and two siblings, surely, on the other. A boy and a girl. Dressed in black, just like the carriage and everything that surrounded them.
And alongside everything that made the image eternal in her mind, the carriage, the silence, the people, Enid’s blue eyes stayed on one,
and one alone.
The girl with the braids was looking down at what she was reading. Slowly, she lifted her head before she glanced to the right. And somehow, her gaze caught Enid’s at once.
Even across the small distance and the height between them, Enid could feel herself being swallowed up by just how black and deep her eyes were.
Black and white on her, held so close it felt like life and death set side by side, touching, but never blending.
A walking corpse, or a painting in a museum she would never be allowed to enter, one given a special corner all its own.
Their eyes stayed caught on each other, like a thread pulling at Enid, until the carriage finally turned away and pulled her out of the strange, magnetic trance she had fallen into.
She blinked a few times, her body, her thoughts, and her senses returning to the present, finally noticing the hand that had settled on her shoulder.
“Enid, are you all right?” Yoko’s voice came from her right, and Enid turned to her, meeting her worried eyes.
“Yes,” she said, too quickly, before leaving the curious girl behind and crossing the road toward the boarding house, with the image of one person in her mind.
Not a boy with dark hair and a smile that could melt any woman, but one girl, a walking corpse that seemed to carry the living contrast of black and white.
That evening, Yoko and Enid helped one another get ready while her mother was in the washroom.
“So,” Yoko began, careful. “I only mention it because something has been on my mind. He doesn’t even know your name.”
Enid nodded. “I found it strange too.”
“Well.” Yoko smiled. “He does seem charming, does he not?”
Enid took a moment to think. In truth, yes, the young man did look like that sort of young man. A bright, winning smile, long dark hair, a respectable family. He was the closest thing to any young lady’s dream.
Exactly what the girls she had known dreamed of.
“He is, yes.”
Yoko looked at her, waiting.
“What?” Enid let out a small, uneasy laugh.
Yoko shrugged. “I don’t know, Enid. You must have caught his eye if he invited you to a ball after staring at you like a boy in love.”
Heat rose to Enid’s cheeks, and she saw Yoko part her lips again to continue, likely to tease her. At that very moment, her mother stepped out and cut off whatever she meant to say.
Or perhaps it was not luck at all.
“I must say your friend is right, child,” her mother said. She moved to Enid and helped with the dress, pulling it into place, making Enid feel bruised in body and spirit all at once. “And whatever this may be, Enid,” she added, turning Enid by the waist and fixing her with eyes that looked like warning enough. “Do not ruin it.”
Silence held for a few moments. The only sounds were those from outside the room. Families returning in carriages, children laughing, mothers correcting them.
Enid forced a smile as she looked at her mother’s serious face.
“I will not ruin it,” Enid promised, her voice flat, her throat holding back any words beyond what was required.
Esther caught it. She studied her daughter for a few seconds, then let it go. “Good. You look exceptional, my dear girl.” She smiled. She wore a burgundy gown, and her hair was arranged in a tangle of many knotted strands.
Enid wore her blue dress, her bangs in place, her hair loose.
“You’re going to turn every boy’s head with that beauty, Enid,” Yoko said warmly, and Enid turned to her with a grateful smile.
Esther’s gaze lingered on the young girl, measuring her. “There is no need for other boys when a son of the Yuson family is courting Enid, Tanaka.”
Yoko swallowed. Enid saw her steadiness falter, just slightly.
Enid wanted to defend her friend, to explain that she did not even know what the young man’s true intentions were. But the words did not pass her lips.
When her mother turned back to her own preparations, Yoko pressed Enid’s hand in reassurance. Enid looked at her, and Yoko only whispered, “It’s all right. Don’t let it spoil your evening.”
Enid could not have appreciated her more in that moment.
But in truth, she did not know what to expect from the evening at all.
When they stepped out of the room, Enid felt the looks of the lower class women behind them. Curious looks at how a woman sleeping in a place like this could step out of her room looking that way. Neat. Polished. Fit for a world she had never thought of as hers. A world of money, bright smiles, and far too many reckless decisions.
The moon stood out, shining over the town. A line of carriages stretched before them, as if the whole town knew of the event taking place at the Yuson estate.
When they reached one of the carriages, her mother went straight to speak with the coachman.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, tipping the hat that still sat on his head despite the night. “Where are you headed?”
Her mother showed him the address on the envelope, and the coachman did not even try to hide his surprise. “The Yuson estate, I see. And you have not brought anyone else with you. A gentleman?”
The innocent but piercing question sent a shiver through Enid, and she saw her mother visibly flinch.
“Is that a proper question to ask a lady, sir?” Her voice turned sharp.
The man rubbed at the back of his neck. “I only,” he began, but stopped himself at once. “Do come in, ladies.” He opened the door for them, and Enid could see the conflict in her mother’s eyes.
There were more carriages behind him, and Enid could only hope they would not ask further questions about what stood before them. Because she knew exactly how a woman of standing looked to people like this when she had no man at her side. Her father had explained society’s rules to her many times.
Her mother, on the other hand, liked breaking them.
“Mother, it is all right. We will ride with one of those,” Enid said. She hesitated before she slipped her hand around her mother’s. Her mother gave her a surprised sigh in return, but did not pull away. That was new.
Without another glance, the three of them moved to the carriage behind. There, by good fortune, the coachman kept his mouth shut. Not a word more.
But the looks were still there.
Enid and Yoko sat across from her mother, the three of them watching a town that had looked deserted only yesterday, now suddenly beginning to show life and light.
Together, they rode toward the Yuson estate, climbing into the parts that, Enid suspected, were never meant to be seen by people like her. Stone houses on vast grounds, iron gates set with animals, and so much gold painted onto things or hung upon them for display.
And now, Enid knew, it would likely be the last time she ever saw a sight like this.
She could only hope the evening would pass smoothly.
“Hey,” Yoko said, squeezing her hand. Enid lifted her head from where her gaze had gone still. She had not even realized she had been swallowed by her thoughts, by all the ways the night might end. She met her friend’s dark eyes. “You look beautiful, Enid. Truly. You have nothing to worry about.”
Enid smiled despite herself, squeezing her friend’s hand back. “Thank you, Yoko.”
Yoko smiled back. Then Enid felt Yoko’s hand move through her hair, smoothing it gently.
Esther was unnaturally quiet, staring out the carriage window without another word.
They had not spoken of how it was meant to work. In truth, beyond what she had read in her books, Enid did not know much about things like this.
What would be there?
A meal. An orchestra. Dancing until the late hours of the night?
At least Yoko was here with her. That way, she was not truly alone.
Climbing a hill straight toward one family, toward something she would experience for the first time, like so many other things.
When the enormous estate finally revealed itself, Enid felt a wide mix of feelings rise in her. Fear, curiosity, amazement at the wealth laid out before her.
Her mother’s dreamy words rang in her head. This is our chance, Enid. Your chance at a better life.
Because she was a virgin, because she was young and naive, perhaps even pretty enough for people like this.
But deep down, Enid knew it would not be that simple.
What if the young man had been there and handed out several envelopes to different people? What if it had been an attempt to spread his good name? Did he even understand she did not know his name, or did he think she was meant to? Was she meant to be here?
The questions kept rising in her mind. Questions she had not let herself truly ask all this time, letting her mother build a reality that was never promised in her head. Silencing worries that would only make it worse. Worries and answers she had tried to bring up, only to receive her mother’s familiar way of shutting them down.
The carriage stopped. Once again, Enid was pulled back into the present by something outside of her. The coachman helped the girls down, and together the three of them stood before the open gates of the estate among many other carriages, some covered in silver and gold that gleamed too brightly under the night sky.
Who was she fooling?
She was not them.
But the moment the doorman at the entrance asked for the envelope, her mother drew from it a cream white card, paper too thick to be ordinary. He glanced at the precise handwriting in black ink, returned it without a single question, and bowed slightly.
In that moment, something surreal passed through Enid. For the first time in her simple life, she felt important.
As if, for one night, it might not be so terrible to be away from her life, and to live, even if only for a few hours, the imagined story of another life she had read about.
The estate courtyard was covered in grass, with a fountain set between the front doors of the house and the gate where the carriages had stopped. Yellow lights stretched along the short white path, and different kinds of flowers lined either side of it.
Enid stood still at first, waiting for her friend and her mother, but more than that, taking the whole sight in.
Yoko’s hand slipped into hers, and without another needless word, they walked forward. Her mother came to Enid’s other side, and for once, her presence did not make Enid’s throat tighten. It made her heart widen, and her stomach steady with even, measured breaths.
When they reached the end of the path and the front doors, Enid could hear the sound growing stronger, strings and piano, and something in her loosened a little more. They entered through the doors, passing couples and men who looked at them as if they belonged, before the view inside met Enid.
The house was a blend of warm and cold colors together. Burgundy, a great deal of black, and touches of white and brown. A sweeping staircase in one corner, and in another, the orchestral music she had heard a moment ago.
A smile rose to Enid’s face as she took it all in.
Before them stood a woman who looked, suspiciously, like that young man. She moved among the men and women gathering in the rooms, receiving bows from the gentlemen, and smiles, and even curtsies from their ladies.
Enid understood who she was before her mother spoke a single word.
“Oh, Enid, do you see that woman in the gold gown? That is Clara Yuson, the lady of this house you are in now. Come, we must greet her. It is expected.” She placed emphasis on Enid’s part in the sentence.
Her mother had gone over all the important matters with her before they arrived.
Manners were above all else.
Esther took her daughter by the wrist, leaving no room to ask, or to wish otherwise, before she began walking toward the woman with her hair pinned up.
Enid was pulled forward by her mother’s grip, and she threw a startled glance back at her friend. Yoko looked surprised as well, but a smile began to curl over her face. Too ruthless to be innocent. Yoko murmured, “Good luck,” and turned toward the refreshment room.
Leaving Enid with Esther, on the way to meet the woman hosting the entire ball.
In her heart, Enid knew this was precisely what her mother wanted. Enid alone with her while she met Clara Yuson. And still, watching Yoko disappear among young ladies and gentlemen made something tighten in Enid’s chest.
She turned her gaze forward again when she felt her mother apply more pressure, heavy and insistent, on her hand. She swallowed, in a sound only she could hear beneath the music.
At last, they came to a stop before the woman, as a gentleman and his lady stepped away from her. Clara’s dark eyes met Esther’s, then moved to Enid.
“Welcome,” Clara said with elegance. She extended her hands briefly to take Esther’s, then took Enid’s as well, lingering over them.
“Mrs. Yuson,” her mother said, dipping her head slightly. “My name is Esther Sinclair, and this is my daughter, Enid.” She indicated the blond girl at her side. Enid offered a smile she hoped looked genuine, though her heart felt like war drums.
Clara continued to look at Enid. “The dress is lovely on you, dear girl,” she said, warmth surprising in her voice.
And something in her eyes looked very much like open sincerity, more than mere politeness.
“Thank you, Mrs. Yuson.” Enid felt her cheeks grow a little warm. She curtsied the way her mother had taught her, and could almost feel the rare approval flare from Esther beside her.
Unlike the other gentlemen and ladies who drifted back into the ball after speaking with Clara, her mother seemed to see an opportunity. The triumphant look in her eyes made that plain enough. Enid felt herself present in a conversation she understood nothing of, full of her mother’s careful performance, while the two women continued speaking.
She glanced toward the refreshment room, searching for Yoko without success, when she felt someone else join the three of them.
She looked forward again, and saw him. The young man she had seen all this while beside his mother.
His eyes were on her.
“Good evening, my lady.” He bowed, and Enid’s eyes widened in surprise.
Before she could say anything, he did the same to Esther, who smiled in victory at the sight.
“I am glad you have come at last,” he said to Enid.
His mother looked between them. “Bruno, do you know this young lady?”
Bruno. That was his name.
With five boys in the family, even her mother could not keep every name in order, it seemed. Bruno was one of the ones she had forgotten.
“Yes, Mother. I met her the very week I went to visit the towns with Father and Edward,” the young man said.
“Oh. Is this the girl you told me about?” Clara looked between Enid and Esther, curiosity mixed with judgment now that the missing piece had been added.
Well. Since Enid had been invited to this event, with two additional invitations, she supposed the young man had been obliged to tell his mother about wasting the invitations.
How did such things work among people of their standing? Was there a limit, or was it better the more people arrived? Was there some other reason his mother had known? The same reason her mother and her friend had teased her about it?
“Yes, Mother. Unfortunately, I did not catch your name when I invited you to the ball,” he began, and his expression carried something like apology in his eyes. Enid shifted, uneasy. “It was my last day in town, before I had to return home. So when I learned where you lived, I had to seize the opportunity. I hope I did not trouble you.”
She might have begun questioning him about how he had found her home, because it sounded a little suspicious, if not for the company they were in, and the way her mother waved a hand and stepped in.
“You have not troubled anyone at all, my charming boy,” Esther assured him.
Enid looked at her mother in surprise.
“Why don’t you take your time with one another?” Clara said, sharing a smile with Esther.
The two women began to walk away before Enid could say another word. Her heart pounded, bleeding, if only in metaphor. She turned her gaze from the two women retreating back to the young man in front of her.
“Well?” he tried. “Shall I have your name this evening?”
She pictured an intimate moment like that, the exchange of a name and a lingering look, as something that ought to belong to that spark she felt when she read of invented couples in her novels.
The spark was there, but not for those reasons.
Her heart was not racing from the desire to keep reading the chapter and reach the romantic moment she had been waiting for on every page. It raced from the weight of the young man’s gaze, the one who had now revealed himself as Bruno Yuson.
She should not be thinking of such things now. Or ever, in truth. Her mother always said the spark she read about in those books was nothing but a delusion.
After those repeated remarks, Enid would read only when her mother was not present, in body or at least awake enough to scold her for losing herself in fantasies.
And still, was this not the very fantasy she read about, the one her mother wanted so badly to believe in?
She swallowed, forcing into herself the manners her mother had demanded for all seventeen years of her life.
“Enid.”
Bruno smiled that wide, toothy smile she had seen before. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance properly, Enid.” He held out his hand to her. “Since you are here, I would be glad to show you the place you have entered. I assure you, your eyes will widen with interest.”
The spark in his eyes told Enid he believed it was an offer one could not refuse.
And in a way, it was exactly that.
Do not ruin this, her mind repeated, in her mother’s voice.
Do not ruin this, the words echoed again as she placed her hand in his, firm and calloused.
Do not ruin this, the voice returned a third time, distant as a whisper yet perfectly clear, as he led her deeper into the estate.
They passed through the billiard room, and then through the vast ballroom, where Bruno explained that the same orchestra which had welcomed the guests would begin to play once the refreshments were finished and the servants cleared everything away, so that the honored company might move into the ballroom and dance the waltz.
They reached the foot of the staircase, and Bruno turned to her.
“Are you fond of the art of writing and literature?” he asked, and for the first time since their tour began, her eyes lifted to his.
“Do you read?” she asked.
Perhaps they would have some shared interest to speak of to her mother, after all.
Once she found her again, after she had vanished with the young man’s mother at her side.
He shrugged with a careless ease. “At times. I prefer to fence with my brothers, or ride the black wild horses behind the estate. But we have a library above, with a wide variety of knowledge. Come.”
He began to climb, glancing back a few moments later to make certain she followed.
Her right foot rose to the first step the moment his expectant look fell upon her.
Bruno’s hands clasped behind his back as he looked down at Enid with a gaze so sharp it was painful, so near to triumph. That look returned each time her eyes met his.
The upper floor was quiet, so quiet that her mother’s words now screamed in her ears. Bruno opened the door, likely for the library, revealing what lay within.
Each time she lifted her foot and stepped toward it, it felt heavy, as though weights hung from her legs.
They were alone.
So alone that the rest of the corridor held no lit candles. In truth, the only light that reached them came from below, from the warmth and noise, from the people and the closeness they had left behind.
From that moment on, everything moved slowly, once her senses took in the fact of it.
Her mother would surely approve of all this. The conversation. The charming smile. She would call it an eagerness to know her.
And still, something in it made Enid go still. Her legs refused to move, even as her mind tried to cover for them.
“In truth,” she swallowed, glancing toward the door, “I am famished,” she said, and as if by some unknown providence, the ungraceful sound of hunger rose from her stomach.
Heat rushed to her cheeks. Her hands clenched into fists.
When she looked one last time from the doorway to the man waiting there, she caught the briefest flicker of confusion in Bruno’s face before it smoothed into understanding, returning to its usual charm.
“Of course.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “In an hour, I believe, everyone will move into the ballroom.” After he closed the door, he stepped toward her and offered his hand.
Her hand uncurled from its tight fist and settled in his.
They walked in silence toward the refreshment room and the tables. The moment they arrived, Enid’s eyes searched for Yoko by instinct.
Her friend seemed to be speaking with another young lady, near their age. Her face was turned in Enid’s direction, but her attention was so caught in the woman she spoke with that even the familiar weight of Enid’s gaze did not draw her eyes up.
Enid shifted, uneasy.
“Are you well, Enid?” the concerned voice beside her asked.
She nodded, still studying the room with suspicion, with confusion.
Perhaps even with loneliness.
Holding the arm of the young Yuson, a stranger in every sense, she watched the mingling before her.
Everyone within her view looked noble and remarkably composed. But above all, they belonged. They were people of station. That much was plain in the way they carried themselves, in the superior look in their eyes.
Even Yoko, as she spoke with the girl, seemed, in one way or another, to belong.
Enid looked to her right, and there was her mother, speaking as she held a glass of wine, moving among different people so well that the shadows of the middle class could scarcely touch her. Her smile was proper, her manner polished, and around her was an air that did not usually exist.
For her mother as well, this was something that came once in a lifetime.
And the mere sight of her made the same commanding sentence ring in Enid’s mind again, like church bells at each full hour, loud and clear and impossible to forget.
Do not ruin this.
“Bruno.” A voice behind them startled her out of nowhere.
They stopped, and several people nearby looked their way.
Enid felt the precise moment he went still. The elegant young man turned, and Enid watched the instant his practiced smile left his face.
For the first time all evening.
Everyone who passed the young heir received his brightest version, a white smile that reached his eyes, a slight bow, a winning bit of humor.
Whoever this was, he took all of that away the moment he called his name.
Bruno turned back. He gave Enid one last look, washing the open discomfort from his face as he met her eyes, and nodded.
“It is my father. I must go. It has been my pleasure to meet you, Enid.” He smiled, and Enid searched his eyes for a lie.
But a lie was not what she found. If she could read people as well as she always had, even here, she saw his jaw tighten and release, his gaze widening slightly, lending an intensity to words made calm.
The unease did not come from deceit.
“I hope to find you afterward.” His voice grew more personal as he spoke, and then he went to the other man.
The others returned to themselves, all except one pair of eyes that Enid, by a grave mistake, caught at once.
Esther Sinclair looked at her daughter with a look Enid knew far too well.
The true face, when the glow and the performance left the woman alone, stripped so bare that at times Enid wished it would at last make the blind see.
At last, even her mother turned her eyes away.
And so Enid stood in the heart of the refreshment room, while everyone tended to their own affairs. Laughter rolled from every corner, along with smiles so natural it was difficult to know whether they were real or not.
Perhaps it was her. Perhaps this was the very thing that proved she did not belong here. A dress like this, or no.
She belonged to the farm where she had grown up, among the open people she had grown up with.
She walked toward the dishes of food, passing at least five servants on the way, each trying to offer her a glass of wine, or some other dubious drink.
When at last she reached the table, she kept her eyes on the food, trying to understand what lay before her.
“I should advise you to take whatever is offered you, my lady.” Enid finally lifted her eyes and met an older man with a kindly smile.
But what if she did not like it. The food would be thrown away, she knew.
That was not something she did.
Her hesitation must have shown, for the man leaned a little closer and spoke more quietly than before.
“If it is the food that troubles you, do not let it. It will all be thrown away afterward, one way or another.” He assured her with such confidence, offered one last smile, and walked away.
Unaware that it did not ease the matter.
Enid took a steadying breath and took a little of everything she found, enough that she could finish.
She turned back with a full plate at last, searching for Yoko or anything at all that might bring back even a little of the smile she had worn before. Her eyes passed over one face after another, until at last she found her friend among many others, still unmistakable.
Yoko seemed to find her at the same moment and came toward her with the least ladylike stride Enid had seen all evening.
At last, a small smile returned to Enid’s face, and she began to walk toward her friend, determined, her attention fixed too fully on the girl.
And so she hardly noticed when she struck one of the women standing nearby.
Hard.
Food flew to either side, staining Enid’s dress and the woman’s as well. The plate shattered on the floor in protest, its pieces scattering.
Enid felt the exact moment everything froze.
Conversations stopped. Startled breaths sounded. Her feet tangled against each other.
Her hands trembled with alarm, with shock,
with the unbearable sense of eyes upon her without her needing to lift her head.
Red sauce stained two dresses, one blue, the other black.
A black dress in any situation that was not a funeral.
Her body went hot. Her head swam.
Her wide eyes lifted at last and met, in a brief flash, the gaze of the woman she had collided with.
Her breath caught, harder still.
Eyes black as coal. Two braids without a single strand out of place.
A dress that, before clumsy Enid had arrived, had been the same. Flawless.
But now it was stained all over.
It was her.
The girl in the black carriage, the one whose gaze had caught Enid’s as if in a trance.
Enid had run straight into her.
She had spilled the whole plate she had taken.
And now she stared back with eyes as wide as Enid’s.
Panic meeting an ancient fury.
She was not as much of a believer as she once had been, but if there was a God, she wished He would take her from this moment.
Six
feet
under.