Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [51]
Mrs. Grey’s hands unclenched. Her nails had gone right through the fine linen of the napkin. She smoothed it out, surveyed the holes, and then tossed it into the fire, where one of the salamanders turned it to ash with a burst of breath. The housekeeper flexed the gray wings that were always folded against her back, something the lass had never seen her do. When they had settled again, Mrs. Grey looked at the lass and said, “Erasmus is no longer here.”
“Where is he?”
“He is no longer here,” Mrs. Grey said again. She cleared her throat, a sound like rocks tumbling in a barrel. “Perhaps you should not spend so much time in the kitchen with the staff, my lady. It isn’t seemly.”
Knowing that she was being dismissed, the lass got to her feet and left the kitchen. She went upstairs and found Rollo lying in front of the fire in the great hall. She looked at the carving on the mantel, but she’d read it so many times it was a blur. Poking Rollo in the ribs with her toe, she went up to her apartment and checked the blank diary to see if there was any news, but no one had written that day. Hans Peter had not written at all since she returned.
“Well, I’ll just make him write,” she grumbled.
Sitting at the elegant little ice desk, the lass took up her pen. She wrote a note at the top of the page, apologizing to Jorunn because what followed was for Hans Peter’s eyes only. Then she described Mrs. Grey’s words, her sudden agitation, the salamanders’ silence, and the minotaurus’s abrupt departure.
I know that Erasmus was here when you were here, and so were the others, she wrote. Do you know where Erasmus might have gone? I don’t think he returned to his home. But did he run away? I’m concerned about him.
She signed the page with a flourish and closed the diary. Feeling much better, she went into the dressing room and took down a green gown she wanted to refit. She had never cared much about clothing before, having never really had any to call her own. But now that she had endless supplies of beautiful gowns, she was becoming vain.
She held up the gown for Rollo to see. “Whoever these used to belong to was frighteningly tall, don’t you think?” When she held the dress high enough so that the skirt didn’t puddle on the ground, the bodice was over her head.
“Frighteningly tall,” she said again, freezing. “Wealthy. Vain.” She dropped the gown as though it had burned her. The bodice, heavy with gold bullion embroidery, landed on Rollo’s head, and he yelped.
“Why did you do that?” Backing out from under the gown, the wolf shook himself.
“It’s a troll’s gown.” She looked at herself in the tall mirrors, seeing the pale blue morning gown she wore in a whole new light. “They’re all troll’s gowns.” She gave Rollo an accusing look. “Does this have the smell?”
“Er. Well. They also have a flower smell, from those little bags of dried petals hanging in the wardrobe,” he told her soothingly. Then he added, “With a little hint of rotten meat.”
“Bleah!”
The lass ripped the lace of her blue gown in her haste to get it off. She shed her shift and ran into the washroom to fill the bath with water as hot as she could stand. She scrubbed herself raw and then stood in the middle of the dressing room, wrapped in a towel, staring at the doors of all the wardrobes. In the end, with a sigh, she put on one of her old ragged sweaters and much-mended skirt.
“You smell better,” Rollo said, nudging her hand in a consoling way. “Like your old self.”
“That’s good, at least. Still, I wish there were some clothes here that hadn’t been worn by a troll. There must be something that used to belong to a selkie or a faun or what have you!”
She began pulling gowns out of the wardrobes, piling them onto the floor in the middle of the room. She made a careful stack of her own things: Hans Peter’s parka and boots, her other sweater and skirt, her trousers.
One of the troll gowns caught on something as she yanked it out of the wardrobe, and ripped. Cursing, the lass reached in and felt