“We’ve always shared a bedroom,” Jillian whispered and clung to Louise as if Anna was about to force them apart.
Anna sighed, dropping the comforter and sheets onto the floor. “I suppose, for now, it won’t hurt for you to share a room.”
There was a knock on the door. It opened and a tall elegant woman swept into the room with fresh linens in her hands. She had that same hidden elf look that Ming had, as if everything that said “elf” had been carefully erased, and yet nothing could hide the tall willowy build and the unearthly beauty.
“I’m sorry,” the non-elf said. “I only had time to dust and run a mop around the room. The vacuum cleaner threw another hissy fit. I wish we could find a good old-fashioned one without any sensors or filters or computers.”
“This is Celine.” Anna dipped a hand toward the female. “She’s been our housekeeper since she was very young.”
Louise eyed the female. If Tristan was nearly forty and looked ten, then how old was Celine? The housekeeper seemed unaware of the twins’ stare. She unfurled the bottom sheet and then expertly tucked the corners around the ends of the mattress.
Anna stripped the pillowcase from one of the pillows and gave it a tentative sniff. “These are too musty.” She gazed about the room. “I don’t know why I left everything this way. Esme’s not coming back. Even if she could, she wouldn’t. She hated this house.”
Celine took the pillows, carefully keeping whatever she thought of Esme off her face. “I have good goose down ones stored in plastic for guests. They’ll be good for tonight—unless the girls are allergic to down.”
Louise flinched under the women’s joint gaze. “No. At least, I don’t think so. Our father was allergic to them, so we never had them in the house.”
“George Mayer was allergic?” Anna asked to clarify whom Louise meant by “father.”
“Yes, our father!” Louise snapped.
Anna pursed her lips against whatever she wanted to say in reply. “Are you allergic to anything? Are there any medicines you should be taking?”
“No. No,” Louise said.
Celine gathered up the dusty bedding. “I’ll get the pillows and a blanket.”
“I can’t sleep without Fritz.” Jillian mumbled, leaning against Louise.
Louise whimpered in dismay. Jillian had never slept without her security blanket. Even when they stayed over at their Aunt Kitty, they took it with them. If they forgot it, Jillian couldn’t get to sleep. “Fritz is her blanket. Our Grandma Mayer made him for her. He’s at our house. Can—can we go get him?”
“I’ll have someone go get it. What does it look like? Where does she normally keep it?”
Louise stared at her for a minute in confusion. Surely Anna didn’t mean that a stranger would walk into their house and go through their things. And then in a wave of horror, Louise realized that soon strangers were going to go through all their stuff. “Can’t we just go ourselves?”
“No, you’re both too upset. Just tell me where it is.”
Jillian pressed against Louise and whispered. “I want Fritz.”
“On her bed.” Louise fought not to cry as she gave up. “It’s inside the blue flannel pillowcase.”
“I’ll send a driver to go get it.”
* * *
Within an hour, Fritz had been fetched from their house. In the meantime, the twins had been fed a dinner of hot oatmeal and given a hot bath. They were dressed in long white nightgowns, obviously brand new and still warm from the dryer.
Every moment of Anna or Celine fussing at them was like sandpaper against Louise’s nerves. Finally she could take no more. She pushed Anna toward the door, crying “We just want to be alone!”
She got Jillian into the bed with Nikola, and fiddled with the controls she found in the headboard to close the elevator doors and raised the bed up to the loft. In the small fortress, she undid the storage lid and let Joy out.
The baby dragon whimpered in distress and cuddled against Louise’s chin.
“We’re all together,” Louise whispered the only comfort that they had. “We have each other.”
She found the light switch and turned off the lights. In the darkness, familiar stars spread across the ceiling. Strangely, some forty years earlier, Esme had painted her ceiling with glow in the dark paint, a low-tech equivalent of their holographic star field.
Between the familiar constellations were words visible only to someone who knew which dots were out of place.
“Don’t give up hope.”
* * *
Louise had felt weirdly hollow, like she’d been filled to nearly bursting with hot burning grief and then slowly drained. The residue of unbearable pain coated her but every thought and action now dropped into a vast, echoing pit. Jillian could not stop crying. Joy sat on the pillows and stroked Jillian’s hair. Jillian wept even in her sleep.