2

PARISA DREW IN a shallow breath and curled her hands into tight fists, bunching up the silken material of her dress between her fingers to still the diminutive quivers that coursed through them.

They shook on their own accord, with or without an audience.

She sat ramrod-straight and perched on the edge of the low padded bench, her knees pressed together, one ankle laced over the other and slightly hidden beneath the bench as her eyes fixated on the black and white keys before her.

The piano had returned from Germany where it had been taken for restoration. Its silken black colour glossed beneath the afternoon rays of light that slipped through the open window in the parlour. 

Parisa studied the lid prop, straightened and fixed from where it had shattered when he slammed his wife’s face into the lid. The weight of her body coupled with his unnatural strength sent splinters of wood dancing across the air and ribbons of blood coursing over the keys. 

A drop on C.

A drop on D minor.

And his claws parting her flesh like soft butter. 

Uncurling her fists, she lifted her calm fingers to the keys, finding the proper placements without so much of a thought and added pressure to the first key. The respective sound echoed through the chamber. Parisa repeated with another finger, and then another, and another– slow and unhurried as she began to sink into a familiar song recently learned.

Je te laisserai des mots by whom she did not know.

The opulent room softened into the background as music filled the air effortlessly, like waves filling holes in beach sand: the sound rushing in and around every corner, stagnanting furniture and servants that paused while passing by with arms full of chores, peering briefly in search for the source of such a melody.

Parisa’s French was enough to make her sound like a native whilst speaking. He had made sure of it, purposefully hiring a strict French tutor at the age of four who spoke in French and taught piano lessons in English thrice a week. 

At the age of ten she was let go, not because her lessons were lacking, but Parisa was growing. And his paranoia over her beauty being the root of envy and want to those exposed to her led to Parisa’s inevitable isolation from the world and all who lived in it. 

My little wolf, worthy of millions.

Her height made it near-impossible to reach for the pedals below. She edged forward on the bench, her mind on the keys but her body struggling to stretch beneath for the pedal. She felt the smooth curve of the pedal brush her toe, cold and hard. Pressing her tongue into her cheek, Parisa strained harder until the first three toes rested on the pedal, and she pressed down in time to the refrain. 

En d'ssous de ta porte

En d'ssous de la lune qui–

“You should see yourself girl,” Eliza’s voice startled her out of focus, her fingers slipping over the keys as the song lapsed into discordant sounds. “Looks like you’re ‘bout to take a damn near shit on the bench… face all strained and tight.” Her caretaker began to laugh as she ambled into the room, the rough sound of her voice like red autumn leaves scattering on concrete. 

Parisa pulled a face despite the smile twitching at her lips, “You spoiled it.”

“I only talked.”

“You interrupted me.”

“Well ‘xcuse me, din’t know it was illegal to suddenly talk.” Eliza held out both of her hands, ashen and leathery and locked at the wrists, “go on ahead and arrest me then, officer mini-mozart.” 

Parisa met the woman’s playful gaze, her own eyes brilliantly doused in playfulness. Her tongue rubbed at the roof of her mouth as she mulled over a proper sarcastic response to match but something on Eliza’s saddlebag hip caught her attention. “What is that?” She jerked her chin at the pouch for emphasis, and curiously leaned forward as the maid unstrung the pouch and held it up while making a sour face.

“Damn rodents,” A new shadow crossed her face, eclipsing the mirth that had brightened it seconds before. She hobbled towards a table set at the centre of the parlour. “They’ve been appearing all summer.”

“They have?” Nimbly slipping off the bench, Parisa approached the table with an alert but wary gaze that flicked between the maid and the contents of the pouch now spilling onto the table. “I didn’t know that.” 

Well, she did but it was not to this extent. 

Being ensconced in her bedroom for the majority of summer– a room secluded in the upper part of the mansion where the air was cooler and food was lacking– created an uninhabitable environment for the rodents.

Where man can’t live, rodents fare no better.

Parisa watched as Eliza reached for something round wrapped in newspaper. Her heart pulsed a brief wave of anticipation as the maid began to unwrap the item, and she inched closer as a result, forgetting the rules. 

The maid’s head lifted then and their eyes met once more. She arched a fuzzy brow, “Now you know what happens when you get close.”

A flush surfaced beneath her cheeks. Dropping her gaze, Parisa murmured an apology and took a casual step back, as if the centimetre of separation had suddenly placed her out of harm's way. 

Eliza stared pointedly at the bench then back.

She took another step back, and then another when the intensity of Eliza’s stare did not abate. The distance between them expanded until the back of her knees touched the piano bench once more. She sat, knees pressed together, hands clasped, fingers nervously fiddling to expend the maddening curiosity that had been aroused by the foreign items.

“What are you doing?” She asked when the ellipsis of silence prickled at her patience.

“Setting up traps.”

“For the rats?”

Eliza grunted an affirmative. 

“With food?” Pieces of cubed cheese were laid out on the open gazette, each layered with a green-ish tint akin to mould. For a moment, she wondered how food would stop the rodent infestation if not encourage it. 

And then it hit her.

“Poison?” To quickly mask her slip of surprise and newfound interest, Parisa swivelled on the bench and shifted her focus to the ivory keys. She touched a few keys while rearranging her tone to that of indifference, “Why not use traps like last time?” 

“Them rats be cunning,” Eliza muttered as she walked, breathing heavily while bending low to place the pieces of poison in strategic areas of the room. Places that were hidden to the naked eye and away from reach of his inquisitive twins. “Always sneaking and dodging and snatching shit from the traps then fucking and giving birth like some breeding army on steroids…”

Parisa tuned out just as Eliza lapsed into a harangue against the rodents and their lack of procreation sense. She was raised by the woman from birth, and by the age of four she had adjusted to every sudden outbursts and the sailor mouth that made other servants flinch as if the acid of her words had singed them.

She took note of every placement from her periphery, a thrum of an unknown emotion rushing through her veins. 

Why was Eliza placing the poison while she was still in the room?

She hadn’t allowed her to approach the table, yet she seemed so unbothered by her presence.

Parisa knew she was breaking a rule, both of them, yet neither made the first move to correct it. 

It’s not like I’m doing something wrong, the notion was mildly consoling as her eyes darted to Eliza who was now cursing the god of rodents but still placing the poison openly.

A piece here. A piece there. More curses at the gods. 

She trusts me, Parisa thought, that’s why she hasn’t kicked me out. She has no reason not to trust me. What could I do with the poison anyway?

“ ‘sides,” Parisa’s attention snapped to the woman as she straightened with a grunt, wiping off the crumbs on the front of her apron. She straightened reflexively while conscious of her expression, as if the paleness of her skin had suddenly thinned to a transparency that revealed forbidden thoughts written dark as sin on her organs. 

Eliza seemed unperturbed, “I Ain’t even meant to do it right now but i got lots to get on with tonight.” 

The ceremony and dinner. 

His request for her to be groomed for the viewing.

A ‘sip and see’ for when a little wolf could be paraded by her owner before the council members, displayed like an exquisite artefact. 

Parisa had not sensed the lapse in silence that filled the room. Her unfocused eyes had lowered to her laps where the blunt nail of her thumb began to scratch at the tender skin beneath the nail of her middle finger. She stopped before any damage could be done. 

Her birthday was in less than a week. 

Drawing in a breath, she began to speak. “What if I–” Her words were cut off by the faint sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires of a car in the driveway. Parisa cocked her head to the side and listened as it turned into the parking space.

“Get on going upstairs,” 

She stepped towards the window and peeked through the curtain just as the twins leaped out of the four wheel car each holding a cone of ice cream, solidified in varying degrees of chocolate and caramel. They dashed into the house, energised by the sugar, shouts and peals of laughter reaching for her through the labyrinth of hallways that led up to her room.

The driver circled the car and opened the other door, immediately his gaze lowered in deference as his hands clasped at the back. 

Blond hair gradually receding to white at the centre was the first thing Parisa saw. Parted in the middle in a pale straight line and glossed back into a tight bun. His wife’s face was hidden from view as she stepped out then turned as an afterthought and reached for the bubbling infant still strapped in the car seat.

The little boy was a mess, his cheeks flush with happiness and smeared in chocolate syrup. Parisa stared at his wife, busy shifting the baby onto one hip while spooning more ice cream into his mouth from a small plastic cup. She spoke to the driver without regarding him, gesturing offhandedly at the numerous shopping bags piled in the back, then began to walk up the polished steps.

At the last moment, as if sensing her gaze, his wife paused on the third step and tilted her head back.

The light caught at the pearled earrings she wore, and they reflected a blinding white on Parisa momentarily flooding her vision with a painful white. She blinked rapidly then froze as her eyes snagged with a pair of dark ones.

She was watching her.

The realisation of being caught so openly sent her heart racing. Parisa felt it trying to batter its way out of her chest. She did not move, could not move, as if the weight of her lidded stare had drooped over her shoulders like a coat of chains.

His wife’s beauty was ostensible. Enhanced by procedures, magnified by wealth. 

Realising that he was no longer being fed ice cream, the baby grabbed a fistful of his mother’s hair and yanked it hard with a cry, snatching her attention back to him, but not before Parisa saw the glimmer of something distasteful– revulsion – in the elegantly tilted recesses of her eyes.