Tina Connolly - Ironskin

Jane brought up a jar of dried beans and tried counting. Dorie liked counting. She could count to a hundred, and Jane’s estimation of her human skills went up. But when Jane asked her about adding she shook her head. Bolstered by the good morning, Jane decided to find out what it would be like to try to teach Dorie something.

“This may be new, but I know you can do it,” said Jane. “It’s just like counting.” She had found two crystal buttons in her dresser and she brought them out now.

“Pretty,” said Dorie, and Jane perked up at this show of interest.

“Yes,” she agreed. She put the two buttons in Dorie’s palm. Dorie’s fingers did not close around them, but lay as stiff and unmoving as if her hands were porcelain. “Do you know how many buttons are here?”

“Two.”

“And how many here?” Jane put two green buttons in Dorie’s other palm.

“Two.”

Jane pushed Dorie’s hands together. “Now count how many.”

Dorie clacked and shook her head. She turned her arms till the buttons slid off her palms and clattered to the wooden floor.

“Let’s have another go.” Jane separated the buttons into two piles on the floor. “How many buttons here?”

“Two.”

“And how many in this pile?”

“Two.”

“So if you have two buttons and you add two more…”

Dorie threw the buttons across the floor in a flash of blue light.

Jane sighed and picked them up. The one that went under the white chest of drawers came back covered in dust. The other one rolled to the windowsill, and Jane saw a flash of movement through the window, a shadow disappearing into shadows, as she stooped to retrieve it. She straightened up and looked more closely.

Dorie’s window faced west into the forest. The forest was dark today; it was always dark. Grey pine, blood-dark cedar, and black briar tangled through its undergrowth. Thin strips of the silver birches the estate must have been named for glinted in the darkness, but even they looked oppressed, their branches swallowed in poisonous mistletoe. The forest stretched across the entire back of the estate and curved down its sides as if it were encroaching on the house, year by year. A creeping arm of forest came so close to the damaged north wing that Jane was not even sure if you could walk between them. The forest had a foothold it would not relinquish.

So surely she hadn’t seen a tall form slip between those thorny locusts; surely no one would choose to be swallowed up by the dark.

Jane turned away from the window, painted buttons in hand. Dorie’s chin was lifted toward the window, her perfect face expressionless and smooth. “Father,” she said calmly.

Jane looked back, but the shadow was gone—and she was pretty sure that Dorie couldn’t have seen the shadow on the ground from where she stood.

“Let’s go back to counting,” she said, but the attempt at math had gotten Dorie’s back up.

“Father,” Dorie said mutinously. “Father, father, father.”

“Perhaps he’ll be at dinner,” said Jane, though truthfully he hadn’t been down in days. She looked out the window at where she thought she had seen the figure. Was that Mr. Rochart? Of course, the man was allowed to walk around his own estate. But to deliberately go into the woods, the dark woods where the fey had lived, hidden in the twists and turns of the dark branches, inside the knotholes, between the thorns of the locusts … No, the fey had not been seen for five years, since the war ended. But they had not been openly vanquished. Merely they had disappeared one day, leaving a breathless taut waiting for the next attack that never came.

“Counting,” Jane said firmly, turning back to Dorie.

But Dorie was gone.

There was one stone-cold moment when Jane thought the girl had literally vanished. Then she heard small feet pounding on the staircase and her heart came stuttering back to life. Jane took off from the room, shoes skidding as she hurried after Dorie. Most unladylike, she thought to herself as she hiked her skirts up to better maneuver the slippery stairs. Small wonder so many governesses had given up. It wasn’t the fey after all—it was the lack of dignity.

Jane chased the small creature out the back door. Her first shout of “Dorie” had gone completely unheeded, so she saved her breath and remaining shreds of dignity to run silently after the child, who was running pell-mell toward the black forest. The old saying sprung sharply to mind: Don’t go into the woods past the last ray of sunlight. Her iron mask threatened to slide around her head as she ran, so she held it with one hand and grabbed her skirts with the other. Jane pounced on Dorie about ten feet from the edge of the clearing. Her foot slid as she caught Dorie’s shoulders—Jane stumbled to one knee, nearly knocking Dorie off her feet.

So much for dignity. Jane held Dorie there, panting. “You are not to go into the forest,” said Jane firmly. “It is not safe. Your father would be worried.” She looked past Dorie into the dark woods, but saw nothing but trees, trees and the flat black shapes between them. Sunlight did not reach very far in these woods.

Dorie turned under her arms and twisted to look at Jane. With Jane on her knees, the two were nearly at eye level. “Father?” Dorie said wistfully, and Jane felt a small tender twist at her tone.

Jane squeezed Dorie’s shoulders. Through the layers of skirts her knees turned damp in the grass. “Your father is very busy,” she said gently. “He can’t always be around to play.”

Dorie’s shoulders slumped. She pulled away from Jane and went slowly back toward the house, kicking stiff legs through the clumps of wet grass. Jane heard a sharp clicking sound—Dorie clacking her tongue in frustration, in time to her steps.

Crossness rose as Jane stood and followed—but it was for Dorie this time. Where was her father, and why couldn’t he come down more often for Dorie?

The hair rose on the back of her neck as a low voice said behind her, “I thought she was going to run straight into the forest.”

Her dress suddenly seemed too warm for the foggy day, all hot and constricted around her wrists and throat. “She might have,” Jane said, and tried to sound calm and firm, a wise and skilled governess with no grass stains on her skirt. “But I caught her.”

The faintest smile hovered around the corner of his mouth—she identified it and it was gone. “I saw the tackle. You see you are our soldier; I hired you for your trim fighting form.”

“Father!” said Dorie, and she ran to him, even as Jane tried to puzzle out whether she should be flattered or made cross by the comparison.

Mr. Rochart dropped a kiss on Dorie’s head and steered the small girl back to the house. “Do not go in the forest, love,” he reminded her firmly. Dorie rubbed her head on his leg and did not answer. “Now march quietly back to your rooms with Miss Eliot.” Dorie went as bidden, twisting back every few feet to check that her father was following.

“You are settling in?” he said. “Your rooms are sufficient; the fire is lit, the floors swept; all ets are ceteraed?”

“They are,” affirmed Jane, suddenly at a loss. She offered, “The dinners are very good. Creirwy is an excellent cook.” Her fingers twisted in her skirt. Weren’t there things she had wanted to say? Truths to ask, riddles to unriddle? And all she could do was mouth bland nothings about the food.

She fell silent, and so was he, as they trailed Dorie up the stairs. He walked them to Dorie’s rooms as if escorting them back to a cell they should not have left, Jane thought.

He stayed in the hall, clearly not intending to come in. Dorie looked up at him with big eyes. Jane was sure she read behind that blank face the desire for her father to stay. If only some of that hero worship could be transferred to Jane! Then perhaps Dorie would try reading and adding and using her hands.…