Excerpt: Billy in his Castle

BILLY IN HIS CASTLE

After the demonstration, Jeannie found herself in a basement looking at a large tank of fish. The room was dark and the tank was glowing. It stood on the floor and extended a couple of feet above her head and took up the width of an entire wall of the small room, which was about 10 feet by 10 feet. There were live plants rooted in the gravel, some grown so tall that leaves grabbed the top edge of the tank. There was a thin layer of algae obscuring most of the glass and a pair of large plecos doing their best to eat it all. Jeannie caught flashes of color between the plants, against the glass and far in the distance. Tiny fish in every natural and unnatural color she found as she pressed her face against the glass to see better. All perfectly solid colors, no flaws or patterns, all trailing lacy fins and tails three times as long as their little bodies, all apparently blind, judging by their milky white eyes.
Jeannie sank to her knees to peer closer at the bottom of the tank, the opalescent gravel and arrangement of grey jagged rocks along the bottom perimeter of the tank and piled in a pyramid about a foot high in the center. They were covered with moss, plant roots, and shells. Tiny antennae and tentacles emerged from the shells, gently floating and swaying in the currents from the filters. All of a sudden all of the tendrils stopped swaying and extended straight up and then pointed out at Jeannie. Startled, she sat up on her haunches and stared.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back down without much force. She turned to find herself eye level with a black velvet pair of breeches and white stockings with tiny holes in them. She looked down to find a scuffed black pair of leather shoes with wooden heels and tiny dinged brass buckles. She saw the flicker of light from the fish tank in the metal, and put the tip of her index finger in the largest of the holes in the stockings. The skin underneath seemed smooth and hairless.
There was a short sharp intake of breath and someone said “Mmm.” Jeannie looked up to find a man standing over her, young and clean shaven, in a waistcoat and blazer, collar unbuttoned and tieless. His hair was longish and dark and messy and his face was pale and delicate in the glow from the fish tank. She thought she should be scared, cornered in a room with a strange man, but his hazel eyes seemed soft and shiny and with his tiny nose and mouth she couldn’t find him threatening. He smiled a her and when she saw his tiny childlike teeth she relaxed even more. To be honest, she wasn’t even sure he was a man, he looked so much like a doll she once had.
Had she had a doll? She thought she remembered having a doll, but how could she remember anything? The doctor told her she couldn’t remember anything. Doctor? Why was she seeing a doctor? Why did he show her to all those people? Was that his livingroom? An image appeared in her head of a well-furnished parlor and her standing in the middle of a circle of lush chairs, on which were seated various well-dressed gentlemen peering eagerly at her. She looked down at her dress. She had been wearing this same dress. She looked up t the man’s face smirking down at her. He had been there too, but standing next to a bookcase behind the circle of posh gentlemen in their fancy chairs, half in the shadows, but she could see his eyes dark and shiny, looking at her very intently, a tiny white tooth exposed as a small corner of his lip curled. She could see it because of the way the light from the fireplace hit it.
The fireplace. What an unnecessarily large fire had been blazing in it. She had felt sweat drip down her belly under the dress, down the inside of a thigh to her ankle. One of the gentlemen had seen, misunderstood, and smiled. She scratched her ankle in memory and realized she still had her fingertip in the hole in his stocking. So smooth. She stroked it again, as much as the tiny hole would allow her.
“Ah,” said the man, and he reached down and gently pulled her hand away from his leg. “Time enough for that later,” he said, and winked at her. His fingers were soft and dirty. He pulled up on her hand. “Let’s go home now” he said.
“I am home,” Jeannie said.
“No,” he said, “I’m afraid you’ve wandered off. Come with me please and I’ll take you home.” She stared at him uncertainly. He looked sad.
“You don’t want to come home...with me? You don’t trust me? You don’t like me?” She looked hesitant. He looked so sad, he was so pretty, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
“I don’t know you,” she said quietly.
“O!” he said, looking relieved. “Well, I’m Arthur” he bowed and offered her his hand.
“Hello Arthur. I’m Jeannie” she said and she put her hand in his. He kissed her hand and smiled.
“I know you are,” he said. “Now let’s go home.” Jeannie let him help her stand up. “Follow me,” he said and took hold of one end of the pink silk ribbon around her waist.
At the threshold Jeannie took one last look at the fish tank glowing in the dark. She imagined a rainbow of lacy fluttering fish staring back at her through the thick glass. Arthur stopped and looked at Jeannie and at the tank.
“It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?” he whispered. Jeannie nodded. He put his head near hers. “At home we have things that are even more amazing. They can’t be put into words.” He waited but Jeannie didn’t turn away from gazing at the fish. He blew against her neck, a little puff of air. Jeannie started. “Let’s go there now” he said, his tone a bit more firm and less sweet, more commanding and less entreating than it had been previously. She recognized that tone and responded to it accordingly. They walked down a long basement corridor, Arthur leading, still holding onto her sash and Jeannie following after.
She tried to walk quietly like she’d been taught (When?) But Arthur still heard the little slapping noise her bare soles made against the cold stone floor of the passageway, smooth under her feet. He turned and looked at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said, I didn’t realize you were barefoot. That’ll never do. Here, take my shoes. They won’t fit but it’s better than your delicate little feet walking on this cold grimey floor.” He slid off his shoes and held the left shoe out for her. She put a hand against the wall to steady herself and lifted one small foot for Arthur to slip the shoe on.
“However did a girl like you get her feet dirty?” he mused. “Wandering around down here, I suppose”. He thought a minute. “How did you get down here after all?” he asked.
“One foot in front of the other,” Jeannie said without thinking. Arthur laughed.
“Alright then.” He slipped both shoes on her feet and straightened up. Jeannie clicked her heels together and Arthur smiled. “That’ll have to do,” he said and he led and Jeannie followed, Arthur’s shoes too big on her feet clomping on the floor as they walked down the hallway. Every few seconds Arthur turned his head back around to check on Jeannie and she would stare back at him and maybe smile. They passed a room full of open wooden shelving units, the shelves full of rolled up pieces of paper. They passed another room full of shelves of empty glass jars. And they passed another room full of dusty electrical equipment. The doors to the rest of the rooms were shut. Jeannie stopped to knock on one of them. She listened but no one answered. Arthur watched her carefully.
“You’re very curious, aren’t you?” he remarked. Jeannie thought about it for a moment. Was she? She didn’t know. She didn’t know much about herself, really. Why was that? Because she didn’t have any memories, like the doctor told her.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. Arthur chuckled. “Ok then,” he said.
They came to the end of the hall and climbed the stairs, thirty-three of them Jeannie counted. Then a large wooden door braced in black iron. It looked heavy and sturdy but Arthur opened it easily. He stepped through the door out into the darkness. Gravel crunched beneath his stockinged feet. In the second before he stepped out of the light, with him standing above her, at eye level, she saw that in addition to having holes, his tights were rather dingy, and there were small frayed areas and small white hairs on his black velvet breeches and jacket, small shiny patches on his black satin waistcoat. Dressed dandy but shabby. Jeannie felt her heart moved by Arthur’s efforts to be dressy with his limited resources. And how sweet and gentlemanly he had been to her, how considerate and gentle. She felt herself blush a little. Turning back around, Arthur caught it. Jeannie added “observant” to her mental inventory of Arthur.
“You look peaked,” he said. “Don’t worry, you can sleep in the car. It’s a long ride home. And then you can sleep at home.”
Sleep. Jeannie’s eyes started to drowse. She liked how Arthur kept using the word “home.” She didn’t remember him of course, because as the doctor said she didn’t have any memories, but there was something very comforting and almost familiar about him. Maybe because he looked like a doll she once had? Did she have dolls? She had an image in her head of lying in a large fluffy bed full of lacy pillows and surrounded by posts and curtains, looking at a small wise doll sitting on a shelf on an opposite wall, watching over her. She thought of that image once she had walked out to the waiting carriage, sliding Arthur’s too large shoes over the gravel, and stepping up on the coachman’s hand into the carriage, settling back into the cushions, Arthur sitting opposite and watching her in a way that seemed protective rather than intrusive. She watched the countryside pass by the window, feeling his eyes on her, until the rocking motion of the carriage lulled her to sleep.