Seven for a Secret by Elizabeth Bear Page A

of God, of a certainty. But when confronted with a cathedral, the wampyr found himself always marveling instead at the ingenuity and will of tiny, fragile men, to so overcome the hard obdurate laws of God’s creation.
    He would have liked to pad the length of that chill silent corridor, for symbolism’s sake, but he had not grown to be older than churches by foolishness. Or at least, he allowed with an element of self-amusement, not by too much foolishness.
    He ascended to the lovely Norman triforium, which would bring him the length of the nave in relative privacy. At the crossing, he paused, with Abby Irene’s plan of the cathedral sharp before his mind’s eye. There seemed no doubt that the oath would take place before the altar.
    He made himself comfortable in the shadows, there to bide the hours until dawn. Another fine thing about England; he could be fairly sure the rain would hold.
    An hour before sunrise, a figure appeared beside him, silent as a ghost, slender in her black opera cloak and gloves. When she looked up at him, he saw he top part of her face obscured by a black domino mask and smiled. “Alice,” he whispered. “So glad you’ve come.”
    She winked, her eyelid pale in the almond-shaped aperture, and extended a hand. From it dangled a second black domino. “I thought we should match.”

    Ruth would have wakened Adele with a kiss, but when Herr Professor’s footsteps again made the old wood of the corridors creak, the door to their room was still standing open. Behind their own doors, Ruth could hear the other girls stirring.
    So Ruth merely rose, slid her feet into her slippers, and pulled her dressing gown from the head of the bed. She lit the gas lamps over the bed-heads. Then with deliberate motions she squared the sheet-corners and made her bed up taut, as if she would ever be returning to it. She was tucking the top sheet under fluffed pillows when a heavy tread along the hall runner alerted her, long before Herr Professor’s knuckles sounded sharp on the doorframe. „Rise and shine,” he barked, though Adele was already swinging her feet over the edge of her mattress. Who could sleep through all that tromping?
    „Good morning, Herr Professor,” Ruth said, Adele mumbling the formula along with her. Ruth’s bed finished, she turned to help Adele pull her own sheets taut.
    While Adele scrubbed in the washbasin, Ruth laid out pressed blouses, stockings, the shoes they had polished the previous day. Adele brought their ironed uniforms from the wardrobe and laid them on the bed beside the blouses. Ruth hid the soft tan leather pouch inside her palm, hoping her own scent would conceal its very faint one.
    Hands emptied, Adele glanced at the door, touched Ruth’s shoulder, and leaned forward. Ruth, expecting a furtive kiss, turned into the embrace, but Adele’s mouth came inside the camber of her braid, instead, pressed close to her ear. „You’re going to take the oath, right?”
    Her eyebrows were drawn tight over the bridge of her
little-girl nose. Ruth’s mouth parched. She could not look down, because if she looked down, Adele would know she wasn’t telling the truth. A rose bush by the door, a pair of white-painted chairs.
    The pouch in her sweating palm.
    We could live together. We could be safe and happy and privileged. Sturmwölfe.
    Are the Prussians any worse than any other conqueror?
    She thought of the Jews who hadn’t been able to pass. She thought of her own family.
    They were bad enough, she decided.
    „I’m going to take the oath,” she said. „Pass me my hairbrush, Adele.”

    When Ruth and Adele trooped outside with the other girls, the long drive was lined not only with the usual bus, but with a half-dozen staff cars. Ruth began to walk toward the long gray bus, only to feel Herr Professor come up
beside her. She felt him begin to reach for her shoulder, but he stopped himself, and let his hand fall to his side. „That is for the younger girls,” he said.