Wood Sprites

32: Flayed

One good thing about Joy stuffing herself was that she was asleep before Anna knocked on the door and walked in before they could answer. Jillian was in her Peter Pan costume and obviously hiding deep within the character.

“Jillian, where are your clothes?” Anna asked.

“I want to keep them clean,” Jillian stated. “If we eat something like pancakes for breakfast, they might get messy.”

“She’s a very messy eater,” Louise said because it might be useful for one of them to constantly be dropping food. It would be easier to sneak out food if some of it was always rolling under the table. “When can we go home and get everything we want to keep?”

“This is your home now.” Anna waved to take in Esme’s steampunk bedroom. “The house is part of your parents’ estate. It’s up to the executor of their will to go through things and decide what is to be done with them.”

“Who is that?” Louise hated the idea of a stranger going through their things.

“I don’t know. I have my lawyers looking into it.”

“We should be able to get our stuff,” Jillian said. “Our clothes and everything in our bedroom are ours.”

“In these kind of things, it’s best to follow protocols; otherwise things get messy.”

There was a protocol for kidnapping your grandchildren? “What are we going to do for clothes?”

“We’ll go out shopping later.” She waved them toward the door. “Come downstairs for breakfast.”

Would the cook notice the missing food? Would she tell anyone? Would Ming realize Louise had heard everything? Louise wished she could turn to someone for comfort, but she was afraid that if she leaned on Jillian, her twin would break under the pressure.

Nikola was leaning against her, obviously not wanting to be left alone. It would be better, though, that he never come to Ming’s attention. Besides, Joy probably wouldn’t stay hidden if there was a table full of food just above her head. Louise patted him reassuringly but commanded firmly, “Stay.”

They didn’t eat breakfast in the grand dining room with the massive table. Instead, Anna led them to a tiled sunroom. Louise recognized it as the place where Ming’s photograph had been taken eighteen years earlier. It seemed as though time had stopped in the room. Ming sat in the same wooden thronelike chair. He wore a dove-gray suit of linen and a purple shirt without a tie. It could have been the same suit that he’d been wearing when his picture was taken. The pale fabric made his white hair, ashen skin, and strange amber eyes less striking.

“This is my husband, Edmond.” She touched them each on the shoulder as she introduced them. “This is Jillian and Louise.”

He studied each of them without so much as a nod to acknowledge the introduction. “What do you know of your real parents?”

“Our real parents are George and Mackenzie Mayer,” Jillian stated with Peter Pan’s bravado.

Ming frowned slightly. “Your genetic donors.”

“Our parents never told us who donated the stuff they used to make us,” Jillian stated firmly since it was true.

“They didn’t tell us anything. We figured it out,” Louise added cautiously. “Our blood types are wrong to be their naturally conceived children.”

“The paperwork only has lot numbers on it,” Anna murmured as if it were something the twins shouldn’t hear. “I suspect Esme pulled material from a sperm bank.”

“I am interested in who she selected to father her children.” Ming didn’t lower his voice; he acted as if the twins weren’t present. “The DNA scans were interesting. I’m having more detailed tests run on them.”

“I can’t imagine what Esme was thinking. Why go through all that pain and angst if she wasn’t going to stay on Earth? Was she afraid she was going to have an accident like Lain and be stuck on Earth, unable to bear children? It breaks my heart that she never told me that she was afraid. And to think, that she sat right here, a week before she went into orbit and never breathed a word about what she’d done.” Anna gave a sad little laugh. “After she left home for that last time, I had several vivid dreams about her hiding babies in a cabbage patch. Every night, a different woman would come to the garden and steal away a baby.”

Ming looked at her sharply. “You did not tell me about those dreams.”

“I thought it was utter nonsense.”

Ming breathed out what might have been anger. Whatever it was, it didn’t touch his face, but his eyes were ice-cold. He motioned to Celine, who was hovering by the door. “We’ll eat now.”

They sat at a round table with exactly four seats. Even if Tristan had stayed for breakfast, there wouldn’t have been room for him. A female that Louise hadn’t seen before rolled a cart into the sunroom and produced plates out from under silver covers. She had lush red hair woven into a long braid. Like Celine, her beauty marked her as an elf even though there was no sign of elf ears.

“This is Nattie, our cook,” Anna introduced the female.

The dishes were identical in content. Each had a split-grilled fish with a poached egg, a small mound of cooked spinach, a dark slab of bread, a wedge of lemon, and a yellow flower of something. The skin and head were still on the fish, and it stared up at Louise with reproach.

“This is breakfast?” Jillian didn’t like runny eggs, and the yolk glistened like a drop of honey in the morning sun, ready to burst open.

“Yes, dear.” Anna picked up her silverware and started to dissect the grilled fish. “The skin comes off easily and the filet is exposed. But be careful — there are bones underneath.”

The yellow flower proved to be a very nice buttercream. The dark bread had a strong sweet flavor to it, some odd cross of rye and molasses, which was acceptable, but Louise would have liked toasted wheat instead.

“The lemon is for the spinach.” Anna demonstrated, squeezing the juice onto the mound of rich green. “It’s very good for you. It’s a very balanced breakfast.”

Was this a typical elf breakfast or some kind of weird take on breakfast for immortals? Every part of it was well-cooked and tasted fine but was just too strange after a night in an unfamiliar bedroom. Louise nibbled at it, thinking of the contents of the pantry. Everything in the kitchen had been strange and unappealing. It did not bode well for future meals. They might starve to death here.

In the end, it had been smart to leave Nikola in their room. Anna took them straight from the table to clothes shopping. Louise felt he’d be safer and happier in their room than dragged through dozens of new places, unable to ask questions or comment on their surroundings.

“I want to change into my regular clothes first!” Jillian obviously wanted to warn Nikola that they were going to be gone for a long time.

“You both can change into the first dresses that you like.” Anna had a hold of Jillian’s wrist when she announced her plan. She used her hold to gently but firmly tow Jillian toward the front door. “It will make it easier to deal with the sales staff if you’re wearing something better than your normal clothes.”

Celine appeared in the foyer, blocking the stairs back to their room. Louise had little choice but to follow behind Anna.

It was still raining outside, a downpour that well reflected Louise’s state of mind. The limo waited under the shelter of the portico with two elves in black suits pretending to be men. Considering that the car could drive itself, two drivers was extreme overkill.

Louise tried to get a better idea of the neighborhood where the mansion was located, but the rain smeared the windows.

Anna outlined her shopping plans, ending with, “Until we can get things settled out, you’ll need dresses, socks, and underwear.”

“We like T-shirts and pants,” Jillian stated firmly in Peter’s voice. “Dresses are sissy.”

“We will get those, too,” Anna said as if she’d won some point. “If we have time, we can look at furniture for your bedrooms. We’ll remodel Esme’s room and then Lain’s, so you both can have your own space.”

“We like being together.” Jillian leaned forcibly against Louise to underscore her point.

“And we like the room we’re in.” Louise liked to imagine Esme was protecting them in her old bedroom, even though she knew that was impossible.

Anna breathed out a small sigh. “I indulged Esme’s grief after her father was killed and Lain had her accident. I let her make that room into a cave and fill it up with so much escapist whimsy. I thought it was good for her, hammering nails instead of heads, but looking back it seems exactly the wrong thing. It was the beginning of the end.”

Anna spoke as if Esme was dead instead of just in another star system billions of miles away. The colony sent audio updates on a regular schedule, delayed by nearly five years. Esme’s ship would have arrived nearly eighteen years ago; had she not sent messages home?

“She’s not dead,” Louise said.

“To me, she died the day she jumped out of Earth’s orbit. She’s lost to me. That damn gate has stolen all my baby girls from me. I hate it.”

“What about—” Louise caught herself. She and Jillian shouldn’t know anything about the rest of the family. How could she salvage her question? “Were Lain and Esme your only kids?”

“No.” Anna didn’t seem to notice how horribly the question was cobbled together. She sighed and looked out the window, although it was so hazed by rain it was unlikely she could see anything but her own blurred reflection. “I wanted rafts of children, and Edmond was more than willing to indulge me. After several — failures — we had two little boys. The doctors said I wouldn’t be able to safely have any more. We talked about using surrogate mothers; India had a booming business in it at the time. We went so far as to take the first steps, and have some eggs harvested and fertilized. I still dream of the little girls they might have been; the grown women they would be now. The doctors said, though, that the genetic testing showed that all the girls had inherited the same genetic illness as our little boys.

“Our two little boys were so ill. They didn’t sit up until they were nearly one and didn’t start to walk until they were three. They were always so small for their age. When they were twenty, they were smaller than you are now. I couldn’t bear to subject more children to that, and Edmond agreed. I had the embryos disposed of.”

Louise stared at her. Bitter sorrow and self-blame were obvious in her voice. Anna didn’t know. She didn’t realize that her sons were half-elves. It took a hundred years for elves to reach “adult,” so it was probably no surprise to Edmond that the boys had grown so slowly. He had left his wife believing that somehow she was responsible for their lack. How had he fooled Anna for so many years? Had she never considered it because when the boys were born, elves were still mythical on Earth?

Louise glanced at Jillian, who shrugged. She scrambled to come up with more questions. “Do — do they live at the house?”

“No. They might look like little boys, but they’re full-grown men. They moved out years ago.”

But they weren’t really adults. They were still children.

And who were Tristan’s fully human half-sisters? The missing Bethany and the otherwise unmentionable Adele, Chloe, Felicie, and Danni? Had they been the embryos that Anna thought destroyed? Had the DNA tests been a lie so Edmond could do what he wanted with the unborn children? Louise remembered the loathing in Celine’s voice as she called the girls “inbreeds.” What had Edmond done to the girls?

The next few hours were a whirlwind of shopping. Anna seemed to want to compact nine missed years into a single day. First stop was a hair salon for three-hundred-dollar haircuts. Then they had their nails done. Deeming Macy’s too common, Anna took them to Les Petits Chapelais, Kisan, Half Pint Citizens, and Julian & Sara. They shopped for dresses along with a sprinkling of shirts and jeans as promised, each piece of clothing over a hundred dollars. Then their shoes were deemed too worn and new ones were bought.

Louise felt like she was being flayed, everything familiar and safe being torn away. Finally, as they were “slumming” in Neiman Marcus, Louise locked herself in the cell-like fitting room and called their Aunt Kitty. Jillian was serving as a distraction, doing a full-blown version of the song “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie.

Aunt Kitty answered with a frantic “Louise! Where are you? Is Jilly with you? Are you two okay? Where are you?”

“Shopping.” Louise eyed the fitting room’s mirrors. She barely recognized herself. She hated how little and scared and fashionable she looked. She turned around to face the blank door. Four black dresses hung from a hook, waiting to be tried on, just in case Anna “deemed them stable enough to attend the funerals.” By the way she phrased it, Louise wasn’t sure Anna would actually allow them to go to the funeral home, let alone the burial. “The school called Anna Desmarais, because she’s our grandmother. She got her name on our records as emergency contact. She’s taken us clothes shopping.”

Apparently Aunt Kitty knew some of this because she didn’t ask how Anna was their grandmother. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

My mommy and daddy are dead! Louise closed her eyes tight on the tears that wanted to come. “I’m scared. I don’t like her, even if she’s our grandmother. She’s not letting us go home. She says we have to wait for someone called an executor to go through everything first.”

“I’m your parents’ executor,” Aunt Kitty said. “I’m at the house now. I’m trying — I’m trying — God, I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t believe this is happening.”

Aunt Kitty seemed close to crying.

Louise huddled in a ball in the corner of the changing room, trying to be brave. At least it wasn’t some stranger going through all her parents’ things. “Can we come live with you?”

“Oh, oh, honey bear, you’re going to have to be patient. I’m trying to get hold of my lawyer. It’s a holiday. And — and I need to set up the funerals.”

Louise whimpered. It hadn’t seemed completely real until Aunt Kitty mentioned funerals.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“Can she really just keep us?”

Aunt Kitty was silent for a minute and then said reluctantly, “Lou, I know this is hard for you. I’m going to do everything I can so you two can come and live with me, but that doesn’t mean that your grandmother is a horrible person or that you shouldn’t love her. She wants you because she loves her daughter so much, and she wants to love you, too.”

“You don’t think you can get custody.”

“I might not be able to.” Their mother had always loved Aunt Kitty for her honesty. It wasn’t, however, what Louise needed right now. She really wished her aunt would lie to her, paint everything as something less frightening.

“After Grandma Mayer died, our parents changed their will. They made you our guardian if something happened to them. It’s in their will!”

“I know, but Anna has DNA test results proving that you’re her granddaughters. The clinic doesn’t have any paperwork showing that Esme donated her embryos. It means your father used his position to steal you and Jillian. Her lawyers can make what your parents did seem as if they snatched babies out of the hospital.”

“It’s not the same! It was just a few little frozen cells. We would have gotten thrown away if they hadn’t used our embryos. We were leftovers that only our parents wanted.”

“I know, but it’s up to the courts to decide who you’ll live with.”

“Why do we have to live with her until they decide? Her husband is scary. We don’t like him.”

“What did he do?” Aunt Kitty growled, her voice suddenly full of fear and anger.

It would be an easy card to play to say that Edmond had somehow molested them. Aunt Kitty would come down on him like a she-bear protecting cubs. But what would he do in response? These were people that casually discussed killing people.

“He’s albino.” Louise tried to make her fear sound stupid. “He’s scary-looking. His hair is white and he’s really pale, like a vampire, and his eyes are weird.”

“That’s it?”

“And they eat weird food. We had a fish with its head and tail on it for breakfast. You had to peel the skin off it before you could eat it. It’s creepy. We’re going to starve to death.”

Aunt Kitty breathed out. “Oh, Louise, I’m sorry. I know you two have to be scared. I really wish that you didn’t have to go through this, but you’re going to have to be patient. Since I’m not your aunt by blood, I can’t do anything until a judge settles it. In the meantime, promise me you’ll try to be good.”

“We will.”

“Don’t run away. That will make things worse. And don’t blow anything up.”