Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia A. McKillip Page A

housekeeper was being scullery-maid, helping Mrs. Dyce with the mountain of dirty dishes. Earlier that day, Emma had helped her unpack the crates, dust furniture for the party, find silverware and candlesticks and lamps among the boxes, and summon food and wine for an unknown number of guests, all before she vanished into the kitchen to help Mrs. Dyce cook the elaborate supper.
    Mrs. Dyce, a gaunt, mournful woman who could turn out a fragrant shepherd’s pie with one hand while she was wiping away a tear for her dead husband with the other, only sighed and shook her head at the notion of monkeys in the kitchen.
    Nelly wiped her hands on her apron, said calmly, “I’ll have a look, Miss.”
    She took a lamp into the inner sanctums of bedchamber and pantry, while Emma checked the high shelves and cupboards.
    “I don’t see it, Miss Emma,” Nelly said, reappearing. “Maybe Mr. Wilding shut it up in a cupboard after it set Miss Bunce on fire.”
    “I doubt that Mr. Wilding would think of doing anything so sensible.”
    “You may be right, Miss. But one can hope.”
    “One can, indeed, hope. I’ll ask him.”
    But, reluctant to put herself again under that powerful, discomfiting gaze, she looked first into Adrian’s bedroom, expecting she might find the little monkey curled up and napping among the sheets. Her lamplight, sliding over the room, revealed only its familiar chaos. Finally she glanced into the room, hardly bigger than the pantry, where she slept.
    No monkey.
    She turned back into the hallway, perplexed, and jumped. Bram Wilding stood in her lamplight with the golden monkey on his shoulder reaching for the lamp.
    She moved it hastily. “Mr. Wilding. You startled me.”
    “You were looking for me.”
    “I was looking for your monkey.”
    “Ah. Well, I’ve come in search of you. Please forgive my earlier rudeness, Miss Slade; the last thing I would want is to discourage you or anyone from painting. The truth is that I am so distracted by you that any amount of idiocy can come out of my mouth without me hearing a word of it. From the moment I saw you, I knew I must paint you. I see you as the great, doomed Celtic Queen Boudicca, in silk and fur and armor, with her long fair hair flying free as she faces her conquerors, knowing that she will lose the final battle but ready to fight until she can no more for her lost realm. Will you pose for me?”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilding,” she said with relief. “I’ve already promised Marianne Cameron that I would pose for her—”
    “Put her off.”
    “Tomorrow.”
    He was silent. The monkey chattered at her, wanting her flame, its great eyes filled with it. Bram’s dark eyes seemed impenetrable; light could not reach past them.
    “I’ll talk to her,” he said finally.
    “Mr. Wilding, I wish you wouldn’t. She has offered me a place to paint. I want to go there.”
    He only smiled cheerfully. “I’m sure you will be welcome in any case, Miss Slade.”
    There was a step behind Bram. She lifted the lamp higher and caught Ned Bonham’s face in her light. She gazed at him a moment, smiling upon him and wondering how his face, which she had never seen before that night, could give her so much pleasure.
    “Miss Slade,” he said, smiling back.
    “Mr. Bonham.”
    “I see you found the monkey.”
    Bram Wilding, who must have felt invisible, moved abruptly. His face, which until then seemed genial and imperturbable, had grown masklike; Emma could not guess at his thoughts.
    “You might say it found me.”
    “We are all found,” Bram said lightly, moving ahead of them into shadow. “I suppose we must go and hear Coombe read. What is the subject this time?”
    “A mortal straying into the realm of Faery and how he gets himself out again—something like that.”
    “I didn’t think you could,” Emma said. “Aren’t you lost forever if you wander out of the world?”
    “It depends, I think, on how you actually got there. If you’re taken by a water