There was a Chopin piece she used to play. Dissonant, with an odd melody like wind in the night. It was haunting, and it seemed suited to the island. I closed my eyes and laid my fingers on the keys, trying to remember the feel of the music. I played the first chord, adjusting for the stiffness of the keys. Humidity and grime made the strings stick and the wood warp, but it was music nonetheless, and for this piece, somehow it fitted. And then the feeling came back to me, sitting next to my mother on the bench, watching her long fingers on the keys. Like a bird in an unlocked cage, music flew out of me.
I had forgotten what I loved about the piano. The precision of the notes and the mathematical intricacy of the notes and measures. It was like a complicated equation that you work out with your heart instead of pencil and paper. I concentrated on the keys, letting my mind clear. I played and played until the final bar, where I let the chord ring until the last trace of sound faded. My fingers slipped off the keys. Then I opened my eyes.
To my surprise, Alice and Balthazar and Puck stood around the table, halfway through clearing the dishes, with the queerest expressions on their faces. Tears glistened in Balthazar’s eyes. I realized they might never have heard proper music before.
Father stood and brought his hands together, slowly, and then the others took up the clapping as well. The room suddenly felt warmer. I’d finally done something to please him.
They all rushed me—Edward and Alice and the servants. They had so many questions. What was the piece, and where had I learned it? Would I play more? Would I teach Alice? I was used to being overlooked as just another maid. Their attention was overwhelming.
I caught Montgomery’s eye. He smiled at me like we shared some secret. And then I remembered why that piece out of all of them had come back to me. It had been his favorite. I’d found him at the bench one day, when we were children. His wax and polish brush were forgotten on the floor. I sat beside him and put his hands over mine so he could feel the movements of my fingers pressing the keys. I started to play a Vivaldi, but he shook his head. Not this one, he’d said. He’d wanted to play the one that sounded wrong.
The Chopin.
Montgomery looked away. He busied himself with a splinter in the doorframe.
“Lovely. Simply lovely.” Father gave a tight-lipped smile. Next to him, Balthazar brushed aside a tear. I suddenly felt crowded, as though they were pressing in. The rush of emotions was too much, drowning me. I slouched on the piano bench, desperate for a breath of air.
“Are you well?” Father asked. Suddenly the smile was gone, replaced by a physician’s cold determination. He felt my forehead.
“I’m just a little dizzy.”
But I might as well have been a cold body on the dissection table. He felt my wrist for my pulse, then pushed up my sleeve. The syringe’s pinprick flashed, red against the pale skin of my inner elbow. Redder than it should have been. Swollen.
“What’s this?” he barked.
“Just a small infection. From the ship.”
“Have you been taking your treatment?” His lips pursed. “You haven’t missed a day, have you?”
I pressed my other hand to my forehead. Suddenly every sound in the room was magnified. Alice clearing the table. Edward’s quick breaths. The scaly man whispering to Balthazar.
“I’m fine!” I cried. I wrenched my arm back. “I’m fine. I just need some rest.”
Father glanced at the clock above the mantel. “Midnight. I’ve kept you up.”
“It’s all right, I’m just tired,” I said. I tried to stand, but my legs were weak.
“Someone help her to her room,” Father said.
Edward and Montgomery were suddenly both by my side, each taking an arm.
My face burned as I looked between them. Two boys, two sets of hands on my wrists. One rough and calloused, the other strong yet smooth. My emotions knotted tighter, threatening to cut off my circulation.
“You take her, Prince,” Father said. There was an odd tone to his voice that made me think of how he wanted me to get to know Edward better. Edward seemed pleased enough to escort me, but Montgomery squeezed my wrist harder. Not wanting to let Edward have me.
“Father, won’t you take me?” I asked, trying to keep things peaceful. “Like old times.”
Father grunted but helped me stand. I leaned on his arm, overpowered by the chemical smell coming off his jacket. Had he been in the laboratory before supper? I hadn’t noticed the smell earlier. I looked closer. Three thick black hairs glistened on his collar. I realized I hadn’t seen the panther or the monkey or any of the animals since arriving.
What had he done with them?
Father escorted me into the courtyard, where the night air cooled my cheeks. The chickens were gone, roosting in some cool, dark corner. The footfalls of our shoes echoed through the portico, the only sound of humanity among the trilling, whispering jungle sounds.
Maybe I should have felt out of place so distant from the noisy streets of London. But there was a serenity here, as though I had crossed the threshold into a place both familiar and novel. This gray-haired man wasn’t a stranger. He was my father.
He stopped outside my door and patted my hand—the one with Mother’s ring—as if the scandal had never happened. And it hadn’t, I reminded myself. It had just been rumors.