Snow was different in Alna City. In the country, storms had shaken the walls of her parent’s house like dice, buried everything as far as the eye could see. Here, the worst a snow gust had done was blow a few curls of hair out of place. Alna City snow was weak, soft; flakes fell like down. Her life in Alna City---her life as Mrs. Richard Templeton---was also soft, easy.
She had become Mrs. Richard Templeton three months ago. Dr. Richard Templeton had a good income and was well-regarded by his peers and patients. He was going to be thirty-seven in spring, having his birthday only a week before she would turn twenty-two, and gray in his hair and whiskers. This was all she had known about him before their marriage. Father had trusted him, so she’d trusted him and allowed him to bundle her away in his automobile to his big city apartment with its massive rooms, soft, soft carpets, and bright electric lights. Now, as Mrs. Richard Templeton, she had a diamond ring nice enough to stare at and sigh over and more than one nice dress. The other wives, the ones who spoke to her at parties, at dances, wanted her to be jealous of the bigger diamonds in their rings, of how much more they had than her, but she wasn’t. She already had so much.
Her life her is nothing as it was before. Some evenings she goes out on her husband’s arms, required to do nothing more than smile and look beautiful in her pearls, her strawberry gold curls arranged like a goddess’s. Even at the apartment, all she must do is look pretty, not speak unless spoken to, and do anything her husband asks. But he asks nothing else of her and rarely speaks to her outside of meals, only greeting her, making small talk. Yet as hard as her life had been before, she had always been happy to come home at the end of the day. That isn’t true here.
The butler has already taken her umbrella and the red coat she wore earlier; she’s changed for dinner and now enters the dining room.
He, seated, speaks.
“Virginia.”
She glides over to him and kisses him on the cheek.
“I’ll be up late,” he says, “In the study.” As he has said every night for the past week.
“Don’t stay up too late.” As she has said every night in response.
His work in the study—that is what scares her. Some nights she hears nothing, other nights she hears screams, screams that feel as if they’re coming from right behind her, as if someone is there with her even though the bedroom is the next hall over. And the other sounds are even worse. Loud thumps. Voices rasping words she can’t understand. Neither the servants nor her husband speaks of it, but she knows what she hears. And she feels that something is very wrong.
I miss you so much and hope this letter finds you well. I hope Father and Mother are also doing well and I miss them, too. Please let me know the state of Father’s health—My husband is to be sending medicine—Let me know that it has not been lost. I’ve enclosed 50 kanar. Please let me know if you’re received the money! You have barely answered any of my letters!
I am doing well. The city continues to be even more magnificent than the stories. Since I last wrote, I have gone to an opera matinee with the Dr. I didn’t understand a single word—you would laugh—but I was so moved I cried at the end. I should not have cried like that, cried in front of him and everybody, but I could not help myself. Some things transcend language.
I still spend my days out. The shops are as delightful as ever. The doctor continues to give me money and buy me more and more clothes. Yes, besides the beautiful red jacket I now have silk stockings and a new dress to wear every day and evening. I am like a princess.
Sister, I miss you. I know I have said you must watch your sharp tongue and wash your face twice a day with cold water to be as beautiful as possible to make a marriage as good as mine, but I feel it is more important for you to be happy. Hold onto your happiness. Jean—I know how foolish you find me---How little you think of me—But if you are ever lost and need advice I am here. I am your Big Sister.
Little sister, I love and miss you. Kiss Father and Mother for me.
Ginny had thought herself a fairytale princess, but now she felt more like a spy. Snooping through her husband’s possessions, sneaking out the back of the tailors to track down the name she’d found--- all she needed was a ring filled with poison. Or a note written in code. She would use her hatpin to stab anyone who tried to hurt her. Ginny told herself she should have a spy name—an alias they called it. Like Carmen. Or Blanche. No—Genevieve—Yes---Genevieve. She had always liked the name Genevieve. She could be a Genevieve.
No.
She was being a fool. Telling herself that she was strong, that she was crafty, that she hadn’t spent this entire trip resisting the impulse to scream and run at any unexpected noise. That the goosebumps on her neck are only from the biting, autumn air. That each step she took, boots crunching on the dead, beautiful leaves, wasn’t really that loud. She used her stories like medicine to salve her fears and homesickness, to energize her, but Ginny knows she needs something different now. As Mother had said: one type of medicine can’t cure everything.
She must act.
Ginny arrives at 176 Queen Peony Court. The house’s door is green, the silver doorknocker a ring of a snake eating its own tail. Ginny uses it to knock. Nothing happens; she doesn’t knock again, only waits for a moment. The door opens.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m here for Mala—Mr. Malatan.”
“Do you have an appointment, Miss ---?”
“Mrs. Richard Templeton.” She answers before she can think. “And, no, I don’t.”
“Mrs.---Mrs. Templeton, please come inside. Follow me.”
Inside, the house’s only decoration is a rug running from the foyer, where they stand now, and into a nearby hallway. Thrown over the house’s dark wood floors, the rug’s ends are tasseled, its design a pattern of red and soft yellow roses. Ginny thinks it pretty.
“This way, Ma’am.”
The old butler follows the same path as the rug; Ginny realizes that it goes all the way to the end of the hall. They pass a door on the left, one on the right, another on the left, and when Ginny, still walking, glances down she almost stops. The rug is patterned with snakes. Black and silver snakes in rings, eating their own tails and interlocking with each other. No, that wasn’t right. The rug had been red. But they have reached the end of the hall. The butler knocks on the door, and Ginny adjusts her gloves taking one last look around.
There is a painting of a woman. Her hair is unbound, and she holds a golden arrow in one hand, a stemmed orange in the other. She is naked. Ginny is shocked but less disturbed by the nudity than she is by the eye. The eye between the woman’s breasts. A huge eye. Staring at her as she stares at it.
This is occult.
Ginny knows nothing about the occult but knows this occult. She feels it. She realizes the rug—the rug. This person—this Malatan---does magic. She needs to leave.
She glances at the butler. He waits by the open door to Matalan’s office. Just as she should’ve known this place was a place of magic, she should’ve known her husband was involved with the occult. There was no other explanation what she heard, what she felt coming out of his study.
This place is dangerous—Ginny should leave—but leaving is dangerous too.
Mother and I have not received a letter from you in months. I know you are well but at least write to put Mother’s mind at ease and to send more money. We have had none since burying Father.
But there is good news—good enough to make Mother smile. I am to marry Grace’s brother James. Out of all her brothers, I’ve always liked him best and I know you do too. Since you have left, he’s taken over their father’s business. We are deciding on the date for the wedding.
Write back soon and I will tell you all the details.
Jean took the train into the city. She traveled with only her small bag, two coins in her pocket, and Ginny’s last letter tucked away in her coat. She waved goodbye to her mother and fiancé from the train window. Jean loved him but wasn’t going to marry him until she came back.
The doctor was allowing Jean to stay with him. Jean was his sister now and a visitor to Alna City—it would have been unmannered to do otherwise. His apartment—the one he had shared with Ginny—was in a nice area, an area so nice it almost scared Jean off. But it didn’t. Adjusting her old, faded headscarf and holding it steady, she walked the street with her head held high, even nodding at a man who tipped his hat to her. She called the room. A maid let her in, guiding her to a parlor.
The doctor, Dr. Richard Templeton, was seated in an armchair. He rose to greet her.
“Miss Cheken.”
She nodded. “Doctor.”
“Please have a seat.”
He was the most unremarkable man Jean had ever seen. He wasn’t attractive or ugly, just completely indistinguishable; Jean was glad he hadn’t been her betrothed. She wouldn’t have been able to pick him out from the groomsmen at the altar. He welcomed her, surprised she had had arrived so soon, asked if her trip had gone well. It had, very well. He was polite seeming enough.
“Miss Cheken, I am sorry we meet under such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Yes. Do you have the obituary?”
He pulled the newspaper clipping out of a nearby drawer.
Ginny’s obituary.
Jean took it. He had taken out a quarter page, most of it taken up by a photo of Ginny in her wedding dress, flowers in her hair. She was smiling. She was beautiful. Jean almost cried out.
“Her loss has been hard for me,” the doctor said, “but, it must, undoubtedly, be harder for you. I will provide anything you or your family need.” He sounded sad enough.
“How did Ginny die?” Whatever her feelings, Jean wasn’t going to expose them here.
“I don’t know. She went into the West Quarter and disappeared. I spent months doing everything I could to find her, but she is, ah, lost to us.”
Lost.
“If there’s nothing else you would like to discuss, the maid will show you to your room.”
There was. “I’m grateful for letting me stay with you,” Jean said but continued, asking, “Would I be able to use your car?”
He is surprised.
“I mean, would you be kind enough to take me back to the station when I leave Alna City?”
“You are free to use the car as you’d like, as Virginia did.” He knows what she’s asking. “I don’t know how much we’ll see of each other, but I hope you enjoy your time in the city, as much as you’re able to.”
“Yes.”
He called the maid to show Jean out.
Ginny dead. The thought was unbearable. So, Jean doesn’t think about it—doesn’t even believe it. Seeing reminders of Ginny, knowing she may have already arrived too late, is hard, but Jean has her sister’s last letter. The letter is dated after Ginny’s disappearance in the newspaper. There hadn’t been a letter for months until this one arrived, wrinkled and dirty, address and stamp on the outside of the folder paper as there was no envelope. There was also no name or sender information, but Jean recognized Ginny’s handwriting. How could she not.
Jean knows her sister is alive. She will find her.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mrs. Richard Templeton (1), Set #1 - Large Straight
Date: 2020-03-28 06:45 pm (UTC)She had become Mrs. Richard Templeton three months ago. Dr. Richard Templeton had a good income and was well-regarded by his peers and patients. He was going to be thirty-seven in spring, having his birthday only a week before she would turn twenty-two, and gray in his hair and whiskers. This was all she had known about him before their marriage. Father had trusted him, so she’d trusted him and allowed him to bundle her away in his automobile to his big city apartment with its massive rooms, soft, soft carpets, and bright electric lights. Now, as Mrs. Richard Templeton, she had a diamond ring nice enough to stare at and sigh over and more than one nice dress. The other wives, the ones who spoke to her at parties, at dances, wanted her to be jealous of the bigger diamonds in their rings, of how much more they had than her, but she wasn’t. She already had so much.
Her life her is nothing as it was before. Some evenings she goes out on her husband’s arms, required to do nothing more than smile and look beautiful in her pearls, her strawberry gold curls arranged like a goddess’s. Even at the apartment, all she must do is look pretty, not speak unless spoken to, and do anything her husband asks. But he asks nothing else of her and rarely speaks to her outside of meals, only greeting her, making small talk. Yet as hard as her life had been before, she had always been happy to come home at the end of the day. That isn’t true here.
The butler has already taken her umbrella and the red coat she wore earlier; she’s changed for dinner and now enters the dining room.
He, seated, speaks.
“Virginia.”
She glides over to him and kisses him on the cheek.
“I’ll be up late,” he says, “In the study.” As he has said every night for the past week.
“Don’t stay up too late.” As she has said every night in response.
His work in the study—that is what scares her. Some nights she hears nothing, other nights she hears screams, screams that feel as if they’re coming from right behind her, as if someone is there with her even though the bedroom is the next hall over. And the other sounds are even worse. Loud thumps. Voices rasping words she can’t understand. Neither the servants nor her husband speaks of it, but she knows what she hears. And she feels that something is very wrong.
Mrs. Richard Templeton (2), Set #1 - Large Straight
Date: 2020-03-28 06:47 pm (UTC)To Jean--- Dearest Little Sister,
I miss you so much and hope this letter finds you well. I hope Father and Mother are also doing well and I miss them, too. Please let me know the state of Father’s health—My husband is to be sending medicine—Let me know that it has not been lost. I’ve enclosed 50 kanar. Please let me know if you’re received the money! You have barely answered any of my letters!
I am doing well. The city continues to be even more magnificent than the stories. Since I last wrote, I have gone to an opera matinee with the Dr. I didn’t understand a single word—you would laugh—but I was so moved I cried at the end. I should not have cried like that, cried in front of him and everybody, but I could not help myself. Some things transcend language.
I still spend my days out. The shops are as delightful as ever. The doctor continues to give me money and buy me more and more clothes. Yes, besides the beautiful red jacket I now have silk stockings and a new dress to wear every day and evening. I am like a princess.
Sister, I miss you. I know I have said you must watch your sharp tongue and wash your face twice a day with cold water to be as beautiful as possible to make a marriage as good as mine, but I feel it is more important for you to be happy. Hold onto your happiness. Jean—I know how foolish you find me---How little you think of me—But if you are ever lost and need advice I am here. I am your Big Sister.
Little sister, I love and miss you. Kiss Father and Mother for me.
Your sister,
Ginny
Mrs. Richard Templeton (3), Set #1 - Large Straight
Date: 2020-03-28 06:48 pm (UTC)No.
She was being a fool. Telling herself that she was strong, that she was crafty, that she hadn’t spent this entire trip resisting the impulse to scream and run at any unexpected noise. That the goosebumps on her neck are only from the biting, autumn air. That each step she took, boots crunching on the dead, beautiful leaves, wasn’t really that loud. She used her stories like medicine to salve her fears and homesickness, to energize her, but Ginny knows she needs something different now. As Mother had said: one type of medicine can’t cure everything.
She must act.
Ginny arrives at 176 Queen Peony Court. The house’s door is green, the silver doorknocker a ring of a snake eating its own tail. Ginny uses it to knock. Nothing happens; she doesn’t knock again, only waits for a moment. The door opens.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m here for Mala—Mr. Malatan.”
“Do you have an appointment, Miss ---?”
“Mrs. Richard Templeton.” She answers before she can think. “And, no, I don’t.”
“Mrs.---Mrs. Templeton, please come inside. Follow me.”
Inside, the house’s only decoration is a rug running from the foyer, where they stand now, and into a nearby hallway. Thrown over the house’s dark wood floors, the rug’s ends are tasseled, its design a pattern of red and soft yellow roses. Ginny thinks it pretty.
“This way, Ma’am.”
The old butler follows the same path as the rug; Ginny realizes that it goes all the way to the end of the hall. They pass a door on the left, one on the right, another on the left, and when Ginny, still walking, glances down she almost stops. The rug is patterned with snakes. Black and silver snakes in rings, eating their own tails and interlocking with each other. No, that wasn’t right. The rug had been red. But they have reached the end of the hall. The butler knocks on the door, and Ginny adjusts her gloves taking one last look around.
There is a painting of a woman. Her hair is unbound, and she holds a golden arrow in one hand, a stemmed orange in the other. She is naked. Ginny is shocked but less disturbed by the nudity than she is by the eye. The eye between the woman’s breasts. A huge eye. Staring at her as she stares at it.
This is occult.
Ginny knows nothing about the occult but knows this occult. She feels it. She realizes the rug—the rug. This person—this Malatan---does magic. She needs to leave.
She glances at the butler. He waits by the open door to Matalan’s office. Just as she should’ve known this place was a place of magic, she should’ve known her husband was involved with the occult. There was no other explanation what she heard, what she felt coming out of his study.
This place is dangerous—Ginny should leave—but leaving is dangerous too.
She walks through the door.
Mrs. Richard Templeton (4), Set #1 - Large Straight
Date: 2020-03-28 06:49 pm (UTC)Ginny,
Mother and I have not received a letter from you in months. I know you are well but at least write to put Mother’s mind at ease and to send more money. We have had none since burying Father.
But there is good news—good enough to make Mother smile. I am to marry Grace’s brother James. Out of all her brothers, I’ve always liked him best and I know you do too. Since you have left, he’s taken over their father’s business. We are deciding on the date for the wedding.
Write back soon and I will tell you all the details.
Love,
Jean
Mrs. Richard Templeton (5), Set #1 - Large Straight
Date: 2020-03-28 06:50 pm (UTC)The doctor was allowing Jean to stay with him. Jean was his sister now and a visitor to Alna City—it would have been unmannered to do otherwise. His apartment—the one he had shared with Ginny—was in a nice area, an area so nice it almost scared Jean off. But it didn’t. Adjusting her old, faded headscarf and holding it steady, she walked the street with her head held high, even nodding at a man who tipped his hat to her. She called the room. A maid let her in, guiding her to a parlor.
The doctor, Dr. Richard Templeton, was seated in an armchair. He rose to greet her.
“Miss Cheken.”
She nodded. “Doctor.”
“Please have a seat.”
He was the most unremarkable man Jean had ever seen. He wasn’t attractive or ugly, just completely indistinguishable; Jean was glad he hadn’t been her betrothed. She wouldn’t have been able to pick him out from the groomsmen at the altar. He welcomed her, surprised she had had arrived so soon, asked if her trip had gone well. It had, very well. He was polite seeming enough.
“Miss Cheken, I am sorry we meet under such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Yes. Do you have the obituary?”
He pulled the newspaper clipping out of a nearby drawer.
Ginny’s obituary.
Jean took it. He had taken out a quarter page, most of it taken up by a photo of Ginny in her wedding dress, flowers in her hair. She was smiling. She was beautiful. Jean almost cried out.
“Her loss has been hard for me,” the doctor said, “but, it must, undoubtedly, be harder for you. I will provide anything you or your family need.” He sounded sad enough.
“How did Ginny die?” Whatever her feelings, Jean wasn’t going to expose them here.
“I don’t know. She went into the West Quarter and disappeared. I spent months doing everything I could to find her, but she is, ah, lost to us.”
Lost.
“If there’s nothing else you would like to discuss, the maid will show you to your room.”
There was. “I’m grateful for letting me stay with you,” Jean said but continued, asking, “Would I be able to use your car?”
He is surprised.
“I mean, would you be kind enough to take me back to the station when I leave Alna City?”
“You are free to use the car as you’d like, as Virginia did.” He knows what she’s asking. “I don’t know how much we’ll see of each other, but I hope you enjoy your time in the city, as much as you’re able to.”
“Yes.”
He called the maid to show Jean out.
Ginny dead. The thought was unbearable. So, Jean doesn’t think about it—doesn’t even believe it. Seeing reminders of Ginny, knowing she may have already arrived too late, is hard, but Jean has her sister’s last letter. The letter is dated after Ginny’s disappearance in the newspaper. There hadn’t been a letter for months until this one arrived, wrinkled and dirty, address and stamp on the outside of the folder paper as there was no envelope. There was also no name or sender information, but Jean recognized Ginny’s handwriting. How could she not.
Jean knows her sister is alive. She will find her.