CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning, Daisy brings me a draught; a “special drink”, she calls it.
“It’ll help with the pain,” she says, as she places a bronze goblet on the dresser. She nods at my feet she so carefully bandaged the night before, already soaked through with blood. “I should tell the mistress, we should get the doctor; Mrs Carlisle said I was supposed to watch for anything odd—”
I sit up straight, clutching at Daisy. I have learned since my arrival that doctors means scientists and scientists means experiments and tests and medical studies, like my grandmother warned my sisters before they travelled to the surface. Don’t get too close, she told them. Is that what happened my mother? If they allowed her to live, did they use her for scientific research, her body torn apart to help with their “enquiries”? I don’t know, of course, that’s the problem.
“Okay, okay,” Daisy says, rubbing her arm. “I get it. No doctors.” She picks up the goblet again and hands it to me. “Hopefully this will help.” She wavers, as if deliberating whether to continue or not, her skin flushing. Daisy’s feelings are so easy to decipher, mapping themselves scarlet on to her skin. “And I haven’t told Mrs Carlisle anything either. Don’t worry about that.”
There is no smell off the clear liquid and only the slightest aftertaste of something too sweet. “Aniseed,” Daisy says, when I grimace. After ten minutes, she urges me to try standing and I do so, feathers rushing up through my throat and into my eyes, turning my vision hazy. But the throbbing in my legs has stopped. I cannot feel my feet. I cannot feel anything.
“Better?” Daisy asks as I stare at her in wonder.
Are you a witch too?
We begin to establish a routine, Daisy and I. She wakes me in the morning, unwrapping the bandages from my feet, shuddering as she mops up the crusted blood that has gathered there since bedtime.
“Oh, Grace,” she says every time, unpicking clumps of peeling flesh between my toes with a small brush. “What are we going to do with you?” She draws a bath, handing me the magic potion to drink while I soak in the water, oh, and the holy relief of both. Once I have been dressed, my hair wound into braids and red powder dabbed on my cheeks (It’ll make you look a little less lethargic, Daisy explains, and I speculate as to what my father would say if he could see me with paint on), I take breakfast with Oliver and his mother.
A bite of porridge or toast and that is all; I refuse offers of any more food.
“What a tiny appetite you have,” Oliver says every day, and I ignore the sound of my stomach rumbling. “Like a little bird.”
“Yes,” his mother agrees, buttering a bread roll and stuffing it into her mouth, as if she is taunting me. “Don’t you ever get hungry, Grace? It is most unusual for a girl your age.”
Then a variation on this: “Oliver,” Eleanor will say, turning away, bored with whatever game she has decided to play with me. “I was hoping to speak to you about—”
“Maybe later, Mother? Grace and I are going riding again, it’s such a pleasant morning. We should make the most of it while we can, don’t you agree?”
And on it goes.
“But, Oli,” his mother says the following day, “It is imperative that we deal with—”
“I’m so sorry, Mother. I’ve decided to take Grace into the village, I want to treat her to croissants. Will we finish this conversation later?”
And on.
“I beg of you,” his mother says the day after that when Oliver has dabbed his mouth with a napkin, pushing a near empty bowl away from him. “I cannot make any more excuses for you, Oliver. Petro Tsakos is meeting with the Galanis people too. If Tsakos-Co secures this merger over us, they will control more than a quarter of the world’s fleets, and it will be next to impossible for us to catch up. You are twenty-one now and—”
“Mother, I know I’ve been distracted this week,” Oliver says. “But Grace and I have plans today that cannot be changed. I’m sure the board will do whatever you tell them to do. Most people do.”
I sneak a look back at Eleanor as we leave, slumped in her chair. Her life seems such a struggle, continually trying to get all these men to respect her, to give her the keys to their kingdom. Perhaps they never will. Perhaps she should just build her own, like the Sea Witch did.
I want to tell Oliver that he should go back and speak with Eleanor, that the matter is clearly of great importance. I wish I could tell him how lucky he is to even have a mother.
“Oh, Grace,” he says, as we walk through the front doors, servants scurrying out of his path. “That’s what I like the most about you. You never judge me.”
“We used to have parties here,” Oliver tells me, linking arms with me. Adrenaline courses through me as his skin meets mine, and I shiver. How can one man have such an effect on me?
We left the mansion and he led me down the marble steps, but not to the sea. A sharp bend to the right, through a thicket of tangled roses, thorns catching on the ends of my dress as we fought our way into this secret garden.
“There’d be a band in the gazebo,” he points at a wooden structure in the corner, tangled weeds creeping around it, “and everyone would dance in the middle of the lawn until the sun rose. There was music and drinking and people kissing, which I thought was disgusting at that age, of course. Little did I know how my opinion would change within a few years.” He sneaks a look at me and I blush. “I wasn’t allowed to stay at the parties for very long. They just rolled me out to charm the guests, then my nanny would come and take me back to the play room. I was the only one of my friends with a live-in nanny, you know. Mother was too busy working. Working, working, working, that’s all she ever cared about.”
Where was Oliver’s father in all this, I wonder. As though he had heard me, Oliver continues.
“My father would come if he was feeling well enough,” Oliver says. “Everyone would have been enquiring about him. Where’s Alex? they’d ask, and my mother would promise that he would be there soon. The party couldn’t start until Dad arrived; he was the life and soul of every event. But towards the end … Dad just looked sad all the time. Then he would become bothered, and my mother would be embarrassed, apologizing for his behaviour. My husband isn’t himself these days,” Oliver mimics in a mocking tone. “He wasn’t well; he needed help, and she just…”
She just what? What did Eleanor do?
“I’m feeling tired,” he says abruptly. “You’ll find your own way back, won’t you, Grace.”
It isn’t a question.
Every night, I dream of that woman who looks like – who must be – my mother. Gaia, she says, and she starts to cry. Gaia. And every morning, I awake determined that today will be the day that I find out what happened to her, discover the humans who betrayed her and locked her away. Even if she is dead, I need to know for certain.
Then Oliver does something to distract me, or he simply looks at me with those dark eyes of his, and I forget my mother. I had thought that impossible; her name has thrummed its beat down my spine every day since she disappeared, making a home out of every vertebrae. But Oliver makes me forget everything. I want him to look at me, I want him to touch me, I want him to make me feel things that I had never thought appropriate for a girl to feel. I want him to make me his.
But I do not have that much time. I count the moons and the sunrises, scoring them across my heart in order to keep track of the days that are falling away from me. How do I make him love me? My grandmother said bonding was about anticipating your husband’s needs and meeting them, and I have been trying to do that but my very existence is now at risk. The ticking of the clock, the light changing its skin in the sky, and then another day is done. It is hard to admit this, but I am beginning to wonder what death might taste like.
At breakfast every morning, Oliver asks me to accompany him on today’s “adventure” and at first I had presumed I would shadow him while he went to work as Eleanor does. She is unceasingly busy, always leaving the house for meetings, every available space in her office piled with papers and files as she talks into something called a “telephone”, rattling off lists of numbers and figures off the top of her head. “Have you taken a look at those reports I sent you, Oliver?” she asks him. “Did you look at the spec for that new ship? Oliver, are you listening to me? Oli?”
But instead of boardroom tables, there are more horse-riding expeditions for her son, more mountains to climb. Cricket on the lawn, birds falling to the earth – thud – as the boys stalk the fields with weapons called guns clasped in their hands.
“Look at Grace,” Rupert says as he reloads bullets. “She’s horrified. Are you one of those animal rights freaks?”
“You’re vegetarian, aren’t you?” George asks. He is the only one who ever seems to pay any real attention to me.
“Vegetarian, what nonsense,” Rupert harrumphs. “You don’t always have to come with us, Grace, you know.”
But I do have to. I have to spend as much time with Oliver as possible. So, I sit on the sidelines, watching as Oliver plays tennis or polo with his friends. I notice that George always cheers when Oliver scores a goal, holding his mallet up in delight and yelling, “Well done!” I notice that Rupert turns away at the same time, hair slicked back with sweat, teeth gritted rather than congratulating Oli. You notice a lot of things when you are forced to stay quiet.
“Fuck,” Oliver says now, as I touch the space between his shoulder blades to remind him that I am here. We are in the games room. George and Rupert and a few other men are playing something called poker in the corner; occasionally Rupert shouts that George is “cheating”. Oliver had been sitting in an armchair by the window, staring vacantly out at the sea. I did not like to see him alone, so I decided to keep him company.
“Don’t do that, Grace,” he says. “You frightened me.”
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.
Oliver’s breathing is laboured, one hand to his chest as if to remind himself to inhale. He grabs at the glass at his elbow, draining what’s left in it. I do not like this time of the evening, when we all retire to the games room and a cabinet full of shining bottles is opened and the men fall on them as if dying of thirst. Their laughter grows louder and more meaningless until they find everything funny. I am not enjoying myself; not that it seems to matter to anyone except for George, who occasionally asks if I’m all right, if I want a drink, if I’m getting tired. The magic draught that Daisy has given me is beginning to wear off, pain crashing over me like waves tipped with shining blades.
“What’s the matter, Grace?” Oliver asks, his eyes suddenly on me.
I look over at Rupert, tormenting the young servant girl who is unlucky enough to have the night shift. I had met this same girl a few days ago; she and Daisy found me in the rose garden, sitting on a bench hewn from stone. I wanted to look as if I was enjoying the sunshine, turning my face up to meet its warmth, but truthfully, I had been compelled to sit until the throbbing in my feet subsided.
“There you are,” Daisy said. “Gorgeous weather, isn’t it? We decided to eat our lunch outside to make the most of it, don’t get too many days like this. This is my friend, Ling.” The other girl half-waved at me. “And this is Grace,” she said, Ling’s eyes widening in recognition. They settled on the bench with me, Daisy offering me some of her sandwich (Don’t worry, she said, it’s only cheese.) while Ling told me about her family, about her father who had been a doctor but who’d died last year, forcing her and her younger sister to find summer jobs in the Carlisle house to help their mother pay the bills. (It’s fine, she said, clearing her throat. We’ll be fine.) “Ling is a traditional name in my father’s homeland,” she said, as if this was something she had had to explain many times before. “It means clever. Intelligent. Dad chose it for me.” I could not imagine the Sea King ever finding such a name appropriate for a girl-baby. It will only give them ideas, he would have said.
Ling is tiny, so small that Rupert has to crouch down to whisper in her ear. She wants to escape, I can tell, but she has nowhere to run to. I am very familiar with that feeling.
“Rupe, come on,” George says, placing his cards on the table. “Leave the girl alone.”
“Shut it, Georgie Porgie.”
“I mean it, Rupert.” George gets to his feet. “Get away from her.”
“She doesn’t mind, do you, sweetheart?” I can see the tip of his tongue darting into Ling’s ear, her barely perceptible shudder. I should go over there and help, like I wish someone had intervened when Zale put his hands on me. But is it my place to do so? But maybe this type of behaviour is simply what women must withstand in order to exist in the world? We are trained to be pleasing, and to crave male attention, to see their gaze as a confirmation of our very worthiness. Are we allowed to complain, then, if the attention is not of the type we like?
“Are you tired?” Oliver asks me. “I understand, it’s getting late.” He sways as he stands, brushing up against me. I want to beg him to touch me again, and again. Is there something wrong with me? Could Zale smell this want? Is that why he did what he did?
“Where’s George gone?” Oliver asks, watching the men playing cards.
“Gone off in a huff,” Rupert says and Ling glances at the open door behind her. “He’s so boring these days.”
“Leave George alone,” Oliver says, losing interest. “Grace is tired so we’re going to call it a night.”
“Of course, mate,” Rupert says. “Whatever you want.” He smiles at Ling, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I have a few ideas about how I can spend the rest of the night, anyway.”
“Ready, Grace?” Oliver says, and I nod my head.
I leave that room.
I leave Ling with him.
“Apologies,” Oliver says as we climb the red-carpeted stairs to my bedroom. My feet are sinking into the fabric, and yet its luxury grants them no comfort. “I know I wasn’t much fun tonight.” The walls of the corridor are lined with images of his family, photographs, they’re called. Oliver as a child, always holding his father’s hand, his mother smiling too brightly. Alexander Carlisle, a handsome man with broad shoulders who becomes smaller with each passing year. “I’m tired.”
He tires easily, I have noticed. Daisy said his valet told them downstairs that Oliver hasn’t slept properly since the accident. Maybe he’s afraid of the darkness, the weight of an endless sleep pressing down upon him. Maybe he’s afraid he will never wake up. Maybe he’s secretly hoping he won’t. I could make you happy, Oliver. I could save you for the second time, if you would allow it.
“You are beautiful,” he says. He rests his forehead against mine, so close, and I find myself short of breath. This is it. Please, Oliver. Please kiss me.
“Is it okay if I…?” he whispers, moving his lips to mine. It feels so different to when Zale forced his tongue into my mouth that my eyes prick with tears. This is how my first kiss should have felt like. Oliver will heal me.
He pulls away, a hand against the wall to steady himself. Oli. I reach for him. “No,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s too late and I’ve had too much to drink. And it’s too…” His face pinches. “It’s too soon, don’t you understand?”
He leaves me. And all I understand is that I am buzzing, as if every nerve ending in my body is being kissed by bees. I am alive.
I sit on my bed, re-live what just happened in graphic detail. His thigh nudging my legs apart, his fingers on my throat. That heat rising. I pull the dress up around my waist, my hand drifting to that new place, that part of me that I had not known would exist when I struck a bargain with the Sea Witch for human legs. I am made wild with longing, my fingers dipping inside the wet heart, imagining Oliver’s body on top of mine. Something akin to bliss, or maybe agony, teetering on the knife edge in between shivers from my very centre to my toes, an overwhelming relief knocking me drowsy.
I did not know such ecstasy could exist for women, is my second-last thought before I fall asleep.
I am running out of time, is the last.