The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

contact set off a wondrous appreciation that her shoulder blades could be so small—and waited for her emotions to subside. Instead of subsiding, she began to sob, his greatcoat muffling the sounds. He looked past her, up into the open hatch. The light in the room was not from a candle or lantern—it was somehow more pale and cold, and did not flicker. Doctor Svenson took it upon himself to pat the woman’s hair and whisper “It’s all right now…you’re all right…” into her ear. She pulled her face away from him, out of breath, swallowing, her face streaked. He looked at her seriously.
    “You can breathe? The smell—the chemicals—”
    She nodded. “I covered my head—I—I had to—”
    Before she could erupt once more he indicated the hatch. “Is there anyone else—does anyone need help?”
    She shook her head and shut her eyes, stepping away. Svenson had no idea what to think. Dreading what he would find, he climbed the ladder and looked in.

    It was a narrow gabled room with the roof slanted on each side—perhaps a child of seven could have stood without stooping in the very center. Across the floor near the window were the slumped shapeless forms of two women, obviously dead. Equally clear, though he possessed no explanation, was that their bodies were the source of the unnatural blue glow animating the grisly attic. He crawled into the room. The smell was unbearable and he paused to replace the handkerchief over his face before continuing on his hands and knees. They were from the train—one was well-dressed, and the other probably a maid. Both had bled from the ears and nose, and their eyes were filmed over and opaque, but from within, as if the contents of each sphere had become scrambled and gelatinous under extreme pressure. He thought of the Comte d’Orkancz’s medical interests and recalled men he had seen pulled from the winter sea, whose soft bodies had been unable to withstand the crushing tons of ice water above them. The women were of course completely dry—nothing of the kind could explain their conditions…nor could any disease of the arctic account for the unearthly blue glow that arose from every visible discolored inch of their skin.
    Svenson bolted the hatch behind him and climbed down, laying the ladder on the floor. He coughed into his handkerchief—his throat was unpleasantly raw, he could only imagine what hers felt like—and then tucked it away. Elöise had crept to the stairs, sitting so she could look into the shadow of the floor below. He sat next to her, no longer presuming to place an arm around her, but—as a physician—scrupling to take one of her hands in both of his.
    “I woke up with them. In the room,” she said, her voice a whisper, ragged but under her control. “It was Miss Poole—”
    “Miss Poole!”
    Elöise looked up at Svenson. “Yes. She spoke to us all—there was tea, there was cake—all of us from so many places…come for our different reasons, for our
fortunes
—it was all so congenial.”
    “But Miss Poole is not in the attic—”
    “No. She had the book.” Elöise shook her head, covering her eyes with a hand. “I’m not making any kind of sense, I’m sorry.”
    Svenson looked back at the attic. “But those women—you must know them, they were on the train—”
    “I don’t know them any more than I know you,” she said. “We were told how to get here, not to speak of it—”
    Svenson squeezed her hand, fighting down each impulse of sympathy, knowing he must determine who she really was. “Elöise…I must ask you, for it is very important—and you must answer me truthfully—”
    “I am not
lying
—the book—those women—”
    “I am not asking about them. I must know about you. To whom are you a
confidante
? Whose children is it that you tutor?”
    She stared at him, perhaps unsure in the face of his sudden insistence, perhaps calculating her best response, and then scoffed, bitterly and forlorn. “For some reason I thought everyone knew. The children of Charlotte and Arthur Trapping.”

    “There is too much to tell,” she said, straightening her shoulders and pushing the loosened strands of hair from her eyes. “But you will not understand unless I explain that, upon the disappearance of Colonel Trapping”—she looked at him to see if he required more information but Svenson merely nodded for her to go on—“Mrs. Trapping had taken to her rooms, receiving the calls of no one save her brothers. I