ROOKE LED HER INTO dark rooms lit by dozens of candles, their flames illuminating a four-poster bed draped with white curtains. Its softness beckoned, reminding Emeline that she hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.
Next to a bay window seat inlaid with green and gold cushions sat a writing desk, and on the wall opposite the bed, musical instruments hung from copper pegs. Emeline found a seemingly endless assortment of guitars and ukuleles, as if the collection had been curated just for her. She tore herself away from the beauty of them.
At least my imprisonment will be comfortable.
In the center of the room, three attendants of varying sizes awaited: tall and solid, wispy and lithe, short and plump. Their skin tones ranged from chestnut brown to dewdrop white, and as soon as Rooke left, the women grabbed her wrists and pulled her into the washroom.
“Wait … no … I’m supposed to see my grandfather.…”
Emeline tried to fight them all the way to the copper tub, where they stripped her, then pushed her into the steaming rose-scented bathwater. It surged up and over the sides as Emeline fell in, splashing onto the tiled floor. Soft pink petals floated on the surface of the water, gathering around Emeline’s shoulders and knees.
They forced her head under.
Emeline came up spluttering and gasping.
When she tried to escape, they did it again and again, until Emeline yielded and let them wash her. They soaped her mud-encrusted hair until her eyes burned with suds. They scrubbed her skin until it was raw.
“Where’s my grandfather?”
They ignored her.
After they toweled her off, Emeline grudgingly let them dress her in a pale gold gown that fell to the floor. A trail of delicate poplar leaves was sewn into the bodice. The leaves, stitched in ivory thread, trailed gently along the boatneck collar, as if blown there by a breeze. They were so finely wrought, she could almost see them moving.
Next, the women braided her black hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, lacing it through with sprigs of Queen Anne’s lace.
Last, they took her sliced palm and carefully salved it, then wrapped it tight with slender strips of gauzy white cotton, fastening it with a golden pin.
“There,” said the curvy brown attendant, her voice like summer rain. A smile ghosted her soft lips as she turned Emeline to the gilt mirror. “Look.”
In the polished smoky surface, Emeline found a stranger staring back. Gone was the broke musician who desperately needed new jeans, who wore her grandfather’s oversized cardigan to keep him close, and who rarely remembered to brush her hair.
The girl standing in the mirror had stepped straight out of a story. Her black eyes were dark pools in her pale face, and her cheekbones were dusted with gold to match her dress.
She looked utterly foreign and strange.
Her eerie reflection reminded Emeline that once, she’d believed all of Edgewood’s stories alongside Pa and Maisie and everyone else.
When did I stop believing them?
She couldn’t remember.
While her attendants beamed at their finished work, nodding with approval, the pale, willowy woman opened the door leading out into the adjacent rooms. The other two slid Emeline’s feet into silken white slippers, then ushered her through the door.
On the other side, two hedgemen stood guard. Each raised a finger to his lips.
A moment later, Emeline realized why.
Loud snores echoed throughout the warm room filled with growing green plants. On a table nearby sat a stack of newspapers and a deck of what looked like worn playing cards. Near the fire crackling in the hearth, bundled in a thick blue blanket, a gray-haired man slept in a rocking chair. Head slanted back, mouth hanging open.
Pa.
Emeline stepped quietly through the room, which smelled like burning spruce. Standing over him, she noticed how thin he’d become these past few years. He was sallow as a candlestick, and the color had been sapped from his hair.
Still, her heart swelled at the sight of him.
He used to do this when she was younger. Exhausted from working in the vineyards all day, he’d collapse in front of the television after dinner, fall asleep in his chair, then wake up grouchy and disoriented the next morning.
He seemed so peaceful, she didn’t want to startle him. Not after the terrifying night he’d had. Instead, she quietly pulled up the second rocking chair and sat down, watching him sleep. His big, clasped hands were spotted with age and veins flowed like rivers beneath his skin—a testament to his hardworking life.
You could read that life in his body if you knew how to look. Emeline looked. She loved every crease in her grandfather’s face, every spot of age. She loved the strength in his arms when they hugged her, crushing her breath from her lungs.
I miss you, she thought, her eyes prickling with tears. So much.
But it wasn’t this man she missed; it was the one he’d once been. A man who remembered her name and whose eyes lit up at the sight of her. A man who made her peppermint tea when she was having a bad day, and sang her lullabies when she was scared of the dark, and carried her to bed when she fell asleep by the fire.
That man was gone.
Emeline bit down on her lip, willing herself not to cry as she rose to her feet. After snuffing all but one of the lamps, she came back and bent over his sleeping form. His gray hair glistened, still wet from a bath, and his skin smelled like soap.
“It’s my job to take care of you now,” she whispered. She’d done a shit job of it so far but was determined to do better.
Bending, Emeline gently kissed the top of his head.
Pa’s snoring faltered and he jerked awake, sitting up in his chair.
“What…?” He pulled away from her, confusion clouding his eyes. “Who are you? W-what are you doing here?”
Emeline drew immediately back, realizing her mistake. She’d startled him, and without the light of the lamps it was difficult for him to see.
“It’s me.” She tried to smile, hoping he would hear it in her voice. “Emeline.”
His forehead scrunched into a nervous frown. “Who?”
“Emeline. Your—”
“You’re one of them.” His spotted hands gripped the blanket, bunching it hard, shaking ever so slightly. As if he was afraid of her.
An icy unease bled through her body. “Pa, no. I’m—”
His gaze darted fearfully around the room, searching the shadows. “Rose?” His voice shook. But it was only the two of them, and silence answered. “Rose!”
She flinched at her mother’s name.
Emeline had never known her mother. She’d barely been a week old when Rose abandoned her, leaving in the middle of the night. Her mother packed no bags and left no notes. Ewan Lark found newborn Emeline alone in Rose’s apartment, screaming in her cradle.
Now, Pa struggled to get out of the rocking chair. Emeline didn’t know if she should step forward and help him, or if that would scare him further.
“Rose isn’t here,” she said softly. “She left, remember? Rose left us nineteen years ago.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Emeline wanted to push them back in.
It was the wrong thing to say.
As the flames flickered in the fireplace, Pa’s face changed, turning white with fear. He pushed himself out of the rocking chair, stumbled, and nearly fell. The chair bounced furiously in his absence.
“I’m waiting for my daughter.” He’d backed himself into a corner. “Rose is coming to take me home. I just want to go home. Please! Leave me be!”
Grief stabbed like a knife. Emeline tried to tell him again that it was her, his granddaughter. But at the terrified look in his eyes, her voice caught and her chin trembled.
Emeline could say it over and over, but it would do no good.
“Please, stay away from me!” He held up trembling hands. “Don’t come any closer!”
The guards at his door moved towards Pa.
“No,” said Emeline, throwing up her hands. “Please. I’ll go. I’m the one he’s afraid of.”
Before the hot tears spilled down her cheeks, Emeline turned on her heel. Wrenching open the door between their rooms, she stepped through and shut it tight behind her. Sucking in a lungful of air, she fell back against the wood.
The man you knew and loved is gone, Emeline.
She shook Joel’s voice from her head.
It isn’t his fault. She gripped her arms, hugging hard. He’s frightened.
But Emeline was frightened too. Not so long ago, it had been Pa who chased away her fears. Who told her she wasn’t alone. Back when it had been just the two of them against the world.
And now?
With her shoulder blades pressed against the door, Emeline sank downwards until she hit the stone floor. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she buried her face in her soft silk gown.
An overwhelming wave of loneliness crashed through her.
I want to go home too, she thought.
This yearning, this ache—for someone to take her in their arms and tell her everything was going to be okay—was it so wrong? Was it weak to want to be taken care of, just for a day, or an hour, or even five minutes? The way Pa used to take care of her. Before.
Memories flooded her then, of the old Pa. The Pa who was not just a grandfather, but a father and teacher and friend. Strong and stern, loving and tender. Cleaning and bandaging a scrape on her knee. Letting her fall asleep in his lap while they watched movies together, then carrying her to bed. Teaching her how to prune and pick grapes. Trying his best not to cry as she left him to chase her biggest, oldest dream.
The strangest thing was, all those nights when she fell asleep in his lap, he’d whisper, One day, you’re going to forget me, duckie.
How wrong he’d been.