CHAPTER 54 – Liability

The greenhouse was spacious and warm and smelled of potting soil and tropical plants. Like a docent, George led the girls toward a set of divans once belonging to a Regency drawing room.

The green room was warm and humid, very much unlike the wintry corridor. George produced two cashmere blankets from a nook, retrieved a first-aid kit from the wall, and then pulled over a potting desk to lay out the contents. His old hands moved meticulously, signalling to Eppie that the man’s early life was probably not spent as a housekeeper. He worked on Eppie’s hands first. The terracotta had left three deep abrasions across her right palm and two shallower ones on her left. Her wounds looked worse than they were, because Eppie could have pumped her [Stamina], [Health] or [Vitality]. Of the three, it was [Health] she had yet to intervene with [Causality], because such a thing was probably best investigated in private, lest she be politely asked to attend to a research lab.

She took the bandages like a champ thanks to her [Pain Suppression], a [Trait] that was either from her orphanage or from her time with William. The graze on her thigh he attended to with the same professionalism, peeling her dress back with a discretion that granted her considerable dignity.

Across from Eppie, on another divan, Valorie Sanders sat watching her.

For once, Val was not pissed, upset, or fighting the desire to Mike Tyson Eppie’s ear. She looked subdued, like she had run out of the fire that made her so Valorie. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders so that it covered her chest. Her hands were in her lap. George had left her a packet of baby wipes and some disinfectant to clean herself. She had done so, discovering in the process that her wounds were superficial and that the blood was almost entirely Eppie’s.

Eppie’s arm gash took three wound patches. The cut on her face was thankfully shallow, and the bleeding had already stopped. Babywipe after babywipe of bloody material fell into the bin beside George. Eppie studied her foe without staring into her eyes, in case she reignited something in Valorie. In all honesty, she had expected Val to cry. Instead, for some irrational reason, Val had kissed her.

Was it a Pavlovian thing?
Had William conditioned her to do this?
Would Val just kiss whoever came to save her like a Princess waiting for a knight, hoping against hope that the recipient was a protector and not an abuser?

In her piled-up hair, red dress, and blanket, Valorie did look like a Princess, even if that Princess was from the Golden Age of Disney Animation.

A part of Eppie still couldn’t believe she had rescued Valorie. There was a part of her, roughly one-fifth of herself, that had voted for satisfaction. Even now, she couldn’t shake the feeling, because, in the course of justice without the courts, what should have happened was as close to karmic justice as possible.

As for Vaughan’s patronage… She had thrown it with the pot, because she wanted to do the right thing.

She wanted to be Brutus.

Her tally after saving Val with forty-five-kilos of [Noblesse Oblige] was roughly negative five thousand [Causality], one Givenchy, and one mentor who could have given her the keys to this world’s high society. Oh yeah, the Chanel shoes were ruined as well.

Touched by her wincing, George offered her painkillers and a glass of water from the carafe on the desk. She swallowed both, then fought through the stinging on her arms by focusing on Val’s visage. Was it strange that Val, a girl lauded as best in show at the second-most-prestigious performing arts high school in the US, should be like this? So… passive? So yielding? So mentally pliant?

Was it only on stage that Valorie Sanders was alive?

Her train of stray thought arrived at a country station she hadn’t considered before. Simone. Eppie. Mio. William had gorged on their [Causality].

She had opened Pandora’s Box. But she also paid. Just how much life did the [Usurper of Hope] manage to harvest from Val?

Eppie wished she had a [Karmatron Scanner] or something, just to see how much [Causality] Valorie had left in her tank. Whether the girl was replenishing her [Dasein] through performances like herself, or if she was surviving on fumes.

In the west corridor, Mirabelle walked with Aziz the way she walked in her office, slightly ahead of the room’s general momentum.

Aziz kept pace, his camera rig now capped, his demeanour wholly professional.

A minute later, her mentor joined them.

“The photos?” Vaughan said.

Aziz reached into the full-frame body without breaking stride and produced a second CompactFlash from the main slot. Earlier, he had given them the spare. It was a professional habit from his conflict work.

He placed it in Vaughan’s open palm without a word. Vaughan walked with purpose toward the main gallery.

“Madam,” Aziz came closer to the revered Madam of the Met. “Earlier, your… niece? She threw the pot clean across the balconies. She lifted it from the plinth and released it on Mr Grein.” He paused, his voice measured, his retelling factual. “It was an extraordinary feat of strength. I think I would have struggled.”

Mirabelle whistled. “That’s quite the claim. Did you capture it?”

“I did,” Aziz gave her a strange look. “I took it on reflex, no setting adjustments. Yet, the image was… sharp? Aesthetic? There was even chiaroscuro lighting… it was… accidental Renaissance.”

“How about the…” Mirabelle wiggled her brows.

Aziz’s expression grew professional. “The image in focus and the lighting were phenomenal.”

Mirabelle felt her professional curiosity peak. “Julia, could I have a copy, for editorial purposes? I feel inspired by this aesthetic. I am going to do a Special Brief. We’re going to smash some pots.”

“Noted,” Vaughan said, still holding the memory card.

Her mentor kept walking.

In the galleria, the Grein Incident had already begun its retreat from the evening’s official memory. Such was the nature of rooms like this one. The attendees had a collective metabolism that processed disruption quickly and expelled it quietly, because the alternative was to acknowledge that Juliana Vaughan was not a perfect host. No one wanted to be the first to say it.

Besides, Grein had a reputation. If the man were struck by lightning on a clear day, they would say, “I am not sure what else I expected.”

Vaughan found her man near the Icarus painting. The woman called Marie, a B-list soap star, stood at his elbow, her dress had been wiped clean, her mental vacancy reinstated.

“Mr Grein.” Vaughan extended her hand. “I am sorry for whatever that was. Are you all right?”

“Right as rain,” Grein said. The man’s handshake was slimy. “These things happen. Old houses, old pots.” He chuckled with true professionalism. “Please don’t concern yourself, Juliana. I’ll be fine.”

“I am glad to hear it. I will, of course, look into what occurred.”

“I am sure you will,” Grein motioned for his partner. “Perhaps I can help.”

Marie took a shoe out of her Gucci handbag.

It was a Chanel. Four-inch heel, ivory, the kind of shoe that costs more per inch than most of Denise’s weekly groceries. It had been snapped cleanly at the ankle strap. It was covered in soil and what looked like old rainwater.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Grein turned it over in his hands with the satisfied expression of an animal abuser who had found his next kitten.

“Found it on a balcony,” he grinned wolfishly. “Next to an empty plinth.”

Vaughan scoffed. “Cinderella,” she said pleasantly. “How charming.” She tilted her head. “Do you intend to have every young woman in your stable try it on? What’s the reward? A leading role?”

Grein’s smile held. “When I find her,” the man said viciously, “she’ll have the pleasure of finding out.”

Vaughan gave him a hard, long look. She opened her hand. In her palm sat the CompactFlash card.

“Out of charity, I invited an infamous producer into my house,” she said, her voice low and quiet, rising like a storm. “I extended that courtesy with the expectation that it would be reciprocated.”

The room continued its business around them. People were watching. People like Mayor Holt, who was now ready to shake Vaughan’s hand and bid her adieu.

Grein’s face scrunched together like a pug’s.

“Touché.” The producer bowed deeply. He took the shoe and placed it with some ceremony on the canapé desk. He then straightened his soiled jacket. “Merry Christmas, Dame Juliana. If there’s anything I can do to help in the future, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Merry Christmas, Mr Grein.”

He turned. Marie moved to follow, then paused. She looked at the singular Chanel shoe with longing, as if pondering some emerging truth. As if that singular shoe was a thought-provoking piece of art.

“Merry Christmas,” Marie said. Her eyes, Vaughan felt, finally had a spark of life.