Neferet's Curse

January 15th, 1893

Emily Wheiler’s Journal

Entry: the first

This is not a diary. I loathe the very thought of compiling my thoughts and actions in a locked book, secreted away as if they were precious jewels.

I know my thoughts are not precious jewels.

I have begun to suspect my thoughts are quite mad.

That is why I feel compelled to record them. It could be that in the re-reading, sometime in the future, I will discover why these horrible things have befallen me.

Or, I will discover that I have, indeed, lost my mind.

If that be the case, then this will serve as a record of the onset of my paranoia and madness so as to lay the foundation to discover a cure.

Do I want to be cured?

Perhaps that is a question that would be best set aside for now.

First, let me begin when everything changed. It was not on this, the first date of my journal. It was two and one half months ago, on the first day of November, in the year eighteen ninety-two. That was the morning my mother died.

Even here in the silent pages of this journal I hesitate to recall that terrible morning. My mother died in a tide of blood, which surged from within her following the birth of the small, lifeless body of my brother, Barrett, named after Father. It seemed to me then, as it does today, that Mother simply gave up when she saw that Barrett would not draw breath. It was as if even the life force that sustained her could not bear the loss of her precious only son.

Or was the full truth that she could not bear to face Father after the loss of his precious, only son?

That question would not have entered my mind before that morning. Until the morning my mother died, the questions that most often entered my mind were focused on how I might persuade Mother to allow me to purchase another one of the new cycling costumes that were all the rage, or how I could make my hair look exactly like a Gibson girl.

If I had thought of Father before the morning Mother died, it was as most of my girlfriends thought of their fathers—as a distant and somewhat intimidating patriarch. In my particular case, Father only praised me through Mother’s comments. Actually, before Mother’s death, he seemed to rarely notice me at all.

Father was not in the room when Mother died. The doctor had proclaimed the birthing process too vulgar for a man to witness, especially not a man of the import of Barrett H. Wheiler, president of the First National Bank of Chicago.

And me? Barrett and Alice Wheiler’s daughter? The doctor did not mention the vulgarity of childbirth to me. Actually, the doctor did not even notice me until after Mother was dead and Father had brought me to his attention.

“Emily, you will not leave me. You will wait with me until the doctor arrives and then remain there, in the window seat. You should know what it is to be a wife and mother. You should not go blindly into it as did I.” Mother had commanded me in that soft voice of hers, which made everyone who did not truly know her believe she was softheaded and no more than a beautiful, compliant bobble on Father’s arm.

“Yes, Mother,” I had said with a nod, and done as she had ordered.

I remember sitting, still as shadow, in the unlit window seat across from the bed in Mother’s opulent bedchamber. I saw everything. It did not take her long to die.

There was so much blood. Barrett had been born in blood—a small, still, gore-covered creature. He had looked like a grotesque broken doll. After the spasm that had expelled him from between Mother’s legs, the blood did not stop. It kept surging and surging while my mother wept tears as silent as her son. I knew she wept because she had turned her head away from the sight of the doctor wrapping the dead baby in linens. Mother’s gaze met mine then.

I could not remain in the window seat. I rushed to the side of her bed and, while the doctor and his nurse futilely attempted to staunch the scarlet river that gushed from her, I gripped her hand and brushed the damp hair back from her forehead. Through my tears and my fear, I tried to murmur reassurance to her, and tell her that everything would be well once she rested.

Mother had squeezed my hand and whispered, “I am glad you are here with me at the end.”

“No! You’ll get better, Mother!” I’d protested.

“Sssh,” she’d soothed. “Just hold my hand.” Her voice had faded away then, but Mother’s emerald eyes, which everyone said were so like mine, did not look away from me all the while her flushed face went shockingly white and her breath softened, caught, and then on a sigh, ceased altogether.

I’d kissed her hand then, and staggered back to my window seat, where I’d wept, unnoticed as the nurse performed the daunting job of disposing of the soaked linens and making Mother presentable for Father’s viewing. But Father hadn’t waited until Mother had been prepared for him. He’d pushed into the room, ignoring the protestations of the doctor.

“It is a son, you say?” Father had not so much as glanced at the bed. Instead he had hurried to the bassinette, wherein lay the shrouded body of Barrett.

“It was, indeed, a boy child,” the doctor said somberly. “Born too soon, as I told you, sir. There was nothing to be done. His lungs were too weak. He never drew breath. He did not utter one cry.”

“Dead … silent.” Father had wiped a hand wearily across his face. “Do you know when Emily was born she cried so lustily I heard her in the drawing room downstairs and believed her to be a son?”

“Well, Mr. Wheiler, I know it is of little consolation after losing a son and a wife, but you do have a daughter, and through her the promise of heirs.”

“She promised me heirs!” Father shouted, finally turning to look at Mother.

I must have made some small, wounded sound because Father’s eyes instantly flicked to my window seat. They narrowed, and for a moment it didn’t seem he recognized me. And then he shook himself, as if trying to shiver something uncomfortable from his skin.

“Emily, why are you here?” Father’s voice had sounded so angry that it seemed the question he’d meant to ask was much more than why I was in that room at that particular time.

“M-mother bade me s-stay,” I had stuttered.

“Your mother is dead,” he’d said, anger flattened to hard-edged truth.

“And this is no place for a young lady.” The doctor’s face had been flushed when he faced my father. “Beg pardon, Mr. Wheiler. I was too occupied with the birth to notice the girl there.”

“The fault was not yours, Doctor Fisher. My wife often did and said things that perplexed me. This is simply the last of them.” Father made a dismissive gesture that took in the doctor, the maids, and me. “Now leave me with Mrs. Wheiler, all of you.”

I wanted to run from the room—to escape as quickly as possible, but my feet had gone numb and cold from sitting unmoving for so long and as I passed Father I’d stumbled. His hand caught me under the elbow. I’d looked up, startled.

His expression had suddenly appeared to soften as he gazed down at me. “You have your mother’s eyes.”

“Yes.” Breathless and lightheaded, that was all I could say.

“That is as it should be. You are now the Lady of Wheiler House.” Then Father released me and walked slowly, heavily, to the bloody bed.

As I closed the door behind me, I heard him begin to weep.

Thereby also began my strange and lonely time of mourning. I moved numbly through the funeral and collapsed afterward. It was as if sleep had taken me over. I could not break free of it. For two full months I hardly left my bed. I did not care that I grew thin and pale. I did not care that the social condolence calls of my mother’s friends and their daughters were left unanswered. I did not notice that Christmas and a New Year came and went. Mary, my mother’s lady’s maid, whom I had inherited, begged, cajoled, and scolded. I cared not at all.

It was the fifth day of January when Father broke me free of sleep’s hold. My room had grown cold, so cold that my shivering had awakened me. The fire in my hearth had died and not been relit, so I pulled the sash attached to Mary’s summoning bell, which tinkled all the way down in the servants’ quarters in the bowels of the house, but she had not answered my call. I remember putting on my dressing gown, and thinking—briefly—how large it seemed and how very much it engulfed me. Making my way slowly from my third-floor bedchamber down the wide, wooden stairway, shivering, I searched for Mary. Father had emerged from his study as I came to the bottom of the stairs. When he first saw me his eyes were blank, then his expression registered surprise. Surprise followed by something I was almost certain was disgust.

“Emily, you look wretched! Thin and pale! Are you ill?”

Before I could answer, Mary was there, hurrying across the foyer toward us. “I told ye, Mr. Wheiler. She’s not been eating. I said she was doing nothin’ but sleepin’. Wastin’ away, she is.” Mary had spoken briskly, her soft Irish accent more pronounced than usual.

“Well, this behavior must end at once,” Father had said sternly. “Emily, you will leave your bed. You will eat. You will take daily walks in the gardens. I simply will not have you looking emaciated. You are, after all, the Lady of Wheiler House, and my lady cannot look as if she were a starving gutter waif.”

His eyes had been hard. His anger had been intimidating, especially as I realized Mother wouldn’t appear from her parlor, buzzing with distracting energy and shooing me away while pacifying Father with a smile and a touch.

I took an automatic step away from him, which only made his expression darker. “You have your mother’s look, but not her spunk. As irritating as it had been at times, I admired her spunk. I miss it.”

“I-I miss Mother, too,” I heard myself blurt.

“Of course ye do, dove,” Mary had soothed. “’Tis only been little over two months.”

“Then we have something in common after all.” Father had ignored Mary completely and spoken as if she hadn’t been there, nervously touching my hair, smoothing my dressing gown. “The loss of Alice Wheiler has created our commonality.” He’d turned his head then, studying me. “You do have her look.” Father stroked his dark beard and his gaze lost its hard, intimidating cast. “We shall have to make the best of her absence, you know.”

“Yes, Father.” I’d felt relieved at the gentling of his voice.

“Good. Then I expect you to join me for dinner each evening, as you and your mother used to. No more of this hiding in your room, starving your looks away.”

I had smiled then, actually smiled. “I would like that,” I’d said.

He’d grunted, slapped the newspaper he’d been holding across his arm, and nodded. “At dinner then,” he’d said, and he walked past me, disappearing into the west wing of the house.

“I may be even a little hungry tonight,” I’d said to Mary as she clucked at me and helped me up the stairway.

“’Tis good to see he’s takin’ an interest in ye, it is,” Mary had whispered happily.

I’d hardly paid any attention to her. My only thought was that for the first time in a month I had something more than sleep and sadness to look forward to. Father and I shared a commonality!

I’d dressed carefully for dinner that evening, understanding for the first time how very thin I had become when my black mourning dress had to be pinned so that it did not hang unattractively loose. Mary combed my hair, twining it in a thick chignon that I thought made my newly thin face look much older than my fifteen years.

I will never forget the start it gave me when I entered our dining room and saw the two place settings—Father’s, where he had always been at the head of the table—and mine, now placed at Mother’s spot to Father’s right hand.

He’d stood and held Mother’s chair for me. I was sure as I sat that I could still smell her perfume—rose water, with just a hint of the lemon rinse she used on her hair to bring out the richness of her auburn highlights.

George, a Negro man who served our dinner, began ladling from the soup tureen. I’d worried that the silence would be terrible, but as Father began to eat, so, too, began his familiar words.

“The Columbian Exposition Committee has joined collectively behind Burnham; we are supporting him completely. I wondered, at first, that the man might be a touch mad—that he was attempting something unattainable, but his vision of Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition outshining Paris’s splendor seems to be within reach, or at least his design appears to be sound—extravagant, but sound.” He’d paused to take a healthy mouthful of the steak and potatoes that had replaced his empty soup bowl, and in that pause I could hear my mother’s voice.

“Is not extravagance what everyone is calling for?” and didn’t realize until Father looked up at me that it had been I who had spoken and not, after all, the ghost of Mother. I froze under his sharp, dark-eyed scrutiny, wishing I’d kept silent and daydreamed the meal away as I had so many times in the past.

“And how do you know what everyone is calling for?” His keen, dark eyes were sharp on me, but his lips lifted slightly at the corners, just as he used to almost smile at Mother.

I remember feeling a rush of relief and smiling heartily in return. His question was one I’d heard him ask Mother more times than I could begin to count. I let her words reply for me. “I know you believe all women do is talk, but they listen, too.” I spoke more quickly and more softly than Mother, but Father’s eyes had crinkled in the corners as he showed his approval and amusement.

“Indeed…” he’d said with a chuckle, cutting a large piece of bloody red meat and eating it as if he were ravenous while he gulped down glasses of wine as red and dark as the liquid that ran from his meat. “But I must keep close tabs on Burnham, and his gaggle of architects, close tabs indeed. They are grotesquely over budget, and those workmen … always a problem … always a problem…” Father spoke as he chewed, dribbling bits of food and wine into his beard, a habit I knew Mother had loathed, and often rebuked him for.

I did not rebuke him, nor did I loathe his well-engrained habit. I simply forced myself to eat and to make the proper noises of appreciation as he spoke on and on about the importance of fiscal responsibility and the worry that the frail health of one of the lead architects was causing the board in general. After all, Mr. Root had already succumbed to pneumonia. Some said he’d been the driving force behind the entire project, and not Burnham at all.

The dinner sped quickly by until Father had finally eaten and spoken his fill. Then he had stood, and, as I had heard him wish uncountable times to my mother, he’d said, “I shall retire to my library for a cigar and a whiskey. Have a pleasant evening, my dear, and I shall see you again, soon.” I remember vividly feeling a great warmth for him as I thought, He is treating me as if I were a woman grown—a true lady of the house!

“Emily,” he’d continued, even though he’d been rather wobbly and obviously well into his cups, “let us decide that as we have just begun a new year, it will mark a new beginning for the both of us. Shall we try to move forward together, my dear?”

Tears had come to my eyes, and I’d smiled tremulously up at him. “Yes, Father. I would like that very much.”

Then, quite unexpectedly, he had lifted my thin hand in his large one, bent over it, and kissed it—just exactly as he used to kiss Mother’s hand in parting. Even though his lips and beard were moist from the wine and the food, I was still smiling and feeling ever so much like a lady when, holding my hand in his, he met my gaze.

That was the first time I saw it, what I have come to think of as the burning look. It was as if his eyes stared so violently into mine that I feared they would cause me to combust.

“Your eyes are your mother’s,” he said. His words slurred and I smelled the sharp reek of his breath, heavily tainted by wine.

I found I could not speak. I only shivered and nodded.

Father dropped my hand then and walked unsteadily from the room. Before George began to clear the table, I took my linen napkin and rubbed it across the back of my hand, wiping away the wetness left there and wondering why I felt such an uneasy sensation deep in my stomach.

Madeleine Elcott and her daughter, Camille, were the first of the social calls I received two days later. Mr. Elcott was on the board at Father’s bank, and Mrs. Elcott had been a great friend of Mother’s, though I’d never truly understood why. Mother had been beautiful and charming, and a renowned hostess. In comparison, Mrs. Elcott had seemed waspish, gossipy, and miserly. When she and Mother sat together at dinner parties, I used to think Mrs. Elcott looked like a clucking chicken next to a dove, but she had the ability to make Mother laugh, and Mother’s laughter had been so magical, it had made the reason for it unimportant. I’d once overheard Father telling Mother that she would simply have to do more entertaining because dinner parties at the Elcott mansion were short on spirits and courses, and long on talk. Had anyone ever asked for my opinion, which of course they did not, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with Father. The Elcott mansion was less than a mile from our home, and looked stately and proper from the outside, but the inside was Spartan and, actually, rather gloomy. Little wonder Camille so loved visiting me!

Camille was my best friend. She and I were close in age, she being only six months the younger. Camille talked a lot, but not in the cruel, gossipy way of her mother. Because of the closeness of our parents, Camille and I had grown up together, which had made us more like sisters than best friends.

“Oh, my poor, sad Emily! How thin and wan you look,” Camille had said as she rushed into Mother’s parlor and embraced me.

“Well, of course she looks thin and wan!” Mrs. Elcott had moved her daughter aside and stiffly taken my hands in hers before she’d even shed her white leather gloves. Remembering her touch, I realize now that she’d felt cold and quite reptilian. “Emily has lost her mother, Camille. Think of how wretched your life would be had you lost me. I would expect you to look just as terrible as poor Emily. I’m sure dear Alice is looking down on her daughter in understanding and appreciation.”

Not expecting her to speak so freely of Mother’s death, I felt a little shock at Mrs. Elcott’s words. I tried to catch Camille’s gaze as we moved apart, settling ourselves on the divan and matching chairs. I’d wanted to share with her our old look, one that said we agreed how sometimes our mothers could say terribly embarrassing things, but Camille seemed to be looking everywhere but at me.

“Yes, Mother, of course. I apologize,” was all she muttered contritely.

Trying to feel my way through this new social world that suddenly was very foreign, I breathed a long breath of relief when the housemaid bustled in with tea and cakes. I poured. Mrs. Elcott and Camille studied me.

“You really are quite thin,” Camille said finally.

“I will be better soon,” I’d said, sending her a reassuring smile. “At first I found it difficult to do anything except sleep, but Father has insisted that I get well. He reminded me that I am now the Lady of Wheiler House.”

Camille’s gaze had flicked quickly to her mother’s. I could not read the hard look in Mrs. Elcott’s eyes, but it was enough to silence her daughter.

“That is quite brave of you, Emily,” Mrs. Elcott spoke into the silence. “I am sure you are a great comfort to your father.”

“We tried to see you for two whole months, but you wouldn’t receive us, not even during the holidays. It was like you’d disappeared!” Camille blurted as I poured her tea. “I thought you’d died, too.”

“I’m sorry.” At first, her words had made me contrite. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Mrs. Elcott had said, frowning at her daughter. “Camille, Emily wasn’t disappearing—she was mourning.”

“I still am,” I’d said softly. Camille heard me and nodded, wiping her eyes, but her mother had been too busy helping herself to the iced cakes to pay either of us much attention.

There was a silence that seemed very long while we sipped our tea and I pushed the small, white cake around my plate, and then, in a high, excited voice, Mrs. Elcott asked, “Emily, were you really there? In the room with her when Alice died?”

I’d looked to Camille, wishing for an instant that she could silence her mother, but of course that had been a foolish, futile wish. My friend’s face had mirrored my own discomfort, though she did not appear shocked at her mother’s disregard for propriety and privacy. I realized then that Camille had known her mother was going to question me thus. I drew a deep, fortifying breath and answered truthfully, though hesitantly, “Yes. I was there.”

“It must have been quite ghastly,” Camille said quickly.

“Yes,” I said. I’d placed my teacup carefully in its saucer before either of them could see that my hand trembled.

“I expect there had been a lot of blood,” Mrs. Elcott said, nodding slowly as if in pre-agreement with my response.

“There was.” I’d clasped my hands tightly together in my lap.

“When we heard you were in the room when she died, we were all so very sorry for you,” Camille had said softly, hesitantly.

Shocked silent, I could almost hear Mother’s voice saying sharply, Servants and their gossip! I was mortified that Mother’s death had been the topic of gossip, but I’d also longed to talk to Camille, to tell her how frightened I’d been. But before I could collect myself enough to speak, her mother’s sharp voice had intruded.

“Indeed, it was all anyone could talk about for weeks and weeks. Your poor mother would have been appalled. Bad enough that you missed the Christmas Ball, but for the topic of conversation during the evening to have been your witnessing her gruesome death…” Mrs. Elcott shuddered. “Alice would have thought it as dreadful as it was.”

My cheeks had flamed hot. I had utterly forgotten about the Christmas Ball, and my sixteenth birthday. Both had taken place in December, when sleep had been cloaking me from life.

“Everyone was talking about me at the ball?” I’d wanted to run back to my room and never emerge.

Camille’s words came fast, and she had made a vague movement, as if she understood how difficult the conversation had become for me and was trying to brush away the subject. “Nancy, Evelyn, and Elizabeth were worried about you. We were all worried about you—we still are.”

“You left out one person who seemed especially concerned: Arthur Simpton. Remember how you said he could talk of nothing except how horrible it all must have been for Emily, even while he was waltzing with you.” Mrs. Elcott hadn’t sounded worried at all. She’d sounded angry.

I’d blinked and felt as if I was swimming up through deep, murky waters. “Arthur Simpton? He was talking about me?”

“Yes, while he danced with Camille.” Mrs. Elcott’s tone had been hard with annoyance, and I’d suddenly understood why—Arthur Simpton was the eldest son of a wealthy railroad family that had recently relocated from New York City to Chicago, because of close business ties with Mr. Pullman. Besides being rich, suitably bred, and eligible, he was also extremely handsome. Camille and I had whispered about him as his family moved into their South Prairie Avenue mansion and we’d watched him riding his bicycle up and down the street. Arthur had been the single driving force behind our desire to obtain our own bicycles and to join the Hermes Bicycle Club. He had also been one of the key reasons both of our mothers had agreed to pressure our fathers into allowing us to do so, even though Camille had told me she’d heard her father informing her mother that bicycle bloomers could lead a young woman into “a life of pernicious lasciviousness.” I remembered it clearly because Camille had made me giggle as she’d done an excellent impression of her father. As I’d laughed she’d also said she’d be willing to enter a life of pernicious lasciviousness if it meant entering it with Arthur Simpton.

I hadn’t said anything then. It hadn’t seemed necessary. Arthur had, quite often, looked our way, but the both of us knew it was my eyes he met when he tipped his hat, and my name he called a “Bright, good morning, Miss Emily” to.

I shook my head, feeling woozy and slow. I turned to Camille. “Arthur Simpton? He danced with you?”

“Most of the evening,” Mrs. Elcott had spoken for her daughter, nodding her head so quickly the feathers on her hat fluttered with disturbing violence, making her look even more henlike. “In truth Camille and I believe Arthur Simpton will approach Mr. Elcott soon and ask permission to formally court her.”

My stomach had felt terrible and hollow. How could he court Camille? Little over two months ago he hadn’t so much as spoken her name to wish her a good morning. Could such a short amount of time change him so drastically?

Yes, I’d decided silently and quickly. Yes, a short amount of time could change anyone drastically. It had certainly changed me.

I’d opened my mouth to speak, though I was still not sure what it was I was going to say, and Father had burst into the room, looking frazzled and wearing no jacket.

“Ah, Emily, here you are.” He’d nodded absently to Mrs. Elcott and Camille, saying, “Good afternoon, ladies.” Then he’d turned his full attention to me. “Emily, which waistcoat should I wear this evening? The black or the burgundy? The board is meeting again with those infernal architects, and I need to use a firm hand. The right tone must be set. Their budget is out of control and time is short. The fair must open May the first. They are simply not prepared. They climb too steep—too steep!”

I blinked, trying to focus on the bizarre scene. Arthur Simpton’s name linked with Camille’s had still been almost tangible in the air around us while Father stood there, his dress shirt untucked and only partially buttoned, a waistcoat in each hand, waving them about as if they were flags unfurled. Mrs. Elcott and Camille were staring at him as if he had lost his mind.

I was suddenly angry, and I’d automatically come to Father’s defense.

“Mother always said the black is more formal, but the burgundy is richer. Wear the burgundy, Father. The architects should see you as rich enough to control the money and, therefore, their futures.” I’d tried my best to pitch my voice softly to mimic my mother’s soothing tone.

Father had nodded. “Yes, yes, it should be as your mother said. The richer is the better. Yes, well done.” He’d bowed briskly to the other two women, wishing them a good day, and then he hurried out. Before the door closed, I could see his valet, Carson, joining him in the hallway and taking the discarded black waistcoat that was tossed his way.

When I turned back to the Elcott women, I lifted my chin. “As you can see, Father has been depending upon me.”

Mrs. Elcott had lifted a brow and sniffed. “I do see. Your father is a fortunate man, and the man to whom he eventually marries you will be fortunate, as well, to have such a well-trained wife.” Her gaze went to her daughter and then she smiled silkily as she’d continued, “Though I imagine your father won’t want to part with you for several years, so marriage is out of the question for your foreseeable future.”

“Marriage?” A jolt had gone through me at the word. Camille and I had talked about it, of course, but we had mostly whispered about the courting, the betrothal, the sumptuous wedding … and not the actual marriage itself. Mother’s voice had suddenly echoed from my memory: Emily, you will not leave me … You should know what it is to be a wife and mother. You should not go blindly into it as did I. I’d felt a shudder of panic and added, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly think about marriage now!”

“Of course you can’t think about marriage right now! Neither of us should—not really. We’re sixteen. That’s entirely too young. Isn’t that what you’ve always said, Mother?” Camille had sounded strained, almost frightened.

“Thinking about a thing and preparing for a thing are not one and the same, Camille. Opportunity should not be overlooked. And that is what I have always said.” Mrs. Elcott had peered down her long nose at me while she spoke with disdain.

“Well, I think it is a good thing that I am devoted to my father,” I’d responded, feeling horribly uncomfortable and unsure of what else to say.

“Oh, we are all in agreement about that!” Mrs. Elcott had said.

They hadn’t stayed long after Father’s appearance. Mrs. Elcott had rushed Camille off, not giving us even one small chance to speak to each other alone. It was as if she’d gotten what she’d come for and left satisfied.

And me? What had I gotten?

I’d hoped for validation. Even though the affection of the handsome young Arthur Simpton had turned from me to my friend, I’d believed it was my duty as a daughter to care for my father. I’d felt that Camille and her mother would see that I was doing my best to carry on after Mother—that in a little over two months I’d grown from girl to woman. I’d thought that somehow I could make the loss of Mother bearable.

But in the long, silent hours after their visit, my mind had begun to replay the events and to view their facets differently, and on retrospection I feel my second view to be more valid than my first. Mrs. Elcott had wanted substantiation of the gossip; she’d gotten her wish. She had also wanted to make it very clear that Arthur Simpton would not now be a part of my future and that no man—other than Father—would be a part of my foreseeable future. She had accomplished both tasks.

I’d sat up that night and waited for Father’s return. Even now, as I record what happened next, I cannot fault myself for my actions. As the Lady of Wheiler Mansion, it was my duty to see Father cared for—to be there with a tea or possibly a brandy for him—as I’d imagined Mother had often done upon his late return from work dinners. I had expected Father to be tired. I had expected him to be himself: aloof, gruff, and overbearing, yet polite and appreciative of my fidelity.

I had not expected him to be drunk.

I’d seen Father filled with wine. I had glimpsed him red nosed and effusive in his praise of Mother’s beauty as they went out in the evenings, dressed formally and trailing the scent of lavender, lemon, and cabernet. I cannot remember ever seeing them upon their return. Had I not been asleep in my bed, I would have been brushing my hair or embroidering the fine details of violets at the bodice of my newest day dress.

I realize now that Father and Mother had been to me like distant moons circling the self-absorption of my youth.

That night Father evolved from moon to burning sun.

He’d lurched inside the foyer, calling loudly for his valet, Carson. I’d been in Mother’s parlor, trying to keep my heavy eyes open by rereading Emily Brontë’s gothic novel, Wuthering Heights. At the sound of his voice, I’d put the book aside and hurried to him. His scent came to me before I saw him. I remember that I pressed a hand against my nose, flustered at the rankness of brandy, sweat, and cigars. As I write this, I am afraid that those three odors will for me, forever, be the scent of man, and the scent of nightmares.

I’d rushed to his side, pursing my lips at the thick reek of his breath, thinking that he must not be well.

“Father, are you ill? Shall I call the physician?”

“Physician? No, no, no! Right as rain. I’m right as rain. Just need some help getting to Alice’s room. Not as young as I used to be—not at all. But I can still do my duty. I’ll get her with a son yet!” Father swayed as he talked, and he’d put a heavy hand on my shoulder to steady himself.

I staggered under his weight, guiding him to the wide stairway, so worried that he was ill that I hardly comprehended what he was saying. “I’m here. I’ll help you,” was what I whispered over and over to him. He’d leaned even more heavily on me as we climbed clumsily up to the second floor and finally stopped outside his bedchamber. He’d shaken his head back and forth, mumbling, “This isn’t her room.”

“It is your bedchamber,” I’d said, wishing his valet or anyone would appear.

He’d squinted at me, as if he were having trouble focusing. Then his slack, drunken expression had changed. “Alice? So, you are willing to break your frigid rules and join my bed tonight.”

His hand had been hot and damp on the shoulder of my fine linen nightgown.

“Father, it’s me, Emily.”

“Father?” He’d blinked and brought his face down closer to mine. His breath had almost made me retch. “Emily. Indeed. It is you. Yes, you. I know you now. You cannot be Alice, she is dead.” His face still so very close to mine, he added, “You’re too thin, but you do have her eyes.” He’d reached out then and lifted a strand of the thick, auburn hair that had escaped my nightcap. “And her hair. You have her hair.” He’d rubbed my hair between his fingers and slurred, “You must eat more—shouldn’t be so thin.” Then, bellowing for Carson to attend him, Father let loose my hair, shoved me aside, and staggered into his room.

I should have retreated to my own bed then, but a terrible unease had come over me and I ran, allowing my feet to carry me where they willed. When I finally halted, gasping to catch my breath, I found my blind flight had taken me into the gardens that stretched for more than five acres in the rear of our house. There I collapsed on a stone bench that sat, concealed, under the curtain of a massive willow tree, and put my face in my hands and wept.

Then something magical happened. The warm night breeze lifted the willow branches and the clouds blew away, exposing the moon. Though only a slim crescent, it was almost silver in its brilliance, and it seemed to beam metallic light into the garden, setting aglow the huge white marble fountain that was its central feature. Within the fountain, spewing water from his open mouth, was the Greek god Zeus, in the form of the bull that had tricked and then abducted the maiden, Europa. The fountain had been a wedding gift from Father to Mother, and had been at the heart of Mother’s extensive garden since my earliest memories.

Perhaps it was because the fountain was Mother’s, or perhaps it was from envy for the musicality of the bubbling water, but my tears stopped as I studied it. Eventually, my heartbeat slowed and my breathing became normal. And, even when the moon became cloaked by clouds once again, I remained beneath the tree, listening to the water and allowing it, as well as the concealing willow shadows, to soothe me until I knew I could sleep. Then I slowly made my way up to my third-floor bedchamber. That night I dreamed I was Europa and the white bull was carrying me away to a beautiful meadow where no one ever died and where I was, eternally, young and carefree.