“Aurélie? Wake. I have a surprise for you.”
My eyes crack open. Father is bustling toward me like a great swollen blood fly. The white lead paint that clings in flakes and patches to his face cannot hide how old he has become. Skin hangs in swags off his skull. His eyes are sunken, his wig is askew, and his red coat is stained and wrinkled, as if he has not changed in many days.
I sit bolt upright. “Father? Father, what is the meaning of this—”
He ignores me. He begins to pace along the side of the bed, his hands tight around the head of his cane. “A surprise,” he says, impatient and wheedling. “Dress quickly, and let us be on our way. It was a success!”
I slide out of bed opposite from where Father paces and hurry behind a painted silk screen. What was a success? What does he mean, and what am I to do?
I have been waiting for someone to come, Father or Havriel or the head butler, Monsieur Vallé, someone to explain to me this horrible aloneness. But now Father is here and I am caught like a maid in the wine cellar, drowsy and foolish. This is both too sudden and too late.
“Hurry,” I hear Father muttering, his heavy step as he wanders through the room, the rattle and clink of objects he touches. “Hurry, hurry.”
I feel in the dark for my clothing. I will wear it all today—stockings, petticoats, hoops, more petticoats, and damask skirts. I begin to wriggle into the cold things. It is nearly impossible to dress without a servant; I miss half the buttons, but it doesn’t matter. When I feel suitably well armored, I step from behind the panels and fix Father with a cold stare.
“Father,” I say, and my voice is vinegar. “Good health to you. It is wonderful to see you again. I’m sure you have been very busy, but I must confess, I have found the explanations for my imprisonment, for my separation from my sisters and our complete isolation, to be rather slow in revealing themselves.”
Father looks straight through me, his piggish eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind me. “A success,” he says, and flutters his great hands. “Come! Come!”
My skin crawls. “Father,” I say again. My voice shivers. “You will speak to me, please. I am your daughter. I am kept here as a prisoner, without human company, without a word spared to me. Our mother is dead, my sisters are alone, and we cannot mourn her, or comfort each other; we—”
Father’s eyes are on me now, twitching, making a diagram of my face. Then the stupidness and the dullness return and he throws back his head. “Havriel?” he cries in his high, quavering voice. “Havriel, she is being a goat!”
Instinctively, I take a step back behind the screen, as if it will protect me. Havriel opens the door to my bedchamber. He is holding a blindfold.
I cry out at the sight of it. I scream, and my hand closes around the nearest thing, a china figure of a dog. I hurl it with all my strength. “Get out!” I shriek. “Get out! I will not be kept this way!”
The dog shatters a full yard from where Father stands. The two men stare at me, and I feel such a fury toward their great, slow selves. Havriel starts toward me again. I cower behind the screen, my skirts pooling. He pulls me upright and slips the blindfold partway over my eyes. I struggle. It is no use. His hands are as large as my head. He could crush my skull with nothing but his fingers.
“Aurélie,” he says, and there is a warning in his voice. “Do not.”
And now the blindfold is in place, and I see only darkness.
“Come, come,” I hear Father mumbling. “Come and see.”
Havriel pulls me through the chamber. I am trembling, anger and hate twisting inside me. I am not your puppet! I am not your dog; you cannot treat me this way!
But they do.
We step out into the hallway. The doors click shut behind me and we walk in silence. I do not cry. Father would not notice. Havriel would, and perhaps he would pity me, but he does not deserve to act the good man. He is as guilty as anyone in this pit.