Maybe a thousand.
Maybe ten thousand.
And another black giant — the beginnings of one, anyhow — leaned against scaffolding, some distance away.
Slapping his palm down on the driver’s vest, causing a resounding thump that made Phister flinch, Philip scrambled from the rear seat while the car was in motion, stumbling for footing as he leapt and, landing, finding his balance on the floor, staggered forward a few clumsy strides. He did not fall. He held his hands out, a greeting, placating, and approached the spectacle.
“Phister,” Philip called, loudly over his shoulder, “it’s imperative that you remain nearby. Do not leave this area. You must listen to everything I say to these diminutive fellows.”
McCreedy put the car in drive, accelerating into a narrow turn, squealing one-eighty away from the clearing and heading back in the direction they had just come. Phister heard Philip yelling. This time, he did not look back.
So they drove, full speed, white-knuckled, for hours, or so it seemed, whipping madly between crates and boxes and down endless aisles, fleeing kilometres and kilometres within that huge, packed chamber, until the faint light of the distant ceiling faded. They did not see another picker during their flight, nor anything else that moved. Yet McCreedy drove as if pursued. Perhaps they were.
As their pace finally slowed, near dusk — more lost than ever — they discovered evidence of others; a deserted camp under the crag formed by the overhang of a huge chest, with cots set up for three adult-sized individuals.
While McCreedy kept watch, Phister cautiously searched the belongings, feeling awful for doing so, but finding canteen rations laid crosswise in a box, and a jug of cool water, which he brought back to the car. He and McCreedy consumed these goods in an instant before continuing on, consternation growing as the darkness closed in from all sides.
Miranda stood quietly by the window, her eyes moist with tears. Light breezes, scented with damp and woodsmoke from a nearby bonfire — perhaps burning on the estate itself but more likely from the townships beyond — wafted into the room, ruffling the white frills of her chemise. She raised her hand to bite at her thumbnail — there was blood, already, at the quick — gazing out, all the while, over the green hills that rolled before Elegia.
Amber suns’ light, alive with spiralling dustmotes, fell to lie across her, the worn flags of the floor, and across the dozing cat (who had never been named, twitching now, in her sleep, mewling softly, and batting her forepaws), before ending in a sunny oblong at the feet of a decorative but hopelessly tarnished suit of armour.
For the cat, constructed a mere few months ago, this day was like most others so far in its easy life: languid, pleasant, and warm. But for Miranda and her sisters, events were far from pleasant. “What
could
have happened?” This, asked for perhaps the tenth time since she had been standing by the window, crying steadily. Her sobs, at least, had subsided for the moment. Her breathing, though, remained ragged and audible, her voice breaking. “What could
possibly
have happened?”
Reclined uneasily on the red velvet divan, not as frightened as she had been earlier, yet still upset, Deidre rocked her head from side to side and did not answer; she had no theories to offer. She kept thinking about the gram she’d seen in her sanctum and could not help wondering if, by witnessing it, she had somehow precipitated the present situation.
Her two older sisters sat back to back on the harpsichord bench. Unconcerned, as always, with problems of people other than themselves, they did not seem afraid in the least. To them, this recent confinement was just another inconvenience, another injustice. Voluminia and Estelle were always angry and bored. Fun, for them, was to loiter with the stable hands, smoking cheroots, cussing and spitting. Deidre had spied on her sisters as they did these things (and a few other unmentionable ones) but had not yet told their father: the information was her trump card. If the Orchard Keeper knew about the indiscretions of his two eldest daughters, he would dismiss the hands forthright, banish them from the estate. Or have them beaten. Or locked in a cell.
Neither girl offered Miranda a compassionate response: Estelle mimicked a crying face, knuckles to her eyes, while Voluminia sneered and pouted and said, “Boo friggin
hoo
.”
The answer, of sorts, to Miranda’s query did come, but supplied by Lady, which surprised all four sisters, since Lady seldom spoke — certainly not without first being addressed. Deidre had even forgotten, momentarily, that the servant was in the room. Yet, standing in the shadows at the wooden door, and wringing her huge hands together, Lady offered her response in a voice that sounded like gravel rolling down a sloped rooftop: “The Orchard Keeper,” she said, “shall disclose in due time.”
The girls had turned, a uniformity of grace and motion, the only hint so far this afternoon that they were born into the same family: physically, the sisters looked in no way alike.
“What would you know, Lady?” Voluminia sneered, one dark eyebrow cocked, an expression of disdain she practised often. “And what kind of ominous crap is that, anyhow?
Shall disclose in due time
? You’re nothing but one of his trained idiots. A homemade monkey.”
“True,” Lady answered. When the servant moved forward, a thin column of suns’ light caught her profile, making her prominent brow even more of a dark cliff and casting deep shadows under her eyes. Impossible to read her expression, if she were hurt by the comment or not. “That may be true,” Lady repeated slowly, “but I do know about Orchard Keepers. And I know about children.”
Voluminia scowled.
But then Lady smiled — a mouthful of jumbled teeth, large and yellow — as surprising as her cryptic answer.
Deidre never liked the tone her eldest sisters used when speaking with servants. Lady had been Deidre’s wetnurse, her nanny, her only companion for the first ten years of life. Like most staff of Elegia, Lady was a half-wit, but she was also gentle, and she meant well. Staff could not help their limited capacities. Idiocy was part of their composition. Lady and the other servants had more in common with the sleeping cat than with the four girls, or their illustrious father.
Miranda’s shoulders moved again, silent sobs returned to rack her thin frame. Deidre wanted to go over to her, to hold her, to be held, but Miranda did not like physical contact of any sort. Not from anyone. Not even from their mother. Small, frail, fragile as a moth, Miranda was by far Deidre’s favourite sister. Yet her weak nerves seemed to grow worse with each passing month. Soon, Deidre was sure, she would be
committed
. (That was another word Sam had taught Deidre, after she had described her sister’s sad troubles to him.) Trussed, and locked in a tower. Especially after this day played out.
A similar fate had befallen Aunt Whetstone, Deidre’s mother’s sister, at about the same age as Miranda was now. Once, Deidre had visited Aunt Whetstone — just once — and had run from the dingy chamber, sounds of horrible accusations and shrieked profanities echoing the hall behind her.
Being left alone like this, in the anteroom, with a nervous Lady standing guard at the door, grinning and offering strange answers to questions, no sign at all of their father, certainly had not benefited poor Miranda’s condition. Her sobs ebbed and flowed while Deidre, watching helplessly, tried to be brave, though she herself had, several times since coming here, been on the verge of tears.
Two redbirds flew, humming, past the window, stopping for a second to peer in before rushing on.
“Mir, everything will be okay,” Deidre said, knowing that her words sounded lame. “Listen to what Lady says.”
“You don’t know anything,” Estelle snapped. “Little freak.” She stood up from the bench, making it squeal. “This is
bullshit
. You’re as crazy as her.” Meaning Miranda, who had half-turned to listen, lower lip quivering.
Deidre tensed; Miranda’s temper was wicked, and sometimes went off like a powderkeg: skinny arms pinwheeling, face set in an ugly, twisted rictus. She had once broken the arm of a boy who had called her names.
“Now listen here, Lady.” Estelle pointed one finger at the servant. “You can’t keep us cooped up like this. We’re
not
children any more. That’s the thing.”
Lady set her jaw firm and planted her feet, resolute. Blocking the exit. Obviously under strict orders. Beneath her shift, defined muscles of her arms and shoulders moved, bunching like rocks under a tarp.
“Why don’t you hush up,” Deidre suggested to her older sister.
As Voluminia also rose from the harpsichord bench to stand shoulder to shoulder with her cohort, there came a loud and startling thump at the heavy door, which Lady, wheeling, easily pulled open with just the tip of one big finger:
The Orchard Keeper, standing on the dais, appeared almost ill with concern. Older. His eyes were rimmed with red, and he still wore the rumpled navy blue uniform he had been wearing when Deidre had first seen him today, in the plantations below. Then, almost frantic to find her, he had stumbled through the wheatgrass, yelling her name, and had grabbed her by the arm, hard, when she ran breathlessly up to him.
Recalling his face, and the fear she had seen there, she rubbed now at her bicep; it was still sore. They’d each had frights, a bad morning, about to get worse.
Behind the Orchard Keeper waited Ludmilla, a young servant girl who worked in the laundry room. Deidre had previously seen her only a few times. Folded clothes piled high on the girl’s thick forearms, and her ugly face, very much like Lady’s, peeked over the top. Her great hairy ears trembled as she looked wide-eyed around the anteroom.
There was no conceivable reason why her father should appear at the door with a
laundry maid
. Deidre glanced back at Miranda, who had a hand to her mouth.
Father came in, extending both arms, palms out, to placate. “Your mother is waiting in the courtyard. I want you girls to get changed into these outfits and follow me.”
Miranda whispered, “What is it? Tell us what’s going on.”
Inside the room, those shafts of light pierced him now. Ludmilla followed, blinking. The Orchard Keeper and Lady exchanged a glance; Lady moved aside, bowing slightly, to busy herself with the laundry girl, scolding her, sorting the clothes into smaller piles and lifting one huge hand as if to cuff Ludmilla. She bared her big teeth.
The outfits were grey and worn. The clothes of a servant.
“We’re going to leave Elegia for a few days, my little Pumpkins. We’re going on a trip.”
Numb, Deidre wondered if she had heard right. Leave Elegia? A
trip
? Was it possible? Who would watch over the plantations? Who would distribute food to the people in the townships?
And what about the moth that Sam would be making her for tomorrow’s hunt?
Moving among the sisters, eyes averted, Ludmilla distributed the spartan costumes. Estelle and Voluminia protested but even their surly tones had changed to quieter ones, tinged with insecurity and compliance, their teenage facade of bravado crumbled.
Holding on to her own neatly folded set of clothes — studying the warp of the rough cloth as if it might make matters clearer — Deidre did not look up, did not want to see her father as he approached, but the Orchard Keeper gathered her in close, hugged her so tight in both arms that she gasped. He smelled of sweat and pomade and smoke. His uniform was crisp against her skin, his stubbled cheek, as he bent his face to hers, rough and hot. He whispered her name, told her that he loved her. The uttering of those words had become the most frightening moment of that frightening day.
Deidre could say nothing.
Her father stood, went over to Miranda to coax her away from the window — without touching her, of course — talking quietly, gently, reassuringly, leading her toward the open door where Ludmilla waited to hand her a change of clothes.
Fed up with all this, the cat, awake now, stretched, looked about haughtily, and said, “I’m leaving.” Dashing out the door, just as their father also moved out onto the dais, the beast vanished in search of a more peaceful spot.
Miranda stood pale and scared, dwarfed by Lady.
“I’ll be out here,” the Orchard Keeper said. “While you girls all get dressed.” He pulled the door shut behind him.
The four sisters glanced at each other. Having no recourse, they got changed, Lady and Ludmilla watching them surreptitiously, frowning at the lithe young bodies as they stepped from their clothes.
Deidre was used to Lady’s clumsy curiosity. She cast aside the frills and layers of her dress and petticoats and stood, finally, in the drab outfit, feeling vulnerable and demeaned. These new clothes were itchy against her skin and they stunk. Miranda’s outfit hung slack from her thin arms and chest. Deidre tried to smile at her sister, who was wiping her snotty nose on the grey sleeve; Miranda drew a deep breath and actually tried to smile in return. That gave Deidre a modicum of reassurance. Together they might be able to get through this.
From the door, Lady motioned. All the girls approached without any protest, not even from Voluminia or Estelle. Their faces as they passed Deidre looked white as milk.
Lady opened the door.
They left the anteroom.
From the railing, where he’d been waiting, the Orchard Keeper turned to lead the way. A series of archways equally spaced down the length of the wide dais overlooked the gardens of Elegia and the tangled woods beyond. The girls trudged through alternating shadow and light, in a stunned sort of silence, Lady shuffling among them, biting at her puffy lips and ushering the sombre sisters with slow movements of her hands.
The day was hot and quiet. The sun nearest Elegia was visible, hanging between two columns, where it always hung. Glancing up at it, Deidre imagined she saw activity, as if the sun were a candle flame, and midges had begun to circle it.
When she turned away, blinking, Ludmilla had vanished altogether.