It was childish and selfish ... and true. He wasn't one to glamorize his failings or pretend they didn't exist.
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He was a selfish man and always had been. But never had it been as disgustingly apparent as it was right now.
He'd stay away as long as he could, meet as many strangers as he had to. And he'd pray that someone would come for his broken goddess.
Chapter Twelve
Selena lay in bed with the thick folds of her coverlet drawn close. For a few precious seconds, before she came fully awake, the promise of a new dawn filled her consciousness. It was still dark outside, but soon, soon the dawn would come.
Today they'd promised to take her outside.
She eased her eyelids open and stared at the window. Even the shadowed streaks of the iron bars couldn't daunt her enthusiasm today. She stretched languidly and pushed the coverlet back. Sitting up, she glanced around the room, trying to remember the morning sequence she'd been taught by Lara.
Wash your face. Sit on the toilet.
Selena smiled at the ease with which she retrieved the memory. She swung her stockinged feet onto the cold wooden floor and walked to the commode. It felt strangely inappropriate to walk. On such a special day, she should move in a flowing, magical way.
She poured tepid water into the porcelain bowl and washed her face. Reaching for the towel beside the basin, she caught sight of her reflection in the oval mirror and paused, her hand frozen in midair.
She leaned closer to the mirror, able to see the shape of her face at last. Her eyes were no longer swallowed by swollen layers of bruised flesh. She could see them
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clearly now, and in looking into her own eyes, she felt as if she were finally seeing some portion of herself.
Mesmerized, she touched her own cheek and marveled at the soft pliancy of her flesh. The ugly purple and black bruising had softened to a sick greenish yellow with tinges of brown.
Selena thought it was the most beautiful color she'd ever seen. It was the color of change, the color of healing.
She touched the cool, slick surface of the mirror. "Who are you?" she whispered, watching in fascination as her pale pink lips formed the words. Dark, mysterious brown eyes stared back at her. She tried to care about the answer, genuinely tried. It was what they all expected of her, what Ian expected. But she couldn't manufacture concern where none existed. She didn't care about the past; what she wanted was the future. She ached to begin, to cross the threshold of this room and this house and explore this new world, to experience sensations and thoughts and feelings that she couldn't even imagine.
Today she'd take her first step. Yesterday she'd spent all day in the house. Edith had taught her to pluck the feathers from a dead, clammy bird (which she refused on principle to eat; it was horrid, really, to think of eating a once-living animal). After the plucking fiasco, Edith had moved her from the kitchen to the parlor and taught her to wipe the furniture with a thick, waxy substance that smelled heavenly.
So heavenly that Selena had eaten it. That's when Edith moved her into the bedroom. Selena still didn't entirely understand the teachings of that day, couldn't pinpoint exactly what she'd done so wrong, but she'd learned one lesson clearly: She could eat dead animals, but not the cleaning supplies. It was a strange world with inexplicable rules. In the bedroom, she'd had a wee bit of trouble. She'd started out well enough with making the bed. Lara
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showed her how to beat the quilt and pillow into shape, and Selena had learned that lesson well.
She'd been doing fine until a beautiful white feather burped out of the pillow and floated on a draft of air from the open window.
Selena had never seen anything so lovely in all her life. A million motes of dust filtered the cold, sundrenched air. The curtains fluttered softly against the pane. And that exquisite feather just floated and floated, then fell to the floor.
Suddenly the pillow became a magical storehouse of hidden treasures. Selena ripped it wide open and plunged her hands in, tossing the down feathers all around. She and Lara laughed and played, mesmerized by the beauty and feel of the feather-storm.
Edith had not been mesmerized. All she'd seen was a mess, and when Selena tried to show her the elegance of a single feather in its dancing spiral to the floor, Edith was unimpressed.
In fact, the housekeeper had said quit this bloody nonsense.
Neither Selena nor Lara understood the word "nonsense," but Edith had shown them what "quit" was. The housekeeper had thrown her hands up in the air and stomped out of the room. She had not returned.
Selena understood then that she was no longer learning to be a housekeeper. It disappointed her, that unexpected failure, but she had tried not to be unhappy about it. She tried instead to focus on each new lesson.
She'd failed as a housekeeper, but she'd done well as a subject of the Crown. The queen had expressed great pleasure over Selena's successes. Even now, Selena recalled how to drop into the strange motion calle