The House of Beardsley

Chapter Thirty-seven

It was midway in April, and the weather was more pleasant than ever. Me and Eugene often talked in the pet room with the windows open and smelled the outside air recently. He would even draw me, and I was surprised at the likeness of my image on paper.

"You look beautiful," he said, looking at the paper where my face was, eyes almond-shaped, nose two faint strokes, lips lightly shaded, and hair pulled back, a few strands brushing my face. I laughed.

"You made me much more beautiful."

"No, I didn't," he argued. "I pride myself on drawing everything as I see it." Then he smiled.

Sometimes at night I would go outside to talk, with Rudy, or Clo, or Beth, but never as a group. We never hung out together again, all four of us.

From the moment Beth's identity got revealed, we could no longer pretend to be what we were before: four poor girls who just happened to be hired at the house of Beardsley by chance.

I tried to act like I always did, and so did Clo, but Rhiannon retreated back into her shell and Beth was like an entirely new person, blunt and distant.

So when Beth suddenly called for us to have a meeting, even I was surprised.

All of us had finished bathing and were in our nightwear, me in the gown Beth gave me, which felt like silk to the skin and spun around gracefully when I swirled, unlike the old nightgown I had that hung down like a potato sack.

"I want to talk to all of you," Beth said, "about something quite serious."

I was sitting in my bed at that point, and had just released my hair from their braids and was starting to comb them out. Her voice was different from her usual tone and her eyes refused to meet mine.

"What's the matter, Beth?" I asked, smiling a little to ease the tension.

"You guys are probably still mad at me for keeping my identity a secret," Beth said, and then looked at her slippers, "but this might be the last time we might see each other again, so I want to properly apologize for my actions and make up with the first friends I've ever had."

"What?" Clo shot up in her bed, her covers thrown off and sliding partially to the floor. "What do you mean 'last time'?"

"I haven't heard anything about this too, Beth!" I cried. I began sobbing, and then Clo made a pained expression. Rhiannon watched us awkwardly.

"Wait!" Beth ran over to me. "I said might two times, Shuyan! Might! Might!"

"And what do you mean by that?"

Beth sighed.

"My godmother, Rachel Mondeschein, sent me a letter to tell me she is coming over on May tenth, so in less than a month. She will be taking me back with her." Beth fell quiet for a while. "I think I might go back, too."

"You are?" Rhiannon spoke, her voice strange.

"Well, I can't hide forever." Beth laughed. "And I already asked Master Kupka for an audience with my—uh, brothers, sometime." She made a face, as though saying the words literally hurt her.

"So I'll never see you again?" I was still sobbing.

Beth laughed, completely unaffected. But then she engulfed me in a hug.

"Shuyan, I'm really happy, you know, to have a friend cry over me. It's the first time."

"You're one of my first friends, too," I whispered. Suddenly two more people hugged us.