‘You didn’t bring a lantern?’ Mr Carter asked – his voice a little closer than she cared for.
‘I don’t need one.’ She could navigate these dark corridors with her eyes closed.
‘I might,’ Mr Carter said, stumbling into boxes that’d been piled against one side.
‘Tell me what I said that evening.’ Ava sidestepped a murky silhouette that she was quite sure was an empty clothes rack. She got confirmation of it a moment later, when Mr Carter kicked it with his foot, and let out a sharp hissing sound. ‘I never quite remember what I say when I am sleepwalking.’
‘“Talk to me,”’ he said.
‘Very well – mind out on the right here, I believe it’s parts of Tommy’s old automaton suit. This corridor does seem to be a veritable dumping ground.’
‘No, I mean—’ The sound of clattering metal exploded in the tight space as Mr Carter kicked something across the concrete floor, and cursed beneath his breath. ‘That is what you said that evening – when you were still in your stupor. “Talk to me.”’
‘That was it?’ Ava felt the knot in her stomach loosen. At least it wasn’ttoomortifying. It could have been far, far worse considering she’d initially thought he was Jem.
‘That was it,’ he said, voice lilting upwards. ‘Which I thought was odd, because all I’d been trying todowas talk to you. I shouted at you when I saw the carriage, and yet …nothing.’
They’d reached the end of the corridor now, and Ava swung the door open into the cool sanctuary of the dressing rooms.
Racks of clothes crowded the eastern wall – three rails deep in places – and on the other side were the dressing tables, clumped into a loose horseshoe.
Ava could tell whose table was whose without them all sitting there – Miss Fairchild’s looked as though a perfumer’s shop had exploded upon it, not an inch of wood visible beneath the chaos. Mrs Green’s table hosted a precariously stacked collection of used teacups. Mr Green’s was home only to piles of dusty books, and a framed photograph of their pride and joy – Patience the dog. Stanley’s table seemed to be more in use as a storage area for shattered gas lamps – and it was only Tommy’s that was meticulously neat, with each pot, each brush, each item of stage clothing arranged just so.
‘Adeline Adams,’ Mr Carter whispered, reaching to rub a trail of dust from the small, wooden name plaque upon a door. ‘A relative of yours?’
‘My mother,’ said Ava, stepping past him to unlock it, her breath catching in her throat.
Chapter Fifteen
She almost didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to find it changed – for her mother’s dressing room had always been the one place where time stood still. Though the red velvet seats in the auditorium had begun to fray – the paint upon the ceilings had begun to flake – this room had looked much as it had when her mother had been alive.
‘Could use a good dusting,’ Mr Carter said, stepping past her.
Ava opened her eyes, and the relief hit her like a wave.
Her mother’s pictures still stood on the mirrored table – a portrait from her wedding day, and a drawing of Ava and Oliver that her mother had captured in thin, neat strokes. The velvet settee still sat against one wall – the wardrobe against the other, one door hanging a little lower than the other.
‘Thank God,’ she breathed.
‘I didn’t realize this was a family business,’ Mr Carter said, peering up at the ceiling – damp spreading in great, dark rings. ‘Do you perform together?’
‘She passed,’ said Ava.
Mr Carter turned, his gaze flicking to hers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘My mother passed, too – a long time ago. When did your mother—?’
‘Four years ago,’ said Ava. ‘And this dressing room – it’s the only place that’s still hers, so when I want to feel close to her – I come here.’ She reached to brush the dust from the mirror, swiping a great handful of it away. The face that stared back at her was paler, greyer than her mother’s had been – and pinched.
‘So … she was the Memory Binder before you?’
‘I don’t think I ever earned that name,’ Ava said, stepping towards the wardrobe. ‘I was just given it. But by the time I was performing as the Memory Binder, my act wasn’t anything like hers. By then …’Jem had broken with me. ‘By then I’d lost my nerve, and I didn’t want to pluck strangers from the crowd anymore. I was just a … a storyteller. I wove tales together and sold them as truth, but they weren’t. They were just stories – stories that tried to capture just an ounce of the magic she’d had.’
He was halfway to lowering himself onto the dusty velvet settee in the corner when he hesitated. ‘I thought you said itwasn’tmagic?’
‘It’s not,’ said Ava, pulling her mother’s coat from it. It didn’t smell like her anymore, the floral scent of her perfume, the sweetness of the oil she ran through her hair. Now the only thing Ava could smell was must, and smoke, and damp. ‘Buther?Shewas magical. And itfeltmagical, watching her. Watching me – well …’ She hung the coat back up, watching it sway gently on the hanger, back and forth. ‘No one believed anything. And I suppose that was the problem.’
‘Is that why you quit?’
When she didn’t answer, he stood up, and crossed to the dressing table, plucking up the portrait of her parents.
