‘Mina, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
I was lead across the hall and presented to a wizened woman in the heavy petticoats of early in the century, before the crinoline had taken on the work of spreading skirts wide; her grey hair was in tight ringlets on either side of her face, a lace cap tied under her chin and an ear trumpet in her hand.
‘Here we are, Gertrude,’ said my stepmother loudly. ‘This is the girl.’
I was pushed forward so her rheumy eyes could assess me.
‘She’s a good girl, aren’t you, Mina?’
I didn’t know what else to do so I nodded.
Gertrude squinted at me again. ‘Oh, very well then,’ she said and my stepmother drew me to one side.
‘That went well!’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’
She folded her hands. ‘We thought this might be more... to your inclination,’ she said delicately and my cheeks burned.
There was no way she could suspect what I had felt for the Witch, what I had done with another woman, but the images flashed through my mind all the same. The curve of her bare shoulder, the Witch’s hair in my mouth as I kissed her neck, the weight of her breast against my hand. I coughed and lowered my face.
My stepmother continued, ‘I don’t want you to think we have forgotten about you, your father and I. We’ve spoken on it and thought you might like to return to the position of a lady’s companion, as you volunteered for it previously.’
Volunteered for – she meant being sacrificed as the Witch’s companion. Was she still telling herself I had been away as a lady’s companion? I looked past her to Gertrude, who was now clutching a crystal glass of sherry.
‘I... will think about it.’
I couldn’t bring myself to ask if she and my father could make a match for me. I had no desire to marry some strange man, but it was something else to be given up on entirely.
My stepmother patted my shoulder. ‘Good girl. Now I know you won’t give your father any bother. He works hard enough as it is, he doesn’t need a flock of women giving him more to worry about.’
I gave her a bland smile, and said, ‘Of course.’
The party continued without me. I walked through the French windows onto the rolling lawn behind the palace. The moon was showing pallid in the daytime sky, a tissue-thin disk behind the clouds and sun like an uninvited guest. But night would fall, and the moon would have its time. Over the edge of the palace wall, I could see the clock tower of the church, its face as broad and blank as the moon above.
I frowned. The hands were frozen at twelve. I looked around uneasily. Had they been moving that morning?
I stayed outside, watching the shadows shift over the terrace like a sundial, hunting for the passage of time in any place I could find.
I thought of the night I had spent on the palace roof between the Witch binding us and my departure with her the next morning. If time was to snag up like a pulled stitch, it could do worse than holding me there forever, to always be on the cusp of escape, and never disappointed.
b
The next morning, Klaus had vanished.
I had slept uneasily, waking more than once to fumble for my watch to check whether it had stopped. At one moment, I thought I heard a cry, the sound of a scuffle, but my watch ticked on and no doubt there were many revellers abroad. Somewhere before dawn I slipped under too deep and woke groggy and disorientated.
When I woke, I found my watch had slipped from my hand and its face was cracked. The hands were still.
Swallowing a wave of fear, I rose and dressed and left to join breakfast, for once urgently desiring the company of my stepfamily.
That was how I found Maria.
My route down passed her and Klaus’ room; the door was open and I saw her inside still in her frothing white nightdress, hair hanging over her shoulder in a thick plait and her face splotchy with tears.
‘What happened, tell me.’ I took her hands and drew her to sit on a velvet footstool in her bedroom but she resisted me, continuing to pace before the window.
‘It took him... It took him...’ She kept saying the same words over and over, as though a thought started that she could not bear to finish.
