14
Aurelia woke to the sound of raised voices.
It took her a moment to process where she was—on the sofa instead of in her bed—and where the voices were coming from—the shop.
She sat up, rigid and suddenly wide awake as she tried to figure out what was going on.
The voices sounded angry, and her first thought was that Jane, Rochester, and the others were upset with her for staying away for so long.
Usually she made sure to tell each round of characters that she wouldn’t be able to join them every night, but had she forgotten to tell this group?
She squinted at the clock on the wall and saw that it was nearly three o’clock in the morning.
Her choices seemed limited; she could either ignore the voices and hope they didn’t wake Julia, or go and try to calm everyone down and hope Julia didn’t make another appearance.
She opted for the latter as the best of a bad selection.
Moving quickly to the bathroom, Aurelia combed her fingers through her matted hair, then splashed water on her face and hoped it would make her seem more composed than she felt.
She’d been wearing a short, sleeveless dress when she’d fallen asleep on the sofa and it was now a wrinkled mess, but just as she was about to go into her bedroom to change, the voices spiked in volume.
Aurelia froze before moving back into the hallway and pressing her ear to the guest room door, but there was no sign of Julia stirring.
Only moderately relieved, she made for the stairs, slipped on a pair of shoes at the bottom, and then quickly opened the door.
“I’m sorry, I can hear everyone’s upset, but we’ve got to keep it down to a dull—” Aurelia had started speaking as she closed the door behind her and moved to the mezzanine railing to look down at the characters, but she lost all ability to finish when she caught sight of what was happening below.
There were three women in the shop, and they were standing in a circle, cheeks flushed and faces twisted with anger. At the sound of her voice, they looked up and turned their rage on Aurelia.
“How unaccountably rude! I’ve never been treated so poorly in my life and hope I never will again. Come down this instant and let us out of this place!”