Miss Temple sat back on the bed and stared up at the darkening clouds. She had shot Roger Bascombe and left his body to the sea. Certainly the man had betrayed her, betrayed everything, and yet what had she become in defeating him, in thwarting the powerful figures Roger had chosen to serve, chosen over her love, their marriage what had she herself
cast away?
Such thoughts were impossible on an empty stomach. She would eat, bathe, dress, locate her friendsstill an oddly foreign notion to Miss Templeand take assurance from their survival, that it had all been necessary.
But when she called to the door, her voice an alarmingly ragged croak, there came no answer. Instead of calling again, Miss Temple lay down and pulled the blankets up over her face.
As she lay sniffing the dusty wool, she recalled what she could of her coming ashore. They had been on the roof of the dirigible's cabin, waiting to drown as it dropped into the sea, but instead of sinking they came aground on fortunate rocks, saved. She reached the sand on her hands and knees, half-drowned and cold to the bone, frozen anew by the pitiless wind whose lashing impact curled her to a shivering ball. Chang carried her beyond the narrow ribbon of beach and over a hedge of sharp black rocks, but already she felt her body failing, unable to form words for her chattering teeth. There were black trees, the Doctor banging on a wooden door, racks of drying and salted fish, and then she was bundled in front of a burning hearth. Outside it was morning, but inside the hut the air was close and foul, as if it had been nailed tight against the cold all winter. The dirigible's original destination had been the Duchy of Macklenburg, on the Baltic Seahow far north had the airship flown? Someone held hot tea for her to drink, then theyElöise?took off her clothes and wrapped her in blankets. Miss Temple felt her chills swiftly escalate into fever and then dreams had swallowed her whole.
Miss Temple sighed heavily, the sound quite muffled beneath the bedding, and slept.
WHEN SHE next awoke the window had gone dark and there were sounds outside the door. Miss Temple crawled from the bed and stood more steadily than before. She plucked at her simple shift, wondering where it had come from, and pushed the hair from her face. How much must have happened while she slept? Yet instead of forming the many questions she ought to have hadabout her companions, their location, the very dateMiss Temple found her attention drawn to a lurid flickeringalready beneath the surface of her mind, like tiny bubbles in a pot growing to boil. This was the Contessa's blue glass book of memories that Miss Temple had absorbedand she shuddered to realize that each tiny bubble of memory found an echo in her flesh, each one threatening to expand to prominence in her mind, until the memory blotted out the present altogether. She had peered into the shimmering depths of the blue glass and been changed. How many of its memories had she consumedexperienced in her own bodyand thus made her own? How many acts that she had never performed did she now remember? The Contessa's book was a catalog of insidious and unmentionable delight, the sensual experience of a thousand souls crammed together. The more Miss Temple thought about it the more insistent the memories became. Her face flushed. Her breath quickened. Her nostrils flared with anger. She would not have it.
She jerked open the door. Before her two women huddled over a large woven basket near an iron stove. At the sound of the door both looked up, faces blank with surprise. They wore plain dresses, soiled aprons, and heavy shoes, with their hair stuffed tightly under woolen capsa mother and a daughter, sharing a thick nose and a certain flatness about the eyes. Miss Temple smiled primly and noticed that the basket was bundled full of linens quite broadly stained with blood. The younger of the two abruptly upended the pile to obscure the stains and shoved the entire basket from view behind the stove. The older turned to Miss Temple with a doting smilewhich Miss Temple would have been less disposed to despise had it not appeared as so open a distraction from the basketand rubbed her chapped hands together.
Good day, said Miss Temple.
You are awake! The woman's voice bore an accent Miss Temple had heard before, from the mouths of sailors.
Exactly so, replied Miss Temple. And though I do not intend any inconvenience, it is true that I require rather many things in a short time. I should like breakfastI have no sense of the time, so perhaps it is more supper I should ask forand if possible a bath, and then some clothing, and more than anything, information: where precisely might I be, and where are my companions? And, of course, who are you? she added, smiling again. I am sure you have been instrumental to my recovery. I trust I was not a burden. One never enjoys being illoften one calls out, sometimes brusquely. I have no memory of calling out at allI have no memory of coming hereso I trust you will accept my open