Within These Wicked Walls(8)

“Whose life is more important to you?” Jember asked. “Yours, or that stranger who will never think of you again?”

“God loves us both,” I’d replied, struggling to see him through swollen eyes.

“Your empathy has created poor survival habits.” Jember handed me a bottle of alcohol to disinfect my wounds. “Next time I’ll let them kill you.”

There was no next time. I never tried to protect anyone but myself again.

That wasn’t about to change now.

“Wake up, child,” Peggy snapped.

I blinked away the memory, and we were in front of an open doorway.

“He wants to see you,” she said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

I stepped inside. Sunlight bathed the room from the large windows, rows of tall bookshelves cutting stark shadows into the light on the floor. Mr. Rochester sat in an armchair facing the blazing fireplace, leaning forward with a large pad of paper on his knees. He drew with a grey pencil, a red one tucked in his mess of soft curls, which were long enough to reach the bottom of his chin. His skin was the color of wet sand, but there was also something pale about his complexion, almost ill. It lacked the golden glow of someone who’d seen the sun anytime recently. But his cheekbones. Like blades. He stared at the wall for a while, as if deep in thought, then looked back down at his paper. Some sort of bell or metal at his wrist jingled with the movement of his hand.

I looked at the wall he seemed to be drawing. It was a fireplace backed by red and black paisley wallpaper. Over it was mounted a large portrait, littered with darts and scratches, of a white man with a thick sandy-blond beard, holding a swaddled baby. The man looked sad, and a little angry, as if he knew his portrait was marred by darts. I felt bad for the baby.

I knocked on the open door. “Sir?”

“Who is it?” he asked, without looking up.

“It’s Andr—”

“Right, yes.” He pushed a wayward curl at his temple behind his ear. “Come in.”

His voice was light and casual, not at all like the person I’d met the night before. I stepped into the room and Mr. Rochester continued, without looking at me, “I must get my subject down on paper before she notices. Help yourself to cherry tarts and coffee.”

Cherry tarts for breakfast? Odd, but I was still hungry after that mush. I sat on the puffy fabric chair on the other side of the small round table and took a tart, then glanced at the wall again. All I saw was the ill-tempered man and the baby, and yet he had said “she.” Who exactly was he drawing?

I peered at his drawing and gasped. On top of the fireplace stood a woman wearing a red kaba, the ornate bridal cape and crown fit for royalty. Blood gushed from her mouth, staining her white dress—the only use of the red pencil other than her kaba. The rest of the drawing was shaded in eerie tones of grey.

I looked at the lack of woman against the actual wall, and then back to the drawing. A chill ran down my spine. “Are you seeing … her … right now?”

“Only in my memory.”

“Does she appear often?”

“Every day. I call her the Librarian, because she loves to rearrange my books.” He grinned. “Spiteful, tidy woman.” He drew one last line and held the pad at arm’s length, his wrists jingling sharply at the movement, then turned the drawing to me. “What do you think?”

“Why is she bleeding?”

“I used to ask, and then she would leave threatening book passages open the next morning for me to read with breakfast,” he said, gesturing to the table beside us. “I no longer ask.”

“I notice you didn’t include the portrait in your drawing.”

“Yes, well. I don’t draw monsters.”

I hesitated. That had to be a painting of his father … didn’t it? “Why not take the portrait down, then?”

“Target practice.” He signed and dated his work and then tucked it beside the chair, exchanging his pencil for a tart. Finally, his eyes met mine, and a gentle, almost relieved expression slipped to his face. It was as if all the rudeness and anger I’d seen in him hinged on this one human interaction.

And then his eyes shifted lower and widened. “God. You have a massive scar on your face.”

My cheeks flared with shame. Perhaps I’d read his expression wrong, because the eye contact hadn’t changed him one bit. Still as rude as last night.

“You make a terrible first impression, you know,” he went on, and took a bite of his tart. “Weren’t you supposed to arrive yesterday?”

“I did arrive yesterday.” He paused and blinked at me, so I added, “We spoke before bed.”

“Hm. I don’t remember that.”

“You were…” Fussy. Like a baby. “Tired, sir.”

“Call me Magnus. I don’t like the formality of titles. It makes us such strangers, and I don’t like strangers in my house.”

I paused. “I am employed by you, sir. I don’t think—”

“I like the brown of your eyes,” he said, with wonder in his voice. “Tilt your head toward the light?”

“Tilt my head?”

“I just want to see the highlights.”

I hesitated, then turned my face halfway to the fire, hoping he’d look at my eyes and move on from the topic.