Chapter 11

The next three years… they might’ve well have passed as we were then; three lost children huddled up together under a blanket, trying to pretend that the world hadn’t ended.

And indeed, it hadn’t.

Soon enough our days began to flow by in much the way they had. We would all get up in the morning, clean up, do a few exercises, before heading off to the dining area for some breakfast. The afternoons would be crammed with lessons and demonstrations of our learning, save for a fairly brief lunch. Once evening began to settle in the lot of us would head back to our chamber to change and freshen up again; then usually the dinner gong would sound, and it would be time to have that, too.

Lights out at eleven. All just the same as usual. Only… there wasn’t very much talking.

There wasn’t really much of anything for a very long time.

Our hearts were broken and our visions of the future, gone. Nightmares flooded my sleep every night; bleak fantasies full of perfumes, and eyes, and soft, velvety gloves.

I began looking back upon the days when I’d rejected becoming some wealthy lord’s servant, cleaning boots and preparing meals for a living, and not… not this. Ellie was right; there was never any preparing us for this.

As for Elodie herself, she continued to act in her elder-sisterly ways, and were it not for that I think many of us wouldn’t have made it. Torvis, too; for all of his bluster, he began doing his best to act as a comfort to those of us who were younger. Especially Mylannes, who had it the roughest of any of us.

Maiden Threwon still remained with us. Maiden Threwon still talked at us, took us through our daily routines, and put us back down to bed each night. And her expression indeed never changed… not even once.

Day in, day out. And all the while I could feel Madam Dro’s demonic gaze on the back of my head, scratching at my neck, sizing me up. A voice woke me up sometimes at night; it seemed to ask, “are you ready yet? You grow more delicious by the day. I await the moment, young dancer, when I can claim you all for myself.”

Those were the nights when I got the least sleep.

Days and months passed… Then, one afternoon, something began being done.

We all sat around the grand table for lunch. No maidens were present; they understood our need for alone time, even though it was what they’d always done. I’d also learned to recognize the haunted looks in the eyes of those who trained us, as well as how the maidens managed to function on a daily basis as well as they did. It was because they were the ones who dropped out of the running years ago.

It was ironic; those of us who failed to join the great “Family” were the ones who got to live out their lives with fewer torments. But I never envied them, or blamed them, not even for a moment; no future in which I remained trapped between these walls would ever be worth living. I knew at least some of the others felt the same way.

And that’s probably why, on this particular afternoon, something finally broke within us.

Torvis began crying over his bowl of cereal.

Ellie quickly shushed him, looking around worriedly. Her intentions were protective, I knew, but that only made him cry harder.

Then Mylannes joined in. Then O’mally. Then myself and Zaevia. Norn and Bluec weren’t far behind, and they clung to each other like wailing ghosts. Next came Syrieze, followed soon by Dornell, until all of us were bawling except for Elodie, who looked almost like she were shutting down.

I then did what I wished I’d done far sooner: I pushed out my chair and made my way around the table, coming to a stop beside her, as my tears still flowed.

I put a shaking arm around her shoulders, sending as much warmth through that connection as I could provide. Elodie jerked slightly; then, with a bleak smile that nevertheless held all the affection in the world, she took hold of my hand. Then she, too, began to cry.

“I can’t do it” I whispered, my knees buckling. “I can’t bear it.”

“Neither can I.”

From across the table Dornell’s red, watery stare found us. “So then what are we going to do about it?”

One by one, each of the others’ heads rose to look at the three of us over their puddles of lunch food. Something ran between us then.

I closed my eyes. “We don’t.”

“We simply don’t” Elodie breathed.

“We don’t give them what they want” Dornell finished for us.

“We don’t give them anything.”

“We won’t let them have us!”

“We’ll get out of this place…”

Elodie wiped her nose on a corner of the table cloth. “But how? Surely we aren’t the first to think about running away from this horrible place! If it were that easy, I would’ve taken Torvis with me and fled the same day he and I were asked to dance for them.”

“It isn’t as though we didn’t think about it” said Torvis. “I was… I was just fourteen. Ellie was seventeen. Some of you had only been here for a year then, if that. There were others before us, too, but each of them graduated. They vanished into the Estate… I never saw any of them ever again.”

“It wasn’t as bad when we went” added Elodie. “There was no talk of… touching either one of us. Not like you went through, Veille.” She raised her hand up to my cheek and cupped it. One thumb tried clumsily to brush away my tears; I could’ve melted in her grasp. Instead I leaned into it, and I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering.

She smiled with genuine warmth. “If anything, I believe it was the new arrivals which kept me from losing my mind. Every year brought new friends that I could help take care of. I know we’re peers here, but you all were my whole world. You still are.”

Mylannes leaped from her chair and ran over to hug Elodie, crying more softly now.

I looked to my oldest and greatest friend. “You’re the smartest person here, Dorny. What should we do?”