“Ma fille, no apologies. It is a compliment.” She flashed a devilish smile and reclined on her velvet sofa. The transformation was remarkable. “Did you find your sister?”
“Yes,” I said, taking a chair across from her. “But they managed to escape with her. I was hoping you might know where they’ve gone.”
She shook her head. “I only had the one address.”
I would have been disappointed, had I not been expecting that already. Dr. Beck wouldn’t trust her again.
“But that is not the reason you come here, no?” she asked, brows arching in perfect curves.
“No, I wished to speak to you about a job.”
“And who exactly is the job? Before and after, please.” She winked and removed her shoes.
“It is me,” I said, to her surprise. “And I must look like . . . well, a man.”
Camille lit up like a child with a brand-new toy. She shot up in excitement, closely analyzed my face from every possible angle, and murmured “Hmm” and “Ah” continuously, relishing her work. “What sort of man?” she asked, kneeling to view my chin from underneath.
“Young, unrecognizable, unremarkable, the sort who would never receive a second glance,” I said. “Can you do that?”
Her lips curled into a creamy smile. “Of course.”
“But I must ask you something. You don’t simply use makeup, do you? You must have . . . a power, yes?” I asked.
She laughed. “Dress it up and call it whatever you wish.”
“Well, what I want just seems quite impossible to ask—”
Camille floated back up like a pleased little snake. “Nothing is impossible for me, I assure you. This is one of my most popular requests. Come with me.”
I followed her into another room, where she glided over to her rosewood dresser, opened a drawer full of makeup bottles, and collected a few before progressing to the next drawer. With two armfuls of makeup, she returned to me. “You would make quite a beautiful man, you know,” she purred. “But I suppose we must find the beauty in the commonplace. When I am done, nothing of you will be left!”
This woman. Was there anything left of the real her in the image I saw? I studied her face and wondered about her past, about the faces she uses. “Is this what you truly look like?”
“I don’t quite understand you.”
“Your real self—without the disguises.”
She chuckled to herself and led me to a chair stationed in front of a bright window.
“Miss Wyndham, I have no ‘real self,’ as you say.” I heard the pop of a jar and felt the sting of cold on my head. She kneaded handfuls of a jelly through my hair, and I gasped as I felt the strands shortening.
“What does it feel like? Living that way?”
“You know as well as I,” she said opaquely and crossed the room toward a small metal sink, where she wet a thin rag.
“I don’t . . . often disguise myself. This is my second time.”
She knelt in front of me and vigorously scrubbed my face. “Do you act the same in society as you do in private? Do you speak to everyone the same way?”
“No, not quite,” I replied, wincing.
“Of course. No one does. You put on one disguise for society. You put on another for your sister. For your parents. Your costume the other night.”
I felt my face warm. “But what about in private? Anyone can be themselves then without—ah! Ow!—without putting on an act.”
“We do not remain the same each minute to the next. Every word you hear, every sight you see, every smell, every thought you have, every moment—it all changes you. We keep putting on mask after mask, layers over layers. That’s how one grows.”
She scooped up a handful of a light cream and massaged it into my skin. My face felt lightened, malleable, fluid. “That sounds dismal. Never truly seeing someone.”
“No, the true face is wretchedly simple and empty. The absolute joy in life, in friendship, in love, is learning about a person, deciphering them, taking each and every mask off to find a new one, waiting to be explored and understood.” She put some precise, finishing touches on my skin and stepped back to admire her work.
She gave me a sly smile. “I gather it is why you find both your . . . companions so intriguing.”
“They are just helping me.”
“Do not lie, child. It doesn’t suit your features. Now come, we are not close to finished.”
An hour later, I stood in front of a looking glass, astonished by the sight.
Good God, who was this stranger? Frowning, smiling, pouting, sneering, yawning—no expression gave me away. Camille had truly done splendid work, and it wasn’t simply good makeup and a hair-cropping trick. She had molded my face into something completely different and then, using a combination of her powers and padded underclothing, even rendered my shoulders broader, my body somehow intimidating. As her final touch, Camille slipped a black morning coat over my shoulders, dropped a dashing bowler hat over my short brown hair, and put a thin umbrella in my hand. Had this all come from her imagination? Or was there the slim possibility that I’d find myself in an awkward face-to-face moment with my double?
“Do you want me to change your voice? It only takes a half hour.”