Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

Now he sat curled up on his bed, weaving colored wires and tiny bulbs of glass into his braid.

“Do you think you could do that to my hair?” I asked. A Historian had given me a brooch after my performance, a flat square of plastic embellished with letters and numbers. “I’ll give you this—”

“No,” he said, glancing up and shaking his head. “Your hair’s still too short. Aren’t you listening to me, Wendy? What would have happened if they’d caught you and found out they’d been fooled all this time?”

I held the brooch to my breast. I decided it was ugly, and tossed it to the floor. “ I don’t know,” I said. “Does it matter?”

“It should. It wouldn’t go very well for the rest of us, I can tell you that. People don’t like being made fools of.”

I felt flushed from that intense rippling joy that remained with me after a good performance: better than my acetelthylene had been, better than almost anything except tapping new blood. “But it wouldn’t be my fault, Justice. It would be Aidan’s! I’m not responsible—Wendy can’t be responsible.”

He gazed at me, wrapping a wire around one finger. “Is that what you think, Wendy? Is that what you really believe—that this is like the Human Engineering Laboratory, that Dr. Harrow’s out there somewhere to protect you and save you if you go too far?

“Because you’re wrong. Terrible things are happening. If the Ascendants are really looking for you then you’re in danger all the time, and so am I, and Miss Scarlet and probably every single other person in this damned City. And if the man in the Cathedral is the same one who ordered the purge at HEL —”

I knelt to retrieve the brooch, so he wouldn’t see my face.

“At the very least, Wendy, you shouldn’t make it harder for those who love you and are the only wall between you and the dark.”

I put the brooch in my pocket. I sat on the floor for a minute, then reached for the bottom drawer of my bureau. I withdrew a feathered bandeau, the one Andrew had given me at HEL . I stared at it a long time without speaking; because I felt ashamed, and angry, and frightened.

Because something terrible was happening in the City: something terrible was happening to me, but it was not what Justice or anyone else might imagine in all their gory nightmares.

No: I felt within my head a new thing burgeoning, jealous and implacable and tender and bewildering by turns. Even my dreams had changed. They held not the faces of Dr. Harrow or Morgan Yates or the other subjects at HEL , but those of myself and Justice, or Miss Scarlet, or others I met each day in the City. And as I stared at the bandeau a terrifying thought came to me: that after seventeen years I was changing, that something had changed me: something even Emma Harrow had never dreamed might happen to her sacred monster.

A few weeks later an emissary from the Zoologists arrived. It was the morning of our performance at the Masque of Owls. We were sitting at breakfast together in the oak-paneled dining chamber, picking over the remnants of one of Gitana’s peppery frittatas.

“Someone is at the door,” Mehitabel announced. Through the dirty panes of leaded glass I glimpsed something moving, too big to be a person. A palanquin, maybe, or a cart delivering goods in payment for past performances on the Hill Magdalena Ardent.

“Then why don’t you let them in?” Gitana said through clenched teeth. She poked Mehitabel with her bread knife so that the plump girl shrieked and bumped cozily against Justice.

“Well, all right! ‘Scuse me,” she said, winking at Justice. Gathering her skirts above her knees, she flounced down the hall. The others yawned and chatted as they finished breakfast. Toby droned on (to himself, apparently) about the virtues of performing for the lazars.

I could see Mehitabel’s eyes widening as she peeked out the window.

“Toby …” she called doubtfully. When she glanced back at the dining room I was the only one who met her gaze. “Aidan?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob as she waited for my advice. I nodded. With a flourish she flung open the door.

“Hey, girl!” a voice bellowed from outside. Mehitabel shrieked softly. “ Hey!”

“Aidan,” said Mehitabel weakly.

I went to see who was there. For an instant the morning sun dazzled me so that I could make out nothing.

“Hey, boy!” the voice yelled again at me. “I’ve come to see Toby and Scarlet Pan. They here?”

Blinking, I looked up to see a monstrous figure on the lawn, two-headed and horned with four glowering eyes. It took a moment to sort out that this was a tall young girl astride a great antlered beast, and that she was growing impatient.

“Agh!” she shouted, and swung down from her mount. A faint jingling of many little bells as it shook its great dark head. “Is everyone here an idiot? Scarlet!”

Behind me a soft voice said, “Jane?”

“ Hey, girl!”

I turned to see Miss Scarlet in the doorway, still holding her demitasse. Her expression brightened from disbelief to delight, and she shoved her cup into Mehitabel’s hand before running to throw herself into the arms of the strange girl.

“ Oh, Jane!”

I stared bemused as the girl Jane caught her up and swung her into the air like a child. Miss Scarlet wrapped her wiry arms around her neck and the tall girl swung her around, laughing.

“Scarlet! D’you miss me?”

Now the others had joined us outside. Mehitabel peeked from behind Justice’s shoulder. Gitana stood finishing her tea, while beside her Toby shook his head at the commotion.

Fabian walked to the animal Jane had ridden and waved me to join him.

“It won’t hurt you,” he said. “See?” He tugged its bridle. The animal nodded complacently.

I stepped beside him. “What is it?”

“A sambar.” He reached to stroke its muzzle: a creature like a great heraldic stag, russet brown with darker chocolate markings on its legs and back and a thick stiff mane of nearly black hair growing on its throat. I brushed it tentatively with one hand. It regarded me with intelligent liquid eyes and dipped its head. I heard that soft chiming again and saw that its antlers were wrapped with fine aluminum wire and strung with myriad tiny bells. Its saddle was a simple pad of woven cloth, once vivid red and green but now worn and much patched, though bright with bells hanging from its braided trim.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Fabian murmured as he stroked the sambar’s muzzle. The animal snorted softly into his cupped palm. “They take such good care of them.”

“Who does?” I asked. I hardly listened for his reply. Instead I watched with some dismay as Miss Scarlet climbed upon Jane’s shoulders, behaving for all the world like a trained monkey and not the Prodigy of a Prodigal Age.

“The Zoologists,” said Fabian. His frosty breath mingled with the sambar’s as he looked up from warming his hands in its thick fur. “Who do you think Jane is?”

“I have no idea,” I said, and turned to go back inside.

“Aidan!” Miss Scarlet cried as I passed. “Come meet my old Keeper!”

I started to pretend I hadn’t heard her. Then, “Yes,” I replied stiffly.

“This is Aidan Arent,” said Miss Scarlet, smiling to bare her teeth. “He is my newest friend.”

Jane shrugged Miss Scarlet higher upon her shoulders and extended her hand. “Jane Alopex,” she said. Her gaze swept me appraisingly, a long cool look: as if I were an unusual specimen. I stared back at her. She was a tall girl my own age, stocky, with thick straight black hair cut short to frame round brown eyes and a ruddy freckled face. Strange for a Curator to look as though she’d ever seen the sun. Odd too to hear her brazen laughter. Her clothes suited her: a long green tunic embellished with gold braid over breeches of brilliant sky blue tucked into high black boots, so well polished despite obvious years of wear that they creaked when she moved. She held on to my hand and continued to stare at me through narrowed eyes for a long moment. With alarm I recalled my first meeting with Miss Scarlet— “ Sieur, that is a woman …” —and wondered if these Zoologists and their charges were gifted with some kind of special sight that would enable Jane Alopex to see through my masculine attire.