House of Glass (2 page)

My father stopped rowing. The world was suddenly quiet, with only the wail of an occasional seagull carrying through the air. We drifted for a moment, taking in the scene before us. The sun was just one finger above the horizon, and streaks of pink and orange stained the sky.

I drew my gaze along the outline of the island, where the strip of green at the top was. I could just make out a hulking shadow of darkness. “I see it!” I exclaimed. “It’s a castle.”

“Not a castle, really. An old fortress,” corrected my father. “Long, long ago, it held troops who would watch over and protect the island.”

My eyes were trained on the building, and I could see that the stretch of green was a manicured lawn, an impossible thing on an island like ours. The fortress seemed so huge and ominous, so imposing that I wondered aloud, “Why in the world would they live in a fortress?”

“That I don’t know. I think there was a house for the family at one time.”

“Do you see those flames?” I asked.

“What?” He was surprised. “Oh, I see what you are looking at now, they are lighting the torches.”

A small globe of orange hovered at the top of the cliff. I could make out the shadow of a person that appeared to be a woman holding the torch. She was at the steepest point of the cliff. A chill swept over me. She was so close to the edge…

The fire lowered and I cried out in fear, thinking that whoever it was had fallen. But no, it was an illusion, and the fire only moved slowly down the cliff.

“Do you see the stairs?” asked my father. “Watch.” His tone was patient and indulgent. “Watch.”

The flame floated lower. Suddenly, there was a flare, a bursting intensity of light, and one fire became two. Like lava dripping down the face of the rock, the flame descended, illuminating a staircase that was hewn into the rock. Just above the ocean the last flame came to life and all at once there were a thousand flames, an impossible crisscross of light and color.

“What is it?” I asked.

We could see illuminated in a ring of fire what appeared to be a house of glass.

If the torches were a necklace of fire, the cottage was the jewel. It dangled just above the shoreline, brilliant in the dusk.

I gaped at the image, trying to unlock the mystery of how a house of glass could be perched on such a precarious spot. A thin skeleton of white pillars and supports provided a clue, but the building, although small as a bungalow, was a marvel to behold. A feeling swelled inside me, of warmth and wonder, appreciation and awe. “It’s so beautiful,” I whispered.

The house shimmered in the setting sun. It almost seemed to shift in place, a trick of the eye.

“Reyna…” My father’s voice came to me from somewhere far away. “Reyna… We have to go. It’s almost dark and we can’t be out on the water at night.”

“No,” I begged. “No. Please, Papa, can’t we just stay a little while longer?” Some part of me thought that the house would do that unusual thing again, that trick of the light, and I wanted to see it.

“I’m sorry, my sweet. But, the tides are changing, pushing us toward the rocks. We have to go.” He dropped the oars, turning us away from the magnificent house. I felt a pang of sadness as we moved away, and only when we were almost back to our side of the island did my joyful mood return. I still had the shell, clutched in my small hand.

When we reached home, my father helped me bore a hole in the seashell that Mr. St. Claire had given me. We threaded a strip of leather through the hole and my father placed it over my head. The shell warmed the base of my throat. “A jewel fit for a queen,” he said, and I could tell by his playful tone that he was teasing me.

I never missed a day at market after that. I would wait, fingering my necklace nervously, watching the entrance to the harbor for that one distinctive sailboat, though it never came. But I was always ready, my necklace never removed. Though at first I begged my father relentlessly, he never took me to see the glass house again. Eventually, my requests died away, and I was left with only a memory.

* * *

It is a testament to my happiness that ten years slipped by in barely an instant. 1912 arrived, and I turned twenty years old. No man I had ever met could compare to the memory of Lucas St. Claire. I focused solely on my father, helping him whenever I could.

The world seemed poised on the tip of technology and industry, and when my father bought a new boat, one with a motor, it seemed as if the future was right before us.

Not a month later, my father left to fish in the dead of night. I remember rousing from sleep just long enough to feel him kiss my forehead goodbye before sleep claimed me again. That is my last memory of him, a cloudy wisp of a memory. He headed out like he had so many times before, but he never returned.

It seemed that my happy life was taken, too. I was left painfully alone and penniless, as both my father and the source of our living and our savings—his boat—were gone. I sold my father’s market stall to another fisherman, and the meager amount of money that I received was all I had to my name.

A month after my father’s death at sea, a letter arrived for me. It was from my aunt, my father’s sister, a woman I had seen only briefly once or twice when I was younger. I opened the envelope and read it while I sat at the kitchen table, a few meager pieces of salted fish my only dinner. As I read, the words sank in quickly and my hands began to shake.

When I finished reading it, I stood up, grabbed the old suitcase from under my father’s bed and placed all of my belongings inside. I said a quick prayer, went to bed and waited for the morning. I never slept. At dawn, I was to take the ferry to the other side of the island. My aunt had secured a housekeeping position for me on the estate of Lucas St. Claire.

Chapter Two

The ferry was waiting, its engine purring, and gulls flew above as I boarded it. I sat by the railing, clutching my suitcase to my chest as if it were a lifejacket, and watched the sights of our small marina fade in the mist as we headed out over the bay. My future lay out there, obscured by the fog.

Thankfully, the waters were smooth, and the sun hovered in the sky, nothing more than a silver disc behind the vapor. I heard the engines of other boats, far away and muffled. The ferry floated as if in a dream.

Gradually, the wind picked up, and the fog cleared.

There, before a curtain of blue sky, was the island, and in the center of it was the house of glass. It was like a diamond, perched on the cliff, twinkling, taking me back to the days with my father. A strange, flushed sensation enveloped me. Had it really been ten years?

Now, dark clouds drew together and the image was gone, but not the memories of that day, ten years before, back when my life was simple and happy.

So much had changed since then. I was now twenty years old, no longer a child. I would live in the house I that I once dreamed about, not as a wife, but as a servant. I had lost everything that I once loved so deeply and had come to depend on. Lucas St. Claire had lost much as well, and he was now an outcast, living under suspicion ever since his wife disappeared. I was deep in my thoughts and surprised when the boat bumped against the dock.

We had arrived at the main harbor of St. Claire. When I stood to leave, the mist seemed to curl about my legs with tendrils as strong as fingers. Instinctively, I touched my necklace. I wonder now if it was trying to help me, to hold me back from the chain of events that would soon sweep me away. But, I shall never know, because I stepped out of the boat and off the dock and kicked loose of the mist.

The docks were bustling with people, the smell of salt and fish, and the cries of the fishermen as they solicited their day’s catch. I passed my father’s stall and said hello to Roberto, the fisherman who bought my father’s stall and he gave me a kind wave in return.

A tightness gripped my throat when I passed the old market stall, but I forced myself to continue on. I walked off the dock, and past the harbormaster’s office where captains and merchants were negotiating loudly. When I left the gates of the harbor, I stopped for a moment and looked up at the road ahead.

There was no cart coming for me. I began to walk, but the going was slow. The breeze that was usually present at the docks died away as I climbed and entered the dense canopy of trees that swallowed the road and led higher and higher. Sweat gathered on my brow and I stopped often to mop it away.

Occasionally, a bird would call out. Here and there the trees opened up to reveal the ocean far beneath me. After what felt like a lifetime of walking, the gates loomed before me. I had arrived at Devlin Manor.

I could not move.

I don’t know what I was so afraid of. It was only a gate. My feet, however, refused to go along with that simple fact. Maybe it was the stone lions, perched on the pillars and staring at me, maybe it was the anxiousness of my first employment. Maybe it was something else entirely. I shall never really know. The gates were open, welcoming me. I chided myself for my foolishness.

I picked up my black suitcase, giving a small grunt with the effort, and stepped through the gate into my new life. Just like that, I emerged from the darkness and onto the cleared and manicured estate of Lucas St. Claire. It was the highest point on the island, and I could see far into the distance, all the way to the horizon where sea and blue skies blurred together.

I took a few hesitant steps, noticing that my scuffed, black boots were a stain against the perfect green of the grass. The road that wound through the island jungle was long forgotten, with only the bright promise of a green carpet that stretched in front of me until it reached the walls of Devlin Manor.

An image of the first time I saw the estate arose in my mind, when I had seen it from afar, from a small boat that bobbed in the open waters. At the time it seemed to me a gray, hulking shadow at the top of the mountain, a fortress overlooking the waters. Now that I stood before it, I knew that my first impression was correct.

Massive stone walls, made of crushed shells rose two stories into the air. Small windows stared straight ahead, their views blinded by shutters that were fastened tight. A series of wide steps led upward from the lawn until they reached two black mahogany doors.

It was a forbidding house. My eyes darted around, longing for some reassuring sights.

My gaze came to the gardens, to the right of the building. There were walls of hedges, neatly trimmed, with a row of pink flowered hibiscus in front of them. I could see trees beyond the hedges, night jasmine and those eerie banyans, with their long roots dripping from the branches.

I realized that I was staring like a fool and remembered the instructions from my aunt’s letter. I was to go and knock and the back door, the servants’ entrance. I walked along the outer edge of the building, running my hand along the rough stone, feeling the shells as they scraped against my skin. I found the door just off the wide terrace at the back of house, overlooking the ocean. I rapped three times and a stout man opened the door. “Yes?” He spoke in a tone that indicated he was bothered.

“I am Reyna Ferraro.”

“And?” He hovered over the door.

“I am here for employment. To see Mrs. Amber.”

“Hmph. One moment please.” He turned around and shut the door behind him.

I waited, standing straight as an arrow until a middle-aged woman with brown hair that was pulled into a bun opened it again. “Reyna?” she asked in a sharp tone, but I saw from the look in her eyes that she recognized me.

It had been many years since I had seen my father’s sister, but I still felt the familiar nervousness around her. “Aunt Louisa,” I said.

She turned around, held the door open for me, and waited. “Here you call me Mrs. Amber.”

“I’m sorry, I forgot.” I quickly added, “Mrs. Amber.” There was no Mr. Amber, but my father was explicit when he told me as a child to call her Mrs. Amber.

She wore all black, right down to her black leather shoes. The only spot of color she had was a gold chain that hung from her neck and held a ring of keys that jangled as I walked past her.

She led me down a narrow hallway lined with windows that gave brief glimpses of the ocean as we walked. The waves were white capped and choppy in the distance. “You understand that you’re only here because of your father.” She spoke in a crisp manner and walked even more so and I found myself hurrying my pace to keep up with her.

“I understand.”

“Because I took pity on you. With your father—”

I interrupted her. “I know. It was hard. Things have changed so much.”

We turned the corner into a pantry of sorts. Cans of food lined the walls and at the far end, there was a door. Mrs. Amber lifted the key ring from her necklace, found the right key and unlocked the door, and we stepped into the room.

Mrs. Amber had to crowd into the front of the small room so I might enter with my bag. There was a single bed with a blue comforter, a dresser with a mirror above it, a table beside the bed and a small square window, situated right above the bed, that looked out onto the courtyard and the delivery door that I had just entered. “It’s perfect, thank you,” I said to her. “When shall I report to duty?”

“You already have.” She paused a moment, and ran the key ring up and down the necklace as she peered at me. She was younger than my father, her hair still a rich brown, and her eyes were dark as raisins. “A quick word of advice if you would like to get on here.”

“Of course.” Early, vague memories of her came rushing back, with her stiff demeanor, her brusqueness and curt disposition.

“First and foremost, you will see nothing. If you don’t know what I mean you soon will. Whatever happens here, and let me be clear, whatever happens here, you don’t see any of it. You don’t discuss it with anyone, not another servant, a guest or a friend. Do you understand me?”

A chill swept over me. “Of course,” I said. “I understand discretion.”

“This goes beyond discretion.” She took a quick, sharp glance at me. “You’ll know soon enough. But keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine.”

“Second. Your employment is conditional from week to week. If you perform as expected it will never be a problem.”