Page 25 of A Magic Deep & Drowning

A knock at the door interrupted her brooding thoughts, and then her mother was sweeping in with Nela behind her.

Wordlessly, the three women worked together to dress Clara. The ritual of layering her chemise, stockings, and petticoats did little to calm Clara’s nerves though; instead, she felt like a sacrificial lamb being dressed and groomed for slaughter.

She flinched as her mother lifted the pearl necklace around her neck, but Katrina had not struck her daughter for the past week. Instead, she treated Clara as if she were a ghost, a cold apparition to be avoided.

When Clara was dressed and powdered, Katrina and the maid stepped back, and Clara gazed at the young woman in the looking glass. She was a porcelain doll, stitched up to her chin in heavy brocade and silks, her face pale and serious. Where was the little girl who used to run wild across the estate grounds? Where was the young woman who had roses in her cheeks and stars in her eyes as she had held her lover by the edge of the canal?

“Come,” Katrina said crisply, breaking the spell. “The carriage is waiting.”

With heavy feet that seemed to move of their own accord, Clara descended the stairs, Pim trailing behind her.

Mist shrouded the countryside, broken only by spindly poplar trees and the occasional rook taking flight. Clara satknee-to-knee with her parents as the carriage bumped and jostled its way to the church. It was stuffy and damp inside, their collective breaths fogging the windows. Her mother had been appalled when Clara had tried to bring Pim into the carriage, and so he had been relegated to riding with the coachman, much to both dog and girl’s protests.

“Wretched day for a wedding,” Katrina said, dabbing her running nose with a lace handkerchief. She had the miserable look of a drowned cat. Clara nodded absently as she stared out the small window, water running in rivulets down the glass pane. Somewhere beyond the gatehouse and among the fens lurked moss maidens and water sprites, only waiting for her to set foot outside. What of Maurits though? Where was he?

In a way she was glad that she didn’t know; it made her obligation to marry Hendrik that much clearer. She would have been a fool to carry on with Maurits.

Her mother was going on about the fine weather of her own marriage day, when the carriage lurched to an abrupt halt. There was a shouted exchange—the exact words impossible to hear over the deluge of rain—then the driver was jumping down and coming around to the door. “Bridge is out up ahead,” he said, water sluicing off the wide brim of his hat. “Do you want to turn back, or should we go round the long way?”

“Go through the fens,” her father barked.

The driver hesitated before giving a short nod, and a moment later there was more shouting and the whinnying of horses, and then the carriage was turning around.

The remainder of the journey was slow, with frequent stops required to help the horses navigate the mud. Every time the carriage came to a grinding halt, Clara closed her eyes. “How are we ever going to get back, I wonder?” she murmured.

Her mother shot her a sharp look. “If we must intrude upon Mr. Edema’s hospitality and stay until the rain breaks, then sobe it. In any case, you are not returning with us, so there is little point in worrying.”

Of course. A life outside of the Wierenslot walls had been nothing but a dream for so long that Clara had all but forgotten that she would not be returning. She had a new home now, a new life. Everything she had always wanted.

When they finally arrived at the church, the rain was running down the cobbles like a rushing river, the square empty of any people.

As soon as the carriage slowed, Clara threw herself out the door and took a few staggering steps before being sick right there on the street. Katrina scowled, but did not move to assist her. Helma would have held her skirts back, made sure that Clara was all right. She wished that she could stay outside and let the rain cleanse her right down to her soul. But she rejoined her parents, and they walked up the broad stone steps.

The chill persisted inside the grand doors, but once they passed through the nave, warmth began to creep in. Incense wafted and candelabras heavy with dripping candles guttered, illuminating the painted saints. Everywhere shone with gold, the glittering mosaics stealing the breath right out of Clara’s throat.

Hendrik greeted them with outstretched arms. “I must admit I was anxious that you would not come with all the rain. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” His wig was askew, and his temples were beaded with perspiration, yet there was a lightening in Clara’s chest when she saw him. He was familiar and kind, and in the midst of the strange icons and battering storm, he was a welcome sight.

“My darling,” Hendrik said quietly as he led her deeper into the church. “You look beautiful. How glad my heart is to see you.” He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. It was the first warm human touch she’d felt since she’d seen Helma.

As she was a Protestant and not Catholic, the marriage ceremony took place in the vestibule rather than the nave, a subdued event, with the rain on the colored glass windows and gilded crosses lending it an air of gravitas.

A signature or two, some somber intoning in Latin from a disinterested priest, and then they were man and wife. It was done. She was her own mistress at last. So why did she feel as if she was drowning, the rain outside seeping into her lungs and robbing her of breath? Theodor shook hands with Hendrik, and Katrina deigned to plant a cool kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “May it be a productive and fruitful union,” she told Clara. There was no mention of happiness, nor advice for success. And why would there be? Clara had been bred for being given away, and happiness had never figured into her life before. God wanted his children to be fruitful and multiply, to be meek lambs; there was no room for anything beyond that. Happiness was duty fulfilled.

The small wedding party braved the rain and growing wind to return to Hendrik’s—and now Clara’s—home, where there was to be a celebratory dinner with some of the city’s most important citizens and burghers.

Clara rode with Hendrik, her hand clasped in his as the carriage struggled through the mud. “Mr. Tadema will be there, as well as the mayor of Franeker,” Hendrik told her. “You would do well to learn all their names and those of their wives eventually, but for tonight, you are a bride, and we celebrate you.”

She gave him the ghost of a smile, concentrating on keeping her churning stomach from bubbling over. The carriages eventually pulled onto a long winding drive, which deposited them in front of a grand stone house, larger even than Wierenslot. Hendrik helped Clara down, her slippers immediately sinking into a muddy puddle.

No sooner had she managed to step out of it, then there was a commotion of voices, barking, and the scattering of wet gravel. She looked up to see a blur of white hurtling toward her, and then Pim was in her arms.

Hendrik pressed his lips thin at the sight of the muddy reunion, but didn’t say anything.

“Oh, but I’m glad to see you,” Clara whispered into Pim’s fur as she placed him back on the ground.

“You brought that mongrel with you, I see.”

“Why shouldn’t I have? He was a gift from you, after all.”

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