Chapter 3

London, England 1826

            In the humble ruins of an empty bakery, a young girl sat, obediently kneading what was to be her dinner bread.  Her dark hair framed her soot-covered face.  “Mother, does this look okay?”

            Her mother glanced tiredly at the dough in her daughter’s hand, “Yes, dear.  Place it here, we must wait for the yeast to rise.”

            Irene nodded, dusting her hands of flour before returning to her high seat.  The rhythmic sound of her mother’s chopping filled the silence.  She tapped her small palms against the counter, watching her older brother work in the yard outside.  “Mother, may I go play with Henry?”

            “No,” her mother said, her voice harsher than before, “you mustn’t get your gown dirtied.  It is not ladylike.”

            “But mother—,” Irene tried.

            Her mother’s knife hit the table with a bang, sending a wave of fear to the tips of Irene’s fingertips.  “What would people think of the French diplomat’s daughter running amok in the streets?”

            Irene cast her gaze downwards, biting hard against the bottom of her lip.  Father is no longer in power, she thought bitterly as her mother turned to dump the potatoes into a huge pot.  Irene envied her brother, who was able to go outside without objection, able to venture the streets of their new home without restriction, when she was confined to the small shambles of their home.

            She missed her home in Paris, where music filled the streets, and lights painted jolly onto faceless bodies.  Where she was free to run and explore new places, befriend creatures and touch whatever she pleased.  Her life had always been in the shadows.  She couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been different if the Revolution had not rooted the soil of France, and tainted her father’s name.  She spent her life in hiding, taking on identities and faces to protect her livelihood.

            It had been nearly four months since she had moved to London.  The Baes were forced from their lavish, vast home to the forbidding streets of London, only to have found refuge in a small abandoned stone home on the outskirts of town.  The move took a heavy toll on the pride of the Baes; her mother ruled with an iron fist, her father withered into pity and her brother held a strange glint in his eye.

            Dinner was silent.  Her father drank his supper away, aggressively staking his vegetables before shriveling into an angry scream about the barbaric commoners of his home town.  Her mother ate her food without word, and her brother twitched in his seat uncomfortably.

            Later, Irene crawled onto the elevated patch of stone that was her bed, and closed her eyes.  It wasn’t dark.  She cursed the small patch of pink from underneath her eyelids, only to open them to moonlight streaming through a weak wall.  On the other side of that wall, Irene caught the twist of a shadow swaying in the night before slipping behind the house next door.

            She glanced toward her brother, fast asleep on the other side of the room. 

            She bolted from the room and followed the shadow.

            “Who are you?”

            Irene nearly stumbled over her own foot when she turned to face the translucent face of a man in a bowler hat.  As her eyes trailed the stitching of his coat, she realized she could see the desk right through him.  She froze over in terror, “I-I-Irene.”

            The man sighed, hovering over the dozens of open letters on the table, “Are you afraid?”

            Still petrified, Irene willed a brave gulp, “W-Will you hurt me?”

            The man’s beady eyes shifted with uncanny speed to where the young girl was standing, quivering in fear.  Then, he shook his head, far too nonchalant to be false, “No.  You remind me of my daughter Celia.”

            She wasn’t quite sure why that made him seem more humane, more approachable, but in a burst of risk, she smiled, “Was she pretty?”

            An amused smirk appeared on the ghost’s face as he shook his head.  With a snap of his finger, Irene felt her garments tighten across her before rippling across in an array of ribbons and laces.  When she found the reason to breathe again, she was dressed in the most stunning gown she had ever laid her eyes on.

            “Now you look more like her,” he grinned wolfishly, “Irene, was it?”

            Irene nodded.

The man’s face twisted in distaste, “Your mother should have named you Miranda.”

1830

            “Hector!”  Irene hissed into the darkness.