7. Wings

Marya's mind wanders. Without a window she feels unmoored. What did Rostov say about this region? Trees that vanish into the folds in the air. Purple flowers on the ground. She wishes she had a book, some paper, anything to keep her thoughts from festering. She must be in the cabin next door to the one the Professor had been in. Was he still there? She can hear nothing through the padded walls.

Eventually, a nervous kitchen boy brings her breakfast on a silver tray; steaming porridge and warm rolls and hot coffee, but the smells, which would have normally made her mouth water, turn her stomach, and besides, she is determined not to eat, out of principle. Eating from the neat silver tray would be accepting her situation, would be saying, I understand why I am here. She does not accept it. She has hammered on the wall and brought the doctor to the adjoining door, she has demanded to know upon what evidence they are keeping her here, but the doctor only stammered that it was for her own good.

Her mind keeps wandering to Suzuki and the map on his skin. Changing. Like her father. Skin turned into cartography, eyes turned into glass. What did it feel like? Did it hurt? She tries to push away the image of her father, his empty eyes. He had deteriorated, in those last months, he had suffered and there had been no one to speak to, no one who would understand, and she has pushed Suzuki away too, and she cannot bear to see it happen again, to see it happen to this man, who is kind and unhappy and alone; who is burning up with guilt. She needs to get out, to tell him what happened to her father. To stop it happening again.

She hammers on the door and shouts until she is hoarse but in the end it is an alarm that answers her. An ugly, incongruous sound, a warning of danger. She hears feet hurrying past, but no one stops, the doctor doesn't appear with reassurances. She feels the walls closing in further, her lungs struggling to take in enough air. It is too hot, too close in the little cabin, she can't breathe.

She rests her forehead against the wall, fighting the urge to panic. And it is then that she notices a discolored patch in the cream-colored padding and frowns, looking closer. A shape is emerging—a moth, trapped beneath the material. She can see the beating of its wings. Something bumps against her head and she brushes it away quickly. Another moth—how are they getting in? She has never liked their mindless, meaningless motion, the way they tangle in her hair. There are more and more now; the walls are moving, and she has to fight down the panic, the horror at being trapped with all these beating wings.

One of the insects lands on the back of her hand and she is about to shake it off when it spreads its wings and reveals two spots like the eyes of an owl, a deep black ringed with gold. She raises her hand and the moth remains, poised, its delicate proboscis testing the air. It is just like the ones her father drew, future ideas that never became glass. It could have flown right off the page. And she is suddenly unafraid.

The alarm falls silent. She hears noises from the doctor's cabin, the sound of something crashing to the floor. The doctor is weeping, but she doesn't care. The moth is so delicate, so perfect, she understands why her father wanted to immortalize it in glass. She stands in the middle of the cabin, her arms outstretched, as the moths soar and spiral around her, their wings beating at her skin, a hundred pairs of owls' eyes opening and closing.

They collect on the door to the corridor, more and more of them, as if they are trying to burrow through.

And then the door opens, to reveal a young woman in a dirty blue dress looking in, curiously. "Hello," she says, in Russian. Some of the moths settle on her hair and her shoulders, like a soft, gray cape. She has wide, dark eyes, like the patterns on the moths' wings, and the bare skin on her arms is slightly mottled.

Marya stares at her. She has seen her before—a figure always on the point of vanishing. Is this her? Henry Grey's angel, Sophie's faceless girl.

"I heard the moths," she says, to Marya's unasked question. "I wanted to come and find them."

This seems,thinks Marya, a reasonable explanation. "There is someone in the next-door cabin," she says, stepping out into the corridor and trying to force herself to stay calm. "Can you let him out as well?"

"Certainly," says the girl, with a formality that Marya might have found amusing, in another situation. The girl raises her hand, palm upward, and a dozen moths land, crawling over her fingers and each other. Then she blows them gently toward the door and they spread their wings as they land, patterning the wood and encircling the door handle until it opens. She looks back at Marya with something of the appearance of a child who wishes to be praised for their cleverness, and Marya gasps, obligingly.

The Professor emerges, his eyes wide, his hair and beard uncombed. As wild as this girl, thinks Marya, as if he has just stepped out of the wilderness. As if he has just stepped out of one dream and into another. She takes his arm. "We are in the company of Artemis, I believe," she says.

He smiles. "I had thought to have left that name behind me. But now… Now I am thinking again."

The girl is looking at him intently. "I know you," she says, her head to one side, scrutinizing him as one might a painting in a gallery. "I have seen you watching from the windows. For many years."

The Professor gives a low bow. "Grigori Danilovich. Otherwise known—" and he nods at Marya, "as Artemis. It is my pleasure, madam. But I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage…"

The girl looks at him, then at Marya.

"He means, may we ask your name?" Marya says.