Chapter Text
The older maid—Maz, as she’d introduced herself—set a gentle but firm pace, her shoes clicking softly along the polished floor. Rey had to lengthen her stride to keep up. The corridor turned and turned again, windows slicing the afternoon light into neat rectangles across the runner. Somewhere a radio murmured a dance tune, tinny and far away; elsewhere a clock counted the seconds with calm certainty, as if even time belonged to the Solos.
Rey tucked her hands together at her waist to keep them from fidgeting, smoothing the stiff fabric of her new dress as if the store’s smell might still cling to it. “Mr. Solo’s office?” she asked in a low voice, unsure if questions were permitted. “Mm,” Maz replied, brisk but not unkind. “Best mind your manners, child. And your hours. We keep a neat house.” They passed a side door that breathed out a draft of cool air smelling faintly of oil and metal, and Rey thought she heard a cough of laughter from somewhere she couldn’t place. The hair at the nape of her neck stirred. She told herself it was only the house settling, only servants carrying on, only nerves.
Her father’s voice reached her first. Low, careful, almost polite—his company voice—the one he wore like a clean shirt. She couldn’t make out the words, only the scrape of a chair, the lazy drag of a match. Paper rustled; a fountain pen scratched; a man cleared his throat. Maz paused with her hand on a carved door and glanced at Rey over the rim of her spectacles. “Chin high,” she murmured, which, to Rey’s surprise, felt like kindness. Then Maz pushed the door and announced, steady as a bell: “I’ve brought Miss Niima, ma’am.”
The office was the opposite of the glittering entry—solid, masculine, precise. Shelves of ledgers, a map of the state pinned with small flags, a heavy desk squared to the room. The air smelled of leather and ink and a thread of tobacco sweet as a memory—like her father’s cigarettes, though here the scent seemed polished, not sour. Mrs. Solo sat behind the desk, immaculate even seated, one hand resting beside a neat stack of papers weighted by a silver pen. Across the blotter lay a newspaper, its classifieds circled in a firm, dark hand.
Rey’s father stood at a side table, shoulders pitched forward over folded documents. His cigarette had been stubbed out, though the tray still smoldered. He didn’t look at Rey. He licked his thumb and pressed it to a receipt, peeling it free with care. “There you are, darling,” Mrs. Solo said, rising with that delighted smile Rey was already beginning to distrust. She came around the desk as though to intercept Rey’s nerves before they reached the threshold. “I just finished with your father.”
Rey glanced at him instinctively. He kept his eyes fixed on the papers and the crisp envelope beside them. It was thick enough to hold shape. Money had weight; she could see it. Mrs. Solo tapped the newspaper with one manicured finger. “All settled, just as we agreed. The notice brought many unsuitable replies, but when your father wrote us, well…” Her eyes softened on Rey, though her smile stayed sharp. “We knew at once this was Providence. A respectable girl, obedient, exactly the sort of companion our Ben deserves.” Rey blinked, heat rising in her cheeks. Companion? Did that mean housework? Reading aloud? She tried to summon an image of what Mrs. Solo wanted from her, but the word felt too large, too strange.
With a delicate hand, Mrs. Solo slid the envelope across the desk toward him. “And the recompense, as promised. A generous provision for a generous sacrifice. You’ve done rightly by your daughter, Mr. Niima. She’ll be cared for here—far better than most households could manage in these times.” Her father snatched it up at once, tucking it into his jacket pocket as if afraid she might change her mind. His nod was stiff, the sort he used at the mill when speaking to superiors. “She’ll do fine,” he muttered. “Always knew she’d be better off with proper folks.”
Rey’s stomach turned. Better off? Her fingers knotted in the stiff fabric of her skirt. What arrangement? What sacrifice? She opened her mouth, but Mrs. Solo was already moving toward her, smile fixed, hand cool and possessive as it settled on her shoulder. “You mustn’t worry, darling,” she said brightly. “Everything is prepared for you—your room, your wardrobe, even your schooling. A proper education at last. Ben needs a clever young woman at his side, someone who can share his burdens and steady his household. You understand, don’t you? A boy who has suffered so much deserves stability.”
Rey thought of her old schoolhouse back in Kansas—the cracked windows that let in the cold, the desks scarred with initials, the cardigan she wore until the elbows split. She had never owned a dress that wasn’t secondhand until her father bought this one for the trip. She’d smoothed it a hundred times already, praying it made her look worthy of standing here. Now it felt less like a gift than a costume, a costume for a part she hadn’t agreed to play. She nodded faintly, though her heart thrashed against her ribs. She didn’t dare glance at her father—when she did, all she saw was the tight clamp of his jaw, the same bitter set she’d seen behind the fogged glass of the cooler. He kept his eyes on the papers instead of her, as if she were already no longer his concern.
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Maz led her down the corridor with a brisk stride, efficient as clockwork, then stopped before a polished door. “Here you are, child,” she said, giving a short nod before retreating, her shoes fading into silence down the carpeted hall.
Rey stepped inside—and stopped cold.
The room was larger than the entire downstairs of her house in Kansas. A high ceiling gleamed white above a chandelier that caught the afternoon light in its crystal drops, scattering it like water across the walls. Heavy drapes of pale damask framed a wide window, its glass polished so clear she could see her own astonished reflection staring back. The bed—oh, the bed—spread wide as a field, its coverlet quilted in cream satin, pillows puffed high and neat as if awaiting a guest in a hotel. A rug with a floral pattern stretched across the floor, so thick Rey sank into it when she stepped forward, muffling the sound of her shoes.
She couldn’t keep still. She touched everything, half-fearing she might be scolded for it. The vanity with its oval mirror gleamed, a set of silver-backed brushes lined across its surface. Beside the bed sat a radio cabinet, the kind she’d only glimpsed once through a store window in town. She imagined the Solos sitting around it in the evening, listening to Bing Crosby croon or Edward Murrow’s steady reports about the war. On the far wall stood a closet. She drew the door open carefully and her breath caught—rows of dresses hung inside, each one smooth with newness. Silk, chiffon, wool in colors she’d never worn: pale blues, rich burgundy, sunny yellows. These were clothes movie stars wore, the kind that filled the picture magazines she used to borrow when the neighbor girls were finished with them. No frayed hems, no hand-me-down patches, no threadbare collars.
She reached out and ran her fingers along the sleeve of a navy frock. It slid under her touch like water. Her cheeks burned. These clothes weren’t for her. They belonged to a girl who had never known ration lines, or patched stockings, or standing in front of the grocer counting out stamps with shaking hands. Her gaze moved back to the bed. Beside her single worn suitcase lay something out of place: a small bear, old and shabby, its fur rubbed away to the cloth in places, one button eye missing. Rey frowned, lifting it by the arm. It sagged in her hand, familiar in its brokenness. Why would Mrs. Solo have given her such a thing, when everything else was so fine and new?
She sat heavily on the bed, the bear in her lap, the day pressing down on her all at once. Her father had left her here. She told herself she wouldn’t cry. She would not. But her throat ached all the same.
Ever since her mother had died, Rey’s father had looked at her like she was one more bill he couldn’t pay, one more burden he hadn’t asked for. He drank more, shouted more, muttered about how a girl couldn’t help with the mill or bring home wages. Rey had known, somewhere deep down, that he wanted to get rid of her. But knowing didn’t make the truth easier when it finally came. She hugged the bear against her chest, though it smelled faintly of dust and mothballs, and stared around the room that glittered with comforts she had never imagined. She would not cry, she told herself again. Still, the thought pulsed sharp behind her ribs: Papa had left her. Papa had chosen to leave her. And yet… she couldn’t stop hoping that somewhere, beneath the bitterness and the drinking, he had loved her still.
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Maz returned not long after that with instructions for supper. Rey smoothed her skirt quickly, half-expecting to be scolded for sitting idle on the bed, but the maid only inclined her head.
“This way, child.”
The dining room was a cavern of polished wood and glittering silver. A chandelier hung low over the table, its light scattering across cut crystal and dishes arranged with military precision. The air smelled of roasted meat and wine, richer than anything Rey had tasted in years. Mrs. Solo was already seated, posture elegant, hands folded at the edge of her plate. Beside her, a man sat with a cigar balanced between his fingers, his shoulders broad beneath a well-cut jacket. His hair was touched with silver at the temples, his expression lined with the kind of confidence that comes from owning everything. Smoke curled lazily above him, blurring the edges of his face.
“Rey,” Mrs. Solo said brightly, gesturing her forward. “This is my husband, Mr. Solo.”
Mr. Solo inclined his head in greeting, eyes sharp and appraising as they flicked over her new dress, her posture, the way her hands fidgeted at her sides. “So this is the girl,” he murmured, voice gravelly with age and years of smoking cigars. Heat rushed to Rey’s cheeks. She dipped her head politely, unsure whether to curtsy or simply sit. “And,” Mrs. Solo continued, her gaze sweeping toward the far end of the table, “this is our son. Ben.”
Rey followed her line of sight—and her breath snagged. The doll. The same one she had found upstairs in the plain room, seated now in the place of honor at the head of the table. Dressed in a dark suit and tie, hair slicked neatly to the side, it looked exactly as before—glass-eyed, lifelike, terrible. Only now it was worse. A goblet of wine had been poured, a plate laid with care, as though it were not a doll at all but a man about to eat.
Her stomach twisted. Surely someone else must see it for what it was. But Maz’s firm hand pressed at her back, urging her forward.
“Sit, child.”
Her legs carried her to the chair at Mrs. Solo’s right, moving as if by command rather than choice. The seat was polished wood, cold even through the layers of her dress. She folded her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking, her back stiff and straight. “Ben,” Mrs. Solo said warmly, turning her bright smile toward the figure at the head of the table. “This is Rey. You must be so pleased she’s joined us.”
Rey’s gaze darted toward the doll—toward him—and her throat closed. The glass eyes caught the chandelier’s light, unblinking, their dark shine fixed somewhere just above her head. Yet Mrs. Solo’s expression brimmed with expectation, as though awaiting an answer from her son.
The silence stretched, unbearable. Rey’s mouth worked, but no sound came. The weight of both Solos’ eyes pressed down, willing her to play along. At last she swallowed hard and whispered, “P–pleased to meet you,” her voice trembling in the vast hush of the room.