Tina Connolly - Ironskin

Someone.

“A client,” he amended, as if he could hear her thoughts. “I would put her aside if I could, for you.”

“For Dorie,” she said.

“Yes.”

She suddenly thought that he meant it, that she had a momentary power that meant he would stand there until she told him yes, it was okay to go, yes, she could do without him just now, just at this moment. She looked at him and still he stood, his amber eyes studying her thoughts and waiting.

“Go,” she said.

He nodded. “We will speak later.”

And then he was gone, and she was not sure that she believed his promise, though he probably meant it as much as he could. She could not puzzle him out. He seemed to put up barriers—old walls, formal language. A man who seized every opportunity to melt away to his world of work—his masks, his clients.

But then—he had come down from his studio for her? Was that because he cared about Jane—or cared about what she might see? Did he know, all through that conversation just now, that she had been shadowing the maid? For that matter, what door had he come out of? She pulled aside a curtain from a back window, looked back toward the walk that led to the carriage house. But it was dark now, too dark to see.

Jane walked slowly through the fully lit halls, back to the foyer, brushing the dust from her skirt—sitting on Dorie’s floor did little for her dresses, old as they were. She had not even received any help from him for Dorie. All she needed was a way to reach her—

And then she saw a glint of blue-lit gold, just near the garnet curtains. She crossed the foyer and picked it up. A coin-sized sequin, no doubt fallen from one of the pretty ladies’ dresses.

Jane pulled the crystal buttons that she had tried the other day out of her pocket and considered them as she wandered down the hall and into the kitchen.

Shiny buttons. Sparkly sequins.

Rewards.

“Cook?” she said. “Do you have any aluminum foil?”

Jane spent the next several days scouring the house for forgotten treasures: scraps of ribbon from a governess, bits of foil from Cook that she cut into stars, small gold sequins fallen from a party dress in a long-unused guest room.

She did not see Martha until by chance in the parlor—the maid cleaning the window, Jane examining a beaded lampshade and reluctantly deciding that there was no way she could declare a certain swinging bead both about to fall off and unfixable. Jane watched Martha cleaning in energetic circles, her unpinned ginger braid swinging in tempo, and could not think of a way to admit she’d been spying.

So for now she did not seek out any new mysteries, but only shiny things, until she had a full double handful, ready to go. That day after Dorie’s nap she brought all the sparkly bits to the nursery in a little bag and showed them to Dorie, whose blue eyes lit up.

Yes, thought Jane. This might work.

“One at a time,” Jane said to Dorie. “I’ll give you one pretty sparkle for every one of my games we play. Shall we start with catch?”

Jane tucked the bag of treasures in her skirt pocket and got up to get the ball.

She tossed it to Dorie, who did not put up her hands to catch it. The ball fell at Dorie’s feet, and she looked past it, at Jane’s skirt.

There was a tug on Jane’s pocket.

Jane whirled, grabbed for the bag, caught the bottom edge of it as Dorie whisked it from the pocket and up into the air. The bag untied itself and a froth of silver stars, gold sequins, and blue ribbons spilled out. They circled over Jane’s head like a planetarium display, and Jane, furious in a way she knew even in the moment that no savvy governess should be, lunged after the sparkling swirls.

The orbiting stars rose higher, out of Jane’s hands. She shouted, grabbing for them, and Dorie looked solemnly on, her arms raised and her face as blank as a porcelain doll.

The sparkly bits that Jane had so painstakingly collected rose to the ceiling. Then they swirled into one starry line, shot to the top of the wardrobe, and deposited themselves well out of Jane’s reach on top of the tall white cabinet. Well out of Jane’s reach, but she had no doubt that Dorie could now take the tinsel down at her leisure and play with it anytime Jane was gone.

She skidded to a halt and stood panting, staring down at the girl.

If, in that moment, Dorie had looked mischievously up at her and laughed, Jane might have calmed down. But Dorie merely turned from her, walked to the window, and stood, watching the forest with no expression at all.

Jane left the nursery, slamming the door behind her.

Day after day and the frustration didn’t lessen. The more Jane coaxed, thought up new games, took Dorie’s Mother doll away, the blanker and more stubborn—and more infuriating—Dorie got.

By the end of the month Jane was wondering whether she had the temperament to stay after all, no matter how much she wanted to help the girl. She had heart for the task, she had determination—those weren’t the problems.

It was the self-doubt that was getting to her. The anger lumped along behind her like a black dog nipping at her heels. It raged inward, telling her it was her fault that Dorie was intractable. You should leave, it told her. You expected a lonely girl like you; you expected you could swoop in and solve her problems with a bit of iron and a hug. Never mind that yours weren’t solved so readily. Never mind that when you finally found Niklas and the foundry, you wouldn’t speak to anyone for weeks—just sat hidden under a worktable and watched the other scarred children try to master their ironskin, their curse.

Jane hated her inability to make a difference in Dorie’s life, and she hated how exhausted the girl made her. Where was her patience for this poor waif, battle-scarred just as she had been? Where was Jane’s loving kindness?

Gone since the war, Jane thought. Gone with her brother.

Jane and Dorie were sprawled on the stone floor of the kitchen, heedless of dignity, when the weekly mail came. Jane had momentarily given up the battle and was watching Dorie waft cut-up chunks of the last mealy storage apples into her mouth.

“Sure and you’ll never get that one to use her hands,” said Cook.

“Maybe she just wants to use her feet like a monkey,” said Jane. “I should take off her shoes.”

“Being tired makes you sarcastic,” said Cook. “Now you’ll be seeing what we went through.” She held the white bowl against her broad hip, beating air into the cake batter.

“All you had to do was let her draw light pictures on the floor while you worked,” said Jane. “I’m responsible for her mortal soul.”

“She’ll be having a soul, now? Ha,” said Cook.

There was no real rancor in these exchanges. Jane rather liked Cook’s lazy cynicism. It meant there was one place in the house she didn’t have to guard her tongue and bite back the sarcasm that spilled over it. That was a rarity—even Helen had not suffered Jane’s black dog moods very well.

But even if she could be caustic with Cook, they had little else in common. And Jane couldn’t stay in the kitchen all the time, anyway. She got to her feet. “Finish your apple, Dorie, and then we’re going back upstairs.”

Dorie looked mutinous and Jane sighed inwardly, careful not to let it show on her face. You couldn’t let children know when they were shredding your last bit of patience.

The old butler, Poule, appeared in the kitchen doorway. She nodded at Cook and reached up to hand her a circular. She was nearly as short as a dwarf, Jane thought—not that the dwarves were seen much anymore either. And for Jane—