As the sweat dries cold on her skin, Sophia realizes she does not know where she is, not really. She thought she knew every corner of Arcadia Gardens. But this is not Dilmun Park, despite the well-maintained lawn and gracefully spaced trees and comfortable sitting bench framed by two delicate dwarf maples and a great gnarled apple tree, just over there.
She cranes her neck but cannot see a street sign that might enlighten her. Only flowers, a hedge of flowers, coiling, knotting, roping around each other, their stems threatening to strangle the blossoms beside them, a mass of writhing war ringing this patch of manicured parkland Sophia has never seen on any one of her thousand languid strolls through the paradise of her safe, contained universe.
In the shadows, beyond the flower hedge, up four white modest marble steps, the black iron rungs of a gate cut stark shapes out of the sky. It is locked. It is after hours. Sophia goes to it and lets her hands settle on the cool bars. She looks out into … what? The world. The world beyond her life.
And the world is a desert, white and searing, treeless, without shelter, hot sands stretching away into a burning, lonely nothingness until it obliterates itself against a wall of sky.
A figure comes toward her, rimmed in moonlight. It seems to step out of the flower wall, but it couldn’t, there’s no break in the briar to let it pass. It keeps its face in shadow. The voice is sighing and soft and sibilant. A lisp. A hiss.
“What a fine little mess you’ve made,” it tuts fondly.
The figure moves out of the moonlight and offers a hand down the stairs, away from the gate.
A man.
Thin and beautiful like Mr. Semengelof, but his face is rounder, more well-fed, sweeter. He moves his head slowly from side to side when he talks, soothing, reassuring, like someone talking to an animal. Sophia locks her fingers through his. So familiar, she should not, but the moonlight and the flowers and the gate and the desert beyond have cast their trance and she presses her palm against his. His hand feels dry and warm, his skin thick, almost scaled, with many, many lines in it.
“My name is Cascavel,” he says, and makes a slight bow, little more than a bend that does not quite reach his waist.
“I do not know you, Mr. Cascavel.”
“Cascavel will do all on its own, Sophia. No misters and missuses here.”
Sophia suddenly feels nervous, alone. By God, she is so alone. No house, no husband, no Mrs. Lyon to protect her. If she dies out here no one will find her, except maybe Mr. Harrier on one of his long morning walks. They used to wave at each other when their routes crossed.
“I’m not supposed to be out after dark,” she whispers, like a misbehaving child, and hates herself for the fear in her voice. After all she’s seen, there should be nothing left that can frighten her. But Cascavel does.
“No, you certainly are not, young lady. And outside the designated common areas as well! Tsk tsk.”
“Guards will come,” Sophia warns. “If you try to hurt me. They’ll come if I scream.”
Cascavel smiles a private little smile. “I very much doubt that. But we can wait for them together, if you like.” He gestures toward the sitting bench beneath the maples and the apple. Sophia leans toward it like a sunflower seeking light.
She hesitates.
“Salesmen aren’t allowed past the gates, you know.”
He cocks his head to one side, birdlike. But he does not turn it all the way around like Semengelof, thankfully. “Why do you think I am a salesman? Is there something you lack, Sophia? Something you think I could provide?”
“No…，” she drifts off, confused.
Someone asked her that before. She cannot think. But something cold and metallic and calculating in the caverns of her heart pricks up. You cannot tell anyone, it whispers. Not any of them. They all know. They all must know. They would have met the woman your house was built for. And they never told you. You have no friends. “I have all I could desire. Everything here is perfect,” Sophia finishes with a hard-won brightness in her voice.
“Isn’t it just,” Cascavel says, and guides her to the bench. She slides down gratefully onto the wood and grips the curling iron rail.
“How did you get in?” Sophia asks suddenly. “We’re not allowed to give the passcode out.”
“Oh, I live here,” says Cascavel in his cool, sinuous voice.
“Impossible. I know everyone in Arcadia and I’m quite sure we’ve never met.”
“And yet.”
“For how long?”
The tall man turns his lovely head toward Sophia. The moon makes his eyes into pools of nothingness. He pats her hand gently.