What is she to do without her mother?
8
Odette
ODETTE CANNOT SLEEP.
She has washed and changed into her nightclothes and slid beneath the covers, but she feels as far from sleep as if she were atop a mountain.
The London house makes everything impossible. She wants Cecilia in her bed, but there are too many servants here. It was a risk for her to come here the night of her mother’s death and it would be too much to tempt the gods again. It is better out in Suffolk, at Herne House, where everything is wild and they can be to each other everything they feel. Cecilia waited for her at her own window tonight, holding her copy of Tennyson. Usually, they would indicate a page number and read together across the distance, but tonight, Odette left her book on its shelf, shook her head and sent Cecilia away. If she cannot have what she wants, she cannot pretend any substitute will do.
Now she lies staring at the stucco ceiling rose, the day repeating in her mind. Did she do everything right? Did it come off well? Would her mother be pleased?
Questions that have no answer.
She rolls over and presses her face into the pillow, willing herself to sleep.
Sleep and forget all of this.
Tap-tap-tap.
She freezes.
Tap-tap-tap.
No. Not again. It cannot be.
The noise comes from beyond her door, but it sounds far closer than when she heard it before, when she discovered the bird. Has the bird got inside the house? Should she check?
Tap-tap-tap.
She cannot bring herself to do it – to pull back the covers and swing her bare feet out into the open air.
When the noise comes again, she strains to hear it – and it is different. Not the tapping of a beak on glass but the light slap of bare feet on floorboards.
Dread floods through her at the familiarity of that sound.
It must be one of the servants, sneaking around at night. It cannot be anything else.
Can it?
Odette burrows into the bed. She will not hear it. This is not happening. She is asleep already, and this is a monstrous dream.
Still, the tapping comes.
Odette’s heart races so fast she fears it will stutter and fail.
The door opens.
A gust of wind passes into the room, shivering through the curtains, and extinguishes the candle on her bedside table.
Odette does not move, does not breathe.
She has felt unreal all day, but now she feels so bitterly, acutely alive that she burns at every nerve ending, each inch of skin alert in the agony of anticipation.
A grave-cold hand slides about her throat.
She would scream, but the noise cannot escape her tight and twisted body.