Aubrey stood in her bedchamber in Sommerville and studied her mouth in the full-standing mirror.
She definitely had fangs.
She had felt them, sharp points against her gums, over the past three days. Unexpected nicks occasionally drew blood, which she swallowed rather than spit into a basin or cloth. There was no need to puzzle the servants.
The summer before, she’d drunk a bad potion at a Sommerville ball. She knew from whispers and questions that she’d become a cat. But the Academy found her and brought her home. She was better. Everything was back to normal.
That’s what people said—everything is back to normal. That’s what Mother said—incessantly. Except that Aubrey’s coming-out, planned for the fall before, had been quietly removed from the social calendar. But then, most debutantes were lily-white innocents (socially speaking). Aubrey wasn’t anymore, not entirely.
She had been—“away” was how Mother put it, as if Aubrey had been on a tour of the nearest kingdoms. But the Academy had looked after Aubrey during her change—or so Mother’s friends seemed to assume. “The Academy feels responsible,” Richard, her brother, said brusquely when Aubrey asked.
She barely remembered her homecoming. A head of the Academy, Sir James himself, had delivered her to the family’s lodgings in Braesmouth. She had a memory of standing in the cobbled entranceway, wrapped in a brown, mid-length coat. Mother cried. Andrew hugged her. Richard thanked Sir James.
Her memories of the morning after her return were clearer. She’d stood at the lodgings’ upper bay window looking down on Braesmouth’s stone-lined waterfront, the gray crashing waves, and she’d known herself, her surroundings. Her family had stayed in Braesmouth many times before.
She just couldn’t remember the last eight months.
You were bespelled, her family told her. You were rescued; it’s over; let’s move on.
Except she now had fangs. She ran her tongue beneath the tips—slowly, carefully—and let them indent the flesh.
Everyone was sure she’d been cured—“Restored,” as Lady Bradford phrased it.
Lady Bradford had called the day after Aubrey and her family arrived in Sommerville and settled in the maisonette they leased every summer. Entering the apartment’s sitting room, she rushed towards Aubrey with outstretched hands.
“Oh, my dear child. How wonderful to see you restored to your usual lovely self.”
To Mother’s great pleasure, Lady Bradford then issued an invitation to her yearly summer rout.
“We have more invitations this summer than any other!” Mother cried once Lady Bradford departed.
It was true. Lots of people called to congratulate Aubrey on her recovery. They seemed more curious than delighted, but Aubrey accepted their visits with friendly appreciation. As Mother liked to point out, a pleasant nature earned more good than bad.
“Or just less bad,” Richard would say.
Or just more pity? People seemed uneasy around Aubrey, the men—like Sir James—cloyingly avuncular; the women—like Lady Promfret—tediously prying. How do you feel, Miss St. Clair? Fully recovered?
Perhaps not--if the fangs were related to her being “away.” It would not be wise, Aubrey decided, to pretend to be anything but fully recovered.
She urged the fangs to recede, then made her way to the landing of the maisonette. In the hall below, Richard was showing out a compact man in a traveling coat. He closed the door and looked up at Aubrey, momentarily unnerved.
