She heard a rustle, a hiss behind her and turned, still holding the boy, to see the three gray ladies standing there.
One bent forward and reached out as if to stroke the boy, but instead she worked her fingers between his ribs as if trying to pry something loose. One did stroke his hair gently, but the last knelt down and began lapping at him, as if drinking something spilled.
Mrs. Jacobs held the boy closer, trying to keep their fingers from him, but they reached through her, chilling her to the bone, and all she saw was gray.
“How did you know?” she whispered. “How did you know my husband would be capable of that?”
She rocked back and forth. Their eyes followed her while they kept still, then she saw their faces change as they aped her sorrow. They rubbed their hands together as if cleaning them, then went back to work on the boy, separating soul from body with long, sharp fingernails.
Did they gain color? Glow?
She wasn’t sure.
It would be weeks before Mrs. Jacobs could see color again.
The gray ladies were once Julia, Amara, and Magdalena. Pretty names for pretty girls, long since forgotten. How did you know? the woman asked, and they watched her, not answering her question. Truthfully, they did not know the answer and besides, they no longer spoke at all. Did they miss not talking to each other? Or had they no recollection of hours spent chattering?
They never knew where they’d knock. It was not their choice. Something moved them. It was death foretold by them, not delivered.
They knew they were doing good. A wise man (Wise. Cruel. Murderous.) told them often that one of the greatest gifts in life is to know when death is coming. It was a chance to say goodbye. To prepare.
If only people would listen. If they were stubborn, like the woman and her chimney sweep, no good was done to anyone.
She was colorful, that grieving woman, her cheeks pink, her eyes red. They were colorful once, these three.
Before.
They’d had a brighter life than many others like them, because their mother, Eliza, loved to travel, gathering friends like other people gathered pebbles or mementos. She’d been to Finishing School in Paris, where she met all manner of girls from all manner of places she’d never heard of before, like Lucia from Romania and Dao from the Principality of Phuan. And she learnt that each of them had a different idea of how things should be. This benefitted her daughters, giving them more freedom of expression and behavior than many others. Julia in particular thrived in this way, and as a girl loved to climb trees and sit in the branches, when the neighbors weren’t looking.
There was less travel once Eliza married Phillip and the girls came along, but she had trunks of treasures to enjoy, and to share with her three daughters. “This one is for you, Julia,” she said, lifting out a delicate blue scarf. “To match your eyes. For Amara, this green, and for Magdalena, this golden.” The tiny girls were swamped in the lush material and they danced around the room with their mother spinning in the center.
“What is this?” their father said. He pretended gruffness, but he wouldn’t have married her if he didn’t love her ways.
They had a good life until the Romanian came.
Eliza had written letters to her dear school friends, especially Lucia, for ten years, fifteen. They kept in touch, and then there were no more letters. “I miss you!” Eliza wrote. “I wish we could visit with each other monthly and talk about foolish things.”
It was not Lucia who visited. It was her brother, Mihai.
The girls would not remember his first visit, although their lives changed because of it. Their mother said he arrived in a large coach, with servants following behind. His voice louder than the most raucous of men in the village and his skin bright, glowing. He arrived on their doorstep with no announcement. He said, “I am the brother of the magnificent girl Lucia.”
He was not as handsome as Eliza had imagined (the girls had told stories under the covers when they were at school, squealing at the inventions) but he was charming and vulnerable.
“I bring sad news. My dear wife died in childbirth, and the baby as well. In my sorrow I am traveling the world until now, when I reach my sister’s dear friend and this beautiful land.”
He looked out, lifting and shaping his hands as if measuring the place.
“Here I will build a castle, with the help of a great man.”
Their father Phillip managed the project over the next fifteen years. This was his sole job, to build a mansion for the mysterious Romanian Mihai Adascalitei.
This brought success and financial security to the family, and each night Phillip insisted on raising a glass to Mihai, “Our benefactor.”
“Our slave master,” Eliza said, because Phillip worked twelve hours a day with little time for family.
Then it was done. Word came that Mihai would arrive to inspect, that he was traveling with a large retinue and that he was anticipating great pleasure on seeing his new home.
“He doesn’t mention Lucia but surely she will come,” Eliza said. “Perhaps she and I will go to London. She always said she’d love to go.”
“They can’t come,” Phillip said. He couldn’t sit down but paced in agitation. “He can’t see his home. Can you imagine what he will say? He will be disappointed, to say the least.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Eliza asked. He looked at her. He didn’t say anything.
“And what if he wants to visit here? Look at our house!” He was not a wealthy man. “He’s going to think us very poor specimens,”
They all looked at their house. The fittings were shabby but solid and clean, well made. “You are the architect. The clever one. Let his financiers show him wealth. We show solid family love.”
Mihai was tall, broadly built, his clothes cut well to hide how large he’d grown. His cheeks were red and round, his teeth spaced out and yellowed, his breath like cheddar or, Julia whispered like the Thames in summer. He had long hair brushing his shoulders (Phillip tried to hide his distaste at this), and he topped it with a small gray hat that was almost formless. He had blue lips, like a lizard’s and his eyelids hung low, making him look sleepy.
“Aah, your lovely ladies. So tall! So delicate in the limbs and colorful! All three like princesses of an exotic place. You must all come to dinner at my home now it is complete. I’ll have them serve beef broth and black pudding. That will get some meat on your bones.”
Amara blushed, which made him laugh.
“You know I last saw these two older girls when they were tiny. Just born! All blue in the face and furious,” he said. “How well I remember!”
The three girls barely contained themselves. They chattered all at once, drowning him out, until he burst into laughter and bade them hush.
They all heard his stomach rumble, like a crack of thunder, and Amara giggled. “Oh, you must be ravenous,” Eliza said, “ Let’s get you something to eat.”
“He’s not about to waste away, Mildred,” Phillip said.
“Alfred! So rude!” Eliza asked the cook to fix salmon en croute, because she knew they had leftover salmon from her order with the fishmonger. Some of them do it on purpose in the hope of taking the extra home but Eliza wasn’t having that.
The girls raced to their rooms, returning screaming with laughter. They wore salmon pink scarves, all three, to match their food. Even in their rush they exuded grace, their fingers long and delicate, their step light.
“Like angels,” Mihai said.
At dinner, Eliza couldn’t contain herself any longer. “And my dear friend Lucia? It has been so long since we communicated.”