Chapter 4
Chapter 4 - I cannot remember what happens in this chapter enough to make any sort of intelligent commentary.
Total word count: 14,156
Jack did, in fact, hurl as they stepped into the shadow world, shaking. He was a cautious boy. This all just didn’t sit right with him. Something was very wrong.
Wil didn’t seem to notice, instead happily taking Neesha’s hand and walking along. She looked back at Jack and sighed.
“Are you coming?”
He stared at their hands. Wil had nerve, this was true, but not usually to this extent. She was too shy to actually do that…wasn’t she?
He came up behind her and whispered in her ear, “What are you doing?”
She blushed deeply—a fact he felt proved that this world was no good—and said, “I’m…doing what I want.”
On the way to Neesha’s house, Jack couldn’t help but scrutinize everything. There were too few people in the streets, not enough sound, nothing. There wasn’t enough detail in the things farther away from them, like things were being made just to suit them. It was creepy, to say the least.
Once inside, they sat, and Neesha went off to make tea. Jack took this time to try and convince Wil that they needed to leave.
“Wil, listen to me, this place isn’t good. I can feel it. I think it’s a trap. It’s too quiet here. Look, we have to go, I mean, this is just too lax for a hideout. Something is wrong Wil—are you even listening?”
“All I’m hearing is someone who’s jealous,” she said, standing. “I never listened when people told me you were in love with me, but Jack, I think they were—”
“You remember Elwood?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded. “What about him?”
He stared at her.
She gasped, giggling. “No!”
He couldn’t help but smile a little. “Yes. Now, come on, please. I’m not just concerned for your own safety, but mine as well. Something about this place doesn’t sit right with me.”
“You said the same thing about the chimney sweep—”
“—who tried to steal your mother’s jewelry box—”
“That’s beside the point!” She sat again, sighing. “Jack, I like it here. It’s not a trap, it’s nothing scary, and I really like that I’m here on a night that isn’t a party. I can relax.” She stretched out, smiling. “I think I might live here forever.”
Neesha came back in before the argument could progress further. She was all smiles as she set down the teapot and offered them each a cup.
Jack declined. Who knew? It could be poison in there, maybe some sort of serum to make them sleep.
Neesha smiled and handed him a cup. “Really, it’s good, I insist.”
That only hardened his resolve. “No, really, I’m not a fan of tea. I’m Wynnish and all.”
Neesha opened her mouth to say something, but closed it quickly and went back to the tea. “I can’t be responsible for what happens, then,” she mumbled.
“What was that?” he asked. Oh god, what was going to happen? His stomach was protesting the excitement, so he finally sat down.
After sipping in silence for a while, Neesha looked at Wil. “Our elder wants to see you. It’s been a while since we had any of your kind here. He’s excited to meet you.”
Wil nodded fervently. “Yes, yes, of course! See Jack?”
Neesha gave him a sideways glance that sent a chill up his spine. He turned his face, hoping she’d stop. She didn’t.
Neesha stood then, sighing. “Wait. You have to leave.”
Wil jumped up as well. “No! Why?”
Neesha sighed. “I’m sorry. Someone’s at your home. You’ll be in a lot of trouble if you tarry much longer.”
Jack was secretly pleased.
Wil tried to protest, but Neesha grabbed her and pulled her to the Door. Jack followed obediently, already feeling relieved.
“Neesha, if I go back, I may never see you again!” Wil shouted.
Neesha only nodded. “I know, but you can’t stay here.”
“Why not? You asked if I wanted to, and I do, I do!”
“I don’t!” Jack interjected.
“I’m sorry.” Neesha kissed her cheek. “But you really can’t stay—”
“Wil, hear what she’s saying. Come on.” He put his arm around her waist, threw open the door, and ran through.
This time, Wil didn’t wake up from some lovely dream. She was instead thrust cruelly back into her world of variants and color, of uptight gentry and copious amounts of snobbery. She gave a shaky sob and slammed her fists against the floor.
“No.” She stood, biting her lip, then spinning and hitting the wall. “No!” She tore her hair down furiously, the thick dark tendrils curling down her face and shoulders as she stomped toward the door.
Jack got up and rubbed his head. He’d been tossed headfirst against the icebox, and it was actually rather hard. He shook his head (a bad move by all accounts) and started to go after her, but the floor didn’t seem to want to stay beneath his feet.
“Wil, please, slow down…I can hardly see.”
“I don’t care!” she snarled. “I just lost the one thing that—” She cut off and pushed the door open.
“That what? That makes you want to live? I’ll admit, yes, your life is boring, but that’s nothing. Mine is boring and I get beat, and I’m relatively poor, and my best friend is a ditzy rich girl who can’t handle having something taken away from her.”
Wil spun and glared at him, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “You take that back.”
Jack nodded, frowning. “Nope, no, don’t think I will. You need to hear this. I understand why you love that place, but it’s bad. There is something going on there that your new friends aren’t saying. It’s best you stay here and be bored.”
She shook her head, shaking slightly, fidgeting, then punched him right in the jaw. Jack spun and fell, crumpled in an undignified heap. Wil gasped and knelt beside him, starting to cry.
“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry, please, forgive me—I’m so stupid, please!” She gently took his face and kissed his cheek. “I’m just—I’m angry, and I shouldn’t have struck you. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Jack looked at her in disbelief a moment. “You hit me. You bleeding hit me.”
She bit her lip. She’d already lost Eliza, and she’d lost Jack once, too, and she wasn’t sure she would survive without some sort of ally in this mess.
Then Jack smiled lopsidedly and clapped his hand on her shoulder. “Guess you just needed an outlet. You can throw one hell of a punch for a spoiled brat.”
She laughed, relieved, and hugged him. “You’re a silly twat.”
He smiled and patted her back. “Cut out that language, and I’ll agree with you for once.”
The two held hands as they came into the kitchen, where people tried not to stare. Many rumors had flown about in their absence, which, unbeknownst to them, had lasted almost a day. Most thought the two were finally an item, and Jack’s father was the only one brave enough to actually look them in the eye.
“Jack, boy, were she any other girl, you know right well I’d congratulate you.” He looked surprisingly serious.
Jack frowned. “’Any other girl’? What on earth are you talking about?”
“You two…well, you know.”
Jack blushed and shook his head. “No, no, it’s nothing like that!” He sighed and explained what had happened as best he could, but quietly, so the others didn’t hear.
Wil was confused. She didn’t know. What did they know?
He nodded and smiled. “Ah, good! You two—well, it’d be a bad idea. We’ll leave it there.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Hold up—why? It’s not the whole class thing, is it? I mean, come on, look at her mum—”
“You’ll not speak a word against ‘er so long as I’m livin’, y’hear?” his father said loudly. “Jes’ trust me.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Aye, we’ll be off, then. Got to go talk to ‘her highness’ about this nonsense o’sendin’ Wil off somewhere.”
“Sendin’ Wil away? Wot’s this?” He took off his hat to reveal a thin head of hair, then brushed himself off. “Come on, then, let’s all go ‘ave a talk, shall we?”
Wil giggled and hugged Jack’s arm. Jervis—Jack’s dad—always seemed to get what he wanted with Madame Wilkes. With him on their side, she would be back in her room drawing and taking her weekly visits to Neesha in no time.
The trio walked into the Madame’s chambers quietly, so as not to disturb her. Jervis cleared his throat, smiling and bowing. “Madame, we come to ‘ave a word witchoo.”
The Madame was nowhere to be seen, but she was easily heard from behind her closet door. “Jervis! I—‘we’? ‘We’ who?”
“The children ‘n I, ma’am. We want to discuss you sendin’ Wil off.”
“Who?”
“Wil—er, Annabeth.”
“Hmph. The girl will be leaving, and that is final. She has become an embarrassment to the family, and especially in light of things, I shall not have such a brazen hussy in my home.”
“Ah, ‘bout that—that was just a rumor, nothin’ more. I talked to ‘em, and trust me, they isn’t int’rested.”
“That’s the only good news I’ve heard about that girl in seventeen years,” the Madame said. “Jervis, you’ve been loyal for many years, which is why I let you get away with so much, but on this point I will not be swayed. She is leaving this place, by force or by her own so-called ‘choice’.”
“Then allow me one request, then?” he asked. His fat hands were wringing his hat.
The Madame used her silence to indicate her disdainful approval.
Jervis sighed. “Send Jack with her. They’re best friends. He’d just mope about without her, and I’m sure she’d be glad for the company.”
The Madame remained quiet, contemplating.
“Fine,” she said after what seemed an eternity. “But any foul behavior out of either of you, and I’ll have Jervis serving your heads up on platters.”
Jack swallowed and touched his throat. The Madame wasn’t much for metaphors.
Wil stomped out of the room, but an idea struck Jack rather suddenly. He wasn’t an idiot, but was often a bit slow, so when he thought of something, he generally said it.
“Madame Wilkes, if I could ask a question?”
She sighed. “Make it quick.”
“Both you and my father have been making comments implying that Wil and I together would be, well, bad.” It was a good idea. Whether he phrased it as well was another thing entirely. “Can I ask why?”
The Madame craned her head around the door and looked at him. He tried not to cringe. She had no makeup on, was not dressed for the day, and looked something like a shaved cat. Her lips were now revealed to be much thinner than her lipstick made them look, and when pursed, like they were now, she appeared to be trying to eat someone.
“It…Jervis, you explain. I can’t.”
Jervis wrung his hat in his hands some more. “Ah, well Jack, y’see—this was all before she met him, you know—”
“Met who?” Jack asked. “What?”
Jervis sighed. “Here, you’ll want to sit for this.”
Wil walked into her room and slammed the door open. Of all the rotten things—Eliza had told Mother, and now Mother was, for the first time from what she could recall, not listening to Jervis and sending her away. She didn’t even know where she’d be going. All she knew was that she would no longer be living at home.
As she stuffed some things angrily into a bag, there was a light knocking on the door. She knew who it was.
“Eliza, get out before I kill you,” she hissed at a stocking.
“Oh, Annabeth, listen to reason!” her sister cried. “There’s something wrong with you, and maybe me, too! If you’re away, maybe you can get better, and with you gone—”
“What, you’ll have the Duke of Brimbury all to yourself, will you?” At Eliza’s horrified expression, Wil sneered. “Yes, of course I know about that. You’re jealous that his attentions are on me, and you were too busy being envious to notice that I don’t even like him!”
“You don’t? How could you not? He’s so handsome, and well off, too, not to mention classy—”
“That’s exactly it!” she shouted. “He’s exactly like every other prat that walks in here, all fancy and boring and only interested because we’re of their station. Haven’t you ever learned from Mother and Father? She was below his station, but he loved her, so he married her anyway, and they were happy before. Do you remember what it was like?”
“I-I was only six,” Eliza stammered.
“Well I bloody well wasn’t!” Wil screamed, her pitch and volume climbing every second. “I remember! Father cared so much for everyone, and he was never cross, and he had those whiskers all down his cheeks and under his nose like a big furry caterpillar, and Eliza, you just—you’re just a fool!”
Eliza nodded, obviously trying not to cry. “Here I was trying to apologize, but I see how you are. You’ve gone mad, Ann, and I’ll have nothing to do with you.” She walked out quickly and shut the door. Wil sighed and sat on her bed. She didn’t quite feel bad. Yes, she and Eliza had once been close, but the past few weeks had shown her real face.
She looked around her room. As much as she hated her home, she also loved it. It was all she knew. It was her real mother, its cream walls, the gold trim, the high ceilings with paintings on them. It had been a long time since she looked at the painting on her own ceiling. She flopped backwards and gazed up. There was a woman there, draped in a gauzy red cloth. She smirked. It was no wonder the boys failed to catch her fancy. The woman had long, flowing hair, dark like hers, and was reaching out to someone. The person was…gone? She sat up suddenly, bit her lip, then stood on her bed. Nothing terrible happened, so she assumed that every time she’d been told not to for fear of some monstrous beast had been a lie.
She ran her hands over the mural, studying the empty space. Where was the other person? She looked at the woman’s face. It had always been a sort of mystifying beautiful, but it was now wracked with sadness. She sat down. When had her mural changed? Surely no one had come in and painted over it. She would’ve noticed the smell right away.
She ignored her things and went to find Jack again. He would know.
Jack was wandering around the halls in a daze. They weren’t lying. He knew what it looked like when either of them lied. But this—this day was getting worse and worse.
Wil came up to him and grabbed his shoulders. “Jack, Jack, there’s something Imust show you. The mural on my ceiling’s gone funny, and—”
“Wil, I think I have something to tell you that’s a little more important than some picture,” he said, staring at the floor.
She tapped her foot impatiently. “I don’t see how that could really be, but spit it out.”
“You’re my sister.” He looked at her, his eyes wide and frowning.
She laughed. “Yes, we are very close.”
“No!” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he was wont to do when flustered. “Wil, your mum and my dad—before your dad ever met her—Wil, we are honest-to-God flesh and blood siblings.”
She blinked a few times. “Well, I already knew she and Jervis spend the nights together…that they did before—and you came of it—I guess it can’t really surprise me.”
“I thought my mum was dead!” he shouted. “This is a very big deal to me!”
She gave him a hug. “Well, at least we know why they took so much issue with the idea of you and I. Come on, let me show you this painting. It’s so strange!”
She dragged him up to her room and pointed. “Look. There’s usually another person in that painting. It’s completely gone.”
He looked up and was, for a time, distracted. “Huh. That is odd. Sure no one’s been in changin’ it?”
“I’m positive. Now, look at her face. She looks so sad there. She never looked that sad before.”
He nodded. “Then you’ve got a magic painting, you ‘ave.”
“Magic?” The Wynnes were a gypsy nation, she knew, but Jack never mentioned magic. “What sort? The good kind, I hope?”
“Maybe. Can’t be sure.” He took off his boots, which were caked with flour, and stood on her bed. “You’re absolutely sure—”
“Jack, that painting has been there as long as I’ve been alive. My father painted it in preparation for my birth.” She sighed. It had been the last thing he’d ever painted. She sometimes wondered why he hadn’t done the same for Eliza, but thinking of her only made her angry, so she cast the thought aside.
Jack hopped down. “Oh, guess I ought to pack? Being sent with you and all. Like a package.” He grumbled as he left. “Make sure you’re ready. We leave out tomorrow morning.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank you for reminding me.”
Wil found new traveling clothes at the end of her bed the next morning, all brand new, but, as she guessed, tailored specifically for her. She put them on and picked up her suitcases with a sighed. She hadn’t been told when she’d be back, or worse, if. The strange mural seemed to be looking at her today, its eyes imploring, but she had yet to figure out why. She knew it meant something, that it was important, that it was relevant, but she had thus far been less than successful in determining what, exactly. She shook her head and put on her hat, then exited the room.
Waiting at the front door were the Madame, Jervis, Jack (with his hair now tamed for the occasion), and most surprising of all, Eliza. Wil came down and set her bags on the floor, still obviously displeased with the arrangement.
“Annabeth, you listen to me,” the Madame said, straightening out parts of Wil’s dress, making sure the powder on her face was even, all too motherly for what Wil was used to. “You represent this home. You represent me. Keep that in mind, and if that doesn’t work, think, you represent your father.” She pulled away and looked her over, shrugging. “At least try not to embarrass yourself.”
Unlike the Madame, Jervis was crying and hanging on poor Jack, telling him to be a good boy, to remember not to bother the idiots in the kitchen, no one in Ritannia knew what they were doing anymore, and oh, how he’d miss him. He shoved a few biscuits into Jack’s hand and walked away, sobbing.
The same sort of display was not evident from Eliza, who had been sitting in the corner, silent. She eventually came forward, clenching her small hands. She walked up to Wil and looked at her with cheerless, glassy eyes, then jumped and wrapped her arms around her sister, bawling woefully. “Oh, Ann, I’m so sorry I got mad at you! Please forgive me, oh, please!”
Wil frowned and pushed her away. “It’s your fault I’m leaving.” A few servants came by and took up the bags. As they opened the door, Wil looked out. Even though this was a horrible day, the sun was bright outside, a a breeze moved through the tall grass, making it wave like a welcoming crowd. She looked at her sister and stood taller, prouder, like those trees she’d be able to touch and smell and really see for the first time. She said, “And my name is Wil.”
The Madame wouldn’t let her have the last word, though. She hurried them all outside, smiling. “Have fun with the Duke.”
“What?”
