Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“What the fuck just happened?” Sev asks me, hand on my back as I stand half-bent, hands curled around the casement trying to catch my breath. “What did you see?”
It’s impossible. What happened happened over a decade ago. Our grandfather is dead. He’s long fucking dead. Those men? They’re not here, whoever the fuck they are. They’re not here. Not a single one. They can’t be.
“Jet?” Sev asks, worry etched in his face.
I straighten, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling clearer. “Grandfather’s mask,” I tell Sev. “The one he used to wear. The one he made them wear. I saw it. I swear I fucking saw it.”
31
AMAL
I’m dressed in that red monstrosity of a dress. They’ve sewn me into it. Made to size, they said. An inside joke I’m the butt of.
One of the women pushes the wine glass to my mouth. I forgot I held it. Forgot they forced it into my hand. It dribbles onto my chin. My mouth is numb. I swallow the last sips, choking a little before it’s taken from me, before that final part of the lace is wrapped tightly over the lower half of my face.
I don’t understand what is happening. What has happened. This room. These women. The smoke of the fire mingling with the scent of those roses, the wine.
The wine. It’s the wine. It’s making my head foggy.
I part my lips, suddenly claustrophobic, and gasp for air. The lace is split where my mouth is but only so much. I drag my gaze from that tapestry to the antique mirror and back, and back again. I look at the portraits of the men glaring down at me, hatred in their eyes.
Someone tugs at my hand. I look down to find my wedding band gone. Taken from me.
I start to protest but a woman hushes me. “It will be right here for when you’re back,” she says. She’s lying. I know she is. But I can’t protest. I can’t even make a sound.
“Beautiful,” someone says, a buzzing behind her voice, like static on a radio when you just can’t get the channel tuned.
They’re shorter than me, all of them. But it’s because I’m standing on a raised platform. They’re holding me up in turns, pushing me upright as I sway, unsure how my knees haven’t buckled.
The seamstress cuts the last of that red thread with her teeth. She steps backward. The one who did my hair tucks the final piece beneath the intricate, thick lace wound around my head. It hides my face entirely. The only relief of color in all that red is the blue of my eyes.
I see them, but barely.
I can breathe but barely.
And I cannot speak. This strange mask of lace is too tight to allow me speech.
Circling my throat is a collar of thorns like the one that spears the bird. Blood red to match the dress and made of shard-sharp crystal. If I’m not careful, it’ll cut me. As I take in this ancient dress with its musty, old smell, I see the stains that tell me this choker has cut already. It cut the woman or women who wore it before me.
Because what is happening here, whatever the purpose of this masquerade is, it’s not the first time. It’s happened before. And as I count the portraits upon the walls through my prison of red, it’s happened exactly eleven times.
“Look,” one of them is saying. “Look.”
She’s gesturing for me to look into the mirror. I drag my gaze to my reflection.
“So beautiful.” The women chatter, voices just coming through the static. “Yes. So like the other.”
They nod and I look although I want to ask who? Who is the other?
The dress is something else, surely. Lace and silk and lace and more silk. It’s not so much made for me. It’s the other way around.
I’m made for it.
Sewn into it.
My nipples are dark points that show through the fabric, my breasts bound by soft, unforgiving silk. I’m naked beneath. I don’t even know when I took my panties off but there they are, lying discarded on the floor along with the rest of my clothing.
I open my mouth to ask what’s happening, to ask when I can go to Jet, but between the tightly bound lace and what feels like cotton in my mouth, it’s impossible. I only make the smallest of sounds.
A man’s voice carries over that of the women’s mutterings. I turn, nearly fall off the stool, but the women catch me, push me back up to stand, their hands holding me up as two men enter. My breath catches and I try to jump backward but I can’t.
They step into the room, these men in their long black cloaks, hoods pulled over their heads to hide their masked faces.