“Klara,” I say from the doorway. “Potrzebuję muzyki.” I need music.
She straightens up, frowning a little.
I think she’s annoyed that I interrupted her, but then I realize she’s just thinking.
After a minute, she strips off her gloves and says, “Chodź ze mną.” Come with me.
I follow her out of the kitchen, through the billiards room, then up a back staircase to a part of the house I haven’t seen before. This area is plain and cramped—probably the servant’s quarters once upon a time.
Klara takes me all the way up to the attic, which runs the length of the central portion of the house. It’s a huge space, crowded with endless stacks of boxes and piles of old furniture. It also appears to house half the spiders in the state of Illinois. Sheets of old cobwebs hang from floor to ceiling. Klara pushes through them impatiently. I follow at a respectful distance, not wanting to meet an arachnid with that sort of work ethic.
Klara roots through the boxes. Hopefully she knows what she’s looking for, because we could spend a hundred years up here without coming to the end of it all. I see yellowed wedding dresses, stacks of old photographs, hand-knitted baby blankets, worn leather shoes.
There’s a whole box of gowns from the 1920s, beaded, feathered, and draped. They must be worth a fortune to the right person. They look like they should be displayed in a museum.
“Hold on,” I say to Klara. “We’ve got to look at those.”
She pauses in her search and I open up the box of gowns instead, pulling them out of their tissue wrappings.
I can’t believe how heavy and intricate the dresses are. They look hand-sewn, each one representing hundreds of hours of labor. The materials are like nothing you’d find in a store nowadays.
“We have to try one on,” I say to Klara.
She touches the fringed skirt of one of the gowns. I can tell she finds them as fascinating as I do, but she’s not a rule-breaker. The gowns are in this house, which means they belong to the Beast.
I don’t give a damn who they belong to. I’m putting one on.
I pull out a blue velvet gown with long, floating butterfly sleeves. The deep V in the front goes down almost to the waist, where a jeweled belt sits. I put it on over top of my bodysuit, amazed at how heavy it is. I feel like an empress. Like I should have a servant carrying my train.
Klara looks at the dress, wide-eyed. I can tell she wants to try one, too.
“Come on,” I coax her. “No one will see us.”
Biting her lip, she makes her choice. She quickly strips out of her awful maid’s uniform. If there’s any evidence that Mikolaj is a monster, it’s the fact that he makes her wear that awful thing day in and day out. It looks hot and uncomfortable.
Klara actually has a lovely figure underneath. She’s fit and strong, probably from lifting and scrubbing all damn day.
She pulls out a long black gown with silver beading on the bodice. She steps into it, and I zip up the back. Then she turns around, so I can admire the full effect.
It’s absolutely gorgeous. The gown has a near-transparent bodice, thin black mesh with silver moons and stars embroidered across the breast. The drop-waist is covered by a long, dangling silver belt, like something you’d see on a medieval gown. With her black hair and dark eyes, Klara looks like an enchantress.
“Oh my god,” I breathe. “It’s so beautiful.”
I pull Klara over to a dusty old mirror leaned up against the wall. I brush it off with my hands, so she can see her reflection clearly.
Klara stares at herself, equally entranced.
“Kto to jest?” she says softly. Who is that?
“It’s you,” I laugh. “You’re magical.”
My dress is pretty, but Klara’s was made for her. Never did a piece of clothing fit someone so perfectly. It’s like the seamstress looked a hundred years into the future for her muse.
“You have to keep it,” I say to Klara. “Take it home with you. No one knows it’s up here.”
I say it in English, but Klara understands the gist. She shakes her head wildly, struggling to undo the zipper.
“Nie, nie,” she says, pulling at the back. “Zdejmij to.” Take it off.
I help her unzip it, before she tears the material.
She steps out of the dress, swiftly folding it up and stowing it back in the box.
“To nie dla mnie,” she says, shaking her head. It’s not for me.
I can tell that nothing I say will convince her.
It’s tragic to think of that dress moldering up here in the attic, with no one to use it or love it like Klara could. But I understand that she could never enjoy it, worrying that Mikolaj would find out. Where would she wear it, anyway? As far as I can tell, she spends all her time here.
We put the dresses back in their box, and Klara pulls on her uniform once more, itchier and hotter than ever by comparison to that gorgeous gown. Then she searches through a dozen more boxes until she finally finds the one she was looking for.
“Tam!” she says happily.
She drags out the box, thrusting it into my arms. It’s heavy. I stagger under the weight. When she lifts the lid, I see dozens of slim, long spines, in a riot of colors. It’s a box of old records.
“Is there a record player?” I ask her.
She nods. “Na dół.” Downstairs.
While I carry the records over to the old art room, Klara retrieves the turntable. She sets it up in the corner of the room, balanced on one of the little end tables I’ve shoved into the corner. The turntable is just as old as the vinyl, and even dustier. Klara has to clean it all over with a damp cloth. Even after she plugs it into the wall to prove that the platter still spins, neither one of us is certain it will play.
I pull out one of the records, removing the vinyl from its protective sleeve. Klara places it carefully on the platter and sets the needle in place. There’s an unpleasant static sound, and then, to our joy and amazement, it begins to play “All I Have to Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers.
We both start laughing, faces and hands filthy with dust from the attic, but our smiles as bright as ever.
“Proszę bardzo. Muzyka,” Klara says. There you go. Music.
“Dziękuję Ci, Klara,” I say. Thank you, Klara.
She smiles, shrugging her slim shoulders.
Once she leaves, I pore over the vinyl in the box. Most of it is from the 50s and 60s—not what I’d generally dance to, but miles better than silence.
However, there are also a few LPs of classical music, some by composers I’ve never heard of before. I play through a few of the records, looking for one that suits my mood.
I usually lean toward cheerful, upbeat music. I hate to admit it, but Taylor Swift has been one of my favorite singers for years.
There’s nothing like that in the box. A lot of it I don’t recognize at all.
One cover catches my eye: it’s a single white rose on a black background. The composer’s name is Egelsei.
I swap out the record, setting the needle in place.
The music is unlike anything I’ve heard before—haunting, dissonant . . . yet entrancing. It makes me think of this old mansion creaking in the night. Of Klara in her witchy gown, reflected in a dusty mirror. And of a girl, sitting at a long table lit by candlelight, facing a Beast.