Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 20 (8 page)

"But shouldn't I at least learn the language?” It's a reasonable question, but he rises and throws down his napkin angrily.

"You are learning your language, from Lao.” And that is all he says before leaving me alone in the too-big dining room. As the servants nervously clear his dishes, I think back on the lessons with Lao, strange movements that are like sharp dancing, chanting and fighting all at once. And the memorization. Hours and hours spent learning long, impenetrable strings of meaningless sounds that almost but never quite repeat. But nothing about my country, and no words that have meaning or hold anything inside except themselves.

"Your grandfather will be gone for the next week, your Highness.” I jump at the sound. Granddad's assistant is always sneaking up on me like that, thin and sharply silent. When he is gone and there is nothing but the harsh overhead light, I make my way back to my room, cringing as the servants lower their eyes and bow their heads.

This house isn't really a “house.” Not like the one I used to live in with Mama; Granddad's house is a building, four stories of brick, stone and glass and a basement. A mansion, really, even though it doesn't look it from the outside. There are extra mailboxes for people who don't live here so it looks like every other brownstone in the neighborhood, but there are no light switches anywhere.

Inside, it is a maze of hidden rooms and crooked hallways that dead-end in ancient plaster walls. My room is on the third floor near the back, so no one can steal me through the windows. It's much larger than my old room back home, but there is still nowhere to hide. The lights burn loud around the clock.

That's the way he likes it. The entire house lit up so that no night can ever sneak in. I remember being afraid of the dark, before Lao came for me and took me away from Mama and the tiny worn-out house in Mt. Sterling. I would slip into Mama's room or rise after she had gone to sleep to turn on a lamp. Things moved and walked in the darkness, shadow people who spoke in long whispering sentences I could never quite understand. They would move around and through us in a kind of darkness—the second kind of darkness, but I could feel that it held the first hidden inside it, and that sent me into the closet with the light on or under the bed with a flashlight.

Mama, when I finally told her about the dark, wasn't afraid. She began to sing and didn't stop until it felt safe, until it was warm and liquid and almost right.

Now it is the terrible bright that keeps me awake and the dark follows me around everywhere anyway—muttering under my shoes, in the thin black line of the cracks in the plaster, inside the desk drawers. All this light has made it blacker than ever.

The bright I used to covet is now just hard and cold and never any comfort at all. I wonder if Winnie and Jack's Mama sings to them as I begin to hum the same lullaby she used to sing to me, long and low, but I can't remember the words so I make them up. Just before I drift off I realize the tune is still hers, but the words are Lao's strange sounds stuttering almost in time.

"You don't have to steal books, you know. There's a library just down the street,” she says with that same indifferent roll of the eyes, and I feel the heat in my face that usually only happens when I'm scolded by Lao.

"I'm not stealing books,” I say with as much confidence as I can, but her eyes narrow. I have always been a terrible liar. Granddad says it's because I haven't practiced enough.

She reaches into my jacket pocket and extracts
The Little Prince
with a smug half-smile I imagine she uses a lot on Jack. Her eyebrows rise, head tilting slightly to the left as she appraises the book, and I recognize the look. Lao gets it sometimes when I surprise him by doing something right—the highest praise he ever gives. I don't have the nerve to tell her that I only wanted it to learn more about what princes do.

"I don't know why you're stealing books. You look rich to me.” And she is right. Princes are supposed to be rich, but the only money I ever have is the change I find on the street, or the few bills I've managed to steal from the help. They deserve it for never once speaking to me or looking me straight in the eye.

She is still studying me with her strange smile.

"Where's Jack?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

Her smile fades. “At the doctor,” she says, and sits back down, placing
The Little Prince
on a stack of books.

"Is he okay?” I ask.

"He has acute nonlymphocytic leukemia,” she says in a cool, faraway voice that sounds like Mrs. Mowett when she talks about the week's menu.

"Oh. Is that bad?"

Her eyes narrow again as she studies me, and I know I have said the wrong thing. The very wrong thing. I feel stupid and nine years old all over again. “Yes. He might die.” There is a deep line now between her eyebrows. “He'll be here in a few minutes,” she says and returns to her books.

"I'm sorry,” I whisper, because I remember people saying that to Mama when my grandmother died and because for some reason I am. Sorry. But she doesn't hear me.

We sit there in silence for what seems like an hour and I check the clock to make sure it is only minutes, because even though Granddad is away the servants will tell on me if they notice I'm gone. She doesn't ever look up from her book and I have nothing to read, so I use Lao's observation techniques and list the important things about her: straight brown hair that is always a kind of controlled mess; dark brown eyes that flicker over the pages; no makeup; a mouth that betrays her severe concentration, lifting into tiny smiles and frowns as she reads. I stop when I realize these probably aren't the important things.

"You came back.” Jack's high-pitched voice cuts through my inventory and I turn to find him standing next to me. An older woman huffs, red-faced and frowning behind him. Maybe she is their mother.

"Sweetie, the doctor says you need to take it easy—” the woman begins, only to be interrupted by the girl I realize I still haven't officially met.

"It's okay. I can take care of him,” the girl says, and I understand immediately that this woman is not their mother. She is a Mrs. Mowett, or a nanny, only with smiles and hugs. Maybe their mother is dead. Or maybe, like mine, she just got left behind.

"You sure?” The older woman smiles and helps Jack out of a thick jacket. “—'Cause I'd like to get home and start dinner before your parents get home."

"What's your name?” Jack asks. I am not sure what to answer. I am “my lord” and “your highness.” That name Mama used to call me is almost gone and it wouldn't go with the suit anyway.

"What do you think it is?” I ask nervously. I risk a glance at the girl, but she is talking to the older woman.

"I think it's Jack,” he says with a confident nod. “Like me. But Winnie says it's probably something posh like Emma or Helena."

And suddenly they are looking at me and the older woman says, “You've met a nice young gentleman. Finally.” Winnie's face goes completely red like the maid's does whenever I catch her singing to herself in the hallway.

My own face feels hot. Jack holds a magazine article up to me. He exclaims, “See! I told you the world is getting brighter. Haven't you noticed that nighttime isn't even that dark and scary anymore?” He rambles on in that high sing-song as he unpacks a soda and some crackers from his very neat backpack. “Soon I bet you won't even be able to see the stars anymore, but it's okay,” he says, suddenly serious. “They're still there. They're just on the other side of the world. You know, and outside the air."

I try to remember what the stars do, what night looks like. All of that blue black stretched around and over and Mama pointing out shapes drawn in tiny pieces of light. I can clearly see the pale arc of her arm against the black, but not her face. It makes me dizzy so I sit down.

"Winnie doesn't care about the brightness thing. All she cares about is superstrings like Dad. He's a physicist,” he says proudly and I wonder how it is spelled so I can look it up later.

"Superstrings?” I ask. Winnie sits down next to Jack, once again regarding me suspiciously.

"Yeah!” Jack jumps up from his chair, spilling his soda. “There are all these other tiny worlds rolled up inside our world with countries inside them. Right, Winnie?"

"Not exactly,” she says, mopping up the soda. She doesn't explain what exactly superstrings are, though. “What's your name?"

"Um, Jack?"

Her eyes narrow again.

"See, I told you!” The other Jack jumps up and down again until an employee shushes him.

"Is that short for John?” she asks coolly and I shake my head, hoping that is the right response. I never find out because she stops talking and we sit there staring at each other for one of those seconds that stretches out too long, as my face gets even hotter. Maybe she is one of Lao's people, or Granddad's. This is probably some kind of test and she knows all about me. I decide I don't care if I fail. At least she and her brother look me in the eye.

I finally look away to find Jack regarding me with a smile as he munches sloppily on the crackers, crumbs covering the table and the front of his bright red sweater. It is then that I notice the familiar, hard shadow in the corner of his eyes, gray and brittle, like the thin edge of dark that follows Granddad just under and behind, even in the perpetual light of the mansion. It is so much like that too-bright house and the first kind of darkness that steals and swallows. I can smell the rotting leather and wood of it, and I can feel
him
nearby, his hard, shining eyes watching me from every angle.

I stagger to my feet, tripping over the chair. I mumble some apology and a whispered “I have to go."

When I get home I find
The Little Prince
in my pocket, a nearly transparent receipt slipped inside the cover and, in uneven script, the words “I know what you really are.” I push it into the sneaky seam of dark under the mattress and try not to cry.

I train with Lao in the back courtyard, sweating and straining in my dark wool suit as we go through the dance-like motions. It starts slow like always and I should concentrate on my breathing, but I can't stop noticing things like the lack of green. There are no weeds in the enormous, brick-paved expanse, no unruly plants sneaking up around the stones like they do on the sidewalks. The trees that stretch from next door over the high stone wall are brown and dying.

"They steal your oxygen,” Granddad explained testily, over dinner, when I asked him about the lack of plants in and around the house—and returned to his steak.

Later, when I asked Lao about plants, he accidentally told me the truth. “Plants turn sunlight into oxygen and food for themselves. It's called photosynthesis."

I thought surely this was the most beautiful and terrible thing I had ever heard. It was like real magic, turning all of that bright into something you could use. But there are no plants here to study, or books on the subject, and I am afraid to go back to the bookstore. I tell myself I am afraid of getting caught, but it is really Winnie's deep brown eyes that terrify me. I stumble. simply thinking about that intense stare, and Lao frowns.

"You are not concentrating,” he says, with a disappointed sigh.

"What's a physicist?” I ask to distract him and he comes to a stop.

"A physicist studies the forces of the universe and their inner workings,” he says without hesitating because Lao knows everything about everything, even though his answers aren't usually very helpful.

"Forces ..... like armies and economics?” These are the only forces I remember from my studies.

He folds his arms and looks at me thoughtfully for a long time, which surprises me. I am sure he knows everything I am going to say before I actually say it. “No. Forces like gravity and electricity."

"Oh.” That doesn't sound like the countries rolled up that Jack was talking about, but I remember, now, lessons about gravity and the hidden things that hold us down and together and connect us.

"Maybe it's time we moved on to Calculus,” he says. “If you're interested in physics. That could prove useful. A prince should know about the universal forces. I think your grandfather will approve."

I nod, a wild sort of joy erupting around and inside me at the thought of understanding this other strange language Jack and Winnie speak with each other.

Lao's eyebrows rise and he uncrosses his arms. “But first, movement and arts.” And we begin the slow, steady build of the dance that isn't.

That night, after dinner, I sit alone trying to remember when I was a girl. There aren't many mirrors in Granddad's house and the only one I'm allowed is a tiny, blurry square that is barely big enough to check the knot in my tie. My body doesn't belong to me anymore. I am a prince, which means that everything I am belongs to my country.......and Granddad. I remember Mama's softness and I've seen women on the street in tight tops that squeeze, but my chest looks nothing like that—even in the bath, without the suit. The few times I've seen myself in shop windows I was all angles and straight lines. But Winnie thought I was a girl and maybe still does.

I slowly remove the jacket and loosen the tie, intending to use the small mirror to find some answers, but the lights flicker. It is only for a moment, but the moment is terrifying in its newness and momentary dark. The last time something new happened, I never saw Mama again.

I run out of my room to look for Lao. There is no one, not even a servant in the hall. I can hear the impossible sounds of shouting downstairs and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The silence here is like the light—incessant and invasive—no one can stop it but Granddad and he wouldn't.

There is a loud crash and I drop the suit jacket and tie to the floor. I'd rather take the punishment than miss whatever is happening.

When I reach the landing above the entrance foyer, they are all standing there very still. Six of them. Lao and Granddad on one side, four gray-clad strangers facing them.

"You tried to hide him from me in a girl.” Granddad sneers coolly and Lao moves to stand just behind him, his hands folded carefully in front. “But I won't be fooled. He's mine,” he says and taps his forehead with a bony smile. “He's the prince we've been waiting for and you hadn't taught him a thing. He was defenseless.” Even though we can't hear the shout in his words, it's there.