I have to swallow back the sudden urge to laugh.
“Excuse me,” I say as soon as Fred’s grip on my elbow loosens and I see the opportunity to escape. “I’m going to get a drink.”
Fred smiles at me, although his eyes are dark. The warning is plain: Behave. “Of course,” he says lightly. As I make my way across the living room, the crowd presses tightly around him, blocking him from view.
A linen-draped table has been set up in front of the large bay windows, which look out onto the Hargroves’ well-manicured lawn and impeccable flower beds, where blooms have been organized by height, type, and color. I ask for water and try and make myself as inconspicuous as possible, hoping to avoid conversation for at least a few minutes.
“There she is! Hana! Remember me?” From across the room, Celia Briggs—who is standing next to Steven Hilt, wearing a dress that makes it look as though she has stumbled accidentally into an enormous pile of blue chiffon—is frantically trying to get my attention. I look away, pretending not to have seen her. As she begins barging toward me, pulling Steven by the sleeve, I push into the hall and speed toward the back of the house.
I wonder whether Celia knows what happened last summer: how Steven and I breathed into each other’s mouths, and let feelings pass between each other’s tongues. Maybe Steven has told her. Maybe they laugh about it now, now that we are all safely on the other side of those roiling, frightening nights.
I head to the screened-in porch at the back of the house, but this, too, is packed with people. As I’m about to pass the kitchen, I hear the swell of Mrs. Hargrove’s voice: “Grab that bucket of ice, will you? The bartender’s almost out.”
Hoping to avoid her, I duck into Fred’s study, shutting the door quickly behind me. Mrs. Hargrove will only pilot me firmly back to the party, back to Celia Briggs, and the room full of all those teeth. I lean against the door, exhaling slowly.
My eyes land on the single painting in the room: the man, the hunter, and the butchered carcasses.
Only this time, I don’t look away.
There’s something wrong with the hunter—he’s dressed too well, in an old-fashioned suit and polished boots. Unconsciously, I take two steps closer, horrified and unable to look away. The animals strung from meat hooks aren’t animals at all.
They’re women.
Corpses, human corpses, strung from the ceiling and piled on the marble floor.
Next to the artist’s signature is a small, painted note: The Myth of Bluebeard, or, The Dangers of Disobedience.
I feel a need I can’t exactly name—to speak, or scream, or run. Instead I sit down on the stiff-backed leather chair behind the desk, lean forward, and rest my head on my arms, and try to remember how to cry. But nothing comes except for a faint itch in my throat and a headache.
I don’t know how long I have been sitting like that when I become aware of a siren drawing closer. Then the room is thrown, suddenly, into color: flashes of red and white burst intermittently through the windowpane. The sirens are still going, though—and then I realize that they are everywhere, both near and close, some wailing shrilly just down the street and some no louder than an echo.
Something is wrong.
I move out into the hall, just as several doors slam at once. The murmur of conversation and the music have stopped. Instead I hear people shouting over one another. Fred bursts into the hall and comes striding toward me, just after I’ve closed the door to his study.
He stops when he sees me. “Where were you?” he asks.
“The porch,” I say quickly. My heart is beating hard. “I needed some air.”
He opens his mouth; just then my mother comes into the hall, her face pale.
“Hana,” she says. “There you are.”
“What happened?” I ask. More and more people are flowing out of the living room: regulators in their pressed uniforms, Fred’s bodyguards, two solemn-faced police officers, and Patrick Riley, wrestling on his blazer. Cell phones are ringing, and bursts of walkie-talkie static fill the hall.
“There’s been a disturbance at the border wall,” my mother says, her eyes flitting nervously to Fred.
“Resisters.” I can tell from my mother’s expression that my guess is right.
“They’ve been killed, of course,” Fred says loudly, so everyone can hear.
“How many were there?” I ask.
Fred turns to me as he’s shoving his arms into his suit coat, which a gray-faced regulator has just passed him. “Does it matter? We’ve taken care of it.”
My mother shoots me a look and gives me a minute shake of the head.
Behind him, a policeman murmurs into his walkie-talkie. “Ten-four, ten-four, we’re on our way.”
“You ready?” Patrick Riley asks Fred.