Page 75 of Jane, Unlimited

“This is not a convenient assembly point,” she says. “Especially on the day before a gala.”

“I’m just leaving,” Jane says, despite not having any intention of ever going anywhere again.

Mrs. Vanders grunts. “Have neither of you located Ravi?”

Right. Jane remembers that once, long ago, in a time before Zorsted, Mrs. Vanders was looking for Ravi, because of something somehow related to a Vermeer painting. It doesn’t matter now, at all. “I saw him,” Jane says. “With fruit and toast. He went up to the third floor to visit someone.”

Mrs. Vanders grunts again. She’s begun to peer at Jane suspiciously. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

Jane remembers she’s got some questions for Mrs. Vanders about Aunt Magnolia. She was shocked to learn that Mrs. Vanders knew Aunt Magnolia. Since then, Jane’s threshold for what qualifies as shocking has risen. Opening her mouth to form some sort of Aunt Magnolia–ish question, Jane discovers that Mrs. Vanders, who’s apparently not a woman blessed with patience, has grunted yet again and marched on down the stairs. “Ivy,” the housekeeper calls sharply over her shoulder, “I expect Cook could use an extra hand or two today, if you’re quite done with your camera.”

Ivy doesn’t move. “Maybe we can talk later,” she says to Jane.

“I’d like that,” Jane says, “very much.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

One of her legs is falling asleep under Jasper’s weight. “Yeah,” she lies, shifting him incrementally.

“It’s good you’ve got the basset for company,” Ivy says. “Jasper’s never been so obsessed with anyone.” She makes a move to stand up.

“Take my hand?” Jane says.

For the merest, surprised second, Ivy hesitates. Then she reaches out and takes Jane’s hand. Her hand is warm, strong. She holds Jane’s tightly.

“Thanks,” Jane says.

“You’re welcome.”

Somewhere in the house, Mrs. Vanders shouts Ivy’s name.

“Sorry,” says Ivy with a sigh.

“It’s okay. Go ahead,” says Jane.

So Ivy lets Jane go and turns away, leaving behind a faint whiff of chlorine. Closing her eyes again, Jane can’t stop seeing that wrong face that looked back at her in the window reflection.

Suddenly Jane is clambering to her feet while Jasper yelps and trips and fights for his footing. He fixes Jane with an indignant expression.

“Sorry!” she says, already on her way up the stairs. “Sorry, Jasper! But I need a mirror.”

* * *

The thing that upset Jane about the face in the Zorsted window reflection wasn’t that it was a terrible, ugly face, because it wasn’t. If someone walked through the door of Tu Reviens wearing that face, Jane would think, Wow, that person has an interesting face. I can’t begin to guess what part of our Earth that person gets her genes from. But she wouldn’t be bothered.

The thing was, Jane could feel herself underneath that unfamiliar face. She had looked out of her own eyes, into those unfamiliar eyes. This is more disturbing than she ever would have anticipated. It’s as if a total stranger broke in and stole her insides.

In her gold-tiled bathroom, Jane stands before the mirror above the sink, Jasper at her feet.

When it comes down to it, there’s little to see: just the old, familiar Jane. I take my face for granted, she thinks, noticing, remembering, that she shares Aunt Magnolia’s cheekbones, her nose. She runs a gentle finger along them. If Aunt Magnolia saw Jane wearing that other face, would she even recognize her? If the people who love you can’t recognize you, are you you?

Jasper follows her into the morning room. The brown-and-gold self-defense umbrella she’s been working on holds no interest for her now. How can she defend herself against herself?

Jasper is quiet beside Jane as she stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by her creations. He seems determined not to desert her today. She wonders if maybe it’s making her claustrophobic. Would it hurt his feelings if she asked him for some time to herself?

“Jasper,” she says, then realizes, when he twists his neck up to look at her with an eager expression, that she doesn’t want him to go. He’s the only one who gets what she’s going through.

Jane makes a frustrated noise. “You recognized me as your person the day I arrived at Tu Reviens, looking like this,” she says. “Right?”

Solemnly, he nods.

“Did you recognize me as your person in the other form too?” Jane asks. “Once we were inside the painting? Did I look . . . right to you?”

Again, he nods.

Jasper, at least, knows who she is.

A bubble of laughter rises into her throat. Once she starts laughing, a growing hysteria propels her to continue laughing, finally so hard that tears stream down her face. Jasper watches her with his front paws held primly together and his head cocked quizzically. She doesn’t speak it aloud for fear of hurting his feelings, and she hopes he can’t read her thoughts: that she will allow her shaky sense of self to be held together by the faith of a dog.

“Except,” Jane says, wiping tears from her face, “you’re not a dog, are you, Jasper? You’re a Zorsteddan strayhound.”

She drops to her knees. Jasper rests his head on her thigh.

“You’re my Zorsteddan strayhound,” Jane says with wonderment, “whatever that means. And I’m your person.”

Jasper sighs happily.

After a few minutes of scratching him behind the ears, Jane rises and begins to search her fabrics for reds and greens that match the umbrella that sits on the floor inside the painting. She wants to work. And this is the only umbrella design she feels capable of focusing on.

* * *

Work helps.

The umbrella inside the painting, Jane recalls, has six ribs, rather than the standard eight, and the ribs are straight, rather than curved. She’s never built an umbrella like that; she’ll have to figure out how. Color is also a challenge. She wishes she could reach for the umbrella in the painting, pull it out, bring it up here, and see how the colors look in this light, but she expects there would be an outcry in the house if someone noticed that the painting had lost its umbrella. They would assume—quite rationally—that it was an art heist; that someone had stolen the original painting and replaced it with a sloppy, unconvincing forgery. People would start poking at the painting and falling through, the FBI would

come, it would be like a real-life version of The X-Files, and Zorsted would be swarming with confused, disoriented, gun-toting invaders.

“Where did the painting come from?” Jane asks Jasper.

He’s lying on the floor. At the question, he lowers his chin to his crossed paws. It doesn’t feel like a yes or a no. Jane gets the sense that this is his way of saying he doesn’t know.

“Does anyone else in the house know it’s possible to enter the painting?”

He shakes his head.

“Why not? How has no one ever discovered it?”

Jasper’s head pops up at this, then he labors to his feet and runs into her bedroom. Jane hears him whimpering. When she pokes her head in after him, he’s at her bedroom door, looking at her over his shoulder and whining.

“You know the answer,” Jane says, “but you can’t tell me unless we’re inside the painting, where you can talk?”

He nods.

“No way,” she says firmly.

Jasper stomps his two front feet, as if he’s kneading bread dough, but madder. With a grim shake of the head, Jane returns to her work, because it’s not happening. After a moment, he rejoins her in the morning room.

“Something else,” Jane says. “You’re from Zorsted, right? You were born there? It’s home? And I was born here?”

He nods. He’s plopped himself on the floor again, this time with his chin propped on one paw.

“How can I be your person if we’re not even from the same side of the painting? How can you be my strayhound if people where I’m from don’t have strayhounds?”

He whines again, looking at the doorway. That question will have to wait.

“Does anyone else in this house know that you understand human speech?” Jane asks.

He shakes his head.

“Does anyone else in Zorsted know it’s possible to step through the hanging into Tu Reviens?”

He pauses, then thumps his tail on the floor once.

“One other person in Zorsted knows?”

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