Stella reached up and ran a gloved hand through my hair—black leather gloves identical to the ones she wore during our previous encounters. Her head tilted slightly to the left, and she met my eyes. “I believe I called you ugly the first time we met, and while your cleanliness may be questionable, you have at least grown out of the ugly. Perhaps not to your potential, but there is a glimpse of the man to come, and far less of that little boy who perched himself uninvited upon my bench.”
“I…I came straight from work. I wanted to change and clean up, but I didn’t have enough time,” I stammered, my voice sounding higher to me than it normally did.
“A true gentlemen caller always finds the time to present himself as nothing shy of his utmost best. Prim and proper and dressed to the nines. You look as if you recently rolled in the gutter for fun. Your scent is an assault on all things civilized. And your posture is a perfect representation of defeat. Stand up straight, Pip. You’re better than that.”
“Jack.”
She grinned. “Pip to me, though. Always Pip to me.”
“We’re a little old to be living in a fairy tale, don’t you think?”
“Are we? I like to think not. I can’t imagine living in anything but a fairy tale. The real world can be an abhorrent place.”
“Stella? Why don’t you show young Jack around? You’ve seen the hovel where he lives.”
I hadn’t heard Ms. Oliver return. She stood at the end of the hallway, her hands clasped in front of her.
“This is a lovely home,” I said.
Stella smiled again. “It is, isn’t it?” She turned to the older woman. “Of course, Ms. Oliver. It would be my pleasure.”
She held out her hand to me, and I took it. The touch of her long, slender fingers sent a rush of warmth through me, even through her soft leather gloves.
Stella led me down the long hallway behind the foyer, past a large sitting room on the right and a library on the left. I expected Oliver to follow us, but she did not. She stepped back as we walked past her. My eyes met hers, and although she smiled politely, there was nothing but ice in her gaze, a deep hatred that I felt I had not earned and I didn’t understand. I gripped Stella’s hand tighter as we moved beyond the woman, and somehow she caught sight of this, too, her eyes darting to our hands before quickly returning to meet mine.
Latrese Oliver did not follow us, but the moment we passed her, two others stepped out of a side hall on the left and fell in line about ten feet behind us. A man and a woman, both in their mid to late twenties, both wearing long, white coats identical to the others. Each had short-cropped blond hair and looked as if they might be related, a brother and sister, perhaps. They didn’t say anything, just fell in step at our backs. When Stella paused at a large dark chestnut grandfather clock in the hallway, they went still, too. The distance between us was a constant.
“When I was a little girl, perhaps a year before you and I first met, I was told this clock controlled time for all of the world. Should it stop ticking, the world would stop ticking, too, simply cease to exist. I used to wake in the middle of the night and run down here to check on it. Sometimes I would bring a blanket and sleep right here on the floor. I always found the sound of it soothing, that steady tick tock.”
“Who told you that? Ms. Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“Is she your guardian or something?”
“Something, yes.”
“You never told me what happened to your parents.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I told you what happened to mine.”
She turned and continued down the hall, the soft material of her black dress caressing the back of her legs. “This way, Pip. You have much to see.”
I started after her. I knew I should, I knew I was supposed to, but I had had enough of this—this one-sided conversation with a girl I had known yet not known nearly longer than any other person in my life.
I willed my legs to stop moving.
I stood my ground.
The ticking of the large grandfather clock was eclipsed only by the sound of my heart, thudding in my chest.
Stella must have somehow sensed this, because she paused at the end of the hallway without turning around. “No longer the obedient puppy?”
“I never was.”
Stella let out a sigh. Not so much one of defeat but one of acceptance. She did not turn around. And when she spoke, some of the edge had left her voice. “It was a summer day, not unlike today. The sun had begun to set, and my mother placed me in my bed for the night. Although I was only two, I recall the evening perfectly. It might have been a week ago. Mother smelled of vanilla, a perfume I now wear in her memory.”
