palm against Bad’s fur, and slipped into the parlor.
It would be overdramatic of me to claim that the entire room stood still, or that silence reigned the way it did when a princess entered her ballroom in my books, but there was a kind of silent whooshing around me, as if I were escorted by an invisible wind. A few conversations faltered as their participants turned toward me, eyebrows half-raised and lips curling.
Maybe they were staring at Bad, standing stiff and surly beside me. He was technically banned from all social events until the end of time, but I was betting Locke wouldn’t make a fuss in public and that Bad wouldn’t injure anyone seriously enough to require stitches. And anyway, I wasn’t sure I could’ve physically made myself leave my room without him beside me.
Or maybe they were staring at me. They’d all seen me before, trailing in Locke’s shadow at every Society party and Christmas banquet, alternately ignored or fussed over. What a pretty dress you have, Miss January! they trilled at me, laughing in the birdlike manner unique to the wealthy wives of bankers. Oh, isn’t she darling. Where did you say you found her again, Cornelius? Zanzibar? But I’d been a little girl then—a harmless, in-between thing stuffed into dolls’ clothes and trained to speak politely when spoken to.
I was not a little girl now, and they were no longer so charmed. Over the winter I’d suffered through all those mysterious, alchemical changes that transform children into sudden, awkward adults: I was taller, less soft, less trusting. My own face reflected in the gold-gilt mirrors was foreign to me, hollowed out.
And then there were Mr. Locke’s gifts now on display: long silk gloves, several loops of pinkish pearls, and a drapey chiffon gown in ivory and rose that was so obviously expensive I saw women staring in disbelieving calculation. I’d even waged dutiful war with my hair, which could be defeated only by the application of a hot comb and Madame Walker’s Wonderful Conditioning Treatment. My scalp still sizzled faintly.
The conversation lurched clumsily back to life. Shoulders and backs turned decisively away, and lacy fans snapped out like shields against some intruder. Bad and I slid around them and posted ourselves like mismatched mannequins in our usual corner. The guests obligingly ignored us, and I was free to slump and tug at the too-tight buttons of my dress and watch the shimmering crowd.
It was, as always, an impressive display. The household staff had polished every lamp and candlestick until the room radiated sourceless golden light, and the parquet floor was waxed to life-threatening slickness. Enormous enameled vases oozed peonies, and a smallish orchestra had been crammed between a pair of Assyrian statues. All of New England’s faux-royalty preened and glittered for one another, reflected back on themselves a hundred times by the gleaming mirrors.
I noticed girls my own age scattered through the crowd, their cheeks flushed and their hair hanging in perfect silky curls, their eyes darting hopefully around the room (the gossip pages of the local paper always ran a column listing the most eligible bachelors and their rumored worth before the party). I pictured them all planning and scheming for weeks, shopping for just the right dress with their mothers, doing and redoing their hair in the mirror. And now here they were, glowing with promise and privilege, their futures laid out before them in an orderly gilt procession.
I hated them. Or I would have hated them, except that dark, formless thing was still wrapped tightly around me, and it was hard to feel anything but dull distaste.
A ringing clink-clink-clink sounded over the crowd and heads turned like well-coiffed marionettes. Mr. Locke was standing beneath the grandest chandelier, tapping his tumbler with a dessert spoon for attention. It was hardly necessary: Mr. Locke was always looked at and listened to, as if he generated his own magnetic field.
The orchestra stopped mid minuet. Locke raised his arms in benevolent greeting. “Ladies, gentlemen, honored Society members, let me first thank you all for coming and drinking all my best champagne.” Laughter, buoyed on golden bubbles. “We are here, of course, to celebrate the forty-eighth anniversary of the New England Archaeological Society, a little group of amateur scholars who, if you’ll forgive me my hubris, do their very best to contribute to the noble progression of human knowledge.” A smattering of dutiful applause. “But we are also here to celebrate something rather grander: the progression of humanity