on one side faced the great, wild park where it was always winter to my eyes. There were more windows than anyone could possibly need facing the park, and it was said that a madwoman had designed the apartment, forcing the builders to make it so. This was what came of having a woman design a building, people muttered. Mad she may have been, but if mad, it was a kind of madness angels have, for though the park was a strange and fell place, it was also beautiful beyond describing, for those few of us who could perceive its beauty. Our apartment was the one that faced it most squarely, and my own chamber was at the very centre of the apartment, so that its windows only showed the park, making it seem that outside it was truly winter. I knew the servants thought me morbid to keep the room after what had happened, and subtle pressure had been exerted on me to shift to another chamber, but I had resisted.
As I gazed out over the park, I found myself remembering how Rose had always asked to be taken to play on the apron of snow that sometimes blew a little way out from the ghost trees marking the outer border of the winter park. The snow could be fashioned into snow witches and Rose was always urging me to come and help her before it melted in the heat. I would hang back at the edge of the drift of snow, longing to join Rose, but conscious of Mama watching me and wondering when she would demand the same promise of Rose she had extracted from me.
Occasionally, instead of watching over us as we played in the snow, Mama would walk right to the line of ghost trees and peer through them, as if she were searching beyond them for someone or something hidden from her. She never passed through the trees, but occasionally she would stand there for so long that daylight would seep from the world and Rose’s lips would turn a soft lilac, since she would not leave the snow until she must. One day when Mama had stood staring into the trees for a long time, I walked over the crisp snow to her side and put my hand into hers. She looked at me and the fear in her face faded into a tender sorrow. She said softly, ‘It was snowing the first time I saw your father.’
I do not know what more she would have said, but Rose came running up and threw her arms about Mama’s soft waist, saying impulsively, ‘Let us go into the park now, all three of us together.’ Her little heart-shaped face was flushed with longing and it had astounded me that she, who saw so much, did not see that Mama feared the park.
‘It is late,’ Mama whispered, seeming to speak more to herself than to Rose.
‘It is not so late,’ Rose protested. ‘By dusk we could be at the tower.’
‘Mama does not like the park, Rose,’ I told my little sister gently, wondering if Mama had hidden her fear from Rose, having judged her too young for the litany of warnings given to me. Mama never seemed to realise how clever Rose was, perhaps because she did not focus upon her as she did on me. But to see Rose misunderstanding my mother was astonishing and made me wonder if I knew her quite so well as I thought. Before either of us could speak, Mama caught Rose in a quick embrace, smoothed her hair and urged her to run back to the house to see if Papa’s carriage had drawn up yet, for he was to come home early today so we could go to the fair.
Rose gave a squeal of delight, for she loved the fair, and went running off. I knew the task was a distraction and looked to see what Mama meant to tell me outside the hearing of my little sister. But she only cupped my chin in her cold hand and stared down at me with such a look of baffled angry love that I felt a queer slipping of fear through my bones.
‘Understand that I did not know,’ she said, holding my gaze. ‘I did not know that what I gave away to win my heart’s desire would come to mean everything to me.’ She stroked my hair now and looked down at me with a sorrow so