[Mature] If I Had a Heart

[Tom Cooke]

Woven Delights • The Painted Ladies

Early Evening on the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

Dear sir,

A month ago we discussed a fabric which I did not have in stock at the time. A shipment has arrived today, and I would be glad to receive you at your convenience, if it is still of interest.

Regards,
Ava Weaver

H
is coachman had needed to help him out at the corner of Slake and Thripping Bite, where the streets still smelled a little of fish and soot. He had asked if the incumbent did not wish to be taken to the Ladies at least, respectfully, sir, with the chill in the air. He’d been polite and deferent, his face an unreadable sliver between the shadow of his hat and his thick dark beard.

It wasn’t far; so he told him, waving a hand. It wasn’t far, and he needed to walk and think.

That’d been fifteen minutes ago. He’d walked up Slake, his eyes lingering on the covered phosphor lamps, watching the light grey sky turn marbled and smoky in the early evening.

There were lights on in the windows; talk and music drifted from bars, and sometimes slanting light, and he walked through it, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. He heard the hiss of cab wheels on the slick street once and looked over. He met the dark eyes of a woman, crammed in with a cluster of other shapes; she’d been looking out with a smile on her face, watching the street, and her eyes flicked down at the sight of him.

An hour ago, Douglas’d helped him out of his private coach from Stainthorpe.

His voice was smooth and deep, with only Anatole’s dignified edge of a rasp. The bruises still ached at his throat, but less than they had last week. He’d been half-asleep in the coach and shivering at the door, glad of all the warmth spilling out of his parlor, and of Margaret readying tea for him in his study. Rosmilda had given him the envelope, and he’d cracked it open without even looking at the seal.

Forty-five minutes ago, he’d been sitting in a coach rattling across the Arova and to the Dives. He hadn’t even taken the time to change; underneath Anatole’s long coat, he was still wearing his neatly-cut, expensive suit, his proper pocket-watch with its gold chain, his dark silk necktie. He’d thrown a scarf around his neck to hide the bruises.

He’d sat with the note unfolded in his lap. The soft phosphor light inside the box had been gold; it had glistened in the swirls of dark ink, glistened like lacquer on nails.

Now, he was walking up the street; now, he’d come to it, and he stopped, breathing in deep. Looking at the familiar broad windows, hung with browns and russets and swirling-patterned greys, brocades and printed flowers. There was warm lamplight leaking out around the displays; just out of sight of the door, he studied the open sign.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected; he wasn’t sure, still, what he expected.

One of his hands was in his pockets, his thumb pressing tightly into the folded note. There was a knot in his chest, somewhere the heart might’ve been.

Living my life as if I am being watched, all the time. No longer safe. Waiting, as long as I have to.

When I was still a man, he remembered. He couldn’t remember how he’d said it; all he could remember was its reflection – without inflection – soft and even, like a mirror through which he could not see any of his faces.

He’d sat on his desk thinking about it, thinking and thinking through draughts of brandy as the sky grew dark. He’d thought of her gasp; he’d thought of the way she’d sat, at first, her careful smiles, her careful answers.

He didn’t know why he’d walked; he didn’t know what good it would’ve done. She knew what he was. There was no finding the rhythm again. He’d tried to walk quick and catlike, toe to heel; one of his feet had kept insisting on putting its heel first, and now his back just ached, though it ached less when he pulled it straight and breathed through his diaphragm. He’d tried to find whatever he could of his old voice, but his throat ached, and it was easier to enunciate.

And what would he say, when he went in?

Why?

What news did she have? Why’d she called him? Was it about the Shrike? Was she safe? Was it about the – but he couldn’t think of that; the thought of chalk dust on his fingers churned his stomach, and the knot in his chest tightened. He breathed in deep. The bell jangled as he pushed through, head up, jaw set.

It was warmer inside, and he took off his hat, his hair still combed and coiffed from work. He tucked it under his arm.

He didn’t see her, at first; he saw nothing but the rolls of fabric. He stopped and wiped off on the mat, and found himself strangely dizzied by the sight of his narrow, polished black shoes against the swept floor. When he raised his eyes, he knew better than to linger on any of the fabrics, or to run his hands over the silk or – achingly – the rough tawny wool. He had his note, and he knew what he’d come for.

He got halfway to the counter and then stopped.

“Good evening, miss,” he said, with only the slightest pause. He came closer, deliberate and unhesitating; he fit a pleasant smile to his face, and he didn’t dare look anywhere behind or askance. There was a pit of cold, burning fear in his stomach, growing and growing.

He bowed deeply, and when he rose, he was still smiling pleasantly.

[Ava Weaver]

Early Evening, 33 Vortas, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

G
rais, Ms. Weaver’d said, would you mind the shop for a bit? I’d like to go and bring Mrs. Sharp her order.

Happy to, Ms. Weaver, Grais had said, bright. Ms. Weaver had smiled at her - something pinched at the edges, Grais thought, for all she wouldn’t’ve seen it a month ago, like her mum when she had a headache, and said no, she would go. Grais’d been there too, when Billy came to place his mum’s order and mention she was laid up on account of the new baby coming, and she thought as maybe Ms. Weaver was worried for her. She’d thought Mrs. Sharp had looked ready to pop two weeks back, and this her fourth after two little ones passed, for all that Billy was a strong young lad for his age.

That was all to say - Grais was always glad to watch the shop, and she thought it like as not Ms. Weaver’d just wanted to see for herself that Mrs. Sharp was resting properly. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it, if not for the pinched look. Not even really a look, not properly, but something pinched, all the same.

She worked too hard, Ms. Weaver. Grais thought so and her mum thought so too, for all her mum’d raised the five of them while running her laundry. They all pitched in now, had since Grais - the youngest - was 12 and old enough to do scullery work, and with the income from this job, a real proper job, her mum didn’t have to do any more laundry than she felt like, for all she still took in a bit extra on washing days. Even so, even with all that, when her mum had met Ms. Weaver, she’d told Grais as how she was a good woman, but working too hard.

Alioe rest him, her mum had said, as she always did about Grais’s dad, seeing as he’d died in the factory when Grais wasn’t more than two, but he’d been a good man to her while he was alive, and she’d known something of joy. Joy, Grais’s mum told her, was proper important. There’d always be more work, and more bills too, and more soot, and joy was all as stood between you and the grayness of it.

Grais felt Fern was saying something similar, come to think of it. She wasn’t sure as she was ready yet, though. Poor Mrs. Sharp only twenty three, and this her fourth baby, and Tommy already five. Grais didn’t think she’d be ready for another two, three years yet, and her mum agreed, too, said that she oughtn’t to pick the first man as came along, especially now as she had a good man, a proper income, and a reading writ; she was even learning to do the books proper, for all she’d never seen the like before. Ms. Weaver, Grais felt, had the patience of a saint.

That wasn’t to say as the job was easy. No; it wasn’t easy in the least. Grais didn’t mind the long hours - it beat getting up two hours before dawn to light the fire, and all the rest of it. When she’d come home to her mum sobbing the fourth time her mum’d told her to leave that house, and she’d never been gladder, even if that’d meant working in the laundry a time. It’s all worked out for the best; that was the sort of thing her mum said too, and Grais thought she ought to know, really.

Grais still didn’t like them much, the gollies. She didn’t like the touch of their wooblies; she didn’t like the sorts of things they said to Ms. Weaver, as if she weren’t more of a person than the couch she sat on. Grais was just as happy for most of them to ignore her; they looked past her as if she weren’t there, and she liked it that way.

Most of their customers were human or wick though; Grais’d never minded wick, not like some. Mrs. Awton as lived next door were one, and she and her boy were good neighbors, proper polite in the hall, and brought soup over for them time and again when her mum’d had that cough last winter. Even if their wooblies were a bit strange too, it weren’t the same. Wicks knew you were people; they didn’t think you weren’t, just on account of being human.

So Ms. Weaver’d gone and left her the shop. It was getting late, and Grais’d done the last of the orders as she’d thought needed to be done tonight. She’d thought about starting to tidy up, for all that she didn’t want to close the shop before Ms. Weaver returned. She’d thought about doing the accounts, but she didn’t like to do those without Ms. Weaver nearby, in case she had a question and to check over everything and make sure it was clear and right; the last thing Grais wanted was to make a mistake as would leave Ms. Weaver needing to fix it, and thinking poorly of her.

So Grais set into the next pile of orders, then, proper careful; there was the wool, and though it didn’t need to go out until midday on the four, Grais could cut it on her own, easily enough. She was guiding the shears through the last of the long cut along the straight edge when the door bell rang.

Grais froze. Ms. Weaver’d told her as that was the important thing – to freeze, and not to jump, if you got startled when you were cutting. She froze, and then she eased the blade carefully through the last of it, and set it down and looked up.

And then she froze again.

They had gollies, sometimes, of course. Ladies, mostly, and men too, sometimes, though not so many of them. Not like this one, though; he looked like the sort of golly you heard about from the newsboy: Lord So-and-so of the such-and-such decreed today as taxes would be raised on wool, again, with the government in need of money for new offices. Grais’d been with Ms. Weaver long enough to know the coat was expensive, and the suit beneath it too, all top-shelf stuff as humans only ever looked longingly at, or just bought a piece, just to hold.

He scared her.

Grais came out from around the edge of the counter. She curtsied, deeply, like Ms. Weaver had taught her, and she didn’t go too deep, because Ms. Weaver had told her a shallower curtsy with a lowered head and not the least bit of wobbling was better than a deep curtsy you couldn’t rise from. She bowed her head, too, very solemnly, and she came back up.

Grais was glad she'd worn the russet wool, today, the one with the orange ribbons sewn across the chest to make something like a bodice. It'd been the first dress she'd had made for winter, and Ms. Weaver'd smiled, and called it an excellent choice. Her mum'd told her she looked beautiful. She'd heard Ms. Weaver tell their customers before - tell her, too, Grais thought - that wearing the right clothes helped you do the right things. She felt that, just now; she couldn't've imagined even looking at a golly like this one in the old gray dress she wore at him.

“Good evening, sir,” Grais said, wide-eyed. All she could think was that a man dressed like this might really want to buy a lot of fabric, and the expensive stuff too. All she could think was whether she’d have to get close enough to feel his woobly. All she could think was that Ms. Weaver’d be proper disappointed if she chased him off, for all as she’d tell Grais it was quite all right, it happened that way sometimes, or something like it.

“May I be of assistance, sir?” Grais wasn’t sure about the second sir, either, but she figured too many sirs was better than too few.

All she could think was that she wished Ms. Weaver were there, now.

[Tom Cooke]

Woven Delights • The Painted Ladies

Early Evening on the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

S
he came around the counter and curtsied; it was a deep curtsy, for all it wasn’t as deep as hers, and achingly familiar. So was the make of the dress, with its orange ribbons and its neat-cut, reddish brown wool, and the pointed tip of the skirt – though the dress itself suited this lass more than it would’ve suited her, he thought.

He’d been looking without looking, before then; he’d felt like a mouse before the trap clapped shut. Underneath his stick-straight posture and smooth smile, every muscle of him was clenched. He didn’t relax much, for all he kept breathing in and out, deep and easy.

The sign outside of the shop still said Woven Delights. The message had come earlier that afternoon, he was sure – it was dated, and it’d said today – and the handwriting was unmistakably Ava Weaver’s, for all he knew it was possible to feign such things. He thought he felt her in the curtsey and the dress and the choice of fabric on display, the way the swirling greys’d been arranged beside the deep browns, the way you could just catch a whiff of the Rose in all the fall colors, the way the streets changed like the leaves.

But if she still thought, his mind went on. It could go no further.

Why invite him here, then? He knew she’d the resources to take care of it quick and quiet, especially if she thought there was any chance he wasn’t – himself.

And that was it, he supposed. Prickling at his back he felt all the shadows in the aisles and behind hanging displays and all the nooks he knew this place hid. No safer here, he reckoned, than by the door, than out the door, than in the coach home. And if that was what she thought, anyway, he wasn’t sure he much wanted to go home.

He realized he’d let the smile drop off his face and settle into a deep frown. She was looking at him, expectant; she’d asked something. He blinked and cleared his throat, and couldn’t quite muster up the smile again.

“Yes,” he said slowly, carefully, “please, miss.” He hesitated, then took a small step closer. The click of his shoes sounded deafening to his ears.

The woman – the lass, he corrected himself, glancing over her curiously. Couldn’t’ve been much older than nineteen, if that. Tall and lanky-limbed and straw-haired, with a long, thin face. He couldn’t’ve read her, except that her eyes were fair wide on him, more like she hadn’t been expecting him than that she had.

Good evening, sir. May I be of assistance, sir?

He relaxed a little more. “Ms. Weaver sent word today about a fabric we discussed recently,” he said. “It was out of stock at the time, and I believe it has just arrived.”

It would do no good to play at anything but what he looked like, so he talked like it, too. He wasn’t quite in field range; a few steps, he knew, and he would be, and he ought to have stood at the counter, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

He didn’t know a godsdamn thing about the fabric, ‘course. I’m afraid I don’t know what it is, he imagined saying. Actually, I asked her to surprise me.

Fuck.

He thought, sucking a tooth. “Forgive me,” he said, “my name is Anatole Vauquelin.” An order of fabric was never just pretense with Ava; there was a fabric, or he was still a flooding natt. The order was bound to be in his name, at least. “A pleasure – miss…?” He tried what he thought was a warm smile.

[Ava Weaver]

Early Evening, 33 Vortas, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

T
he golly was already frowning at her, and Grais felt a worried prickle over the back of her neck. The second sir had been too much, she was near certain of it. He’d go now, she thought, and she couldn’t find it in her to be as sorry as she ought to be. For a moment she thought about not telling Ms. Weaver he’d come at all – just a quick night miss when she came back and off – but that seemed terrible, somehow, even worse than lying.

He didn’t come all the way up to the counter, either, like customers usually did. The please caught Grais off guard, and she watched him come a step closer, still wide-eyed. She eased behind the counter once more, not just as because she felt more professional behind it – just like Ms. Weaver, she told herself – but also because even though everyone knew distance didn’t much matter with a golly, it mattered a lot with a man.

“Uh,” Grais said, inelegantly, when he asked her name. They did that with Ms. Weaver, didn’t they? Asked her name? “Grais Carre, Mr. Vauquelin, sir,” Grais wasn’t sure whether she ought to go with Mr or sir – or if there was some other title she ought to’ve known, but she hadn’t run him off with two sirs, earlier, in the end, so she thought as a third likely wouldn’t hurt either. Ought she to have only said Grais, or Carre? She tried to imagine a man like this calling her Ms. Carre – the way somebody’s call her mum – and she didn’t much like it.

Ms. Weaver’d offered to, course, but Grais had said no, and as she liked Grais better – seeing as it were her name and all, proper. Ms. Addie who’d taught her to write in her big noisy kitchen’d showed her how during her first lesson, and she’d written it out with shaky letters – G r a c e. But she’d taken it home, folded up and tucked into the front of her dress, hidden, cause as Reggie told her, it wouldn’t do to let the collies know as they were learning, and her mum’d told her no, that weren’t right; her dad’d picked the name out special for her, and the spelling too – G r a i s. She’d showed Grais how to write it, not with a pen or anything, but with their fingers damp with water on the table, and Grais had traced it out, herself, until she was sure she knew the shape of it.

Grais didn’t usually think about such things, not least while there was a customer about. She was sure he'd think her Grace - everyone did - and something about the truth of it made it a little easier to stay upright. Ms. Weaver knew, of course, as she'd arranged Grais's writ, and Grais had been proper pleased to spell it aloud for her.

“There was a new shipment came this morning, sir,” Grais said, politely. Her gaze flicked, hopefully, to the door, as if Ms. Weaver might come through at any moment – and she might, Grais thought, because Grais had cut quite a few fabrics since she left, and the light had gone clear to night, and surely that’d been enough time to visit Mrs. Sharp and get nearly back.

She didn’t quite know what to make of it; she couldn’t imagine any human, even Ms. Weaver, as pretty as she was, discussing fabrics with a golly like this one. He seemed like the type of man to have the sort of valet as had a servant himself, and it should be as the valet’s servant was the one to do this sort of thing, not the golly himself.

But he was smiling again, as if he looked happy to be there.

There’d been quite a few fabrics in the order that morning. Grais looked helplessly over at the silk shelf, where Ms. Weaver’d put out some of the best ones, and then back at the golly. He was all browns and blacks and grays, dark silks, and they’d gotten mostly vibrant stuff, today; Ms. Weaver said there’d come a time in the midst of winter, before the solstice, when people needed a reminder of bright color, and that it’d sell almost as well as it did in the summer.

“Ms. Weaver just stepped out, sir,” four was too many sirs, but Grais couldn’t quite seem to stop, and she didn’t want to say Mr. Vauquelin any more times than she had to; it sounded different in her voice than his, but she couldn’t quite manage it properly, “but I expect she'll be back soon. I could show you some of the silks we got in today, if you like? I’m not sure which one she set aside, I’m very sorry, sir. Or,” Grais went on through the fifth sir; there was the faintest edge to her voice, a little desperate, but she didn’t know what to do about it, “you could wait in the back room for her? If you like? Sir,” she added, again, swallowing hard. Six, now, Grais thought, and it was an effort not to wince.

[Tom Cooke]

Woven Delights • The Painted Ladies

Early Evening on the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

G
race Carre. No – Grace Carre, Mr. Vauquelin, sir, long with her Dives accent. It almost peeled the smile off his face; it didn’t, not quite. She’d moved back round the counter, the point of her skirt hidden behind the smooth wood, and he thought she might’ve looked more comfortable there.

“A pleasure, then, Ms. Carre,” he said, inclining his head and shoulders a little again.

No order, then, and no less confused. Either of them, he thought wryly, and held onto that.

He didn’t move an inch closer; even with the counter between them, he didn’t much like the thought. He supposed it was her qalqa to work with his kind often enough, and so it shouldn’t’ve given her trouble, the brush of his field or the closeness of him. Something about it still made all the hairs on his arms prickle. He didn’t know, he told himself – he didn’t know a drop of what was behind those wide eyes that looked down at him.

He watched them – close. A little too close, maybe. Close the way he knew he shouldn’t’ve, with all the things he didn’t know; close the way that might’ve troubled their folk, if indeed this Carre was one of them. He managed not to reach up and touch his scarf, even though he could feel the ache of the bruises in the tightening of the muscles at his throat.

She called me, he wanted to say suddenly. He wanted to split this silence down the middle with it. She called me, this time; she wouldn’t’ve called me if she didn’t trust me, if she didn’t know me. If she didn’t used to know me, if she didn’t have the hope of knowing me again.

Carre’s eyes flicked to the door. It was everything he could do not to turn, but he didn’t even look over his shoulder. His back ached from the straightness of it, only he didn’t know any other way to hold himself, now, and there was nothing but to keep his chin up.

Instead, he found himself smiling still. A shipment that morning, sir. Three sirs, he thought. The thought made his smile tilt wry; he wasn’t sure when he’d started keeping count.

He waited through the pause. He didn’t dare open his mouth, because she could’ve spoken at any moment, and he didn’t think she’d interrupt a man who looked like him. He clung onto it, and he didn’t move any closer or any further back, and he didn’t even think, because there was no point to the thinking, not here, not now.

Four sirs. He’d brightened at be back soon, and brightened again at her suggestion. He almost raised a hand to wave off the apology, almost stepped forward – there was a funny note at the edge of her voice, when she went on – five sirs, then, and he wasn’t smiling anymore, his brow knit, his lip twitching.

Is she all right? he wanted to cut across Carre. You said she’ll be back; is she all right? If you like, sir, Carre ended, her voice almost breaking over it. He looked up at her across the ream of thick soft wool on the counter, the shears lying just by, watching the muscles in her throat jump as she swallowed hard.

He thought he smiled some kind of smile; he wasn’t sure what it was. “Well,” he started, slow, “you know, being honest –”

He found a wider smile in him, somewhere; he held onto it, and what unexpected warmth he had with it. It was nestled somewhere west of all the worry and east of be back soon. It was the sort of warmth that pinched him with a horrible sadness.

“Ms. Weaver and I went over a number of fabrics, and I’m afraid I can’t recall which she’s referring to. I suppose we’re in the same boat, Ms. Carre; I’m very sorry.” He laughed, scratching his jaw. “I’m happy to wait, if I won’t be too much of a distraction.”

[Ava Weaver]

Early Evening, 33 Vortas, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

H
e had done it; he had called her Ms. Carre and Grais felt quite firmly that the only thing worse than it would be to correct him; no, sir, just Grais, sir. She couldn’t begin to imagine voicing such words; there was such a horror in her at the very thought of them.

He had the sort of fancy golly manners that left you right confused about what was really meant by them. It wasn’t like Ms. Weaver; she said such things, but she always really meant them. You could just tell she really meant them. Gollies normally said them to other gollies, and that was strange enough, and in their funny clipped Uptown accents always seemed to Grais like poking fun. She wasn’t sure how it was to have such a thing said to her, except that she would’ve bet a tally it wasn’t a pleasure for this golly to meet her, and if it were, it wasn’t in any way she wanted to think about.

He was standing a bit far away, which Grais didn’t much mind, and he was sort of staring at her, which she didn’t much like. Everyone said as there were Seventen who could do all sorts of magic if they looked into your eyes, read your mind and the like. She was worried, suddenly, as he might be the same sort of golly - they came in types, everyone knew that - except that she couldn’t imagine why he’d want to read her mind.

“Oh!” Grais said, relieved that he’d accepted. She didn’t know as Ms. Weaver’d be happy with a golly like this one in the back room alone, but she couldn’t imagine going and waiting in there with him - she wasn’t even sure as she’d be able to work out here with him there, he was that much - but at least he wasn’t leaving, and if he’d come for one of the expensive fabrics, she was sure Ms. Weaver would want him to wait.

“Yes, sir,” Grais said. “I mean - no sir, you’d be very welcome to wait, sir. There were a lot of excellent fabrics in the order, and I’m sure Ms. Weaver’ll know just what you’d like, sir.”

The back room was as neat as ever. Grais opened the door for him and put the light on and drew back out of the way, and he went in. She went back behind the desk and stared uncertainly down at it, her heart fairly pounding in her chest. She folded the wool she’d cut, at least, and then she swept up the bits of it, as that at least didn’t need any thinking - if Ms. Weaver found out such a golly’d come along with bits of wool all over the floor! And never mind as they were behind the desk and he couldn’t see it; having a clean shop was proper important, like having a clean house, even if nobody but you saw it.

After all of that was done her hands were shaking, really shaking, and she tucked them up in a sort of ball and squeezed, thinking maybe it would help.

The doorbell rang and Grais’s head jerked up and she thought she might cry if it was another customer.

“Ms. Weaver!” Grais half-gasped.

Ms. Weaver smiled at her, and there wasn’t so much of that pinch, anymore, on her face. “Mrs. Sharp sends her regards, Grais. She says - what’s wrong?” She went still, then, in the doorway.

“Nothing wrong, Ms. Weaver,” Grais said, hurriedly, glancing back over her shoulder and then back at Ms. Weaver, and she really thought she might cry, she was that glad of her. “Only a - a gentleman came to see you while you were out, and I’m very sorry but I wasn’t sure which fabric you had sent to him about.”

Ms. Weaver’s eyes went past her to the doorway. She dropped a deep, deep curtsy, the sort that made Grais unsure how she managed it, and rose back up, a pleasant, welcoming smile on her face. “Incumbent Vauquelin,” Ms. Weaver said. “Welcome.”

Incumbent! Grais thought. She was cold and tingling all over. That made everything much, much worse. She thought of telling anyone - even her mum - and she couldn’t imagine it. Even Ms. Weaver talking to an incumbent in her shop seemed strange, for all that everyone knew she went Uptown to bring fabric to some of them very fancy golly ladies. But he’d come all this way to talk about some fabric as he didn’t even remember.

If she told Fern, Grais thought, he would think as she was getting full of herself, although she thought maybe he already felt so. Her mum said that was his problem, and she ought to find herself a man who weren’t so small-minded. Thinking of telling him, Grais thought as maybe she was right.

She glanced over her shoulder again, just a little, at the Incumbent in his expensive suit, with all his red hair laced with gray, and she was just grateful he had stayed, even though surely her manners hadn’t warranted it.

[Tom Cooke]

Woven Delights • The Painted Ladies

Early Evening on the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

W
hen Carre left him, he sat himself lightly on one of the couches. He didn’t take off his coat; he didn’t unwind his scarf, for all he knew the bruises had turned soft and yellowing brown. He looked down at his hands folded in his lap, the shapes of them hidden underneath black leather gloves. He didn’t look up until Carre left the doorway.

When he did, it was only for a few moments. A draught whispered through a hanging sheaf of cotton; the printed flowers shook almost as if they were shivering in the breeze. The lamplight shimmered on a ripple of silk.

A few familiar cushions were arranged on the mustard yellow couch opposite, around an empty space.

He realized he’d not taken his shoes off in the doorway; he always had, some detached part of his mind helpfully told him, taken off his shoes. He looked there now, but all he could see was half the counter and part of a shelf lined with jewel-colored silk like the spines of particularly colorful books. At the edge of the doorway he saw the edge of Grace Carre’s shoulder, just a shadow, gone when she shifted out of sight. He listened close, but he didn’t think he heard the sound of wool being cut.

He wasn’t sure how long it’d been, when the doorbell rang. He jumped to his feet almost as if stung; he hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for it. And he heard –

He stayed very quiet, very still, listening. There was no pulling at the string, now; he needed the knot, he told himself. He needed the knot right where it was in his chest, and no pulling or working at it.

His gloved fingertips left the arm of the chair. He found his balance and moved slowly to the doorway. He looked past Carre, past the counter with its spread of wool, past a shelf of soft airy cotton samples. Across the shop, he watched her dip low in a curtsey, the pointed tip of her dress not quite brushing the floor, no shake to her ankles, the whole graceful line of her steady as if made of smoke.

Incumbent Vauquelin, she said. Welcome.

Carre glanced back at him; his eyes broke away from hers and met Carre’s, and he found he’d been smiling his bland, pleasant smile the whole time, the one she had taught him.

He looked back at her and moved out of the back room. He kept himself carefully out of range, always four steps away from Carre. He couldn’t remember if he had let his field brush her when she guided him back – his head had been a whirl – but he didn’t now, not with her dark eyes on him.

He moved just past the edge of the counter and then stopped. He bowed deeply. “Good evening, Ms. Weaver,” he said when he rose, standing very straight and clasping both his hands in the small of his back.

He smiled.

“I was very pleased to hear that the silks had come in,” he went on, glancing again at Ms. Carre, though not long enough to force her to meet his eye; that seemed, he thought sourly, cruel. It seemed best – it seemed the most Incumbent thing to do – to pretend as if she weren’t there.

It wasn’t so hard, not with all the questions that threatened to bubble up in his mind, just at the edge of the glass. With everything else. No room for thank you, not with Carre watching. No room for please. No room for any of it.

No pulling at the knot.

He fit this frame, squeezed himself in painfully; he stretched himself into every inch of it, until there was no room for anything else, no room for anyone else inside him.

He cleared his throat into his fist, lifting his chin. “I believe we discussed several silks, Ms. Weaver,” he said. “I should like to go over them again, to jog my memory.” His lip twitched.

[Ava Weaver]

Early Evening, 33 Vortas, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

Grais watched, wide-eyed, as the incumbent – the incumbent! – bowed to Ms. Weaver just as he’d bowed to her. He’d bowed to her, Grais realized, a moment later. She didn’t as want to think back on their conversation, now even less than she had before, and she was very grateful to be behind the counter, especially when he moved to the side and a bit forward, so it was mostly between them once more.

She had felt his woobly, when she was taking him to the back room; fair strange it was, tingling all over you, though it wasn’t like some of them as crushed all the air out of the room around them. She didn’t know how they breathed, surrounded by them; at least a wick’s had a sort of friendly feel. It was just one of those golly voo things, Grais figured, breathing in the midst of such a field. She didn’t know how Ms. Weaver stood it, when she was assisting one of them; it always left Grais breathless. She knew as Ms. Weaver couldn’t like it – couldn’t none of them like it – but she never gave out any sign of it. That was one of those human things, Grais supposed.

“Of course,” Ms. Weaver was saying, smiling pleasantly at the Incumbent. She looked very polite, the same as she did for all the fancy gollies that came in, and not scared of anything. “I recall you were particularly partial to the red silk, sir, but there are several which I had thought might be suitable.”

Grais relaxed a little; Ms. Weaver seemed to know what she was about, anyway. Grais hadn’t ever really thought as she wouldn’t, but it was a relief, all the same.

“I’ll bring the fabrics back for you,” Ms. Weaver was promising.

Grais watched, wide-eyed, as the Incumbent disappeared into the backroom.

Ms. Weaver went over to the shelf of the best silk, and began to take one of the rolls down, a deep, rich crimson.

Grais hurried over. “Do you need any others, Ms. Weaver?” she asked. She swallowed; she didn’t know as Ms. Weaver would want to be alone with this sort of golly in the back room, and it dark outside. Being dark outside made everything more ominous; Grais’d always felt that way, whether it was lighting a stove a couple hours before dawn or walking home down a street you wouldn’t’ve thought twice about in the day.

“The light red from this morning's shipment, Grais, please, and the seafoam green,” Ms. Weaver smiled at her. If she were shaken by him, she wasn’t letting it show.

Grais nodded. She didn’t much see as the colors had much in common, but Ms. Weaver always seemed to know what people were thinking before they did; she supposed it might be the same even with gollies. She got the seafoam down, seeing as it was higher up, and then the light red, and stacked them on the counter.

“Do you want me to stay and help, Ms. Weaver?” Grais asked. Fetching the silks felt like it’d helped her a bit; they felt the same as they always did, even with an incumbent in the back room. And, Grais thought, suddenly passionate, they were good silks; they were good enough for any incumbent.

“No, thank you,” Ms. Weaver was still smiling at her, standing at the edge of the counter – making the Incumbent wait, Grais thought uneasily, for her. “Isn’t it your brother’s birthday dinner tonight, Grais? I wouldn’t want to make you late. I sold the Incumbent’s wife some fabric last Loshis, and he’s bought a few different fabrics since; I’m very sure I have a sense of what he’ll like.”

They were both of them speaking quietly, but Grais didn’t know as the Incumbent couldn’t hear them. She glanced sideways at the door, and she looked back at Ms. Weaver, and she wanted to say all sorts of things – be careful, mostly – only she didn’t know how, quite, with him listening. She smiled, instead, and she nodded. “All right, Ms. Weaver. Thanks. I did the rest of the orders, and the wool for Mr. Curtis.” She was dawdling, Grais thought; she didn’t want to have to explain to mum and all the rest why she was late for Archie’s birthday.

Ms. Weaver smiled. “Wonderful, Grais, thank you. I'll see you in the morning.”

Grais slipped her coat on and went to the door; she glanced back from it, once, to see Ms. Weaver taking the three rolls of fabrics in her hands, and turning towards the back room. She watched Ms. Weaver take one deep breath, and draw her spine all straight, and she relaxed a little, as she figured that meant Ms. Weaver was scared, too; it was important to be scared around gollies, Grais felt. It kept you from ever thinking they were like you.

Grais made her way down the street, then, away from the beautiful display of fabrics in the window, thinking already of the gift waiting at home. She’d got him a good wool – not the fine smooth stuff as gollies wore, but thick and serviceable and with a cast to the dye what was handsome, even if they’d gotten it because it didn’t come out as intended. It was better than anything what he had, anyway, and she and her mum had worked nights to make it into a proper sweater. She did her best not to think about Ms. Weaver anymore, cooped up with the Incumbent and his field; Ms. Weaver knew how to handle herself, Grais knew, and she didn’t need Grais fussing over her.

All the same, Grais thought, she didn't much like it.

[Tom Cooke]

Woven Delights • The Painted Ladies

Early Evening on the 33rd of Vortas, 2719

H
e was sitting very still in the back room again.

His gloved hands were folded in his lap; he was sitting straight-backed, legs slightly apart, jaw set, and he was looking at the empty yellow couch with no particular expression on his face. The red silk, he thought dumbly. The words didn’t conjure up an image. He tried to remember why; he thought – she’d never opened up the case, that day, in his study. She’d not been there long enough.

He heard Carre’s hushed, muffled question. Her voice was just loud enough, for all its softness, to carry. His breath caught and a tremor ran along one side of his face, making the nerves around his left eye jump.

No pulling at the knot.

It would’ve been cruel, if the Carre lass came back with her and the silks, this time. He was prepared for it nonetheless. Maybe it was a test. What sort of test? To see if it broke him, or to see if it mattered to him at all?

The fold of his hands in his lap tightened. He loosened them, then shifted his posture; he didn’t sit with his hands folded, or his legs crossed. I do this because it matters to me, he said, lifting his chin, breathing in deep through his diaphragm. That’s the choice I’m making. That’s the answer I’ll pick, and you know it already.

He didn’t think any more. Every bit of him lived in the straight line of his spine and the set of his face.

Her voice wound on, and then Carre’s, and he held. She bid Carre goodbye, and he held. He held in the silence that followed, ‘til he heard the soft jangle of the bell and the muffled sound of the door shutting.

The straight line of his mouth wobbled.

His expression didn’t change at first, when she came in. He couldn’t seem to find where it’d gone, even at the sight of the roll of Mahogany-green silk in her arm, offset by the deep crimson and the paler red.

At least, he thought he hadn’t – he didn’t feel anything, anything at all – only he looked up and met her eye, and fit a thin, pleasant smile on his face, and he felt something in him crack horribly, and the smile stretched and tore.

“Hello,” he said softly. He didn’t think the voice sounded any different from the one he’d used to say good evening; he wasn’t sure why he’d wanted to say it again, anyway. He realized belatedly that he’d not taken off his shoes, this time, either.

He was glad of it, at least, that Carre’d gone to spend the evening with her fami. He told himself it wasn’t just for him he hadn’t wanted her to come back, that he was thinking of the poor lass and her hands pressed tight together and all her sirs. He could’ve borne it just fine, he told himself; he just hadn’t wanted to give her any more grief.

He started to get up, half– offered to take one of the rolls off her hands; he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t want to get close enough – he knew how close it would be – and he settled back down, though he still sat on the edge of his seat. He took off one glove, then the other, and put them in the pocket of his coat; he smoothed the dark wool hems over his knees, and he opened his mouth and then shut it.

Finally, he wasn’t smiling at all; he was watching her, and the knot in his chest was so tight he didn’t think he could work it undone, not with these hands.

He swallowed; there was a knot living in his throat, too. Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, said the parrot. S’benny out there; real fine. Macha silk, though ye chen I ain’t the kind of man who knows nothin’ about silk. S’like sittin’ out on the wharf, lookin’ out over the mahogany, chirped the mimic, ruffling its bright feathers, squawking and beating its wings bloody.

“Thank you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure if it was for the silk or for the sending or for something else, or for everything else. He waited, holding onto his questions, holding onto everything. She had called him, and he had done enough sticking his expensive-shoed feet in his mouth, he thought, the last time.

[Ava Weaver]

Early Evening, 33 Vortas, 2719
Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies

O
nce, a long time ago, Ava had come willingly into the boundary of his porven. She had wanted to show him she could bear it, and she had always known how little words were worth, and how much actions.

Ava laid the silks on the table, and smoothed the soft fabrics with one hand, the seagreen on top. He had started to rise, and then he had sat once more, taking off his gloves slowly and smoothly, his back straight, his jaw squared. There had been something like a smile on his face, and it had flickered and gone, and Ava wasn’t sure, quite, what it had left behind.

Ava had not thought, the last month; she had not thought, steadily and determinedly, and she had not thought the name Tom, nor the name Risha. She had not thought about all the secrets she held close to her heart, because she had not known which might be seen through her. She had emptied her mind of those thoughts, again and again, drained them out of herself as if she were a sieve, and they were running water, until she had half-convinced herself she could not hold them.

Drained, Ava thought, was very much how she felt right now. A lemon wedge, she thought, squeezed and left curled up on its side on the edge of the tea tray.

He had sat where he always did; Ava’s feet took her halfway to the other couch, by routine, as if it were all the same. He thanked her back, quietly, and she stopped.

Her cheeks were still brushed with cold; her fingers, too, for all that she had worn gloves outside, and taken them off only just before she’d come back in through the door of the shop. Her head had been full of Mrs. Sharp, then, her good humor and the hand she’d kept resting on her stomach nearly the whole time Ava had been there. The baby would need a good, warm dress for winter, Ava had agreed, and they had neither of them talked about that which did not need to be said.

Ava turned back to look at him. She was still wearing the umber wool dress she’d worn earlier, the color warmed through, darker and more vivid than russet all at once, pleated at the waist and delicately embroidered to make a mock bodice, soft scoop neck and pointed hems. Not slippers, anymore, but boots suitable for walking outside in the damp. She had refreshed her make up, before she went, her lips painted pale pink and her eyes lined in kohl, both sides perfectly even; the walk and the visit didn’t disarrange her.

Ava breathed in, slowly and evenly, and out once more. Something crumbled, too, on her face, the smiling mask she’d worn the last hours dropping away to nothing. I didn’t expect you to come so urgently, she wanted to say, and it felt unbearably cruel. She understood; to pretend otherwise was to strike at him, when she had called him here because that was the last thing she wanted.

Once, a long time ago, she had wanted him to know she could bear the strangeness of him. She still did; she still could, for all that he was stranger than she’d ever dreamed. Ava came close, and closer still. She didn’t flinch, this time, at the brush of his clairvoyant field, much softer than the one which had come before it, and softer, too, than the one that had come before that.

She sat down, next to him, the line of her back drawn straight, not a single wrinkle in the fabric of her skirts. Ava’s hands settled over his, both of them covering them, as she had not quite so long ago in the midst of the Pendulum club.

“I’m sorry,” Ava said, quietly, meeting his gaze unflinchingly, “that it took me so long.” She didn’t name him; it wasn’t as it had once been, when Mr. Cooke – when Tom – had been something she could offer him. It didn’t feel right, here; she didn’t want to drag him back to Tom, when he’d shown her time and time again, all summer, that he was trying to become something more. Her breath shuddered out, slow and a little uneven, and a slow smile spread across her face, and creased all around her eyes.