moments Beth was bright and happy, the way she’d always been at home, and I knew it was because of me. When she sat on my lap, wrapping her scrawny arms around my waist, the hug she gave was genuine. Threading her fingers through my hair, she seemed content. Harley loitered by the closest pillar and watched us for a while, not joining in but not discouraging. I wanted to ask him to come sit with us, to hide beneath the blankets, to help keep the ghosts at bay.
But at that moment Arianne strode past a gap between the screens concealing us from the common room, leading by the hand the boy who’d carried Harley the day we’d arrived. His eyes were glazed, a silly smile plastered on his face. His feet scuffled along the floor as though too heavy to lift.
Four steps later, the clunking of Arianne’s heels stopped. Four more steps brought her back, her glare so sharp I winced. She released her companion’s hand, then pushed the screen away, sending it clattering to the floor.
“Va t’en!” she growled at Beth, her gaze never leaving mine.
She wrenched Beth from my lap, slapped her bottom. “Go!”
Harley shrank from Arianne’s wrath, inched away to avoid drawing her attention. As it was, he could have tap-danced and she wouldn’t have noticed: her crimson-eyed stare was reserved for me.
“Stay away, you espéce de salope! You’ll have your own soon enough—these are not for you.”
I rose clumsily. “Arianne—”
She held up her hand to silence me. “Non—not a word, petite bête. The classroom, you can enter. Do not come behind here again.”
As though on cue, Doctor Jeffries called us to our lessons. Diction and composition first; then while the other children climbed, learned techniques of stealth, and practiced bleeding each other on the table, I was isolated from the group. Taught to pore over books tracing the history of Mister Pérouse’s people. By the time the tutorials were over, I was shaken—and Beth’s posture had stiffened. When I crossed to her circle of desks, she looked at me as she would a stranger. Her mouth twitched, barely suppressing a hiss.
Harl had drifted away to join Alistair and the other boys. His footsteps already more like floating than walking.
For the next two years I did what I could for Harley and the girls. I’d milk them whenever they let me; whenever Arianne was away; whenever Mister Pérouse released me from our rooms. I dreaded the coming of my bloods, not because it meant I’d have to endure my master’s attentions—these moon-time visits were exercises in stamina on his part, and I’d become expert at being and not being there while they lasted—but because it meant I was kept away from the kids.
Twice it seemed Mister Pérouse’s work had paid off: my periods stopped, the second time for twelve weeks. My master, already confident in his role as Prime, now strutted like a peacock as he gave Théo and Jacques their instructions; directing them to tackle Tapekwa County next, to find themselves suitable mates in Napanee. To steal farmers’ young, the more isolated the better, to become pupils of Mister Péouse’s school. Fatherhood, it seemed, made him benevolent.
He let me wander wherever I wanted, the child in my womb almost as good as a skeleton key. Whispers followed me as I roamed the hallways, or dropped in on Doctor Jeffries’ classes. “Breeder,” the children would say, perhaps at Arianne’s bidding. Perhaps not: often the jealousy in their words rang too true to be second-hand. “Breeding enculeuse.” They taunted me for doing what they couldn’t yet do—their metabolisms so slow now fifty years would pass before they hit puberty. Sometimes I think Harley joined in, just to be one of the crowd. But with Mister Pérouse’s spawn in my belly, none of them could do more than jeer. Even Arianne was compelled to leave me alone. And when her back was turned, I’d inevitably make my way to one of two places: the front doors, to test the locks; or the dormitory behind the screens, to draw poison from my sisters’ mouths.
In these quiet moments, the girls would become themselves again; all smiles, crass jokes, and innocence. Hearing them giggle, anxiety would seep from my body and I’d weep with relief.
At the Haven, joys like these were always short-lived.
Soon it became clear that my understanding of the girls’ happiness didn’t quite match their reality. Though he wouldn’t admit it, Harley could remember our other life: Ma and