That voice woke her.
She lay in her bedroom, sleep-heavy eyes half-focused on the bed’s canopy. She tried to hold onto the dream images—who? what?—but gave up as even the memory of the dream broke apart.
Within seconds, the only part of her night left was a heavy stretched feeling in her gut. She struggled to breath and sat up, seeing her room through a blue tinge.
Her breathing normalized. The room returned to its normal colors.
Everything is normal.
Unless—
Panicked, she checked her fangs and claws. They sprang into physical reality, and she relaxed, tapping one hand against the bedspread.
I must want them.
Maybe I just want to know where they are.
Only Aubrey and Richard met at the breakfast table. Andrew was spending the weekend at a house party for young people. Mother had attended a concert with Lord Ives the previous night and was nibbling on breakfast in bed.
Aubrey read the paper while Richard chewed abstractly.
“Are you happy?” he said abruptly.
She shrugged. “Are you?”
He gave her a look that bordered displeasure—at the question or at the reality, Aubrey couldn’t tell.
“You were always—candid,” he said reflectively. “I don’t remember you so outspoken.”
He would say things like this—refer to her younger self as something that existed in the distant past, not barely a year ago.
“I suppose the potion changed me,” she said with another shrug.
“You know that part of your life is best forgotten,” he said, flattening his mouth when Aubrey laughed.
“Set aside,” he amended. “Why did you go to the police yesterday?”
“Why not?”
“Whom did you meet?”
They eyed each other. Richard was far taller and darker than Aubrey and Andrew, with asymmetrical, aquiline features. He and Aubrey had the same eyes—dark-blue edged with green and brown shadows. Unlike Aubrey, Richard had never looked innocent.
“The head of police,” Aubrey said finally.
“Mr. Stowe?”
“Yes.”
“He came to Sommerville after you disappeared—after your transformation at Lady Bradford's ball. He searched for you. He came again this summer.”
“To see me?”
“To check on you. He didn’t ask to see you. I think—if I’d offered—his interest seemed personal.”
“I met him during that time—when I was bespelled.”
“Yes.”
“He thinks he should have found me sooner.”
“Yes.”
Aubrey played with the spoon for her demitasse cup.
“You think he wanted to court me?”
“Would you have minded?”
“I don’t think so,” Aubrey said, remembering laugh lines, a mouth that tilted with amusement, calm calm grey eyes.
“You would have minded,” she said brusquely.
“Not me. Mr. Stowe makes a decent living. For his class. Rank. He wouldn’t have been a bad choice. Except—”
“Gloria.”
“Mother. You were very popular in Sommerville this summer: the girl saved from enchantment. Mother had high hopes.”
“Popularity is not the same thing as desirability.”
“No.”
“And now—?”
Richard sighed. Aubrey could guess his thoughts. Now there was Gloria—who would be personally offended by any connection to the police.
She said, “Is there anyone at the Academy I could trust?”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
Aubrey said quickly, “Sir James has helped our family.”
Richard harrumphed. Aubrey guessed he would rather not have to thank Sir James's for his position in the Division of Architectural Preservation.
Not that Richard would ever say so.
He said slowly, “Sir James is the Academy’s yes-boy. And the Academy is a dying institution. Let the past go, Aubrey.”
“I think I deserve some answers. I’m not going to stop wondering, Richard.”
Another sigh. Richard rubbed his temples.
“You could try asking with a little more discretion. Sir Prescott—”
“He’s the Dean of Bailey College.”
“And a member of the Academy Board. He’ll be at the ball tonight.”
“Lucky, lucky us,” Aubrey said and left Richard looking resigned.
The ball that night was the first ball of the season. Gloria took Richard, Mother, and Aubrey in the Cartwright carriage while Mother exclaimed at their great good fortune in procuring such an important invitation. Aubrey and Gloria exchanged strained compliments.
The ball was at Stoliot House, an elegant edifice that hostesses leased for grand parties. Their carriage inched along the crescent-shaped drive. Footmen in glittering silver rushed forward to help the ladies descend. They and Richard entered the crush.
Lady Promfret was the hostess that evening, and she had chosen a water theme. The lobby of Stoliot House was a hazard course of temporary rivers and cascading fountains. Mother dived over a small pool to greet Lord Ives, laughing when she wet her heels. Lord Rustilion, who headed Richard’s department, pulled him aside into a grotto with a tinkling waterfall. Gloria went with them, hand on Richard’s arm—to pinch if he wasn’t obsequious enough probably.
Olivia claimed Aubrey by a huge bowl of multi-hued fish.
“Did the police track you down?”
“Gloria lectured me.”
“Oh, her. Between you and me, your brother could do better.”
“They’re already betrothed.”
“She did snap him up,” once he became an acceptable catch.
They joined the crowd's advancement on the ballroom. Couples were taking places for a dance. In a few minutes, an admirer would come to claim Olivia.
Aubrey wished she could ask Olivia about courting Mr. Stowe. It wouldn’t be a “successful” match where Aubrey married up—but Olivia was a realist; she might recognize the match’s suitability.
Except Olivia would tell everyone about Aubrey’s admirer before the ball ended. Gloria would hear. And be embarrassed. And find ways to criticize Aubrey.
Not to mention, Aubrey had no idea if Richard had read Mr. Stowe’s intentions correctly, or if Charles, Mr. Stowe, even still felt the same way about Aubrey.
He was perhaps ten years her senior. Kind. Smart. Slyly humorous.
Aubrey felt her cheeks flush, and Olivia said, “Are you waiting for someone?” with a coy wink.
Am I? Mr. Stowe isn’t going to show up in Stoliot House.
“Do tell!”
Aubrey was spared inventing a name as Bobby Hant came up to claim Olivia’s hand.
“You’re next,” he said in his friendly way to Aubrey, and she smiled and nodded as they strolled away.
Aubrey stepped forward to get a better look of Lady Promfret’s ornate decorations (fluttering blue banners; twisting ribbons of fish-like scales, long silver chimes shaped like mermaid’s tails).
The hairs rose on the back of her neck. The stretched feeling in her gut—still there from that morning—expanded. She gasped as her claws partly unsheathed. No. And they retracted.
She turned slowly, feeling the stretch in her gut like a bubble, pushing, pressing. She caught the eye of a supercilious blond man, looked past him at the milling guests milling, the blank-faced footmen. Turning further, she scanned the company bunched around the punch table.
Something—someone here was dangerous. To her.
“Miss St. Clair!” came a mute bellow, and Aubrey turned again to look up into Sir James’s expansive face.
“I hear you visited the police recently.”
Thanks to Olivia or Gloria or, Aubrey supposed, anyone passing the station at the time.
“I hope they didn’t fill your head with false ideas about Kingston magicians.”
Aubrey nearly laughed. Charles warned. Sir James warned. She supposed warnings were better than Gloria’s scolds.
“Academy magicians, that is. I’m sure you know, the Academy strongly protests the actions of slum magicians. We encourage the government to monitor such people. The Academy, of course, has internal controls. After all, we were able to discover your whereabouts—”
Which claim directly contradicted Mr. Stowe’s account.
I escaped.
“—and help you conclude your little adventure.”
Adventure? Aubrey carefully, demurely, didn’t roll her eyes.
Sir James might be as clever, as Mr. Stowe claimed. But she didn’t need him or Richard to tell her not to trust such fulsome pomposity.
Had she trusted it in the past? Did age and experience make such a difference?
She tilted her head, pulling on her debutante skills (even if no one considered her a debutante anymore).
“I’m so appreciative,” she cooed in Mother’s dulcet tones.
Sir James blinked.
“Well, yes, so good to see you looking so well—”
She managed to retreat from his unnerving stare. The bubble was growing, her fangs sharp against her gums. She kept her hands clenched, the potential emerging fangs hidden.
“Miss St. Clair!”came a warm greeting, and Aubrey turned as trim Sir Prescott left the punch table and smiled down at her.
“I must tell you again, I’m so pleased by your rapid recuperation.”
“Recuperation?”
“I consider a potion, a bespelling, to be no different from an illness. The body undergoes a terrible toll. Bailey College specializes in medicine, you understand.”
Speaking to these men is like speaking in code, Aubrey decided. Why not just come out and say, I have an agenda that involves your life?
Sir Prescott frowned over her head.
“I see Sir James hasn’t lost his sense of patronage.”
Is that acerbity?
Aubrey said, “He seems to think I owe the Academy my thanks.”
“I would thank the police first.”
“Yes. Sir Prescott,” Aubrey set a hand on his arm. “I have questions I think only you could answer. If we could meet—”
“Naturally. I will call on you tomorrow.”
“I would prefer my family not be present.”
“Of course, of course. The Roasia Gallery. I will arrange an outing.”
He beamed and strolled away; Aubrey saw him stop near Richard. She lifted her gaze to study the orchestra members in the mezzanine, the lords and ladies on the gallery.
She was still being watched--perhaps by Sir James; perhaps by someone else. Unease rippled across her skin. She checked herself: Claws retracted; fangs too. But that bubble lurked still amongst blood and muscle. She could almost touch its surface, almost hear it purr.
* * *
Even Gloria smiled pleasantly on Aubrey.
“Sir Prescott has excellent manners. We had no idea you made such an impression, Aubrey. Did we, Richard?”
Richard grunted and gave Aubrey a peculiar look.
Mother and Gloria saw Sir Prescott as a suitor, she realized, and nearly scoffed. He was at least thirty years Aubrey’s senior and his conversation had been remarkably free of any familiarity, let alone romance.
He certainly hadn’t behaved like Mr. Stowe.
But then, marriages were built on less.
“I’ll lend you my blue bonnet,” Gloria said in her supposedly affable way.
Should Aubrey refuse, her affability would transform into incredulous miffery.
“Thank you,” Aubrey said quickly while Mother extolled the virtues of a “fine manor in Rostand.”
Could either Mother or Gloria actually imagine Aubrey presiding over Bailey College’s tea parties, supervising young students like Andrew on Bailey College outings?
She waited to laugh until she was upstairs in her bedroom and even there, she pressed her face into the pillow. Mother deserved a momentary triumph, however ill-conceived.
Aubrey let out a final chuckle and rolled over to stare up at the canopy, a collection of shadows in the dim light from the oil lamp. Inside her, the bubble beckoned.
Could I transform? Could I control it?
Did she want to? Did she want to live in her family’s world as part-something-else? Not fully human. Not entirely animal. Was such a path safe? Wouldn’t it be better just to get rid of all her remnants, go back to what she’d been?
She groaned. I never asked for any of this.
She wondered if she’d thought that before.
Continued in Chapter 14 "Recall" on November 15, 2013 . . .
© Katherine Woodbury
