Chapter 8

There were lanterns.

Half a dozen perched on shelves and tables throughout the cottage, and a fire roared merrily in the hearth, though I couldn't understand how it was lit. There was no wood, nothing that the flames seemed to be consuming. There was only…light. It illuminated the cottage as brightly as a summer sun, leaving no corners of darkness, no pools of shadows where my mind could uneasily linger, imagining whole hosts of unwanted horrors.

The inside of the cottage was open and airy, though not terribly spacious. Sections of the room bled from one to another. My bed was near the hearth, which was near an overstuffed chair, which nearly took over the little kitchen, where a tall wooden table served as a place to both work and eat.

In the center of the table was a birthday cake.

It was small—the perfect size for my party of one—and impossibly ornate, the prettiest cake I'd ever seen. Golden webs of spun sugar covered the pale pink frosting, and candied flowers circled its base. It looked too lovely to eat, a perfect work of art, though I spotted a silver-handled fork resting beside the tiny platter, indicating that eating it was exactly what I was meant to do.

The first bite was all sweetness. I'd never had anything like it before, light as air with a cloying aftertaste that reminded me of Mama's rose garden. I took another bite, intrigued by the experience but not sure if I actually liked it.

While I ate, I studied the rest of my new home.

The kitchen shelves were stocked with earthen jars, pots, a kettle, and exactly one plate, cup, and set of flatware, causing me to wonder if Merrick ever planned on dining with me.

Did gods eat?

I turned from the kitchen, my eyes skimming over a water pump and sink. There was a large copper hip tub—unspeakably nicer than the galvanized tin basin we all used in turn the morning before temple visits—and a small armoire wedged into the corner of the room. Opening it, I gasped.

There were dresses and skirts, pinafores and blouses, nightgowns and cloaks, all cut from the finest cloths. There were soft wools in colors I'd never dreamed of, voiles and twills with immaculate pintucks, and beautiful floral cotton lawns, all trimmed with perfect embroidered stitches, tiny scallops of real lace, or ruffled eyelet. Lining the bottom of the cupboard were rows of boots—black ones, brown ones, some in soft gray, and one pair in the finest red leather I'd ever seen. Everything gleamed bright and new, without a scuff or stain, and I was absolutely certain everything was my size.

Eagerly, I pulled a cream-colored nightgown off its hanger and laid it across my bed to marvel at its beauty.

I'd never had a nightgown before. Back at home, I alternated between three dresses and slept in whichever one I'd worn throughout the day.

But this…

It was perfect. The voile was impossibly thin and edged in chains of roses and ivy. It was a nightdress fit for a dauphine or an infanta.

And it was mine.

I wanted to shimmy out of my tattered skirt and sagging stockings and put it on then and there. I wanted to dance around the room, letting the full skirts twirl like puffs of meringue, giggling at the wild turn my life had just taken.

But then I caught sight of the books on my nightstand.

And the books lined alongside my bed.

I turned slowly, taking in the cottage once more. Nearly every flat surface within it was covered with them: big books, small books, books made of leather, stacks of paper bound with glue and thread. Titles in gold foil winked in the firelight, and other tomes seemed to have no name at all. There were texts and treatises, manuals and instructions. I flipped through the pages of a large one near me and my stomach curdled.

It was an anatomy book, chock-full of illustrations and diagrams. There were striated muscles rendered in lurid shades of red ink; drawings of the human eye, pulled back layer by layer; and a tangled mess of squiggly lines I couldn't identify. The thought of them being somewhere inside me made my throat clench, fighting back a wave of nausea, and I suddenly regretted eating any of the cake at all.

I quickly shut that tome and scanned the room, trying to take stock of the sheer volume but failing. Did my godfather—did Merrick, I corrected myself—truly expect me to read these, and not only read them but be able to understand them and discuss what I'd learned?

The cottage felt too full, as if every one of the words on every one of the pages in each and every one of the books was suddenly before me, physical beings demanding to be noticed. I could feel the weight of their ink and importance piling up like stones, a wall of them, a tower, an entire mountain's worth of ideas.

It was too tall, this mountain of knowledge, too big to last. Stones rolled from its summit, raining down, catching on others, and causing them to shift until there was an avalanche headed straight at me and I was too dumbstruck to do anything but stare at my approaching destruction.

I would be struck by it, buried and battered, and there was nothing I could do.

I'd never learn it all.

It seemed wildly unfair.

It seemed…

My eyes blinked heavily. Time moved in funny circles in the Between. Just hours before, I'd been doing my morning chores, but now it felt impossibly late, well after midnight.

I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer; I couldn't keep wondering and worrying.

But I could collapse onto the splendid mattress Merrick had left for me.

That I could do.

I sank into its softness and wished its sumptuous down feathers would swallow me whole. I couldn't find the energy to put on the nightgown, couldn't even slip beneath the sheets. I simply pulled my velvet quilt over me, vaguely aware that it had somehow grown cleaner in Merrick's hands, the stains removed, the patches mended out of existence.

I closed my eyes and wished for the same to happen to me.