Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (11 page)

I take in a breath and blow it out, clearing the dust from the top of the vestibule, nearly becoming winded in the process. Corsets only allow so much space for breathing on a good day, let alone on days when lungs are required for cleaning.

A delicious assortment of household gadgets reveals itself beneath the dusty mess. Extremely unusual-looking household gadgets. In fact, I’m not even sure they’re gadgets at all.

One by one I pick them up, examining each carefully, a little afraid of what I might find. Some sort of grater? I turn the first one over. Or perhaps a coffee grinder? I jump when the handle cranks around on the side and a set of cutters mash together like teeth. I’ve never seen a coffee grinder with teeth before. I set it down. I don’t think I should like to see another, either. I let go and it flops around on the top of the vestibule, clunking around in a circle, using the handle as a leg. A possessed coffee grinder at that. How apropos.

I pick up the next item. An apple corer, I believe. I crank the handle on its side and a pair of vertical blades springs into action, slicing the air. A second horizontal wheel snaps up into place, skinning the edge of a pedestal where seven needle-sharp prongs bob up and down.

“Whatever this is, it looks utterly lethal,” I say, tapping the tips of the prongs and drawing blood instantly.

I put the “apple corer” down and suck my finger, picking up what looks to be a pair of harmless sheep shears. I clip them together, jerking back as the shears spin around in a tight cone instead of snapping together, thrusting back open a moment later, spinning in the opposite direction, like the razor-sharp petals of a deathly flower. I put it down, thinking how easily someone could be sheared of his or her own skin.

What
are
these? And why are they kept in here?

I select another—a harmless looking rod-type thing, long and thin like a cigarette holder—turning it up on its end. The object hisses, then bursts into a breath of fire, igniting the trim on the nearby faux-curtains.

I rush over, grabbing a pillow from a chair on the way, to swat the fire out. “Good Lord in Heaven, have mercy,” I say, swiping the hair from my damp forehead. I place the smoldering rod carefully back on the vestibule in its holder, noticing several similar burn marks about the carpet. Guess it’s not the first time that’s happened.

I straighten my skirts and return the pillow—singed-size down—to the chair, patting it and waving away the smoke. There, I’m sure no one will notice.

I’m just about to abandon my gadget investigation, thinking it best I get on with trying to find my way after Urlick and the machine, when something on the mantelpiece catches my eye. Something so unusual I must know what it is.

I fly across the room, hand outstretched, running my fingers over the hood of what appears to be a glass bell-shaped jar. It sits perched on a plinth on top of the mantelpiece. Both are coated in dodgy black grime.

Smutch
, I determine, rubbing the dark greasy substance together between my finger and thumb. Oily to the touch, it’s made of soot and ashes, spat up from the mouth of the fireplace below. My eyes traipse over the other items on the mantel. Though the smutch seems to have covered only the jar and its plinth.
And nothing else?
I cock my head. “How very strange,” I whisper.

Curiosity overcomes me. I must know what’s in the jar. Snatching a doily from the arm of a chair, I intend to polish off the rest of the glass, when a sharp crash in the kitchen sends me whirling around. My heart breaks its stride at the sound of footsteps. Clearly, I’m no longer by myself.

Turning, I toss the doily back, snatch the apple corer up off the vestibule, and stalk slowly toward the entrance to the kitchen, holding the corer out in front of me like a weapon. I throw my back against the wall when I arrive and peer carefully around the corner. I find the room suspiciously empty.

What on earth is going on?

Two clean teacups dry along the edge of the countertop. Fresh bubbles drizzle down their sides. A nest of soiled cups hisses from a bucket placed in the sink. Someone’s done up the dishes we left. It wasn’t Urlick. And it certainly wasn’t me.

I gasp, drawing back, as someone appears, scuttling in and out of the shadows like a confused beetle exposing itself timidly to the light. A girl. Not much older than I. She’s of modest height, but not modest size. Her shoulders are much, much broader than my own. From there her physique slims to nearly half its size by the hips, her torso forming the perfect triangle.
That explains my trouble with the skirt.
Her eyes are a collaboration of hazel and grey, hanging droopy and sad as a dog’s, half-masked under a pair of lazy lids. Her hair, an undesirable shade of mousy brown, is twisted like tumbleweed and held by a comb at the nape of her neck. Frizzy curls line the edges, sticking out around the sides of her face. She wears a traditional floor-length day dress, sewn of the most modest fabric, although the color is, surprisingly, dark cherry red. A stiff white ruffled collar, which she yanks on from time to time, chokes her off at the neck.

Iris.
Hands in the dishwater, sleeves rolled back, cherry-colored-dress-wearing, stuffy-collared Iris.

I look down at the screaming side seams of my borrowed skirt, at the extra space in the shoulders of the jacket. That explains a lot. I clutch the side of the jamb, waiting for just the right moment to reveal myself, not wanting to burst out and frighten her.

She scuttles off into the pantry and just as swiftly back out, carrying a couple of unmarked tins. I step forward into the light, startling her a bit. She pulls back, nearly dropping the tins, which she quickly hides behind.

“I’m sorry.” I offer my hand. “I didn’t mean to give you a start.”

She stares at my hand, bewildered, bottom lip trembling.

“Eyelet. Eyelet Elsworth.” I push my hand toward her. “The new houseguest.”

She squirms backward, as if I were holding out a handful of worms rather than fingers.

“Urlick did mention me to you, didn’t he?”

She drops the tins and turns her back, plunging her hands into the dishwater.

“Iris, isn’t it?” I step closer.

She nods, clenching her teeth as if it was agony to be in my company, shoulders folded forward around a sunken chest.

What’s wrong with this girl? I can’t be that repulsive. I’ve only just arrived. She doesn’t even know me yet.

I drop my hand, feeling silly with it hanging there empty in the air, clicking heel-toe around to the other side of her, and try again. “It must be awfully lonely living here,” I say, leaning in. “Being the only girl, I mean.” Her eyes get big. They pepper me in nervous glances. “I was thinking, since I’ll be here a while and since we’re the only two girls in the house”—she begins to slosh her hands around in the dishwater, drowning me out—“what I’m trying to say is, I should like it if we could become friends!” I shout.

As if scorched by the suggestion, she withdraws her hands from the water, towels them off, and scurries into the other room. She disappears into the depths of the pantry, clanging tins and clattering pans.

It appears I’ve upset her, though I can’t imagine how.

She reappears seconds later carrying a loaf of crusty French bread and a knife as big as my foot. Thrusting both down on the table, she cuts the bread with such enthusiasm you’d think her hands had been set ablaze.

“I understand Mr. Babbit Senior is somewhat of a recluse, is that right?” I start again.

Her eyes jump a little in their sockets.

“I only ask because I wonder what to expect of him when we meet.”

She drops the knife, her feet again clattering over the floorboards. This time she makes her way to the icebox and back. I follow, nearly stepping in her footsteps before she’s made them. “Surely you’ve seen him?”

She spins around, worry lines bunch in the corners of her eyes.

“You haven’t? Have you?”

She sidesteps me, and heads back to the table a block of cheese in hand.

“How is that possible?” I chase close behind. “How can you live here and never see the master of the house?”

She averts her gaze, making short order of the cheese, her knife falling hard against the tabletop.

“He does live here, doesn’t he?”

She looks up at me, swallows, then just as quickly looks away.

What’s going on here? Why won’t she answer me? She can’t be deaf, or I wouldn’t have startled her. She can’t be daft or she wouldn’t look so alarmed at the things I’m saying. Which leaves only stubborn, or unwilling to befriend me. Which is completely unacceptable.

Especially when I’ve been so perfectly lovely.

“Perhaps you can tell me what this is?” I change the subject, revealing the strange gadget I’ve held hidden behind my back.

Her eyes move nervously over it as if I’d just pulled out a gun, not some sort of mixer.

“What’s the matter? I say, sticking it up under her nose. “Should I be afraid of this?”

She looks away.

“What about these?” I say, dashing back to the study to retrieve the rest. “What can you tell me about them?” I whirl the apple coring thingy around in the air, and her eyes grow wide as plates. Her gaze shifts nervously between the blades and a mysterious button on the handle. “What is it? What happens if I touch this?”

The tiniest shriek departs her lips, as I move my finger, accidently triggering the device.

A miniature arrow launches from a secret compartment in the handle, nearly clipping the vein in my wrist. My jaw drops, as it whisks across the room sticking with a crisp
swick
into the wall on the opposite side of the kitchen. Iris’s knife, misses the cheese altogether, slicing off a generous portion of pink skin from her thumb instead.

“Oh God!” I shout, flinging myself at her, seeing her blood trickling through the holes of the yellow cheese. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

She lunges away from me, teeth clamped together.

“You didn’t mean to what?” Urlick’s eyes catch me hard as he enters the room. His gaze swings from me to Iris. “What have you done?” He bursts across the kitchen to her aid. Producing a handkerchief, he binds her thumb.

“I—”

“I thought I told you Iris was to be left
alone!”

“I’m sorry.” I gulp. “I didn’t mean to hurt her...I just wanted to know what this was…”

His eyes move to the object in my hand, and from there, to the ones on the table.

“I found them, in the study,” I offer stupidly, “and I was just curious to know—”

“To know what?” He rises slowly, and I step back, afraid. “Something that’s none of your business.” He gnashes his teeth.

I wince as he darts past. One by one he picks the objects off the table and shakes them in the air, slamming them back down once he’s named them. “Coffee Grinder! Lemon Zester! Cork Shaver! And this!” I cower as he wields the cigarette holder up in front of my face. “
THIS
is a Meringue Torch! If you must know!”

He’s standing so close, the rage in his heart burns through his shirt. “From now on you are
NOT
to touch anything in this house that doesn’t belong to you.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
” He straightens.

“But
nothing
here belongs to me—”

“Precisely!” He storms from the room.

N
ine

Eyelet

That night I dream of Iris’s thumb, her skin slicing away smooth as butter, Urlick’s words as he scolded me, “I thought I told you Iris was to be left
alone!”

Why she wouldn’t speak to me? Was she ordered not to? Why is Urlick so desperate to keep us apart? I toss in my sleep, my mind reeling. I’ve never so much as hurled an insult at another person, let alone injured one.

I shouldn’t have bothered the poor girl. I should have listened to Urlick. He’s right; sometimes I
do
need to learn to mind my own business—just as my mother used to say.

I wake in a cold sweat, hot tears stinging my cheeks, bolting upright in the center of the heavy walnut four-poster bed where I sleep. The huge circular window of the turret room I’ve been assigned, stares across the room at me like a giant eye. To better monitor the advancing Vapours as they pour down over the escarpment, Urlick’s father had the windows of the turret only slightly tinted. They are the only windows of the Compound through which things are barely visible, Urlick explained, which at first I found comforting, but now, watching the Vapours ghostly black figures twist atop the not-so-far-away ridge, I find it nothing but disturbing.

I blink away my tears, heart racing, sheets clenched in my fists, longing for the thick, velvet, window coverings of my former palace home.

Mother.
My head fills with her image, her body dangling from the gallows in the square. I sob. If only I’d reached her sooner. If only I’d gone back, immediately, with the birds. I might have gotten to her before the authorities. And perhaps she’d be with me now.