The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

fragment itself—so out of context of the whole, with neither face seen, just their hips and the two blue hands—struck her as at once compelling and somehow dreadful to imagine. She wrenched her eyes away. Both women watched her. Miss Temple forced her voice to a normal tone, away from the sinister intimacy of the painting.
    “It is an allegory,” she announced. “It tells the story of your intrigue. The Angel stands for your work with the blue glass, the lady for all those you would work upon. It is the Annunciation, for you believe that the birth—what your plans conceive—will—will—”
    “Redeem us all,” finished Mrs. Marchmoor.
    “I’ve never seen such blasphemy!” Miss Temple announced with confidence.
    “You have not seen the
rest
of the painting,” said Miss Vandaariff.
    “Hush, Lydia.”

    Miss Vandaariff did not answer, but then suddenly placed both hands over her abdomen and groaned with what seemed to be sincere discomfort…then doubled over and groaned again, rocking back and forth, a rising note of fear in her moaning, as if this feeling were something she knew.
    “Miss Vandaariff?” cried Miss Temple. “What is wrong?”
    “She will be fine,” said Mrs. Marchmoor mildly, her hand reaching up to gently pat the stricken woman’s rocking back. “Did you perchance drink any of the port?” she asked Miss Temple.
    “No.”
    “I
did
note a second glass…”
    “A taste to wet my lips, nothing more—”
    “That was very prudent.”
    “What was
in
it?” Miss Temple asked.
    Miss Vandaariff groaned again, and Mrs. Marchmoor leaned forward to take her arm. “Come, Lydia, you must come with me—you will feel better—”
    Miss Vandaariff groaned more pitifully still.
    “Come, Lydia…”
    “What is wrong with her?” asked Miss Temple.
    “Nothing—she has merely consumed too much of the preparatory
philtre
. How many glasses did you see her drink?”
    “Six?” answered Miss Temple.
    “My goodness, Lydia! It is a good thing I am here to help you void the excess.” Mrs. Marchmoor helped Miss Vandaariff to her feet, smiling indulgently. She ushered the young blonde woman in an unsteady shuffle toward an open doorway and paused there to turn back to Miss Temple. “We will return in a moment, do not worry—it is merely to the suite’s convenience. It was known she would drink the port—so the preparatory
philtre
was added to it in secret. The mixture is necessary for her—but not to such excess.”
    “Necessary for what?” asked Miss Temple, her voice rising. “Preparatory for
what
?”
    Mrs. Marchmoor did not seem to have heard her and reached up to smooth Miss Vandaariff’s hair.
    “It will do her good to marry, I daresay, and be past such independent revels. She has no head for them at all.”
    Miss Vandaariff groaned again, perhaps in protest to this unfair assessment, and Miss Temple watched with annoyance and curiosity as the pair disappeared into the next room—as if she had no revolver and they were no sort of prisoner or hostage! She stood where she was, utterly affronted, listening to the clanging lid of a chamber pot and the determined rustling of petticoats, and then decided it was an excellent opportunity to investigate the other rooms without being watched. There were three doors off of the main parlor she was in—one to the chamber pot, which seemed a maid’s room, and two others. Through one open archway she could see a second parlor. In it was set a small card table bearing the half-eaten remains of an uncleared meal, and against the far wall a high sideboard quite crowded with bottles. As she stared in, trying to piece together some sense of the display—how many people had been at the table, how much had they been drinking—as she presumed a real investigating adventurer ought to do, Miss Temple worried she’d had at least one complete mouthful of the port—had it been enough to inflict the insidious purpose of their horrid
philtre
onto her body? What fate was Miss Vandaariff being prepared
for
? Marriage? But it could hardly be that—or not in any normal sense of the word. Miss Temple was reminded of livestock being readied for slaughter and felt a terrible chill.

    With a hand against her brow she stepped back into the main room and quickly to the third door, which was ajar, the sounds of groans and scuffling feet still insistent behind her. This was the Contessa’s bedroom. Before her was an enormous four-poster bed shrouded in purple