Page 4 of The Beautiful Ones

The room grew cold.

I stared at the impossible creature until it disappeared. It did not fall or fly away. One moment it rested upon the glass, and the next there was nothing but frost.

I closed the trunk and locked it.

Sleep was impossible now. I went to the small writing table near the hearth, lit a fresh candle, and pulled a clean sheet of paper toward me.

For years I had avoided writing their names. I feared that names carried power and that remembering might become a kind of invitation. But silence had not protected me. Distance had not protected me. Not even the cold waters between Virginia and Sweden had been enough to bury what happened at Le Champ des Fleurs.

I dipped my pen into the ink.

For a long while, I watched the black drop tremble at the tip. Then I touched it to the page and began.

They were young lions, or so we called them that summer, though there was nothing young in their eyes.

CHAPTER ONE

ELIN

Le Champ des Fleurs, Virginia — July 1848

Fourteen years have passed, but I can still remember the heat.

It settled over Le Champ des Fleurs before sunrise, dampening the sheets beneath my body and pressing against the small garret window as if summer itself wanted to come inside. By six o’clock, the air beneath the roof had grown too thick to breathe. My linen shift clung to my back, and the heavy braid hanging over my shoulder felt like a woolen rope.

Then Madame Lebon rang her bell.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The sharp notes traveled through the walls and reached the servants’ rooms above the main house. No one else answered. Everyone knew that particular impatient summons belonged to me.

“I am coming,” I muttered, although Madame could not possibly hear me two floors below.

I climbed out of bed and poured the last of yesterday’s water into the basin. It had grown warm overnight and smelled faintly of tin, but I splashed it over my face and neck. The relief lasted only a moment.

My room contained a narrow bed, a washstand, one ladder-backed chair and the little iron-bound trunk I had carried from Sweden. Madame called the room generous. She had never climbed the back staircase to see it.

Above the trunk, faint marks covered the wall beside my bed. I had scratched one into the plaster every Sunday evening since arriving in Virginia. One hundred and three marks stood in five uneven rows.

One hundred and three weeks served.

One hundred and fifty-seven remained.

I touched the newest mark with my fingertip. Two years had passed slowly, but they had passed. That was the comfort of a contract. However cruel the day might become, it would eventually be over. However long the term of service, it possessed an ending.

Madame rang again.

“I said I am coming.”

I dressed quickly in a plain gray gown and pinned my braid around my head. A few pale strands escaped immediately and stuck to my damp temples. There was no help for it. Virginia did not care whether a woman looked respectable or not. The summer pulled her apart piece by piece until all appearances became lies.

The moment I opened my door, the house surrounded me.

Feet hurried along the narrow passage. Water sloshed in buckets. Somewhere below, a man shouted for more wood while another voice demanded lamp oil. The Deweys and Georges were expected before supper, bringing children, servants, trunks and appetites enough to swallow the household.