Another Faust Page 7

  “I’ve never heard of a play performance on December twenty-sixth,” Valentin huffed, arms crossed.

  “I thought it’d be a good distraction from this tiresome season,” said Madame Vileroy.

  “You did this?” said Valentin.

  “Well,” said the governess. “I didn’t not do it.”

  The Marlowe School was a tightly packed, gothic-style masterpiece of architecture, each building more opulent than the next. Behind the main building, past a short tree-lined walk, was an auditorium as lush and spacious as Lincoln Center. Each year, the vaulted ceilings of the theater would dazzle with holiday lights, as the various plays, musicals, and concerts of the Christmas season were performed. The wealthy parents, politicians, and power couples of New York would appear in full regalia, entering the hall with as many paparazzi as at the Oscars. Inside, the intermission hall looked like a masque royale. The mayor’s wife attended, dressed like a parade float. The mayor spent the intermission swooning over Madame Vileroy. The mayor’s girlfriend ran out abruptly when she looked into Vileroy’s branded eye.

  Whenever they got the chance, the Faust children peeked into the various corners of the school, venturing outside the theater and onto the grounds. They had seen it before. They had spent weeks observing their future school, studying their future friends and rivals. Still, it felt newer, more exciting, tonight than it ever had before. Christian ran over to the athletics building and peered in at the pool through the windows. Bicé snuck off to the library and came back with heavy-lidded eyes.

  Valentin spent most of the intermission looking at the plush carpets, glittering chandeliers, and decadent artwork that hung on the walls. This couldn’t be a school. Peering closely at the audience, now mingling in the lobby, he could pick out the faces he had seen at the Wirths’ party — smug faces, sitting atop tuxedos and ball gowns, wrapped in shawls and covered in jewels, as if they thought that their children were indeed opening on Broadway.

  What tools, he thought, and looked over at the governess with a sneer that said, Wanna have a little fun? She just nodded as they approached a nearby group. Valentin’s heart skipped. At times like this, when Vileroy was feeling generous with her attention, he could have all the fun in the world. He could spend what seemed like hours playing and replaying scenes, conversations. He could have her to himself for hours and hours without losing a second. She could teach him what to do and say, how to trap people and when to let them go.

  She was the only one who could accompany him on his trips back and forth. Sometimes the two of them relived a scene fifty times. Sometimes just once. But she was always there. Always willing. Because how else would he learn? How else would he grow into a manipulator of great men, if not for these harmless games, these insignificant party tricks? Everyone has to start somewhere. Every great person needs a great teacher willing to tinker with the small stuff. Thanks to these journeys through time, Valentin might grow up to be a world-famous writer, a powerful politician, a modern-day Caesar. But for now, he needed to get rid of that pesky tic.

  Valentin stood in the background, listening, waiting for the right moment to enter each conversation. Next to him stood the governess, undetected by anyone else, whispering things in his ear.

  “Do it now,” she would say each time one of the Ivy-League dads made a witty comment. Then Valentin would rewind and snatch the comment right from under his nose.

  “Go on,” she would goad as he said and resaid each line until it was perfect.

  He was nervous, which was a change for Valentin, who was usually so confident you’d think he could walk over hot coals without a sweat. Vileroy never responded to his doubtful comments.

  “You know,” Valentin said with a sigh, “a lot of famous writers weren’t that witty in public.” She raised an eyebrow, so he added with a smirk, “You could just tell me what to say.”

  “Yes, I could,” said the ravishing governess with a playful wink that made Valentin catch his breath, “but this is such fun, isn’t it?”

  And it was. In what seemed like fifteen minutes to the other partygoers, Valentin escorted the unsuspecting Charlotte Hill from mildly interested to desperately in love. Even though everyone wanted to talk to the girl who had written this play, she remained arm in arm with Valentin from the moment he looked into her eyes, with just the right expression of awe and melancholy, and told her that her play was “majestic.” Madame Vileroy stood behind them, watching.

  Across the room, Belle had been trying to gather enough courage to approach Thomas Goodman-Brown, whom she had been seducing from a distance for twenty minutes now.

  Belle turned and tilted her head toward him, and he smiled again. She looked away, her mouth going dry. No, she thought, I don’t think I can do this. Thomas said something to his friend. A few minutes later, the two boys were approaching Belle.

  “Hi. I’m Thomas,” he said, extending his hand to Belle. “And this is Connor Wirth. Did you just move here?”

  “Who’s that?” said Connor. He was craning his neck and looking past Belle, at Bicé, who was loitering near a plant and mumbling to herself. Belle made a face. Bicé looked skittish, as if she had done something wrong. She slowly walked over to her sister.

  “I’m Bicé,” she said in a very soft voice.

  Thomas took her hand graciously and smiled. “Are you two together?”

  “We’re sisters,” said Bicé.

  “You look nothing alike,” said Connor.

  “Then I guess you won’t believe that we’re twins,” said Bicé, thinking back to a time when Belle had looked exactly like her.

  “No way,” said Connor, thinking she was joking.

  “And what’s your name?” Thomas turned back to the hot girl he had been eyeing all night.

  “Belle,” she said, her stomach turning, knowing what was coming next.

  For a painful moment, Thomas looked revolted. The air around them seemed to have grown heavy and putrid.

  “What’s that smell?” Connor said before he could help it.

  “What smell?” Thomas said politely, though he himself had gone white and was taking a step away from Belle. It was like lilacs and sulfur, he thought.

  “It’s like something nasty covered with cheap perfume,” said Connor, oblivious that it might have been the beautiful girl in front of him.

  “Oh, is your mom around?” Thomas joked.

  Belle bit her lip.

  “Shut up, Tom,” said Connor, punching him on the arm.

  “I saw you at Connor’s party. Did you just move here?” Thomas spoke with slightly less enthusiasm, a change that made Belle’s stomach tie itself into a million little knots.

  “We arrived last week,” said Belle, adding hopefully, “We’re going to Marlowe.” Despite her own instincts, she kept her answers short and stood a few paces back, afraid of driving him away. It was as if there were a line between them that she couldn’t cross — not yet.

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Connor. “Your mom told my mom about you guys.”

  “You mean Madame Vileroy?” Belle said vaguely.

  “She’s not your mother?” said Connor.

  “She’s our governess,” Belle responded, working hard to seem sexy and confident.

  “Oh,” said Thomas, pretending to rub his eye, but really shielding his nose. What a weird girl. He didn’t know what to say. Part of him was disgusted by Belle — not just the smell but by her words too. She was socially repulsive, slowly tainting the air around her. And her sister did nothing to redeem her. Bicé seemed like a pariah, backing away when he looked at her, inching closer to the corner space between the plant and the wall. Why is she so afraid? She looks normal. Cute, well dressed, nice eyes. Another part of him, though, the part that saw how beautiful Belle was, felt intrigued and wanted to stay. Then Thomas spotted his friend Lucy Spencer practically running toward him.

  “Hey, Luce. What’s up?”

  Lucy, who had been grounded by her mother for a full week for
her supposed taste in unsuitable boys (“Waiters are the help, dear. It’s like falling in love with a blender!” her mother had screamed), was more than happy to promise Mrs. Spencer that tonight she would talk to no boy other than “that adorable young Goodman-Brown.” “Thomas, I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said in her most dramatic voice. Then she spotted Belle and hooked her arm with Thomas’s, while he introduced her. Lucy cast Bicé a cursory smile, and Bicé looked down, ashamed and disappointed.

  “What’s that smell?” said Lucy.

  “Connor, tell them about the sports teams,” said Thomas, changing the subject. The air felt thick. It felt like the time last summer when he’d drunk too much with Lucy and sampled some random pills at a party. It felt cloudy and warm. But still really gross. Belle saw the intoxicated look on his face and moved closer. He backed away. Too soon, she thought. Connor, who loved to talk about sports and had spent way too much time in locker rooms to care about unpleasant smells, jumped right in.

  “Well, let’s see. We have pretty much everything at Marlowe. Are you two into sports? The girls’ field hockey team is short this year. Wait. What about your brothers?”

  “Christian plays a bunch of sports,” said Bicé. “Tennis, swimming, golf —”

  Connor didn’t let her finish. “Thomas and I play golf on the varsity team! Marlowe’s the best. Does he have a handicap?”

  “He’s competitive and moody sometimes,” said Bicé almost to herself, “but I wouldn’t call either of those —”

  “He meant a handicap in golf,” said Lucy. “Where did you say you’re from? Turkmenistan?”

  “They have golf in Turkmenistan,” said Bicé casually.

  “How do you know?”

  “I went . . . once,” said Bicé.

  Bicé was pretty sure she had been there. She remembered traveling to so many places with Madame Vileroy. Maybe she had gone there when she was eight or nine. She wasn’t sure. It must have been around that time, because Belle looked just like her then. Bicé grouped her whole life into two periods: before Belle changed and after — when Bicé had a best friend and when that friend was gone. Within those two chunks of time, she didn’t keep track of days or months. It didn’t matter. Bicé cleared her throat and kept looking at the floor.

  “Whatever,” said Lucy.

  “What kind of music do you listen to?” asked Connor, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Gregorian,” said Bicé lazily.

  “Right.” Connor scratched his head. “I think I heard them play at the Elbow Room last week.”

  A few minutes later, Thomas excused himself, casting only a sideways glance at Belle, who did her best to hide her disappointment. Lucy grabbed his hand. “I’ll go with you,” she said in a most girlfriendly tone. She looked triumphantly at Belle and said, “But let’s go somewhere more private. Something here smells rotten.” Belle seethed, hating Lucy and wanting to pull Thomas away from her.

  As the pair walked away, Bicé immediately relaxed. “Well, sis, I think it’s safe to say that she won’t be inviting us to sit with her at lunch,” she said, popping a miniquiche from a passing tray into her mouth. Belle stood apart from the group. Everyone else had moved away from her. But everyone outside a certain distance was staring at her with jealousy. She pulled herself to her full height and caught a glance of herself in a window. She was beautiful, she reassured herself. But Thomas obviously hadn’t thought so. He’d jumped at the chance to take off. Sometimes it takes more than one try, she thought. Next time.

  Through the backstage area where the teenage actors were rushing to get ready for act 3, out the service entrance, across the outdoor pathway connecting the theater to the main building of Marlowe School, walked Victoria, by herself, brushing her fingers along the lockers lining the walls of the dark hallway. She was bored of them all already, bored of the little kids they called her peers. Victoria couldn’t wait for the semester to start: hour after hour of answering every question, finishing all her quizzes first. It was as easy as hearing her teacher’s thoughts. She couldn’t wait to see all her classmates’ faces. As she walked down the stately hall of the prestigious school, she knew this would be the staging ground for her own unveiling.

  After five years of living in the crimson house, Victoria wasn’t afraid of the dark. Her heels clicked and echoed through the hall and ended in a ghostly ping at the other end, at a point far beyond her line of vision. Not far behind her, moving at the speed of her own steps, followed a cluster of moths. They were tightly packed together, about the size of a fist, and they remained always the same distance behind, above her left shoulder, as if pulled by a string. They made no sound. They were barely visible, their tiny black bodies merely specks against the dark backdrop of the sleeping school. Why were they there? What were they planning to do, hovering behind Victoria? But Victoria did not ask these things, because she, slowly creeping through the darkened halls of her new school, was busy hatching her own plans.

  She had already identified her first move. She would beat out Lucy for the top spot in the class. She would get out of all those stupid class requirements and score a perfect 5.0. Yes, Lucy had said it was impossible, but who was Lucy to tell her what she could or couldn’t do? She was better than Lucy. She had more talents. She was a winner. She didn’t need to take retard classes like the others, so it was only fair that she should get something that was inaccessible to them. She’d sweep the school of every prize, every accolade, everything they had to give. She’d be class president. She’d cheat her way to the top of this ridiculous school, and then she’d be Vileroy’s favorite. From there, it was only a matter of time. She’d go to Harvard. Run for Senate. Maybe even be president of a small country. Vileroy would have to help. After all, wasn’t that just exactly the kind of thing the governess had always wanted for them? Wasn’t that what the other girl from London had asked for and received? Think big, Victoria. Behind her, the swarm of moths silently scattered as she turned and walked back to the theater.

  Belle sat silently in the dark theater next to Madame Vileroy. Occasionally she looked across the aisle at Thomas and his father, both engrossed in the final act of the play. The woman sitting next to Belle pulled her body away, as far from Belle as it would go. Despite the play, Madame Vileroy hadn’t missed a thing. Without turning to Belle, she leaned in and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could control that?”

  Belle’s head snapped around. Madame Vileroy only said things like that when she was making a deal. “What do you mean?” Belle whispered a bit too loudly.

  “Shh,” a long-necked woman behind them hissed.

  Madame Vileroy calmly turned her head to look at the woman. She slowly winked her normal eye, leaving only the branded one, which flashed just slightly. The woman let out a little yelp and cowered back in her seat. Madame Vileroy smiled and turned back to Belle. “I mean, you’re the most beautiful girl in the room. You could have anyone you want — anyone who’ll wait long enough.”

  “But I can’t force them to stay.”

  “I have something that will help you to control the air around you.”

  “I can change it?”

  “No, you can change how people react to it. They can react any way you want them to — stay as long as you want them to.”

  Belle was silent. She didn’t want Madame Vileroy to read on her face how much this was worth to her. But it was too late. She was turning white. Beads of sweat were appearing on her forehead and shoulders, dripping down into her low-cut camisole. Belle could feel her chest growing wet with perspiration. Instinctively, her hand flew to her chest to hide the black mark growing visible over her heart. Madame Vileroy leaned closer, and like a skilled governess, slipped a napkin into her charge’s trembling fist, which Belle held tightly over her heart. Belle dried the sweat and listened with anticipation.

  “How many times have you tried to wash it off?”

  “Three times today.”

  Belle
hung her head. She remembered those hours spent in the shower, watching her own chest turning black as the water penetrated her skin, a reminder of her own true nature.

  “Well, dear, I’m happy to help. But you have to do something for me.”

  “What’s that?” asked Belle, sounding scared.

  The governess reassured her. “Don’t worry, dear, nothing’s as big as what you’ve already given up.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Small things. Nothing any regular girl your age wouldn’t do. See that man over there?” she said, pointing to a distinguished-looking man with a gray beard three rows down. “First, I’d like you to find a way to get him to come for a visit. Do you think you can do that?”

  Belle nodded but raised an eyebrow. This sounded like a rather strange errand. Why couldn’t Vileroy do it herself? But then again, Belle already knew the answer to that. Madame Vileroy liked it when her children were involved in the things she did. It was as if she wanted collaborators — in everything. As if she wanted to implicate them in her crimes, since she herself could never be punished. This was Madame Vileroy’s own weakness, for all her years of expertise.

  “Then I’d like you to take Christian an evening snack.”

  “A snack?” Belle repeated the odd request slowly. “When?”

  “Yes,” Madame Vileroy said casually. “I’ll let you know when.”

  “What should I bring him?”

  Madame Vileroy cocked her head and put a long finger against her cheek, as if she were thinking. Then she said, “Oh, I don’t know — hot dogs? It’s very easy. On hamburger buns . . .”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Some people have weird habits, dear. Just do what I ask.”

  Belle had to admit, the deal was an easy one to take. Much easier than it had at first seemed it would be. Then again, that’s how Madame Vileroy made deals. Dangle something, make it seem impossible to have, then ask for what she wanted, which seemed easy in the face of all the possibilities.