A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [43]
All at once, she could not bear it. With quick fingers, she collapsed her parasol and took off across the sand, heading straight for the water.
Or such was her intention. Running in sand was harder than she had expected. She stumbled and almost fell. Righting herself, she scuffed on, not looking back. What could Victoria do to her, after all? She couldn’t call after her. She would just have to wait until Maud came back.
The sand beneath her boots grew firmer. Maud looked down and saw that it had changed color. It was grainy, dark gold, smudged as if with charcoal. She was almost at the edge of the water. She could smell the salt and feel the coolness of the spray against her shins. Her eyes followed the movement of the waves.
She had never seen waves before. Her eye rested upon them, fascinated; how much time passed, or how many waves she tracked, she had no idea. Farther out to sea, they weren’t waves at all, only mounds, like furrows in a field. Then, somehow, each mound rose to an edge, thin as the blade of knife. The knife-edge tilted, the wave coiled, and there was a moment when it seemed as if it must break — and yet it did not. Then a line of brightness, crooked and notched like paper catching fire, rippled across the top edge of the wave. The water crashed and erupted, droplets spurting straight up and leapfrogging off the surface of the foam.
“Do you want to play?”
Maud dragged her eyes away from the ocean. A girl her own age had come to stand beside her. She was holding out a spade. “We’re making a castle. Do you want to play, too?” The girl gestured toward a patch of sand several yards back. Two little boys labored over a series of sandy hillocks and low walls. Maud understood at once that this was what was meant by a castle. Her eyes searched the girl’s face. It was a round, sunburned face, with clear green eyes. The strange girl wasn’t trying to trick her. She was inviting her to play. Of course, Maud realized, the girl had never visited the Barbary Asylum. She had no way of knowing that Maud was nasty. All the same, it was a remarkable thing, as unexpected as the ocean itself.
For a split second, Maud entertained the invitation. She could put her parasol somewhere safe, so that the ocean couldn’t carry it off. Perhaps she might remove her shoes and stockings — the other girl had done so; it must be a thing one could do. She pictured herself kneeling in the moist sand. Her fingers almost closed around the handle of the spade. Then she snatched back her hand. “I can’t,” she told the other girl, and fled.
Victoria’s cottage was a four-story house with a porch that wrapped around three sides. Maud had little time to study it; as Hyacinth had ordered, she checked to make sure it was the right house, glanced up and down the street, and lunged for the shelter of the hedge. From the hedge, she darted to the back porch. The kitchen door opened before her fingers touched the knob. “There you are!” hissed Hyacinth, seizing her by the forearm. “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting and waiting.”
Maud kissed the cheek that was held to her lips, catching a whiff of violets. She had a confused impression of an untidy kitchen: torn linoleum, shuttered windows, and a sink full of dirty dishes. Hyacinth whisked her past the kitchen table, and up a flight of stairs — steep, narrow stairs, like the ones at the Barbary Asylum.
“You must always use the back steps,” Hyacinth whispered as she guided Maud ahead of her. “And whisper — always whisper. We have to keep the windows open, because of the heat. You mustn’t forget.” She paused at the first landing and leaned against the balustrade.
“It’s hot,” whispered Maud.
“It is,” admitted Hyacinth. She lifted her skirt and resumed the climb. “Hot air rises. Something to do with science, I believe. However, one grows used to it, and there’s often a breeze