Chapter 9

“Oooohh, there you are! C’mere, you!!”

I was younger, maybe nine years old. It was the year before Dornell and I graduated from the Ward to go stay with our peers in Mannerly Hall. Madam Dro had crossed paths with me for the first time at least three years ago; I still dreamt about her sometimes. This was before a girl named Elodie had stolen my soft and sweetly naive heart, never to return it.

I was running through the hallways, laughing, trying (not too hard) to escape the man who chased after me. Maiden Severo was of middle age; his dark gray hair had only begun showing signs of white, showing longevity, and what he lacked in athleticism he made up for with his kindness.

Maiden Severo was the nicest person I had ever met, and that was saying something when one was surrounded by nannies who shepherded you day and night. But contrary to the others, Severo took the time to get close to the little people he endured, and as a result was often swarmed, yanked, punched, kicked, or even drenched, depending on the age (and proclivity) of We, the Goblins of the Ward.

I loved maiden Severo. He would sometimes read me bedtime stories when all else was quiet, and that meant maybe once or twice in a month, but to me it was everything. I waited up with wriggling toes some nights just hoping that he would come visit me.

But today I simply ran from him, cackling like a maniac.

He caught me eventually, of course. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow and he was panting like a horse, but somehow even his visible irritation was kindhearted to behold. I was firmly convinced that Severo was an angel, placed upon this earth for no other reason than to protect and delight the children. Even when we didn’t deserve it.

I, on the other hand, was a devil set loose upon this dimension in order to cause panic and mayhem among the Estate’s residents – something he insisted to me was true more than once, though it was always with a wry smile and a long-suffering tone.

On this particular occasion, he grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me up over his shoulder, fireman-carrying me back to our room in the Ward while I screamed like a pig the whole time. In a good way.

“My, you must have a little Faery in you, causing us all this trouble from sunup to sundown” he said to me as he checked me for bruises.

“What’s a Faery?” I asked him. His eyes grew wide at the question.

“A Faery? One of the Fae? The magical tricksters that collide their realm with our own between the dancing of the fire? Have none of the other maidens told you this tale, young man?”

I shook my head ‘no’, and he sighed and began telling me stories of these strange and invisible creatures, whose powers outranked even the strongest sorcerers in the world as we know it.

I had since forgotten most of it, sadly. I remembered paying very close attention; yet somehow, the tales and hidden truths which Severo regaled me that afternoon managed to slip through my head like water through a blanket.

Only small details remained, and they were more things that I felt rather than heard. But I do remember one thing.

“Watch closely, little one” the maiden had said, standing up. “This just so happens to be a dance used for exciting the Fae, perhaps even enticing them to take notice of our actions here on the Other Side.”

“Enticing? You mean that it might make them come here, to live among us?”

“It is a long-shot, to be sure. I’ve never heard of anyone actually making it happen.”

He’d flicked the side of his nose in a gesture of secrets. “But don’t let anyone go telling you that it can’t, won’t, or definitely couldn’t, work for you.”

And then he’d begun it, the Dance of the Faeries. It was the first dance I ever learned.

The sight of it – every movement – was burned into my memory forever.

~

It began slowly. I raised my palms up alongside my chin, fanning my fingers before pushing them out to either side like I was parting invisible waves. I even made a ‘whoosh’ sound for emphasis.

My feet laced delicately together. Feeling right, I launched myself skyward in a series of leaps and hops that immediately seemed to delight the crowd.

Having their attention now, I grinned. I began to cluck my tongue against the bottom of my mouth, simulating a tempo as I continued with the next series of motions.

There was a decidedly temporal feel when performing this dance. I wasn’t sure if only I felt it, or if the timing and shape of the movements somehow made a mockery of time itself and slowed it down; or even sometimes sped it up on a whim. Only the rhythmic ‘tick-tock’ sound coming from my mouth returned a sense that time was progressing normally and as it should. Although, that could’ve perhaps also been a subject to some mystical shifting of reality.

I felt all of their eyes watching me, enthralled. My grin widened. Somehow I forgot all about why I was there, and that my audience was full of lechers and bigots who would do me or my friends harm if given half the chance. This dance wasn’t for them.

This dance was for my friends; the ones who labored beside me night and day, and who now endured the same horror that I felt at the dawning revelation of who the Estate really wanted us to be.

My movements slackened, only enough to provide them with further grace. I could’ve performed this dance in my sleep. I had only seen it once in my life – but once was enough. It was a part of me, now. No one else here even knew that I knew this dance. This was a dance I’d kept all to myself, and above all, it was meant for me.

My body sang. I draped myself upon the waves which carried me, hardly feeling the need to think as I flowed across the stage.

And then, I saw it.

Ellie was staring straight at me, her mouth agape, her eyes widened with awe. I could’ve carried that sight to my grave then and there and I would’ve been a happy martyr.

“Stop.”

This strange sound, carried to me from somewhere far away.

“Stop. It.”

I knew that voice…

A sudden gust of air startled me as one of the doors to the chamber was suddenly flung open. I wobbled, forgetting momentarily where I was and what I was doing, looking anxiously around for the source of the noise.

But it wasn’t the source of the noise that caught me; rather, the voice. It was Madam Dro.

She was staring at me now with a face like ice. A thousand ships could’ve run aground on that terrifying expression, so vacant in its emotion that one just knew that it wasn’t as empty as it seemed. Rather, it appeared that such a host of tremendous feeling was chipping its way from some dark depths beyond it, and all I could do was cringe.

My body stopped moving them. My limbs fell slack to my sides feeling drained of all strength. I might’ve simply keeled over, were it not for the knowledge that if I did so I might be descended upon by a group of predators.

And that’s exactly what they were, I realized. I mean, of course they were, in a sickening sense – anyone with eyes could see that – but no; I mean that these were predators literally. And if these were all bloodthirsty animals… then Madam Dro was an entire force of nature, a demon of hunger given flesh.

She gazed at me, and my soul began to hollow out. Was anyone else watching? Could anyone else see this? I couldn’t possibly be only me. Did her clients even know exactly what this woman was? Did anyone?

My feet began to slide outward in a puddle of my own sweat.

CLANG.