Page 77 of The Scarlet Ball

“Curette, bone saw, and trephine, that’s good, but fetch the forceps as well.”

Mrs. Howard’s voice was strong and clearer than I had heard it in weeks, and I thought, fighting my way through the haze, how stupid I had been.

You fucking idiot, I snarled to myself, did you forget everything about working for a living when you put on a nice dress? You forgot who you were, you forgot who Mrs. Howard was, and you forgot who Mielle belonged to.

They had laid me on the dining room table, every light on and more lamps brought in besides. I was spread out where I’d hosted a cold meat and salad luncheon just a few days ago. Someone had arranged my limbs and pulled the skirt of that fabulous dress down over my legs, but they’d left my head lolling to one side, a little puddle of spit growing beside my cheek. The moment I became aware of it, I had to keep myself from wiping it away.

A deep and unnatural weariness rested over me like a lead blanket. I could just go back to sleep, I realized, close my eyes and keep drooling on the oak. The only thing that kept me from drowsing off was the hard and cold realization that if I did, I would not be waking up again.

Through my lashes, I watched Mrs. Howard and Mielle at the sideboard, their hair covered and long butcher’s aprons over their clothes. From a pair of ancient trunks, they pulled sharp things, cutting things, things with long handles to gain better leverage, things that would spin open and then clamp down hard. Most of these things I could not name, and if I did not come up with something very clever, I would learn what they did in a terribly immediate way.

“Check her again,” Mrs. Howard said as I was considering this. “She’ll be waking up soon, and I do not want any trouble.”

Mielle turned and reached for my hand, and I was lucky, so damned lucky, that Sister Michel at the convent had done this in the infirmary from time to time. Mielle lifted my wrist and half dropped, half tossed it onto my face. Someone only asleep rather than unconscious would stir at the shock, and someone faking would instinctively keep their hand from striking them. I did neither, lying perfectly still when my own hand hit my nose and cheek with a surprising amount of force.

“She still sleeps.”

“Be sure.”

I had a moment to hold my breath when she reached down and dug her nails into the soft flesh inside my upper arm, squeezing viciously and twisting besides. The pain cut through the fog of whatever they had given me like a knife, and still I didn’t move; I’d had worse. I kept my body as loose as a silk scarf on the table, not thinking, pretending to be insensible until she let go. When she did, she rubbed the pad of her thumb over the emerging bruise as if in apology.

Next time, I’ll feed you straight to the demon lords, I thought, but then Mrs. Howard was speaking again.

“We are almost ready. You know your role after the commutation has been accomplished.”

“Yes, Mrs. Howard. I wait until you are breathing well. Only when you are breathing well, will I approach your former body and inject her with the prepared syringe. She should not struggle, but if she does, I am to restrain her as best I can while ensuring that I do not in any way harm her face or hands. They must be whole and pristine for the viewing.”

It was a curiously long speech for Mielle, and I thought of that thumb pressed to my bruise. I would not count on her. I couldn’t count on her, but still I took in the knowledge she had given me with grim satisfaction.

They returned to work and so did I, deliberately tensing and relaxing my muscles while staying as still as I could; I wanted to be ready to move as soon as I had to, and I did not want to fucking trip when I did. I was not going to forget that it was two against one, because of the two of them, Mrs. Howard was more dangerous. I wanted to get out of this alive, and to do that, I had to do more than run. I had to fight.

They were working faster now, preparing what Mrs. Howard called the Via Sanguine. Into a small brass cauldron, she placed handfuls of stained fabric, some of them menstrual rags, some of them trimmings from the dresses Mielle had altered to suit me. There was hair as well, likely pulled from my brush, and I thought all over again about the kind of power that people in service had, power over trash and refuse, but power nonetheless.

Mrs. Howard and Mielle worked deliberately and with great care—I could hardly imagine they would be able to send to the druggist or the greengrocer if they made a mistake—but I saw that they were hurrying as well. The last piece of the puzzle did not fall into place until Mrs. Howard glanced up at the clock.

“Parsons in the stable will have the mare prepared by nine, and I want to be riding to the Scarlet Ball by nine thirty. We must be quick.”

She had never intended me for the Scarlet Ball. Hell, she might never have intended Ginny for it. Instead, it would be her, wearing me as I wore her granddaughter, only the difference was that I wasn’t going to California or Toronto or Shanghai. I’d be stuck in her body, and then, likely by Mielle’s steady hand, I would be dead.

Sharp unpleasant tingles ran up and down my arms and legs. I was waking up in earnest now, and my body had feelings about how long it had been since it was allowed to move. I kept as quiet as I could, bit my tongue to bear it. My nerves burned, but I knew it was better they do so than feel nothing. Numbness meant inactivity meant death, and I told myself over and over again, You will not die here.

Mrs. Howard started to speak, to chant, and I ignored her, working on forcing blood into my limbs, into my hands that felt like ungainly paws at the ends of my arms. Despite my best efforts, I could still hear her, and whenever her words came clear, my blood threatened to go cold and inert again.

“Let me walk,” Mrs. Howard said over and over again, “on a road forced open with blood, let me walk. Let me walk and come to a place unused so that I may sink my roots. Let me walk to a house there among the trees of bone and where the river floods red, let me walk.”

My limbs were warming, the unnatural lassitude wearing away, but so slow, too slow.

“Mielle.”

“Yes, Mrs. Howard.”

I registered her coming to stand over me by the way her shadow blocked the light through my closed eyelids. The blindness was the worst of it, no idea what was coming, forced to wait for it.

“The left hand,” she said as if she was reminding herself, and that was all the warning I got.

I couldn’t help it, I howled as she drove the knife into my palm. I screamed in shock, but the warning was enough, and I grabbed the candelabra burning so merrily by my shoulder with my right hand and smashed it into her face. She went down as gracefully as an ox brought to sacrifice, and I lurched to my feet. I was slow, still too slow, but I had been warned, and I spun just in time to face Mrs. Howard.

Another moment, and I would have torn the knife out of my hand and stabbed her, but she fell forward onto me as if she were about to collapse into a faint. Reflexively, I caught her to keep her from knocking me over. I should have let her fall and kicked her face on the way down, but before I could disentangle myself, I remembered too late that I had seen this trick from her before, and then I saw the glint of steel in her hand as she stabbed me with a syringe.