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He pauses. “If you do well, pet, I’ll find some way to reward you.”
We could start by letting me eat at a table.I bite back the retort, folding my hands in front of me and nodding simply. I’m very afraid that his idea of a “reward” is something physical, and I have no idea if I’ll be allowed to decline such a thing or what his reaction would be if I tried. There’s so much that I don’t know, and I feel like I’m treading in dark water, at risk of drowning at any moment.
He pauses. “I will see you later, then.”
It feels awkward as he leaves, as if he doesn’t entirely know how to handle this either, which seems ludicrous. He’d been very confident about my place here earlier. I stand there, watching him head up the spiral staircase, and I resist the urge to follow. The library is up there, but if I start with that, I’m likely to get distracted and not finish the rest of the house. That’s not the way to start off my plan to pacify him.
The living room, like everything else in this house so far, is badly in need of cleaning. The kitchen, when I walk into it, is even worse. Dishes are stacked in the sink, the counters are covered in crumbs, and I see a mouse skitter away as I walk in.Everythingin this house looks as if it hasn’t been touched in weeks—months, even.
Is he really that lazy that he doesn’t want to clean his own house? Did the last maid quit? Or...
I don’t want to think about the alternative, that the person in charge of cleaning before was someone like me, another pet, and why they might not be here any longer. I think about the shadows under his eyes instead, the way they look slightly sunken in his otherwise handsome face, the thinness of his hands.What if he’s been sick, and that’s why it looks like this?
It feels like too charitable of a thought to have about someone who has easily admitted to keeping me as a pet, all but a slave. I shouldn’t be making excuses for him.
What is Georgie doing right now?I’m not sure exactly what time it is in London, but I picture him coming back from school and entering our cold, dark apartment. I wonder if he has food, if the lights are on, and my stomach twists with clenching, sickening grief. I’m frightened for myself, but it’s nothing compared to the fear I feel for my brother. The only consolation I have is the hope that at least the debt is satisfied, that the sharks have left him alone.
What will he think? Does he think I’m dead? That they killed me and left him alone?
With no clear direction as to where to start first, I tackle the dishes. The busyness helps to ease my tangled thoughts and the hammering anxiety in my chest a little. I focus on the dishes as I wash and rinse them, noticing as I do that every single one of them is damaged in some way as well. A flaw in the gilded design on a plate, a chipped edge on a cup, and a deep scratch in a bowl. Nothing is without some kind of damage, but it doesn’t seem reckless, like he’s broken things in a rage. Some items just look damaged from wear and tear, and others as if they’re intrinsically flawed in some way.
It doesn’t stop with the dishes, either. I throw myself into cleaning, reasoning that if I tire myself out like this, it will be easier not to get lost in the panic. I scrub the kitchen from top to bottom until it’s spotless, noticing all the same issues with the furnishings there—flaws and damage that don’t make anything unusable, but are all at least noticeable—and then move on to the living room. It’s the same there. Books with broken spines and missing pages, first editions with torn leather covers, artifacts that are damaged in some way, flawed art. I’m no museum curator, but to my untrained eye, it all looks genuine, even expensive. Yet nothing here is perfect.
I can’t decide, as I make my way through the living room, if these eccentricities make him more interesting, or more terrifying. He’s a strange man, that’s for certain, and it makes me worry that he’s unpredictable. That I won’t be able to plot how to use this situation against him because I won’t be able to anticipate anything he’ll do.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Just focus on doing a good job with this.He might be eccentric, but he hasn’t hurt me yet in any way. I don’t like the way he’s made me eat on the floor or the orders he gives, but he let me sleep off the drugs comfortably, and he hasn’t tried to touch me sexually in any way. He’d looked at me with something like desire at first, when he’d seen the lingerie, but that had quickly faded.
I’ll be fine. I’m going to be fine.I tell myself that over and over, trying to make myself believe it, as I make my way through the house. I go to the bedroom I’m staying in next, cleaning it until it’s spotless, avoiding the bedroom at the end of the hall just as Alexandre told me. I clean the entryway next, then the formal dining room, the lower bathroom, and a room that looks like it must be his office, although it seems as if it’s been unused for some time. I never heard him come home from his shopping, but I emerge from the office to find fresh food in the kitchen, and I start putting it away automatically, falling into a routine not so unlike the one I’d had back home.
My chest clenches again at the thought ofhome, and I push it firmly away as I put the food up. A fresh whole chicken, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, heavy cream in aglass jar, soft cheese, and more bread, various herbs, and a huge chocolate croissant. My stomach rumbles, and I frown as I look at the chicken.
“I hope he doesn’t want me to cook this myself,” I mutter aloud. My mother had been a decent cook, but she’d never taught me. Since then, we’d never had the money to buy anything that didn’t come with directions on the box or couldn’t be made with the simplest of steps. I don’t have the faintest idea of how to assemble the ingredients into anything good, and I feel a wave of anxiety again. I don’t want to make Alexandre angry already.
I shut the door to the refrigerator firmly, heading upstairs with my cleaning supplies. The door to what must be Alexandre’s room is closed, a basket of clothes and bedding outside of it, and I frown. Somehow, doing his laundry feels like the most humiliating part of this so far.
I’ll clean the library first.It’s starting to get dark out, and that makes me like the idea of going down to the basement even less, but I want to see the library. It’s right there, and I push open the heavy wooden door, letting out a small gasp as I step inside.
It’s fucking magical.
The room is floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on every wall except one. The wall to my left is a huge window overlooking Paris, with long velvet curtains and a chaise lounge in front of it. The far wall in front of me has a stone fireplace between two bookcases, with leather wing chairs in front of it and a fur rug. There’s a sofa and other chairs in the center of the room, a large cabinet with glassware, wine, and liquor on the right wall, and more books than anyone could read in a lifetime.
I wish I could simply never leave the room.
I’d been right not to clean it first. I can barely concentrate on cleaning now instead of running my fingers over all of the spines, looking to see what’s here. There’s everything—classics and romances and history books, fantasy and science fiction, and books in other languages. My heart flutters in my chest as I scan the room, dusting the shelves, pausing to look at cover after cover as I pass by. I could spend hours in here, and I find myself hoping that all he wants me to do is clean. The apartment is fairly large, and I’ve cleaned it within an inch of its life today. If all I need to do is keep it up, then I should have plenty of time to spend in here, reading.
I have a feeling that won’t be the case, though. I can’t think of what else he might have me do, and I don’t want to dwell on it for too long, but I can’t imagine him giving me hours and hours of free time. Unless...
What does he mean by apet?After all, that’s what pets do—perform tricks and small tasks for their masters, and then spend the rest of their time lounging. I know it’s foolish to get my hopes up that he might not expect much of me, but I feel a small flare of it anyway. If that’s all he wants, then biding my time here until I can find an escape won’t be the worst thing that could have happened to me.
When I come out of the library, Alexandre’s door clicks open. The laundry is still there, and I flinch, expecting his displeasure, but he just sighs.
“You’ve done enough today,petite souris,” he says. “The laundry will wait until tomorrow. Come, I will cook us a meal.”
Relief washes through me at the realization that he doesn’t expect me to cook.Thank god.I would have fucked it up, and that would have been the beginning of things going badly, I’m sure.
He’s changed clothes, I notice, as I follow him mutely down the stairs. He’s wearing dark grey trousers and a forest green sweater, and I notice in spots that there are small holes in the knit, like moths have gotten to the wool. Everything in this apartment looks shabbily expensive, and I wonder why.Does he just not like replacing his things? Was he once wealthy, and now he’s run out of money?
I’m afraid to ask any questions and make him angry, although I have plenty of them. Instead, I follow him to the kitchen, where he frowns.
