Miss Lula led Amiya through the house. If Amiya had found it challenging to believe before she had been inside that people had lived in such a place, receiving a brief tour of the interior of the mansion had impressed that sense of disbelief on her more strongly than ever.
Wax candles provided light, and showed beyond a doubt: the place was falling apart. The wide entry hall had gaps in the floorboards, and several sections had caved in, dropping down into musty blackness. Chandeliers teetered from rusted chains or had crashed to the floor altogether. The wallpaper was peeling away from the walls in desiccated strips.
“You live in here?” Amiya asked Miss Lula, who was proceeding through the wreck of a home with an air of indifference.
“All of us do,” Miss Lula said. She glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows arched. “So will you, lady.”
To hell you say, Amiya thought, but she didn’t dare to speak the sentiment. Miss Lula had the frosty air of an old-school disciplinarian who wouldn’t hesitate to smack you across the face if you voiced a cross word. The woman had yet to showher anything but mild civility, but Amiya was a keen judge of character—her work as a psychologist required it—and being in Miss Lula’s presence kept her on guard.
She saw others in the rooms they passed. Mostly women, but she did see two meek-looking men. None of them spoke to her, but all of them were engaged in tasks so pointless that it seemed the height of absurdity. Scrubbing floors. Folding linens. Washing clothes in a big basin. Delicious aromas wafted from one of the rooms they walked past, and Amiya reasoned that it had to be the kitchen.
“Something sure smells good,” she said. Her stomach growled.
“You’ll eat after you bathe and dress,” Miss Lula said.
She brought Amiya to a grand spiral staircase—well, it used to be grand. To Amiya, those canted risers looked like an accident waiting to happen. Part of the balustrade had actually peeled away from the staircase.
“Watch yourself, lady,” Miss Lula said. She gathered the hem of her dress in her big fist and began to ascend the steps. The staircase groaned and popped under her weight.
Amiya hesitated at the foot of the stairs. She looked for a safe path and didn’t see one.
“Don’t make me ask you twice,” Miss Lula said.
Amiya drew in a ragged breath, went up. She tried to follow the exact same route Miss Lula had taken, but it still felt as perilous as walking a plank on a pirate ship, and as she neared the landing, she lost her balance.
Cat-quick, Miss Lula reached out and grabbed her arm. She steadied Amiya and pulled her up as if Amiya weighed no more than a child.
“Thanks,” Amiya said.
Miss Lula nodded, released her hold on her.
She grabbed me as if it were nothing, Amiya thought.How could anyone be that strong?
The second floor of the mansion was just as dilapidated as the ground level. More broken chandeliers. A damaged floor. Ancient peeling wallpaper. Warped doors sagging on hinges. Cobwebs everywhere.
They passed musty bedrooms, stepped past an old painting that had crashed to the floor. Amiya glanced at the painting: it looked like a depiction of the plantation, Westbrook, in its former state of grandeur.
She coughed against a veil of dust that passed over her. She followed Miss Lula to a room near the end of the long corridor.
“You’ll bathe in here,” Miss Lula said, pointing.
Amiya looked inside: no one ever would have mistaken the chamber for a spa, but it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. A fat candle glowed on an end table, casting dim light over the smallish room. A porcelain claw-foot tub stood in the middle. It had been filled about three-quarters full with steaming water. A nearby table held a bar of soap, a sponge, and a thick white towel. A freshly cut red rose bristled from a faded vase.
“It’s nice,” Amiya said, and actually meant it.
“Like I said, you get the best we’ve got, lady,” Miss Lula said. She took a bathrobe from a hook on the sagging door. “Go ahead and take off your clothes.”
“Can I get a little privacy?” Amiya asked. “Please?”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Miss Lula stared at her, and didn’t leave the doorway. “You haven’t been marked yet. There’s no telling what you might try.”
“All righty, then,” Amiya said. “So this is going to be like high school gym class all over again.”
Miss Lula didn’t respond to the remark, and showed no inclination to turn around. Amiya stepped past her, moved nearthe bathtub. Putting one hand against the rim of the tub for balance, she peeled off her shoes, then her socks.
“You’ve had a pedicure recently, huh?” Miss Lula looked at Amiya’s feet. “Red polish, no chipped paint.”
“Right, last weekend, for all the good it’ll do me now. I’ll probably have blisters from all the physical activity I’ve had today.”
