fingertips.
“I’d take you home with me, if I could.”
No sooner had the words escaped me than she pulled back her head, her eyes glowing silver as they caught the reflection of the moon. She shook her head again, but this time much faster, more eager somehow. Her elbows hooked around my neck and she hugged my face close, a sweet aroma tempting me nearer to her lips. I kissed her without delay, feeling her cold skin, the rush of air that swept around us and tousled my suit upon the impact. Lingering moments passed as I stayed locked in her embrace, never wanting the moment to vanish, the way I knew that she herself soon would. She had never stayed this long before, never let me reach the end of the dance, or this moment I had wanted from the instant I beheld her.
When she pulled her lips away, I opened my eyes to a new vista. A faint green light surrounded us and the world became a dark blur the farther I tried to see into the distance. The bubble of air we were bathed in slowed my realisation that she had taken me under the water, but when I looked upwards I could just make out the moon. It was a much smaller circle in the midnight sky than it had been moments before. I held onto her waist tightly and studied her smiling face.
“Or perhaps you could take me home with you?” I asked with a tremble.
Her smile fell slowly, the corners of her mouth drooping into a frown.
“I have no home,” she sighed.
And then she was nothing once more. The water hit me like a frozen gust of wind, smashing into my body from all sides where the protective layer of air had once been. I scrambled in the murky darkness, my eyes stinging as I looked up for the sight of the moon. I was a long way down, kicking and paddling violently, my lungs burning with the strain of holding back the torrent of fetid water that was waiting to devour me.
I emerged with an inhuman gasp in the river, forcing my way upstream and back towards the pier. The silver smoke that had lit our dancefloor was gone, and by the time I reached the wet wood of the little jetty, the moon had clouded over and deserted me too. As the sound of my own breathing slowed to a more normal rate, I noticed that silence had fallen upon the Big House. The music had stopped. I climbed up onto the pier in my soaked suit, now dull as charcoal where the water had seeped in and destroyed its delicate threads.
My white tie was missing from my damp neck. When I turned back to the river, I could see it floating some way off by a patch of reeds. But, within seconds, a caramel hand slunk out of the water and grasped it with long, elegant fingers, pulling it down into the impenetrable darkness below. I stepped back a few paces, listening to my own damp feet squelching along the tired wood, watching for any other signs that she was still waiting nearby. When none came, I exhaled a nervous breath, turning on shaking legs to return to some semblance of normality.
“Will you come back for it?”
Her voice echoed on the water, babbling in every trickle of the river behind me. I didn’t slow my pace or even look back to find her. There was no need.
She already knew the answer.
The Glassma n’ s Promise
The year of Our Lord 1826.
That’s what they call it, the people of the house. All week, since the eve of New Year, they’ve been saying those words to me. I don’t understand them. He is not my lord, but I must pretend to accept him as my master, just as I pretend that his grace, the Duke, is a righteous and honourable man.
It is wise to pretend such things. The Duke owns my body and uses it to serve his house. I clean his floors in the early morning, a time when his family doesn’t have to gaze upon the shameful colour of my skin. I shine his shoes and wash his dogs in my annexed room, forever unseen, living by candlelight and inspecting myself in a broken mirror. A mirror that the Duke smashed when I attempted my first defiance of him. I can
“I’d take you home with me, if I could.”
No sooner had the words escaped me than she pulled back her head, her eyes glowing silver as they caught the reflection of the moon. She shook her head again, but this time much faster, more eager somehow. Her elbows hooked around my neck and she hugged my face close, a sweet aroma tempting me nearer to her lips. I kissed her without delay, feeling her cold skin, the rush of air that swept around us and tousled my suit upon the impact. Lingering moments passed as I stayed locked in her embrace, never wanting the moment to vanish, the way I knew that she herself soon would. She had never stayed this long before, never let me reach the end of the dance, or this moment I had wanted from the instant I beheld her.
When she pulled her lips away, I opened my eyes to a new vista. A faint green light surrounded us and the world became a dark blur the farther I tried to see into the distance. The bubble of air we were bathed in slowed my realisation that she had taken me under the water, but when I looked upwards I could just make out the moon. It was a much smaller circle in the midnight sky than it had been moments before. I held onto her waist tightly and studied her smiling face.
“Or perhaps you could take me home with you?” I asked with a tremble.
Her smile fell slowly, the corners of her mouth drooping into a frown.
“I have no home,” she sighed.
And then she was nothing once more. The water hit me like a frozen gust of wind, smashing into my body from all sides where the protective layer of air had once been. I scrambled in the murky darkness, my eyes stinging as I looked up for the sight of the moon. I was a long way down, kicking and paddling violently, my lungs burning with the strain of holding back the torrent of fetid water that was waiting to devour me.
I emerged with an inhuman gasp in the river, forcing my way upstream and back towards the pier. The silver smoke that had lit our dancefloor was gone, and by the time I reached the wet wood of the little jetty, the moon had clouded over and deserted me too. As the sound of my own breathing slowed to a more normal rate, I noticed that silence had fallen upon the Big House. The music had stopped. I climbed up onto the pier in my soaked suit, now dull as charcoal where the water had seeped in and destroyed its delicate threads.
My white tie was missing from my damp neck. When I turned back to the river, I could see it floating some way off by a patch of reeds. But, within seconds, a caramel hand slunk out of the water and grasped it with long, elegant fingers, pulling it down into the impenetrable darkness below. I stepped back a few paces, listening to my own damp feet squelching along the tired wood, watching for any other signs that she was still waiting nearby. When none came, I exhaled a nervous breath, turning on shaking legs to return to some semblance of normality.
“Will you come back for it?”
Her voice echoed on the water, babbling in every trickle of the river behind me. I didn’t slow my pace or even look back to find her. There was no need.
She already knew the answer.
The Glassma n’ s Promise
The year of Our Lord 1826.
That’s what they call it, the people of the house. All week, since the eve of New Year, they’ve been saying those words to me. I don’t understand them. He is not my lord, but I must pretend to accept him as my master, just as I pretend that his grace, the Duke, is a righteous and honourable man.
It is wise to pretend such things. The Duke owns my body and uses it to serve his house. I clean his floors in the early morning, a time when his family doesn’t have to gaze upon the shameful colour of my skin. I shine his shoes and wash his dogs in my annexed room, forever unseen, living by candlelight and inspecting myself in a broken mirror. A mirror that the Duke smashed when I attempted my first defiance of him. I can
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