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"It makes no sense."
Maeve shrugged. "Most of life doesn't. But I can tell you this: You'll never get your body into that dress if you don't squeeze into this first."
Selena sighed and walked toward Maeve, plucking up the corset. It dangled, stiff as steel, from her thumb and forefinger. "Who designed this?"
"A man. Do you need more proof of their evil?" Maeve gave her a broad smile.
"Are ladies truly so witless? Someone should have laughed at the inventor."
"Too true. Now, put it on."
Selena sighed. "Maeve, I believe that sometimes I prefer it when you are mad."
Maeve laughed. "Wait ten minutes."
Selena stood at the end of the bed, allowing Maeve to dress-and dress, and dress-her. Chemise, drawers, stockings, bustle, petticoat after petticoat, gloves, and camisole. The amount of clothing was endless, but finally Maeve slipped the elegant pale turquoise gown over Selena's head. The shimmering fabric floated around her and swooshed to the floor.
She felt like the Cinderella from the fairly tale. She swirled around, watching herself in the full-length che-val mirror. "Oh, Maeve," she said softly. "I look lovely."
"Yes." Maeve's voice was loving and soft. "Your mother-wherever she is-would be proud."
Before Selena could respond, Maeve took her hand and led her to the ornate walnut dressing table, gesturing for Selena to sit. The oval mirror framed them both.
Maeve began to brush Selena's hair. "Most brides wore white in my day. Even then I was different," she said with a little sigh.
Selena stared at Maeve in the mirror, seeing the pain in her friend's eyes, hearing it in her tired voice. "Have you always been different?"
Maeve looked startled for a moment, as if surprised
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that someone would ask so intimate a question. Then she smiled. "That's the saddest part: no. Oh, I always heard voices-I thought everybody did. But they didn't stop me when I was a child, they were just there, like friends in the background, whispering and laughing, urging me onward. I was sixteen when I fell in love with Herbert, and he was nearly thirty, but he loved me as much as I loved him. We married quickly, thoughtlessly, and for a while I was so happy that the voices almost completely disappeared, the depressions I'd always felt became a thing of the past. I thought ..." She shrugged, stared at Selena's hair. "I was young and naive. I thought everything would always be perfect. I had Ian almost immediately."
Her voice fell to a whisper, her fingers paused on Selena's hair. "I still remember how the change started, how the end began. I was afraid to nurse my baby. Can you imagine that?" She looked up, staring at her own face in the mirror through a veil of tears. "I thought he was sucking the life out of me."
"Oh, Maeve ..."
"I tried to hide my feelings from Herbert, but he noticed, he always noticed everything. The voices came back, only they were louder this time, screeching at me, telling me that Ian was evil and trying to kill me, that Herbert didn't love me anymore. I started talking to the voices and to people who weren't there. I tried everything to make them go away, even banged my head against a stone wall, but nothing worked. When it got bad enough, I just ... slipped inside myself. I imagined myself in a warm, dark room, curled in a tight little ball. After a while, the voices would go away. But they always came back."
Selena had seen Maeve like that once. She had sat on the floor, rocking, humming to herself, hearing nothing, answering no one. She had to be carried to bed.
Maeve set the brush down on the marble tabletop and kneeled at Selena's feet. "But I did not ask you here to
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speak of such things. Or perhaps I did. I ... I wanted to tell you how happy I am that you are marrying my son. To tell you I love you and I welcome you into our family. And . .." Her voice bro
ke off. She cleared her throat and looked at the hands curled in her own lap.
"Maeve?"
Slowly Maeve tilted her chin and looked at Selena. "I won't make the same mistakes again. I won't frighten your children, Selena, I swear I won't. I'll stay away, I'll watch them through the window and touch them in their sleep."
"Maeve, what are you talking about?"
"I never thought mat I could ever look into Ian's beautiful blue eyes and feel anything but shame for my madness. But you have changed him, softened him, and he is beginning to come back to me." Tears slipped from her eyes. "I would never do anything to frighten his children-you must tell him that."