“That’s it?”
“And they eat weird food. We had a fish with its head and tail on it for breakfast. You had to peel the skin off it before you could eat it. It’s creepy. We’re going to starve to death.”
Aunt Kitty breathed out. “Oh, Louise, I’m sorry. I know you two have to be scared. I really wish that you didn’t have to go through this, but you’re going to have to be patient. Since I’m not your aunt by blood, I can’t do anything until a judge settles it. In the meantime, promise me you’ll try to be good.”
“We will.”
“Don’t run away. That will make things worse. And don’t blow anything up.”
33: FORTRESS OF EVIL
“I feel like I’m trapped in Dracula’s castle.” Jillian sprawled in the loft bed, high above the bedroom floor. They’d been living at the mansion for ten days now, held by Louise’s promise to Aunt Kitty.
Though they bought the black dresses, in the end Anna refused to let them attend the funeral. She thought it would be too much for the twins to bear and Louise was starting to wonder if Anna was right. Every time she fell asleep, she had vivid nightmares. Jillian rarely left the bed and had slept almost endlessly. Louise was worried that something might be wrong with her twin. Even Joy sensed that Jillian was somehow broken and kept her constant company.
“It seems more like Frankenstein’s castle than Dracula’s.” Louise paced the room full of steampunk furniture that could easily pass as the set to the legendary horror movie. One filmed in black and white with Boris Karloff as the monster. The images were combining weirdly in her dreams: Edmond in a white lab coat, making little Anna-Bride monsters. Instead of two eyes, the miniature Annas had only one in the center of their foreheads.
“This place is full of them!” Jillian meant the hidden elves. “Haven’t you noticed? All tall and pale and beautiful and sparkling.”
Louise had counted two dozen secret elves moving quietly through the mansion, all of them looking like Paris models. She found a spyglass on Esme’s crowded bookcases. She used it to furtively study the estate’s extensive grounds from the windows of Lain’s empty bedroom. Entire herds of elf gardeners took care of the pristine gardens while armed guards patrolled the shadows. She’d been making lists of names and habits. She hadn’t thought Jillian had noticed the elves; all Louise’s careful spying missions had been alone. Nor had she thought it wise to actually tell her twin how outnumbered they were. It was comforting, though, to know that Jillian wasn’t being as completely oblivious to her surroundings as she seemed. “I don’t think Dracula sparkled.”
“Ming does.”
After thinking of the male as Ming the Merciless for so long, it was nearly impossible to refer to him as “Edmond,” especially knowing that wasn’t his real name either.
Jillian rolled to peer down over the edge of the loft bed. “What does Anna see in him?”
Louise had been wondering herself. At breakfast, there was never a hint of warmth between the two. “I’m not sure if she loves him, or if she only likes that he gives her everything she wants. She likes being rich. Think about it: she comes to the breakfast table all made up even when she’s not going out. Mom always said she was a perfectionist. It’s like she defines her worth on being flawless. His money lets her be as perfect as she wants.”
“But what does he get out of it? She’s old and he’s got all these beautiful secret elves.”
“He married her to make her loyal. He let her have his children so they have common bonds. But I think that’s also why he won’t let Tristan stay here; she stops thinking about ‘the family’ as some nebulous whole and starts to think of only Tristan as an individual.”
“Why would it matter?”
“Because what Tristan wants isn’t the same as his father. Not deep down inside.”
Jillian retreated and silence came from overhead for a long time.
They needed to come up with a plan to get them out of this mess. At first Louise didn’t ask Jillian what she thought they should do because Louise had promised Aunt Kitty that they be good. It was becoming obvious that Aunt Kitty wasn’t going to win custody of the twins. A small mountain of belongings arrived from their house without a promised visit. Jillian crumbled into a crying heap within minutes, leaving Louise to deal with the painful treasures.
Some day Louise would want it all; every little fragment of her parents that she could cling to. Each box, though, was filled with almost too much pain for her to bear. Even their toys were unexpected landmines of hurt. She culled out the things they could not live without—all their various printers, the tools they’d adapted to spell casting, and their video production equipment. The rest she stacked into the back of the bedroom’s big walk-in closet. She would deal with it later. Somehow.