Sleeping Helena (10 page)

Eva returned to the house and found Helena easily
—
the Latin tutor was striding furiously down the hall toward the wide, front doors.

“I cannot do this another minute!” he shouted as he hurried past Eva, his lapels flapping and a half-eaten book in his hands.

Let Thekla handle it, Eva thought. Thekla enjoyed this kind of thing. Eva turned as Helena glided out of the library with a wicked smile on her face. Eva ignored the scene, for it would only repeat next week with a different victim.

Helena had become a glacial young woman, as heartless as the ice that formed on the eaves in winter. Eva and her sisters stepped lightly around Helena’s temper. It was hard to detect; her rages never seemed to originate in any anger. Hers was a calculated fury, which made it all the more frightening, yet Helena could also be the most pleasant company possible. She was undeniably stunning and when she smiled, it was as though the sun shone just for them.

The sisters did their best to protect her, but none of them were as imaginative as Thekla about what that protection entailed. Eva was about to throw it all to the wind, but that didn’t trouble her nearly as much as did the idea of talking with Helena. If she said the wrong thing, or showed any hesitation, Helena would have her for dinner. Eva had to act now, before her courage failed her.

“Helena,” Eva said as Helena walked by, “would you care to explore the house with me?”

Helena stopped abruptly. Her face revealed nothing. “Yes, Aunt Eva, I would like that.”

Eva withheld a breath of relief and assumed the role of a blundering, helpless old lady. It was always best to let Helena feel in control.

“Good girl. Take my hand, I’m not as young as I look.”

Helena allowed Eva to lead her up the stairs. At the end of the south wing, Eva pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door to the third floor. Helena watched intently, but did not say a word as they climbed a second set of stairs.

Like the lower floors, the third had been refurbished before they arrived and then dismantled during one of Thekla’s crusades. The door had been locked and, as far as Eva knew, no one had gone up there since. None of the sisters inhabited any of the rooms and the floorboards were covered in dust. They could certainly have used the space, but their knees weren’t up to the task of climbing two sets of stairs. One was more than enough, as Eva’s legs soon reminded her.

At the third floor landing, Eva had to rest. She let go of Helena’s hand and nodded for her to go off and explore. “Give me but a moment, and then come right back. We are going into the attics.”

Eva watched Helena turn toward a door hanging ajar at the end of the hallway. Helena pushed it open; there was nothing to see but a four-poster bed, a white sheet hung over it to keep the wood free of dust. Eva smiled as Helena waved a cobweb away from her face.

“Come now,” Eva called as she hobbled in the opposite direction. She stopped before a long swath of wall.

“One more set of stairs,” Eva said as she inserted a key into a hole hidden at eye-level among the design in the paper. A door swung silently outwards. They made their way slowly up the final, narrow stair. Helena kept pace behind her aunt, who grappled with the railing with one hand and flailed for the light with her other. There was a click as Eva pulled a chain; a bulb flared on overhead.

“Here we are,” Eva said as she hauled herself up the last step.

The room spread out on each side of her, a huge expanse of space cluttered with all of those things one would expect to find in an old home’s attic, musty and stinking of mice. Helena sneezed.

“It’s filthy.”

The floor beneath Helena’s feet was free of dust, but in the far corners of the room, where light hardly reached, motes flew in the rafters thick as fog.

“What is this mess?” she asked.

“Furniture, old clothes
—
you never know. Most of this was probably here when I was a child, and that was many years ago. This room holds what is left of the family’s past.”

“Why hasn’t Aunt Thekla cleaned it out?”

Eva glanced sharply at Helena, who never spoke of the strange doings in the household. “I imagine she does not remember these things are here.”

Eva hadn’t known there was an attic—it was Hope who found the key and then the door. Eva had come up several times since and stood in the light, wondering at a past she was not part of. No one dared tell Thekla. This was all that remained of them.

“How many, Aunt Eva?”

“How many what?”

“Years. You said
many years ago
. How old are you?”

Eva had intended to lead Helena slowly toward the matter of the gifts. Now Helena had preempted her plan. She should not be surprised; she wondered that Helena hadn’t asked long before for these personal details. None of them stood a chance where Helena was concerned. Eva steeled herself. As soon as she revealed her age, her niece would demand some answers. Eva had to be certain she was ready to give them.

“I am one hundred and two years old.” Eva watched Helena’s eyes flicker as she calculated the date.

“And Aunt Thekla?”

“One hundred and ten.”

Helena took a step back and inspected her aunt’s face. Eva didn’t seem to be lying. Helena folded her arms in front of her chest and waited.

Eva knew that posture well. It was one that had sent at least two tutors through the front door, never to be seen again. Some could not cope with the gifted or the things they did when denied. Helena was waiting for information and would not move until she got it. Eva could hear her thoughts
—it isn’t natural, it can’t be true—
and wondered if Helena would even believe her.

“We are a rather unique family. A gifted family, in fact.” Eva paused. “We are able to give unusual gifts, but only within our own family. Someone once gave us the gift of very long lives.” As Eva suspected would happen, more questions rapidly followed.

“Will I grow so old, too?”

“Yes, you most likely will. We might live twice the number of years expected, but rarely more. It is not so bad.” Eva lied. She thought it was awful, but Helena was young and had a whole life yet to live, gods willing. No need to spoil it now.

“Since we all live so long, where is your mother?” Helena had been told of her own mother’s death, but appeared to feel little for the woman who had given birth to her.

“She died many years ago. It was her heart.” Something you know nothing about, Eva wanted to add, but did not.

“We can die at any time, just like anyone else?”

“Yes, that’s right. We are not immortal. We only have a longer lifespan than is usual. Such gifts are not given any longer. We give gifts to one person, rather than to the entire family. The gifts we give to that person must die with them. We cannot, sadly, do much about the gifts that have been given to us. We cannot take back the long life that your own child, for instance, will have. Eva was uncomfortable speaking of death and dying, but these were things Helena had to know.

“How many gifts can we get?”

Eva was not surprised to find that Helena had thoughts only for what she might get, rather than what she could give. The full import of Eva’s words was not sinking in. Eva chose to ignore it. Helena would know what the power to give meant when it finally came to her. After all, she was family too.

“As many as there are members of the family to give them, though we do try to establish limits.”

Eva found she enjoyed sharing their legacy with Helena. It was a good one; they had nothing to be ashamed of. Thekla refused to speak of it. The more Helena knew, she said, the more likely it would be she’d discover the truth on her own, and none of them wanted that. In her excitement, Eva left caution behind.

“You were fortunate, you got one from each of us—eight all told. You received music and dance, song and grace, wit and that beautiful face of yours.”

Helena looked at her strangely. “Eight.”

“Pardon me?” Eva was confused.

“There are seven of you. You said
eight
.” She frowned at Eva’s blank look. “Who gave me the eighth gift?”

“Oh.” Oh dear. It was too late to turn back now. Eva drew in her breath and straightened her shoulders. “We have another sister.”

Saying the words felt like giving birth. Not as painful, surely, but at least as dangerous as the act itself and as relieving as the moment it was over. “An older sister.”

“Older than Aunt Thekla? Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Eva lied.

“What’s wrong with her gift?”

“Wrong with it?”

“It doesn’t work, like song or dance.”

“Ah.” Eva squirmed. “Well.”

She wanted to take the easy way out, say Kitty simply hadn’t given it to her yet, but that was the coward’s path. This was her only chance to be brave without Thekla standing behind her and besides, Helena would see straight through that lie.

“She gave you the gift when you were a baby and then hid it from us all.”

“Hid it? What do you mean, hid it?”

“I mean it is hidden. We don’t know how it will manifest, or when or where.”

“How do I find it?”

Eva wished she had an answer. “It is Kitty’s gift. Only she can tell you that.”

Neither of them moved as things in corners shifted, birds fluttered in the rafters and the ever-present dust drifted purposefully from one box to another. They stared at each other in the attic’s dim light. Eva thought,
She is cold
. Helena thought,
She is old.

Eva observed; she was good at it. Her motto had always been
I see and keep silent
. Since Helena’s birth she had learned to act on her observations, and now Eva could no longer even claim silence as her own. I’ve done it, she thought, as she saw hunger dilate Helena’s eyes. She will not rest now until she has opened Kitty’s gift.

Helena stood in a circle of light as Aunt Eva’s steps faded away. The attic loomed around her, awash with possessions stored or forgotten throughout countless years. It held the family’s history, so Eva had said, and Helena was suddenly very interested in the lives of her aunts. She was a god who had just seen the face of her makers. She wasn’t entirely pleased.

They had known all along how she was made and could have simply told her. Instead, they had let her starve. She was always so
hungry
. She had her own rituals, things she’d devised to sate her gifts, though beauty was hard to please once the mirrors had come down. She stretched herself as best as she was able in whatever direction her gifts chose.

Death was now mostly satisfied with knowledge; she could talk for hours about rites of burial in whatever culture she pleased without having to enact them. When she sat at the piano the house stopped to listen, and her voice lured the birds from the trees. She existed in unsteady harmony with seven of her gifts, but the eighth remained unsatisfied.

The gift Helena called life growled with displeasure. It begged to be used and bowed Helena under its weight. Even in her dreams she was constantly searching for whatever it was life needed. And now here came Eva, blithely admitting that they had known all along how Helena had been made. They knew she could not feed the gift because she did not yet possess it.
They knew.
She said it like a mantra, over and over, until repetition soothed the beast.

The attic was dark. Helena pulled another cord and a far light came on, slowly as though weakened with age. Its yellow aura seeped out into the cluttered space. The room ran the length of the south wing and was cool and dry. Helena sneezed and ducked as a bird whirred over her head.

The dust was thick and the air was dry and every time she moved she knocked into something else. A dressmaker’s doll staggered away from her shoulder; she caught it before it fell. She bumped her toe on a chair, so covered in boxes and bolts of fabric that she hadn’t seen it there. Most of the things were impersonal; she didn’t care whose shoe that was, lying on its side, or who wore the silly hat festooned with ribbons now decaying on its brim. The further in she went, the more it seemed this was just a bunch of junk discarded by the family. It should all have been thrown away. Maybe she would tell Thekla it was here, just to see her reaction.

Nothing spoke to her of the sisters, neither the aunts she had been with since birth, nor the one she’d never known existed. It seemed odd that the seven of them remained close while the eighth was hidden.
Like her gift
, Helena thought. They obviously didn’t want her to have it. They didn’t want her to be a god. This was Thekla’s doing and she knew it. Thekla was afraid of her gift.

Helena sought answers, but so far all she’d discovered was a sure way to bruise her legs. Beauty did not like it, but Elfrieda would buy her a new necklace and that would make up for the marks.

Her aunts played a dangerous game. They might have made me, she thought, but they do not know what I am. Now she knew why she could not create life, and the blame lay squarely on them. It did not matter if they were frightened of her gift, they should have let her have it.

She was halfway across the long room, sandwiched between an overstuffed armchair and a muslin-draped piano, when she saw what she thought was a door. She made her way past more boxes, old instruments, toys, and open trunks until she reached the wall. It was not a door, but a painting with a frame so large it might be mistaken for one in the dull light of the attic. The canvas was faded and slightly warping and covered in a layer of grime. She wiped it away with her sleeve and touched the wood frame with her finger. It was cold. She looked into the faces peering out from the distant past.

A family was arranged in the downstairs ballroom, though the room was more lavishly appointed than her aunts would allow. Six small girls of varying ages were huddled beside the knees of a man in a grand, high-backed chair. He held a baby in his arms and was gazing at the others with a warm smile on his face. His wife—she must be—stood behind him with her hands placed upon his shoulders. To one side of her was a young woman, to the other, a young man. The pair seemed to belong together. Helena felt like an intruder just by looking at them.