Act like you know nothing. Act inconspicuous. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Deep breaths and blink slowly.
Gloriana wiped back the sheen of sweat that had beaded her forehead as she stepped outside the lavatory, leaning against the wall for support. She rehearsed what Zsuzzana had told her before – she had just had a stomach upset. Something she’d ate. Now she was decent and felt much better.
And Zsuzzana was nowhere to be seen. The little girl had left her, going out through yet another passage, this one leading upstairs – so as to make it look like she’d gone for a lie down in one of the bedrooms and was strolling back into the party. After all, she was a child, and the deceased was her uncle – that was a lot for someone so delicate to handle.
Gloriana knew she was plotting something, and her stomach twisted tighter into knots.
Sighing to herself, she closed her eyes one last time, muttered a ‘lord give me strength’ before pushing off the wall, stumbling a little, and beginning her walk back into the wake. She nearly jumped right out of her skin – the second time within an hour – as a woman with a head full of bronze curls, pale china doll skin and two different colored eyes, hid by bronze goggles, named Ms Searah, thrust a china plate and saucer at Gloriana.
“Have some tea, dear, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She said soothingly, clucking like a mother hen. Which felt strange, considering she was but a year older than Gloriana.
Gloriana knew her as the daughter of one of Helene’s family friends. She remembered, in fact, Searah having a strong like toward Brendon, though he had viewed her as the awkward curly headed girl he’d known as a girl. They had been never more than friends, despite Searah’s fantasies and exaggerations that said otherwise. She had also been one of the ones invited to prepare Brendon’s body, cleaning him, dressing him, laying him in the cloth. She had enjoyed this role, no matter how much she tried to hide it. After all, she was touching Brendon, the man of her dreams. Gloriana, too, had been invited to help, so as to keeps appearances as a close friend of his, but she had simply watched, unwilling to let herself touch because if she did, she would not let go. Instead, before they had covered him, she had simply skimmed her fingertips across his forehead, leant down, pressed a soft kiss, and had whispered ‘I love you. I will always love you.’
And for reasons unknown to her, Searah had also liked Gloriana very much. At gatherings, she’d attach herself to her, and whisper callous yet awe-struck things about Mary. Mary was a feared, hated, yet loved and respected figure in Searah’s eyes. She stabbed her in the back with words, but did whatever Mary asked of her.
Searah’s brows knitted after she’d finished speaking. “Whoops, are you even allowed to say that at a funeral-”
“Where did the tea come from?” Gloriana eyed the cup warily, cutting off the other woman’s ramble.
Searah stopped speaking, her jaw swinging open in puzzlement before she shrugged. “I made it … Why?”
“No reason.” Gloriana snatched the cup from her and drank greedily, not caring that the hot liquid burned her throat, only caring that it sated the dry, scratchy thirst her throat had possessed ever since Mary had poisoned her. She remembered herself just as she drained the cup, and smiled wanly at Searah. “Thank you.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.” Searah waved her thanks away with a lace-net gloved hand.
Gloriana’s stomach did a somersault at the introduction of the liquid, and her tongue had that fuzzy feeling of when it had been burned but the pain wasn’t there. Water she thought. That’s what she needed now. But as she mumbled an apology to Searah, the other woman held her arm out, barring her. And she took a hold of her elbow, and cooed. “I know that you couldn’t help with the body … I mean, Brendon, before.” She said. “I’m sorry. I know you two were really close.”
