Page 43 of Chateau Reverie

Genevieve stills in her seat. She knows this place.

Leander reaches over and lays a hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, as if he knows—as if he has already divined the truth—and the orchestra launches into an overture, a soft sprinkling of flutes and cheerful violins. Genevieve cannot breathe, but the lavender upon the stage seems to breathe for her instead, swaying rhythmically, like lungs filling and emptying.

Two dancers enter. One from the left, one from the right. Girls, no older than ten, one in a green dress and one in pink. The girl in pink wears a full mask overgrown with closed flower buds, so that her entire face appears only as a pair of eyes emerging from the blooms. The girl in green wears a half mask made of many tangled vines and thorns—they must be piercing her flesh, surely? But she does not appear to be in pain. She smiles peacefully as she spins around the stalks of lavender to join hands with her partner. The orchestra slows into a duet between a lone flute and a violin, soft and sweet, as the girls rotate around each other like seeds caught in a breeze.

The innocents. They were innocent then, were they not? Sprouting from the soil in Vienne, flourishing in the sun and their solitude. They did not love each other yet, not as they eventually would, but they became intertwined so quickly, reliant upon each other so quickly. Genevieve feels her throat tighten. Her eyes flutter shut.

‘You have to watch,’ Leander whispers to her. He threads his fingers through hers. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you must. The Company has ordered it.’

‘I cannot.’

‘Genevieve, please. I beg of you. I can’t lose you here. Not like this.’

She has never heard his voice so raw, so desperate. She cannot refuse him.

And so she opens her eyes, and she watches. The girls, the lavender; the impossible clouds, caught upon the ceiling of the theatre. She even sees a white butterfly flit about the shoulders of the girl in the pink dress, its pearlescent wings catching the light of the candles. It is a beautiful dance, gentle, affectionate. The girls move as if they share one body, each bent knee and arched neck mirrored by another. And—as the scene ends—the dancers begin to laugh together, loud and clear laughter that echoes across the theatre. Genevieve cannot stand it. She thinks, dizzily, that she will hear that laughter always now, that it shall ring in her ears even as she sleeps.

The two girls come to a stop. They curtsey to each other, and above them the clouds gather together, begin to darken, suggesting a coming rain. Holding hands, they raise their heads to observe the sky, and then—still laughing—they flit away.

The curtains draw closed. Missah and Madame Kramarov applaud the act. Genevieve feels sick. ‘How?’ she says.

Leander squeezes her hand, speaks low. ‘You have been here long enough, eaten enough of their food, that your memories—’

But he is cut off by the brassy cry of a horn. The embroidery on the curtains has changed: THE LOVERS, it proclaims, and Genevieve knows what she will see before she sees it. As the fabric draws away, the setting has changed. A garden in Versailles, with the painted image of the palace as a backdrop, a sun glowing from above the roof, shining brightly enough to almost blind them. There is grass now upon the stage, and a fountain that spouts a sweet-smelling liquid that mists the audience’s faces in a fragrant cloud. Beside it grows a great bush of lilies, so extraordinarily large that each bloom must span wider than Genevieve’s arms outstretched. The lilies are pink, speckled with gold as if someone has gilded each leaf.

The music is triumphant, horns and the fluttering notes of a harpsichord. The pink dancer springs onto the stage, now older, taller: the buds of her mask have bloomed into full-petalled roses and peonies. Her dress is the same colour as it was when she was a child, but it is now covered in fanciful golden embroidery: images of dragons and towers and tall beanstalks. The dancer performs a slow circuit of the fountain, one arm outstretched, in exaggerated contemplation. As she takes the final step, one of her shoes slips off, and she performs a graceful, affected stumble.

Genevieve knows what will happen. It happened to her, the morning of the same day they first kissed. The dancer in green weaves her way onto the stage, her thorn mask digging into her face. A faint rivulet of blood is running down her temple. She is still smiling.

The green dancer falls to the ground, cradles the shoe in her hand. The dancer in pink turns around, looks down at her, laying a hand upon her chest.

I cannot watch, Genevieve thinks. I cannot. She closes her eyes. Leander leans into her, presses his fingers against her cheek.

‘Please,’ Genevieve whispers, her voice breaking. ‘Please do not ask me to look.’

‘You have to.’

‘I cannot.’

‘I will look with you,’ Leander says. ‘I will look, and no matter what I see, I will not leave you. No matter what happens, I will be here. Always.’

She draws in a shuddering breath and opens her eyes once more. Through blurred tears, she sees the dancer in the green dress offer the shoe up to her partner with naked adoration. The woman in pink places an arched foot within, then draws the green-dressed girl to standing. They remain still, staring into each other’s eyes, as the music swells to a crescendo.

Abruptly, the music stops. The curtains close. It is a mercy, but not a mercy, because Genevieve knows what will happen next. No one applauds, not this time. Missah and Kramarov have noticed her distress, and they are watching her with gentle concern. The end of the act is met with only silence.

Genevieve moans softly to herself, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her shoes are on the seat now. It is shocking behaviour—she ought to care, she ought to be embarrassed. She has forgotten how to feel embarrassed. She has forgotten who she is meant to be.

THE TRAGEDY, the curtain now says.

‘I will not, Leander,’ she rasps. ‘I cannot. I would rather die than see it again.’

‘Look at me,’ he commands, taking her hand. She turns her face to his. Their eyes meet, and there is something not human in his expression. His pupils are so wide and so black, refracting light with a soft sheen like a pearl. And his skin is smooth, smooth as blown glass, hair glittering like filaments of silver. When he speaks, his voice has a new music to it, a tune that reminds her of the one he was playing on his mandolin. ‘I will not let them take you,’ he says. ‘I will tear this Château to pieces before I let them take you. So look, Genevieve. I am sorry—I am so, unspeakably sorry—but you must look.’

She looks.

The curtain parts.

It is raining. Somehow, it is raining onstage, droplets springing upon fresh green earth—and there is the carriage, made of glass, so that all the audience can see the dancers sitting within. No horses to draw it, no coachman to drive it, but what does it matter? The two are wrapped in each other, their hands intertwined between them, as they speak words Genevieve cannot hear. The orchestra hums beneath them, an awful, dissonant humming: not music, something closer to wailing, as if the instruments are in pain.