Tina Connolly - Copperhead

Helen had thought Alistair handsome when she met him, charming. The fact that he was wealthy was an added inducement—she was grateful for his wealth in a way she dared not remember, even now, without doubling up in shame. She had loved him once; she had been grateful. She had thought he would be kind to her. Was he not kind? She stared at the restless energy burning behind those reddened, soft cheeks, and wondered what she had done wrong to make him into who he was now.

“Well, Helen,” said Alistair. “Do you know where your sister might have run to?”

“No … no,” she said, and the part of her that was social, that carried on despite whatever true Helen felt deep inside, did a pretty little gasp for the men to see. Raised the pitch of her voice and said in a silly way, “Goodness, you don’t really think my sister did anything wrong, do you? If anything, it seemed as though that machine did something to her .”

“The machine did nothing to her except reveal her despicable behavior,” said Grimsby. “Meddling in things she didn’t understand. Shouldn’t be dealing with. If she crossed into those forbidden boundaries, she was as good as working with them .”

“Jane? No. She hates the fey as much as any of you.”

“It’s not a question of hating the fey,” Grimsby said. His blue eyes were intense; they burned into Helen as if they could see every little thought flicker across her brain. “This is what Copperhead is here for, Mrs. Huntingdon, don’t you understand? One People. One Race. Nothing good can come of mixing with the other, even with the best intentions. Humans will only be safe once the fey and dwarves are eradicated. Your sister was working with things she could not control, and when the machine revealed her actions to us, she ran.” With a sweep of his long arm he pointed to the skylight in the slanted roof, now open—the source of the cold wind Helen had felt moments ago.

Stoop-shouldered Morse crossed to the skylight and looked down. “She could have gotten onto the neighbor’s fire escape from here,” he said. A twisted smile played across his face. “Unless she fell and broke her legs.”

“She was frightened by the disaster she had caused, and she ran,” cut in Grimsby.

“I’m sure she meant well,” said one of the other men. Hattersley, the drunkest and most good-natured of the bunch.

Grimsby rounded on Hattersley, blue eyes flaming. “You dare say that with my wife right there?” He flicked his fingers in the direction of Millicent, a cold gesture somehow more dramatic than a sweep of arms. “‘Meant’ doesn’t enter into it.” Those keen blue eyes bored into Helen as he swiftly crossed the room and seized her shoulders. Suddenly she wondered how she could have ever written this man off as one of Alistair’s drunk friends. He was something else, something more. His iron grey hair was close-cropped; it lay flat across a sleek snaky skull. “You must tell us where she is. Where she would have gone.”

His eyes were penetrating her, sweeping back and forth. She was hiding in her own mind from him, darting between black bushes while the searchlight of his eyes swept the grounds. He would find her in another minute; everything she knew would come tumbling out. With an effort she gasped again, let a tear or two rise to the surface of her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Grimsby, you’re hurting me!” which was in point of fact true, but mostly it gave her a chance to duck her head away from his gaze, blink obscuring tears into place.

“Come, Grimsby, don’t manhandle my little one,” said Alistair. “She doesn’t know anything. You see her face—could someone with a face like that even leave the house? Let alone plot things.”

Helen turned her perfect face on the men, tears standing in her eyes. Her fey allure seemed to soften them all, even Grimsby, who dropped her arms and stepped back a pace. “Can we go home now?” she said meekly. “This is all so … so disturbing. That such a thing could happen to poor Millicent. And with Jane involved…”

“I must stay,” Alistair told her, “but I will have you driven home. I will come later.”

“Be safe,” Hattersley said kindly, and Helen nodded, picked up the carpetbag ever so casually, and fled down the stairs in careful slow meek steps, heart racing, brain burning clear.

Away from them in the hallways she walked faster and faster, grabbing her coat, her lilac gloves, her iron mask, kicked under a chair by the attic stairs. Her passage was slowed by the glut of couples hurrying home, away from the disastrous meeting. She nodded to them politely, trying to control the energy that burned within. Carefully tied the iron mask in place and told the massive butler to have their driver bring the motorcar around. There would not be any word to report to Alistair that she had done anything wrong.

At last inside the car, she curled her fingers around the door handle and slammed it closed, heart racing.

Jane was gone.

Millicent might die.

And then Grimsby was going to blame Jane for his wife’s death.

It was too clear. The men of Copperhead hated Jane already, hated that she was trying to help their wives regain some measure of freedom. The cowards like Morse and Boarham made fun of her when she wasn’t there (they were scared to do it to her face). Helen had tried to help Jane; Jane had tried to help Millicent, and now everything was a mess.

Worse, Jane would not have left Millicent in the fey sleep without a very good reason. Jane was too responsible, too duty-bound to run just because something spooked her. Perhaps Mr. Grimsby’s machine had caused her so much pain that she had had to flee. No, Helen did not like that idea. But perhaps the machine had messed up the operation to the point where Jane could not rouse Millicent. And then, the only thing Jane could do was press the old face in place in case Millicent did wake up, and run before the men caught her and hauled her off for their own brand of questioning.

And in that case, where would Jane have run?

“Mrs. Huntingdon?” the chauffeur said patiently again.

“Yes, please take me home, Adam,” Helen said. She found she was sitting in the middle of the backseat in a huddle, and she forced her legs to straighten to the floor. “How’s your mother doing? Are her legs still troubling her?”

“It comes and goes,” Adam said, “but she said to tell you thanks for the oranges.” The car started moving and then abruptly jerked to a halt. Alistair was banging on the rear window.

Helen swallowed and straightened as he pulled open the door and got in, slamming it behind him. “I thought you were staying here,” she said, her words muffled and hollow.

“I am. I am!” Alistair waved his hands in frustration. “You don’t know what it’s like up there.”

“With poor Millicent?”

“They’re all ranting at me, Helen. What do I do about you?”

“About me?”

“Boarham said if I’d cast Jane out this never would have happened, and Grimsby said I needed to have a tighter grip on you. He said you and Jane are working against us. That you aren’t following the party line. But I trust you, Helen.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.

Alistair looked up at her, indecision written on his face. “I’m going to need your mask.”

“What?”

He nodded more firmly, as if trying to convince them both. “I need it, Helen. Grimsby said so, and he’s right. You need to be protected. I need to make you safe.”

“The mask makes me safe.”

“But you love your sister,” said Alistair. “I understand that, even if she’s not worth it. I do understand.”

“Yes?…”

“And I know you. You’re about to charge off to find her, or rescue her, or some sort of harebrained goose chase. I need to make you safe.” He reached up to Helen, and before she could think of any clever way to talk him out of it, before she could jump from the motorcar and run so fast, so fast, he unbuckled the straps and lifted it from her face, leaving her skin exposed to the warmed air of the vehicle.