The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

were hidden from outside eyes within the larger gathering taking place in the whole of the house. If she could only reach
that
collection of people, she was certain she would find aid. They passed several closed doors, but Miss Temple’s journey to the staircase had been so focused on the people around her that she had little memory of anything else—she’d no idea where these might go, or even if one of these doors might be where she had entered. The woman drove her ahead with sharp shoves past any landmark where she thought to linger. At the first of these offensive gestures, Miss Temple felt her sense of propriety to be fully overwhelmed by her fear. She was frankly terrified what was going to happen to her—that she could be so subject to abuse was just another sign of how low she had fallen, how desperate her straits. At the second shove, a rising level of annoyance was still nevertheless overborne by her own physical frailty, the woman’s weapon and obvious malice, and the knowledge that, as she could certainly be accused with trespassing and theft, she had no legal ground to stand on whatsoever. At the third such shove, however, Miss Temple’s natural outrage flared and without thinking she whipped round and swung her open hand at the woman’s face with all the strength in her arm. The woman pulled her head back and the blow went wide, causing Miss Temple to stumble. At this the woman in red chuckled, insufferably, and once more revealed the device in her hand—a short vicious blade fixed to a band of steel that wrapped across her knuckles. With her other hand she indicated a nearby doorway—by all appearances identical to every other in the corridor.
    “We can speak in there,” she said. Glaring her defiance quite openly, Miss Temple went in.
    It was yet another suite of rooms, the furniture covered with white cloths. The woman in red closed the door behind them, and shoved Miss Temple toward a covered divan. When Miss Temple turned to her, eyes quite blazing, the woman’s voice was dismissive and cold.
    “Sit down.” At this, the woman herself stepped over to a bulky armchair and sat, digging out her cigarette holder and a metal case of cigarettes. She looked up at Miss Temple, who had not moved, and snapped, “Sit down or I’ll find you something
else
to sit on—
repeatedly
.”
    Miss Temple sat. The woman finished inserting the cigarette, stood, walked to a wall sconce and lit it, puffing, and then returned to her seat. They stared at each other.

    “You are holding me against my will,” Miss Temple said, out of the hope that standing up for herself had prompted this conversation.
    “Don’t be ridiculous.” The woman inhaled, blew smoke away from them and then tapped her ash to the carpet. She studied Miss Temple, who did not move. The woman did not move either. She took another puff, and when she opened her mouth to speak, smoke came out along with her words.
    “I will ask you questions. You will answer them. Do not be a fool. You are alone.” She looked pointedly at Miss Temple and then, shifting her voice to a slightly more dry tone of accusatory recitation, began in earnest. “You arrived in a coach with the others.”
    “Yes. You see, I am from the hotel,” Miss Temple offered.
    “You are not. It will not aid you to lie.” The woman paused for a moment, as if trying to decide her best course of questioning. Miss Temple asserted herself.
    “I am not afraid of you.”
    “It will not aid you to be stupid either. You came on the train. How did you know what train to take? And what station? Some person told you.”
    “No one told me.”
    “Of course someone told you. Who are your confederates?”
    “I am quite alone.”
    The woman laughed, a sharp scoffing bark. “If I believed that, you’d be headfirst in a bog and I’d be done with you.” She settled back into her chair. “I will require names.”
    Miss Temple had no idea what to say. If she simply made up names, or gave names that had nothing to do with the matter, she would only prove her ignorance. If she did not, the risk was even greater. Her knee was trembling. As calmly as she could, she put a hand on it.
    “What would such a betrayal purchase me?” she asked.
    “Your life,” answered the woman. “If I am kind.”
    “I see.”
    “So. Speak. Names. Start with your own.”
    “May I ask you a question first?”
    “You may not.”
    Miss Temple ignored her. “If something were to happen to me, would this