John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

We got a silver tray, a slim vase (but there was no flower to put in it), sugar bowl, creamer, and a pitcher of orange juice we found waiting in the refrigerator. Little china cups and some glasses, and we were ready. We arranged this all on the tray, and walked out into the breakfast room, swaying our hips.

Vanity threw her hand up in a gesture like a game show hostess, saying, “Ta-Da!”

I leaned over to put the tray down next to Quentin. Vanity curtsied toward Mr. Glum. Victor and Colin were staring.

To me, it looked like a contest to see whether Mr. Glum’s eyes would pop out of his skull before Vanity’s breasts popped out of her bra. Then I noticed, bent over as I was, I was just as much on display as she was, and they were all staring at my cleavage, too.

Quentin took the lid off the coffeepot, laid it carefully to one side, and said to Vanity, “Why don’t you pour?”

She picked up a coffee cup and saucer, stepped over to Mr. Glum’s chair—I noticed she stepped to the far side of the chair, so that Mr. Glum had to turn his head away from Quentin to keep his eyes on her—and curtsied again.

Quentin stood and passed her the coffeepot.

Mr. Glum darted a suspicious glance at Quentin. Quentin smiled, and sat, but picked up the sugar bowl and proffered it to me. “Perhaps Mr. Glum would like some sugar, Miss Windrose.”

I took the sugar bowl and walked over to Mr. Glum. I curtsied again (Glum took the opportunity to make sure he hadn’t forgotten what my breasts looked like) and said, “One lump or two?” I tried to impersonate the Lady Cyprian’s tone, and make my voice coo.

It must have worked, or something did.

He was smiling at me. I cannot imagine how I could have been inspiring lust in any male creature at that moment. I had been crying; my eyes were red, as well as baggy from lack of sleep. I felt like a gym shoe. Messy, rumpled, and ill-used.

But Mr. Glum was looking at me like I was the Queen of Sheba. He was already drawing up filthy plans in his mind on how he would use me once he was done with Vanity. I was dessert.

And he hadn’t looked at his coffee cup yet. There was a blue ice cube in it. The same little blue ice cube I had seen on the windowsill in the snow last night. It was melting, but it hadn’t melted yet.

“I take my coffee bitter, black, and hot,” Mr. Glum announced. He raised the cup, and started to take his eyes off me…

I snatched up a thin spoon from the tray. Glum looked up, puzzled. I kissed the spoon slowly. Glum stared at my lips.

I said in a husky whisper, “At least, let me stir it.”

He held his cup toward me, his expression like a hypnotized man, but a smile beginning to tug at his lips.

I stirred the coffee, smiling down at him. Whatever he was. A sea creature of some sort. A mad thing. Maybe a killer.

But he looked so happy, just looking at me.

Vanity now moved around the table, putting down tumblers and filling them with orange juice for the boys. It amazed me how much leaning over was involved in pouring three cups of juice.

Colin held up his glass to me. “You there! Servant Girl! I need someone to stir my juice. Use that same spoon, will you?”

I blushed furiously. I am sure my ears turned red. I stomped over to him, wondering whether or not I should spit in the spoon. Mr. Glum had taken his feet off the table and let them drop loudly to the floor.

I decided that making a fuss might remind Mr. Glum of his duty to be watching us. So I merely curtsied to Colin and stirred his juice with the spoon I had kissed.

I touched his glass to steady it. The ice cubes were trembling in the glass. His hand was unsteady. Standing as close to him as I was, I could hear that his breathing was unsteady as well.

Because I wasn’t actually stirring anything into his cup, I wasn’t sure when to quit. Colin reached up and touched my hand with his, and said hoarsely, “Thank you.”

It did not even sound like Colin, not the irredeemable, unflappable, mocking Colin I knew.

Boys are so odd. All I was doing was stirring juice.

Mr. Glum stood up suddenly, and threw his coffee cup across the room. It splashed and made a brown stain on the wall.

He turned to Quentin. “You done sommat to me, witch-boy. You witched me. Now I am going to break in your skull bones with this hammer.” And he picked up the hammer.

Quentin stood up. “Mr. Glum, you underestimate me. Do you think I poisoned you? Look.” He poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffeepot, and sipped it.

Glum stared at him, licking his lips.

Quentin said, “Come, sir. We drank from the same pot. What makes you think I have done anything? Are you sleepy? That is only because you had a late night last night. Don’t you expect to be tired when you’ve had a long night?”

Glum said, “No. You’re trying to trick me. It won’t work if I don’t listen.”

“Do you believe in magic, Mr. Glum?”

“Course I do. Who don’t?”

“Do you believe I am a magician? I have Power?”

Glum nodded. “Up until I break your skull bones.”

“You think unseen spirits wait on my command. Creatures in the air, made of subtle essences?”

“I seen you feeding them blood from your arm. In the woods. You’re a spawn of The Gray Sisters. I know your kind.”

“Then you believe I can make your hammer too heavy to lift, don’t you?” He pointed his finger at the hammer. “It is getting heavy. Too heavy. Iron and wood, things of the earth, long to return to the earth, their home, and they pull downward. Downward. You should not have raised it against me in anger.”

Glum dropped the hammer.

Quentin pointed his finger at Mr. Glum’s knees. “You put your feet on the table, where you know they should not go. That was impertinent. That was rude. Now your feet are going numb. Your legs will no longer support you. Sit.”

Glum sat in the chair, flopping down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Quentin pointed at Glum’s face. “You stared with covetous lust at a girl young enough to be your daughter. That was worse than rude. Worse than a crime. Your eyes are filled with low thoughts, low and heavy thoughts, and now they will shut. Close your eyes. Fall. Sleep.”

Mr. Glum sagged down, and his head fell onto the table with a thunk.

We all sat staring in silence for a moment, awed.

Colin stood up and clapped his hands, like a man at a concert applauding a maestro. “Brilliant! Bravo! You magicking him! Sucked the energy right out of him!”

Quentin sat down, looking pale and weak. “Don’t be an ass. There is no such thing as magic.”

Colin pointed at the snoring bulk of Mr. Glum. “Then what’s that?”

“Dr. Fell’s medicine. I didn’t drink it last night.”

I laughed and clapped. “The blue ice cube!”

Victor said, “Ice cube?”

Quentin said, “I spit Dr. Fell’s medicine into a little wax cup I keep hidden about my person for just such occasions. I thought it might be easier to carry up my sleeve if it were frozen—the potion, I mean—and left it on the windowsill last night. I had an idea for an experiment I wanted to try. I lowered myself by a rope, and started walking North…”

He spread his hands and looked up, woebegone. “And that’s it. That’s about all I recall. I don’t remember what the experiment was or what my idea was. I don’t remember Dr. Fell finding me. I woke up strapped to a table in his lab. Dr. Fell did something to me. Injected me with something, or did something to my brain. What did I do last night?”

Vanity pointed at me and said happily, “You tied up Amelia and made her kiss you!”

Everyone turned and looked at me.

Quentin’s eyes slowly traveled up and down my body, examining my ankles and legs, lingering over my hips and my narrow waist, pausing at my cleavage, but coming to rest at my tear-stained eyes.