The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

corset in the front parlor of a noble lady?” Miss Temple asked, little short of appalled, but already wondering at the answer, the possibilities disorientingly lurid. She looked away from Mrs. Marchmoor to compose her face and saw herself in the large mirror above her on the wall, a determined figure in green, her chestnut curls, pulled to the back and each side of her head, a darker shade in the warm gaslight, and all around her the tattered litter of decadent riot. But behind her head in the reflection, a flash of vivid blue caught her eye and she turned to see a framed canvas that could only be the work of Oskar Veilandt.
    “Another
Annunciation
…” she whispered aloud.
    “It is,” whispered Mrs. Marchmoor in reply, her voice hesitant and cautious behind her. Hearing it, Miss Temple had the feeling of being watched carefully, like a bird stalked by a slow-moving cat. “You’ve seen it elsewhere?”
    “I have.”
    “Which fragment? What did it portray?”
    She did not want to answer, to acknowledge the woman’sinterrogation, but the power of the image drove her to speak. “Her head …”
    “Of course—at Mr. Shanck’s exhibition. The head is beautiful … such a heavenly expression of peace and pleasure lives in her face—would you not say? And here … see how the fingers hold into her hips … you see, in the artist’s interpretation, how she has been
mounted
by the Angel …”
    Behind them, Miss Vandaariff whimpered. Miss Temple wanted to turn to her but could not shift her gaze from the near-seething image. Instead, she walked slowly to it … the brushstrokes immaculate and smooth, as if the surface more porcelain than pigment and canvas. The flesh was exquisitely rendered, though the 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, rockingback 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