12. Four Days Until Bonding #2
At the far corner of the backyard, half-hidden by a clipped hedge, a pair of weathered cellar doors angle out of the ground. One stands open just wide enough for a pale hand to grip it from the inside.
Then the door is drawn shut, but not before I glimpse a strand of reddish-blond hair catching in the weak fall sunlight before it disappears. At first, I think it might be Sam. The color is close to hers, only a shade darker, but Sam is standing in front of me.
“Is your mother here?” I ask.
She pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “Mother? No. She’s up in Washington, lobbying for some bill that goes through next week. Healthcare-related, I think. Why?”
I look back. The cellar doors are closed now, ordinary against the winter-brown grass.
“Nothing. Forget it.” I follow her into the hallway. “Let’s go see that ballroom.”
**
As Sam and I approach the ballroom on the ground floor of the mansion, the number of people passing by us increases exponentially.
Women carry bolts of fabric over their arms. Two men with ladders brush past us with murmured apologies, one balancing a box of glass votives against his hip while the other, a man with a prominent hooked nose, shouts instructions.
“What’s going on?” I ask Sam.
“They’re preparing for the masquerade ball. You know, the prebonding celebration in two nights. You didn’t think Carrson’s bonding was going to happen without it turning into an enormous production, did you?”
“Oh,” I say, feeling foolish for not guessing something so obvious.
A woman in a black sheath dress with a binder in one hand and a cell phone pressed to her ear rushes up to us outside the doorway. Her dark hair has been twisted into a knot at the back of her head, though several pieces have already escaped.
“Miss Turner!” She hangs up without saying good-bye to whoever is on the other end. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, taking a step back as she fills my space with the smell of coffee and perfume. “I didn’t know. You are?”
“Patrice Holdwell, the event planner.” She’s flipping through a three-ring binder the size of my organic chemistry textbook.
“I hope you don’t mind, I’ve taken quite a bit of liberty with the design since you were out of town, but Master Carrson said your favorite color was blue and your favorite flower a hydrangea so I’ve centered the color scheme around that, but I didn’t know if you prefer gold or silver accents for the cutlery and for the tie backs on the chairs to match, and also, what do you prefer for an entrance song? Jazz or classical?”
“Uh,” I stumble, my mind processing her barrage of words slowly.
Blue?
Hydrangea?
I search backward through the past few months. The color of the sweaters I reach for when I’m tired. The flowers I pause beside at the grocery store. The little choices that don’t seem important until someone proves they’re paying attention. A warm flush moves through my body that Carrson noticed.
Then words like cutlery and opening song catch up to me, and suddenly I feel like I just woke up in the middle of someone else’s wedding, or maybe it’s my wedding but that can’t be right because no one’s proposed to me. “I—um, well…”
Sam hooks her arm through mine. “Gold,” she tells Patrice. “With matching chalices and serving platters. The muted kind, not that garish brass-looking stuff you pulled out for the Petersons last year.”
Patrice scribbles furiously.
“The music?” she asks.
Sam pauses, considering.
“Classical. Liebestraum No. 3 for Laurel’s entrance.” She glances at me, her expression a little too innocent. “And Liebestod when Carrson takes her out.”
Patrice’s pen stops. “That is…very dramatic.”
“It’s an Ashford bonding celebration,” Sam says with a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder. “Dramatic is the minimum.”
Patrice nods briskly. “Very well. Excellent choices. I’ll get right on these.” She turns away, muttering and chewing on the end of her pen.
Sam and I move past and step inside.
The room opens around me in a sweep of blue, red, and crystal so extravagant I stop walking.
I’ve seen pictures of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Marble floors bright enough to reflect the chandeliers above them. Endless windows facing endless mirrors until the room appears to stretch beyond its actual walls, all light and gilt and unattainable wealth.
This is like Versailles, but a darker, more shadowed version.
The paint is fresh, a deep midnight blue that darkens to black in the far corners.
Gold leaf climbs the molding in twisting vines, winding up toward the ceiling, where painted angels drift through clouds above a sky the color of stormwater.
Their faces are pale and serene, but their eyes are directed downward, watching everyone below.
Tall mirrors line the far wall from floor to ceiling, each one framed in gilt so realistic it looks grown.
Branches. Berries. Small birds with their wings spread wide.
The room repeats inside them, multiplied until the workers, the crates of flowers, Sam beside me, and my own startled reflection stretch into the distance.
There are too many of me. A dozen Laurels standing in the doorway.
Between the mirrors, paintings hang in heavy frames. Along the opposite wall, in between giant windows, white marble statues stand inside shallow alcoves. A woman with her head bowed. A man reaching toward her.
The floor is dark wood, not marble. Wide planks of walnut that someone has recently waxed, but the shine can’t hide the shallow grooves worn into the boards. They curve in long, graceful arcs, tracing the paths of dancers who have crossed this floor.
How many Ashfords have stood where I’m standing now?