The Night Visitor

Throughout the dinner Anaïs had prepared, Dolores found herself wrapped in a feeling she couldn't quite name — a swelling in her chest that defied explanation.

Realizing that the little sister she'd always thought of as a child had grown up... was that what this was? Then again, at seventeen, Anaïs was more than old enough to be a young lady. If they'd been proper aristocrats, she'd have made her debut into society ages ago.

And Anaïs would have been wildly popular — the type who turned heads everywhere. If only she didn't have hobbies like inventing absurd ciphers.

Anaïs, who had been idly flipping through a book, tossed out a blunt question.

"You've seemed down these past few days. It's because of Xavier, isn't it?"

Dolores instinctively turned her head toward her sleeping father. Mercifully, he didn't seem likely to wake. Her father despised Xavier to a bizarre degree.

"Dad already knows Xavier's back from his studies abroad, by the way. He heard all about it when he went into town — he was cursing up a storm the moment he got home."

"Did you tell him about what happened today?"

"No, why would I? It would only ruin the mood in this house."

Only then did Dolores's shoulders loosen a little.

To call it Xavier's fault — no, well, yes, some of it was Xavier's fault — but her father despised and detested the bourgeois class.

His utter distrust of them — intoxicated by capital, preaching revolution, or scheming to parasite off the privileges of the old order — was the very engine that drove him.

Which was why her father clung to a compulsive belief that tradition was the only way to survive in this mangled world, and why joining the blue-raccoon faction of the Platypus Party had been his cherished dream for so long.

"I don't care for that man myself, but setting him aside, none of it makes any sense."

"What doesn't?"

"It's not as if groveling to them will ever get us treated like true Beloffians."

"...Whether those people acknowledge us or not, we're the daughters of a count. Anaïs. That's going too far."

"We can't even afford a live-in cook, and the bread left over from breakfast gets served again at dinner. I don't see what the word count is supposed to mean anymore. Just look at Claudia — she writes letters edged in expensive gold leaf about things that don't matter in the slightest."

"Money isn't everything in life. Everyone has their own way of living."

There was something deep and complicated in Anaïs's eyes today. Dolores had always found that occasional look of hers uncomfortable to face.

"Is there something you want to say to me?"

"There is. But not now. And sister — that whole line about money not being everything? It's a slogan only people who have money are permitted to say. Coming from people like us who don't have it, it's just ridiculous."

"Not in front of Father."

"I'll say it the day I hate him so much I want to make him faint."

Anaïs answered with listless indifference, then slowly turned her head toward the window.

The world, drenched moments ago in the pink of dusk, had deepened into violet, and would soon enough be seized by indigo darkness. Clink. Dolores pushed her empty plate aside and rose.

"I'll clean up the rest."

"Then I'll go wash first. Standing in front of the oven all that time — I'm hot and sticky."

Dolores finished tidying the kitchen.

Afterward, she deliberated over whether to move her father to his room. He showed no sign of waking, and his frame was far too heavy for her to carry.

In the end, she settled on simply draping a blanket over him. It was the best she could do.

That was when she heard it — the creak of floorboards overhead. Pablo had already left, and she had confirmed that Anaïs had gone not to her room but to the washroom.

She lifted her head and looked at the ceiling. A faint sauce stain from last year still lingered there.

Her steps up to the second floor were bold enough, but the moment she stood before her own door, even her hands grew cautious.

Creeeak. Through the slowly opening door, the shape of her room came into view.

The oil lamp was unlit, and unlike when she'd left it, the room lay swallowed in darkness. Only vague outlines were discernible; the only thing clear was the cool draft of air.

Creak, eeeak.

It was the room where she slept and woke every day, yet seeing it in the dark made it feel strangely unfamiliar. As Dolores stepped inside, her cane stopped, quiet and sudden.

Tap.

The chiffon curtain hanging by the window was rippling like a wave. ...Had she left the window open?

Dolores felt a tightening climb up her spine. Her first thought was that she needed to light the lamp.

She was walking toward the desk, tapping the ground just ahead with her cane, when it happened.

"My little bird's all grown up."

A chill raced over her entire body. What kept her from collapsing was a man's firm grip.

The scent of musk and lime washed over her. Dolores swept back her disheveled hair. Standing directly in front of her was a young man with a familiar face.

It was Xavier, dressed a little differently than he had been that very morning.

Grasping the situation in an instant, Dolores shoved him away roughly.

"Are you out of your mind? What do you think you're doing?"

She couldn't raise her voice. Her family was downstairs.

She tilted the candlestick and transferred its flame to the wick of the oil lamp. Xavier had settled himself on the edge of her desk, watching her.

He wore yet another party ensemble, more refined than the last, though the sleeves were still rolled up.

There were cuts on his hands and wrists — clearly, he had climbed up the second-floor window.

"Just dropped by for a visit."

Those mischievous green eyes, more playful than anything — and once again she felt relief tangled up with fury.

"Do you have any idea where you are, pulling a stunt like that?"

"A stunt, she says. What a way with words."

"Get out. Don't stay here—!"

Laughing as though he hadn't heard a word of her reproach, Xavier plucked the oil lamp from her hands as easily as if she'd been offering it to him.

He held the flame up before her bookshelf and glass cabinet. Inside the cabinet, the frames caught the light and glittered.

"The photographs have changed."

"Xavier."

"This isn't the first time I've climbed into your room uninvited. Why so serious all of a sudden?"

Setting the lamp down, Xavier turned to face her fully. Just as Claudia had said, in the year and a half or so that had passed, he seemed to have grown at least five centimeters taller. The difference was something she felt entirely in her bones.

"That was then. This is now."

"I had fun back in the day, too — knocking on your window while sneaking around your father. Running into you today brought it all back."

In their late teens, when she'd drifted constantly in Xavier's orbit, slipping past her strict father's gaze by way of windows had been a regular occurrence. Truth be told, it wasn't only Xavier — the other friends did it too, now and then.

It was nothing to be proud of, nothing to boast of, but there had been a time when she'd committed rebellions of a truly outlandish sort.

It was likely part of why her father held the young people of Lange in such particular contempt.

"Funny, how you and I have become the kind of people who trade in old memories. How long are you going to act like a child? We're grown now, both of us."

"And you've turned into quite the lady while I wasn't looking."

Xavier bent forward slightly, as if suppressing a laugh, and looked up at her through half-lidded eyes.

When he gazed at her that way, his eyes were like a hazy summer night's scene painted by some realist — murky and luminous at once.

If you peered into that transparent light, even in darkness, the boundary between it and reality began to blur. There was something decadent about it.

"It's time you grew up a little."

"I'll get there someday."

"Do you really think nothing's changed — that we can just go on like we used to, acting like this?"

"You were the one who said we'd see each other right away."

Dolores stared at him in sheer disbelief — then shoved him back.

"Leave."

"I will — with you."

"What?"

Xavier strode off toward the wardrobe without asking leave.

Startled, Dolores darted forward, shoved him aside, and shut the wardrobe door.

"What kind of manners are those?"

"You're one to talk — what are you so shocked about? Embarrassing."

She had practically sprinted there, forgetting entirely that her leg hurt, so it was Dolores herself — and Xavier too — who were caught briefly off guard.

"Well, fine. Your leg seems to be in working order, so all that's left is to throw on some decent clothes and head out. Better to leave through the window — we might as well ask Pierre to lend you something. His younger sister's probably built about your size."

That was when it happened — perhaps because the sound of their bickering scuffle had carried — Anaïs's voice floated up from downstairs.

"Sister? What are you doing?"

Dolores flung open her door and stuck her head out.

"Nothing at all!"