Knowledge #3
Floretta is exhausted. In any kind household, she would already have been shown to her room—a room which Deborah is no doubt frantically preparing, having dropped her charge with her superior and run off to fulfill her employer’s commands.
But this is not a kind household, and so she fights to stand straight when her body yearns to droop in place, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin while she silently recites the scripture to herself, commanding obedience, biddability, all the other things she has been ordered, over and over again, to be.
She must be without flaw. If she is perfect, perhaps she’ll be sent home.
Perhaps they’ll see that her guardian up until this point has been the right one to make her the best possible person she can be, and they’ll let her go.
She’ll remember her uncle, and his grand, cold house, in her prayers for the rest of her life, if only they’ll let her leave.
So she stands rigid and unblinking as Miss Cottingsly looks her over, a small frown tugging at the corners of the older woman’s mouth, and when Deborah comes back into the kitchen, she finds child and matron staring at each other, locked in a silent battle of wills.
“Ma’am?” asks Deborah.
Miss Cottingsly jerks upright. “Don’t sneak up on me, girl,” she half-snaps. “Is the room prepared?”
“Yes, ma’am. Do you have her measurements?”
“All that I need,” says Miss Cottingsly. “I’ll have to contact the seamstress in the morning. It’s too late in the day to do it now. Still, she’ll have a whole new wardrobe by the end of the week. I’ll consult with the master as to my budget.”
“He said—”
“I’ll have him say it to me himself, rather than risk the consequences of any misunderstanding.”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Deborah, wilting slightly. “I’m sure you know best.”
“I always do.” Miss Cottingsly returns her attention to Floretta. “I’m sure you’re thinking of running away, urchin that you are. Think you can return to the dirty farm that produced you.”
“I wasn’t raised on a farm,” says Floretta. “My guardian was a priest. He taught me everything I needed to know. I can milk a cow if I need to, but we didn’t have any of our own. We survived on the good grace of the village folk, and they saw to us.”
“You’ll not need anyone’s good graces here, girl, save for your uncle’s, and he must have those for you in plenty, or he’d never have claimed you,” says Miss Cottingsly. “See to it that you give him no cause for regret.”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Floretta, voice going very small.
Then Deborah’s hand is on her shoulder, and she’s being led out of the kitchen and back down the hall to the stairs. When she glances into the room where she last saw her uncle, he isn’t there; the space is empty and dark, a void waiting to be filled with light.
Then she’s being guided up the stairs to the landing on the second floor, and down another hall to a closed door, which Deborah opens, revealing a bedroom almost as large as the entire house where Floretta has lived up until this point.
She holds the door, waving the room’s new occupant inside.
Floretta looks to her for confirmation, eyes wide, then steps over the threshold, staring at everything around her with rapture.
Any other girl raised to her new social status would see the marks on the walls where pictures have been removed, would notice that the furniture is large and heavy, made of dark wood, designed for adult guests rather than a child.
Floretta sees none of those things. She sees only the space to dress without twisting or bending uncomfortably, the bed large enough for her to sprawl and stretch her limbs out as far as they will go, never touching the sides of the mattress.
For the first time since her uncle appeared in her parlor, she looks around and understands why someone might want for Boston, might wish for more than their fair share of everything.
“It isn’t much of a view, I’m afraid,” says Deborah, gesturing to the room’s single window.
“But you can see the moon at night when it passes overhead, and the light it casts will help to give you sweet dreams. Your clothing’s in the wardrobe, and I’ve added a few things from the household stores.
It’s been some time since there was a child living here.
I hope you’ll find them to your liking. Is there anything else I can do for you, miss? ”
Floretta turns to her, and blinks in sudden confusion. The housemaid is almost glowing in the darkness that pools around the room, glowing a pale, lambent silver, like swamp fire in the deep forest. Like moonlight.
“Your skin—” she says, and stops herself, swallowing the next words before they can come.
If the master of the house decides she’s lost her senses, she’s more likely to be bound for an asylum than she is to be returned to her village.
To win her freedom, she must seem perfect.
So perfect that he can deny her nothing, and will grant her clear desire to go home.
“My skin?”
Floretta shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I was … I’m very tired, I was seeing things.”
“Your nightclothes are in the top drawer of the wardrobe. We can draw you a bath in the morning. For now, you should change, and sleep. The household had dinner several hours ago. The master may call for something light before he turns in, but understands that you’ll not be up to dining with him until you’ve had time to rest and recover your senses. ”
“Thank you,” says Floretta, with deep and obvious relief. “I am not trying to be … that is to say, I would rather not … but I’m not accustomed to…”
“I understand,” says Deborah. “He will too, once he’s had time to reflect on the events of the day.
He’s a powerful man, and a willful one, but he means you no ill, and he loved his sister.
He asked your mother to come here and live with him when she was scarcely older than you are now, and he always regretted the fact that he was unable to convince her, unable to save her.
He’ll save you if you let him. He’ll be an anchor you can use to hold yourself to ground when the storms blow through, and he’ll never ask for more than you can offer. ”
Floretta is young and scared and very far from the only home she’s ever known; she’s been fighting to be brave since the afternoon. Words desert her, and she bursts into tears.
Deborah is there almost immediately, gathering her close, making soothing noises that aren’t motherly, but more like what Floretta imagines an older sister might do, a loving relative.
Her skin is still glowing a faint silver, but Floretta doesn’t comment again, only closes her eyes, leans close, and cries until she feels wrung out, as dry as a dishrag after the last plate has been put up and the water has been tossed out the back door to soak into the ground.
Deborah releases her then, guiding her first to the drawer where her nightclothes have been folded neatly away, then to the bed. She draws the curtains as Floretta sinks into the pillows, and calls a soft “Goodnight” before leaving the room.
Floretta swears to herself that she won’t go to sleep in this strange place, that she’ll stay awake and plan her escape until morning.
She doesn’t even notice her eyes closing, and then there is sunlight streaming around the edges of the curtains, and the distant song of birds, and her war is lost before she could begin to fight it. Everything that comes after will come, whether she wills it so or not.