Page 6 of Prince of Masks
I let her do all the work.
And it is soothing. The lathering along my shoulders, the fingers massaging my scalp, the rough scrub of a brush raking down my back, grating off a layer of my skin—I need this.
At Bluestone, I’m on my own. No help, no support, no one there for me. Here, at home, I have a team.
Maybe it’sthatI really miss.
Here, I feel safe.
And, after a long while of this, the work of Abigail, I feel clean.
Relaxation has kneaded through my whole body to the point that my shoulders are sagged when the water turns off. The faint click of a switch comes before a gradual mist starts to billow out of the vents around me. Steam. Really opens the pores. And once the steam is thick around me, a threat to choke me, I feel the cool touch of menthol on my shoulders.
Abigail starts to rub in the balm.
I shut my eyes and, swaying on the spot, try not to fall asleep.
She buffs it over my flesh, like I am silver and it’s polishing day. No manure contaminated my feet, not through the boots and socks, but that doesn’t stop her. She oils them thoroughly with the balm; no manure got on my thighs, but she massages it in all the same.
It takes a while.
By the time she’s working the balm between my fingers, my forehead is pressed flat against the tiles, and it’s taking all my might to stay upright.
I drift off, even if only for a moment, because when Abigail wraps a cotton robe around me and mumbles something aboutimps retrieving my belongings from school, my lashes flutter as though stirred from a deep sleep.
I push my dead-weight arms through the sleeves, then—ignoring the slippers she set out for me—drag myself to the bedroom.
Mrs Younge is gone, back to her much higher duties than tending to my meal deliveries. But on the foot of the canopied bed, sits the tray, silver and gleaming.
I don’t know what’s in the tureen or under the cloche-lid. I don’t find out, either.
I snub the tray just as I snubbed my slippers and as I now snub Abigail hovering behind me.
I climb under the covers.
The bed is so large that my toes under the blankets don’t even graze the weight of the tray.
Abigail knows me. She’s been my dresser for years, since I was just fourteen. Without a word, without any direction from me, she shuffles across the room to the long windows and shuts the curtains. Then she builds the fire to battle the cold of England’s autumn air.
The fire in the hearth licks over a fresh log, the heat not yet strong enough to fill the suite. The feathery quilt, on the other hand, warms me just fine. I’m toasty by the time Abigail takes the untouched tray and leaves.
I sleep.
That’s all I do for the rest of the day and the night that follows—and then some more.
I just sleep.
2
Of all the troubles I suffer at Bluestone, of all the escape attempts I’ve made, I have only been brought home during the term once before.
Years ago, Father pushed me to sign up for at least one extracurricular. I chose skiing. I’m practiced enough, even if I loathe it, every minute of it; but it isn’t an extracurricular that comes with more schoolwork, and so it is what I chose.
I lasted one day.
Mildred Green knocked me over on the slopes, swiped her snowboard right into my boots. She took my legs out from under me, and when I landed, and the ski strapped to my right boot slipped out from under me at an angle, and I got all tangled up—my ankle snapped.
Literally, snapped.
