Neferet's Curse (House of Night Novellas #3)(10)

“Tell Cook to have the lamb more often. And have her be sure it is as rare next time as it was tonight. I find I have a taste for it,” he said.

“Yes, Father.” I kept my voice soft and low. “Good night,” I repeated.

“You know you have your mother’s eyes.”

My stomach heaved. “Yes. I know. Good night, Father,” I said for the third time.

Finally, without another word, he’d left the room.

I went to my bedchamber and sat in my window seat, my neatly folded bicycling bloomers in my lap. I watched the moon rise and begin to climb its way down the sky, and when the night was at its darkest, I made my way carefully, quietly, down the stairs, and out the rear door that led to the path, which emptied into our elaborate gardens. As I’d walked past the great bull fountain, I pretended that I was just another of the shadows surrounding it—not a living thing … not a girl who could be discovered.

I’d found my way to the utility shed and discovered a shovel. Behind the shed, at the edge of our property, I went to the pile of rotting compost the laborers used as fertilizer. Not heeding the smell, I dug deeply, until I’d been certain they would be safely hidden—and I’d buried my bloomers.

Afterward, I returned the shovel and washed my hands in the rainwater barrel. Then I went to my stone bench beneath the willow tree. I sat within its dark, comforting curtain until my stomach stopped heaving and I was quite sure I would not be sick. Then I sat some more, allowing the shadows and the darkness of the night to soothe me.

* * *

Though not on bicycle—never again on bicycle—I made my way to Camille’s home three more times, walking the short distance down South Prairie Avenue to the Elcott mansion. Two of the three times she and I had managed to stroll toward the lake, wanting to catch a glimpse of the magical world that was being created from marsh and sand, and had the whole city abuzz.

Mrs. Elcott’s maid had intercepted us both times with the urgent message that I was needed at home. When I returned home there was always something to be tended to, but that something was never urgent. And each evening Father drank heavily, his hot gaze focusing on me more and more frequently.

So, you see, it was madness for me to go to Camille a third time. Isn’t it madness to do a thing again and again, and expect a different outcome? Does that not make me mad?

But I do not feel mad. I feel very much myself. My mind is clear. My thoughts are my own. I miss Mother, but the numbness of mourning has left me. What has replaced it is a waiting, wondering sense of dread. To combat the dread I have come to crave the normalcy of my old life so desperately that it is beyond my ability to translate it into words.

Perhaps I am having a bout of hysterics.

But I don’t lose my breath, or faint, or burst into flamboyant tears. So, is the coolness of my temperament more proof that I am mad? Or could how I feel be much like how any girl would feel whose mother’s death had so untimely come? Is Father’s hot gaze only a symptom of his widower’s grief? I do, indeed, have my mother’s eyes.

Whatever is true, I could not stay away from Camille and the life I missed so very much. This very afternoon I visited Camille again. We did not attempt to leave the Elcott home this time. It was an unspoken agreement between us that we knew our visit would end abruptly with Carson coming to escort me home. Camille embraced me and then called for tea in the old nursery that had been made over into a rose wallpapered parlor for the Elcott daughters. While we were alone Camille had grasped my hand.

“Emily, I am so very glad to see you! I’ve been worried! When I called on you last Wednesday, your father’s valet told me you were unavailable. That is exactly what he said the Friday before as well.”

“I was unavailable.” I curled my lip and empathized the word. “Both days I was at dreary Market Hall, being a servant to the homeless of Chicago.”

Camille’s smooth brow furrowed. “Then you haven’t been ill?”

I snorted. “Not ill of body, but ill of mind and heart. It is as if Father expects me to take Mother’s place in all things.”

Camille fanned herself with her delicate fingers. “I’m so relieved! I thought you might have been struck by the pneumonia. You know Evelyn died of it last week.”

I felt a shudder of shock. “I didn’t know. No one told me. How terrible … how very terrible.”

“Don’t be frightened. You look strong and as beautiful as ever.”

I shook my head. “Beautiful and strong? I feel as if I am one thousand years old, and that the whole world has passed me by. I miss you and I miss my old life so very much!”

“Mother says what you’re doing is more important than the girls’ games we used to play, and I know she must be right—being lady of a great house is very important.”

“But I’m not the Lady of a great house! I am more servant than anything else.” I felt as if I wanted to explode. “I’m not allowed to breathe one bit of freedom.”

Camille tried to put a cheery face on my changes. “It is the middle of April. In two weeks it will be six months since your mother’s death. Then you will be free of mourning and be able to rejoin society.”

“I don’t know if I can even bear two more weeks of everything being so very dreary and so very boring until then.” I’d chewed my lip at Camille’s surprised look, and hurried to explain. “Being the Lady of Wheiler House is a job—a terribly serious job. Everything must be just so—and just so means exactly how Father wants it, which is how Mother had it. I didn’t understand how hard and grim it is to be a wife.” I drew a deep breath and said, “She tried to tell me. That day. The day she died. That is why I was in the birthing room with her. Mother said she wanted me to know what it was to be a wife, and to not go blindly into it as she had. So I watched. Camille, I watched her die in a flood of blood, with no loving husband holding her hand and mourning at her side. That is what it is to be a wife—loneliness and death. Camille, we must never get married!”