16. Sam Oliver Street #2
Rosie disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the apartment while Clementine took her satchel to a small bedroom with a window facing Oliver Street.
Here, in contrast to her dormitory at Commonwealth, the space was cheerful.
The fiddle music from the downstairs apartment, now a rapid jig, streamed in through the open windows.
White curtains and a quilt with indigo pinwheels brightened the room.
Rosie had placed a jar of sunflowers on the small table by the iron bed.
A desk of walnut wood in the corner, beside the wardrobe, was tidy and almost bare; beside it a bookshelf contained a collection of volumes on enchantment.
I recognized the look of them: these were worn copies, some with broken spines and missing covers.
It was a collection acquired in secondhand shops, painstakingly assembled with limited means.
Clem closed the door behind her. In the privacy of her room, her entire aspect changed. She left her satchel by the desk, sat down on the edge of the bed, and dropped her head into her hands.
I watched her, dismayed. She had seemed so indomitable among her vicious classmates, before Cassandra, and on the long walk home.
But now, as she let down her guard, I realized how much it had cost her to appear unperturbed.
Her expression was anguished; this was no ordinary distress.
Clementine took deep breaths, holding her head as if to keep it in place.
I sent her a strong surge of encouragement.
Clem swallowed hard. “I failed,” she whispered.
It is only a small setback, I assured her, pushing a sense of conviction her way.
She couldn’t hear my words, of course, but the reassurance seemed to reach her. She sat up and her expression softened. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “You’re right. I must keep trying.”
With determination, visibly pushing down her despair, Clem took off her dusty clothes and exchanged them for a loose blue dress.
The reliable shoes, carefully brushed, went into the wardrobe.
She didn’t bother to comb her chin-length hair, merely tucking it back behind her ears.
She washed her hands and face in the porcelain basin that waited beside the sunflowers.
Then, after wrapping the gray lump Cassandra had given her in a white handkerchief, she tucked it into one of the many little drawers of the desk.
From the kitchen came the sounds of Rosie filling the kettle and placing it on the stove, then the tinkling of porcelain cups and plates, the ring of silverware, the clatter of the tray. A moment later she brought the tray into the large space that was both living room and study.
Rosie’s unfinished work lay open on the dainty desk by the window, her chair pushed back.
The lace curtains fluttered gently, brushing the clean pages.
Before the unlit fire, two yellow armchairs waited in amicable companionship.
Above the mantel hung a portrait of a man and a woman side by side.
A blue rug and a low table of inlaid wood before the sofa completed the room; like all the other objects, these were spare and clean, chosen more for their quality than their elegance.
Clem emerged from the bedroom, her face carefully composed into an expression of calm.
Rosie set down the tray on the inlaid table. Clem raised her eyebrows at a dome-shaped cake, decorated with powdered sugar and violets. “A cake?”
“Why not?” Rosie smiled. She cut two very big pieces. “Now,” she demanded, “tell me everything.”
“For the most part it was exactly as I’d expected. The classes advance very slowly. Honestly, I doubt I’d have learned much if I’d stayed.”
I was astonished at her words. But she spoke without a hint of arrogance; instead, she sounded sincerely disappointed. “I’ve seen Throckmorton twice. I don’t think going back to see him will be difficult. He seems very cut off from the university. I think I’ve been his only visitor in months.”
Rosie blinked and swallowed cake. “What’s he like?”
Clem shrugged. “Absurd. In a shabby, oblivious kind of way. But I’m grateful that he’s so completely infatuated with the armor.
It gives us an effortless common ground.
” She took a bite of cake, a sip of tea.
“The surprise came today in Spirit Casting. Mead instructed his thew, Cassandra, to do a little demonstration, and she pointed to me and said I was a woman.”
Rosie made a noise of frustration. “How did she know?”
Clem, sat back, chewing. “She came to me afterward on the road, as I was leaving. Do you know who she arrived as?”
“Who?”
“Father. She looked exactly like Father in the little portrait that Mother kept.”
Rosie’s face froze mid-bite, her expression horrified. “But how? And why?”
“I thought it was to frighten me. But then she told me I looked just like him, and that sooner or later someone else would have recognized me. So perhaps it was meant as a caution. She could have told Mead, but she didn’t.”
“I supposed that’s true.” Rosie frowned. “But…how did she know what Father looked like as a child?”
“The only photograph of him as a child was in Mother’s locket.” Clem looked at her sister meaningfully.
“Oh…” Rosie breathed. “So…Mother showed her the locket.”
“She must have. Which means—perhaps she is an ally after all.”
“Still.” Rosie shook her head. “It must have been dreadful to see Father there.”
Clem chewed thoughtfully. “I was prepared for worse. There’s nothing more common than malice at Commonwealth.”
Rosie shivered. “I would have run the other way.”
“She also warned me of something. She said the stones would come for me.”
“Stones? What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
It was as I feared. Though they would have made for sensational headlines, the stoning deaths had not been reported in the newspapers. No doubt the influence of Cisneros was in part responsible.
Rosie looked worried. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Clem sat back in her chair. “Well, I am certainly happy to be back here with you. No hay mal que por bien no venga, right?”
“I wish she’d explained herself more,” Rosie replied, still looking worried.
“Simeon was there. In Spirit Casting.”
Rosie gasped. “What did he do?”
“He made a lot of noise. I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Uncle Norbert.” Rosie didn’t say anything, but her expression was fearful. “I’ll tell you,” Clem continued, “that overall, enchanters are unpleasant. My books are better company.”
Rosie gave a strained laugh. “Clem, you would say that of almost anyone.”
“Oh, I did manage to make a friend. Her name is Vera and she works in the kitchens. She shares your fine eye for fashion.”
“Don’t tease me or I’ll rip out all the mending I’ve done to your dresses while you were gone. Including the one you’re wearing and you haven’t even noticed.”
Clem smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile as her own self, rather than in the guise of some inept buffoon—a true smile.
Some people with severe faces are made beautiful by their smiles, brightening with sudden light.
Clem wasn’t one of them. The smile, however genuine, conveyed more sadness than joy: it was the smile of an old soul, worn of the world, glad to find in it some spark still worth treasuring.
She leaned forward and pressed her sister’s hand.
“Thank you, dearest. Of course I noticed: the shoulder seam. But it’s so perfectly done I could be excused for not noticing.
I also saw the sunflowers, which have cheered me almost as much as seeing you.
So tell me. Have you had much copy work this week?
Did you miss me more than you ever imagined? ”
Rosetta gave a little sigh. “I’ve had a fair amount of copy work, and it’s kept me busy. But I did miss you, and it was very strange to be here alone.”
“Yes.”
Rising to her feet, Rosetta wandered over to the mantel and gazed at the painting hanging above it. “Missing you made me miss them, somehow. Your absence made their absence greater.”
Clem rose from her seat and joined her sister. “I know,” she said quietly.
Their attention to the painting compelled my attention also.
I had no doubt it pictured their parents.
Cassandra was right: Clem and Rosie looked distinctly like their father, whose long face, dark hair, expressive eyebrows, and fine beard gave him a distinguished air.
The artist had captured a gentleness of expression in his eyes and smile.
Their mother tilted her head slightly toward her husband, as if about to rest it on the spot between his neck and his shoulder.
Her smile was sweet, her gaze open and direct.
She wore her hair braided, in a crown. The style was familiar.
And suddenly I saw it. That face. That face.
I stared at the painting, wondering if it could be mere uncanny resemblance.
But no, of course it could not be. Their features were unmistakably identical.
The woman in the painting, Clem and Rosie’s mother, was the same woman I’d seen two days earlier in a messy office at Commonwealth.
She was Livia, Professor Throckmorton’s spirit thew.