Look Beyond What You See

“Aerys, how would you like your grandmother to visit sometime soon?” Zinaida asks me at luncheon. This is not a question. She’s coming, probably to see about the necklace. Zut alors, I won’t have it!

“Why should she do that? She hardly ever visited me when I lived in her own chateau. If I am to see a member of my family, I would much prefer a visit from my sister Kyla,” I reply honestly in as cheerful and complacent a tone I can manage. I need to write Kyla tonight. Dmitri promised the post will be better here than it was at home. Kyla’s letters, fortunately, made it here, tucked between my books, and so I have an address for her.

“Which sister is that, dear? Did we meet her last night?”

“Regrettably, no. She got married last year, around her eighteenth birthday. She lives in Kashmir now. How far is that from here?”

“Quite a long way. I’m afraid that simply won’t be possible. Were you close with her?”

“We were inseparable, until she was taken away. I miss her desperately.”

“I’m so sorry for you.” Liar. “Well, perhaps your grandmother won’t come. She is a very busy woman, after all.” The look on Zinaida’s face indicates that she has no idea what to think of my more compliant behaviour, nor of my sunny disposition after coming in from my ‘riding lessons’ with Dmitri. He is again silent, observing my interactions with his mother as if nothing could be more interesting. Wesley is conspicuously absent from the table. He’s probably attending to some sort of business matters pertaining to his exalted position.

“Will I be attending to my regular studies after luncheon, Mother? Or shall I be helping with Aerys’s lessons?” Dmitri inquires. I suspect he’s plotting something, for all he acts innocent.

“You’ll be at your regular studies, of course. There is no need for you to participate in etiquette and decorum lessons. My hope is that Aerys only needs a remedial course,” Zinaida replies, her eyes narrowed at me to scrutinize my reaction. She’ll be disappointed.

“I’m sure I only need to learn where your preferred etiquette and decorum differs from that taught me in my grandmother’s household,” I reply primly. Dmitri smirks slightly. He’s sussed my game, no doubt, but his mother hasn’t. I sense confusion lurking behind her smiles and graces.

“I certainly hope so. Your table manners, at least, are excellent.”

“And what of her test? Am I to help with that?” Dmitri presses.

“Of course not. I’ll not have you slipping her answers or something.”

“Have I given you cause to think me dishonest? Whyever would I even conceive of cheating?” I ask Zinaida with wide, innocent eyes. Zinaida sputters for a few seconds trying to come up with a reasonable reply while Dmitri fakes a coughing fit--rather convincingly, too, I might add--to conceal his laughter. I go to his side to try to help him like a dutiful fiancée for a final touch to my charm.

“I meant no disrespect, dear. I only wish that we would be beyond reproach in this household,” Zinaida gasps indignantly. Dmitri ceases his coughing fit and shoots me a grateful smile. Zinaida’s eyes fixate on this moment like a hawk’s eyes on a rabbit. “I take it the two of you are getting along well? You’ve spent a good deal of time together since we came home.”

“As well as can be expected for new acquaintances,” Dmitri replies smoothly. His voice is always enthralling, deep and rich and velvety, sometimes with a hint of seductiveness....

Save it, Aerys. You need to get to know him much, much better before you can decide that you actually want to spend the rest of your life with him.

“That’s wonderful,” Zinaida beams. I say nothing. My opinion is not wanted here, anyway. I would use eating as an excuse, but I’ve already picked the good parts out of my salad, and it seems that no more food will be forthcoming. Oh well. It’s good to know that I’ll maintain my slim figure in my new home.

“If it pleases you, I believe I’ve finished my luncheon. Perhaps I could take my test now? The sooner it’s over, the more time is left for my remedial etiquette and decorum lessons,” I smile winningly. Dmitri looks at me as though I’ve sprouted another head, but I’ll ignore him for now. This performance is for his mother, who couldn’t be more overjoyed by my last few sentences.

“Of course, dear. Just follow me. I presume Dmitri showed you the library?” Zinaida asks as she leads me out of the dining room at a brisk pace. No, he most certainly did not. We spent all morning outside. But you don’t know that.

“I’m sure he must have, but it all runs together. I’ve seen so many new things in the past several hours that I’m terribly mixed up.” She doesn’t need to know that my memory is perfect and I remember every place I’ve been in the mansion thus far and the paths that connect them. I’m good at that.

“The nerve of that boy! It’s not a place to be easily forgotten. How could he have missed it? Ah, well, never mind. I’m sure he just forgot in his excitement to have you here. He’s known about this for so long, you see.... Well, I guess you wouldn’t, since they kept you in the dark about this all these years. But never mind. I’m sure the two of you will get along beautifully. Ah, here we are!” She flings an elegantly carved set of double doors open to reveal the most delightful thing I’ve seen since the roof garden. The library is enormous, lit from above by glittering stained glass skylights and from an entire wall of windows overlooking a meticulously kept garden. Small electric lamps adorn the bookcases, all of which are hand-carved and filled with exquisite books. Most have gold leaf, and all are hardbound with the most artfully designed covers.

“This is amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it,” I breathe, spinning around to see everything.

“My husband designed it. He’s always had a knack for these things. But you’ll have time to explore it later. For now, Madame Alouette is waiting for you,” Zinaida asserts before dragging me off through the maze of bookshelves to look for this “Madame Alouette.”

“Alouette” is a popular children’s song and has been for years and years, as best I can tell. Before it was a children’s song, however, it was a French housewives’ song to be sung to entice a certain species of bird known as an alouette. The tune is deceptively sweet; the lyrics call “birdie, nice birdie, I’m going to pluck your feathers.”

I strongly suspect that, in spite of Madame’s amusing name (and her uncanny resemblance to a puffy little songbird), I am the bird here to be plucked.

***~O~***

“Oh my goodness. This is just…. I’ve never seen the like, in all my years of teaching!” Madame Alouette exclaims. For once, my suspicions have not been confirmed; Madame Alouette has become more and more flustered as she has been examining me. “Fluent in multiple languages, with knowledge of some others! Such a broad and deep understanding of literature! An absolutely thorough grasp on every social convention and stricture of etiquette! I must tell Her Ladyship at once! Please excuse me, Aerys. I know our time together has not yet expired, but I simply cannot stay a moment longer, and I hardly know what else I could ask you that what prove more than you’ve already proved. I’m sure Her Ladyship or someone else will come for you directly. Please wait right here.”

Madame Alouette flutters away as quickly as she can, in her masses of ruffled skirts, twittering under her breath about my apparent brilliance. As soon as she’s out of sight and earshot, I leave the table at which we had been seated and float noiselessly through the library, exploring the cataloguing system for the books and searching for secret doors, hidden passages, and the like. No one else is here, from the sounds of things, and I will know when Zinaida returns, at any rate. Her heels make quite a clatter on these polished hardwood floors, and she is a woman with a heavy, purposeful step. She will never know I strayed from where she left me.

I am not disappointed in my search for secrets, either. A good number of the wall bookcases have false books that, if one tries to remove them from the shelf, are door handles that cause the whole shelving unit to rotate on a hinge, revealing a room or a tunnel behind them. Most of the rooms are just study rooms, with tables and lamps and sometimes even cozy little fireplaces, but never any windows. The passages are all dark and musty-smelling, and cockroaches generally scatter from the light thrown in by the opening of the door.

One bookshelf in a remote corner of the library is particularly intriguing. Its books are genealogies and histories and mythologies. I immediately locate my own genealogy book and the Berkeley one and resolve to go through them at another time. And the histories are astounding; they have translations of ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Hindu texts as well as the most modern histories, and everything in between. But what most catches my attention are the mythologies. Of course there are the usual titles from Greek and Norse myth, but with them are books on all sorts of supernatural creatures and paraphernalia: The Leviathan, the Kraken, Scylla, Charybdis, gryphons, phoenixes, unicorns, vampires, lycans, shape-shifters, the Minotaur, harpies, mermaids, sirens, sorcerers, alchemists, wizards, witches, ghosts, elementals....

The cover of the book on elementals is breathtaking. A simple pitch black background is decorated by a single pair of eyes, but oh! those eyes! Vibrant as gemstones, and they change moment to moment. One second they are the emerald green of summer leaves and seem to coil with vines; the next they are earthy brown with silvery flecks of mica; then they turn to swirling grey, almost like Zinaida’s eyes, and then to the rippling aquamarine and cerulean of a lake, and then to a blazing amber that flickers like flames.

Like Dmitri’s eyes.

I impulsively take hold of the book, and feel the bookcase shift. At the same moment I hear Zinaida’s distinctive voice and step in the corridor. I don’t have long to return to my seat and make it look as though I have not left it. Though curiosity is gnawing at me, I carefully replace the book and bookshelf and flit through the library, silent as a shadow, to my proper place.

Whatever discoveries await me behind that bookshelf will simply have to wait.