Echo in Amethyst Page 2

  “You know that’s not true, Lady Marietta dropped by just two days ago.”

  “Marietta! She’s more than a hundred years old!”

  “She’s not. She’s barely your father’s age.”

  “I bet she’s never gone dancing in her life.”

  “You won’t go dancing, either, if you don’t sit still and let me finish your hair.”

  Elyssa subsided with a sigh, though she kept up a murmured commentary on who might be present at the ball and who might solicit her hand to dance.

  I lost the thread of their conversation. In fact, I forgot to listen. I was too busy being stunned by a great revelation. I wasn’t in any pain. Elyssa hadn’t been cutting my arm or holding a burning coal to my foot. I had come to awareness randomly, independently, on my own.

  I hadn’t known I could do that. Might it happen again?

  Might I hold on to consciousness longer?

  Always?

  I had barely had the thought when everything I knew about the world was suddenly reordered. Elyssa jumped to her feet—and at the exact same time, the echoes and I leapt up as well. She made a quarter turn, holding her arms above her head so Trima could slide her dress over her shoulders. The echoes and I turned with her, raised our arms, waited patiently. I heard a rustle behind me, but I couldn’t turn my head so much as a fraction of an inch to see who else might be in the room. It was as if my bones, my muscles, my heartbeats were matched to Elyssa’s—as if she powered us or controlled us by some unbreakable bond. A serving woman I had never seen before stepped into view, her arms loaded with crinkled purple fabric. In a few moments, the echoes and I were all wearing matching dresses.

  “Done, my lady,” the servant said, and Elyssa lowered her arms. The three of us lowered our arms as well.

  Elyssa buried her hands in the folds of the skirt and twisted back and forth to feel the cloth swirl about her legs. Helpless to do anything else, I moved with her, mimicking her exactly, taking a quick sideways step as if practicing a dance move, then throwing back my head to laugh. No noise came from my throat, though, not the giddy, happy giggle that Elyssa offered—not the wrenching wail of horror that I would have produced if I had been able to make a sound.

  I understood what an echo was now. I was a copy of Elyssa—a reflection, a shadow, a reverberation. I wasn’t a separate being, like Trima and the other serving woman. I was part of Elyssa.

  And she had absolute control over everything I could see or feel or do.

  There followed a period of time—maybe months, maybe years, I simply couldn’t judge—where my life was a patchwork of sleeping and waking, of unconsciousness and awareness, of being nothing and being something.

  I still occasionally found myself coming to life because of some searing agony, and opening my eyes to find Elyssa laughing above me. But those days were increasingly rare; it seemed Elyssa the adult had many more distractions than Elyssa the girl, so she had less need to amuse herself with casual cruelty. More often now I would find myself suddenly and randomly becoming conscious, with no knowledge of where I was or how I had gotten there.

  I might be riding with Elyssa and the other echoes in a carriage. Following Elyssa down a corridor. Sitting at a table in a massive dining hall, spooning up soup at exactly the same moment as Elyssa and the other echoes. Most of the time, my surroundings seemed comfortable and familiar, so I assumed we were in the house where Elyssa lived, though I had no real memories of the place. Other times, the environment seemed foreign and strange, and then I supposed we were visiting a place Elyssa barely knew. Gradually, as I had more and more episodes of consciousness, I began to build my bank of memories. This is the dining room where we have eaten many times. This is the hall that leads to Elyssa’s room. That man is her father.

  Now and then, I would find myself gaining awareness in the middle of some activity. Once I came to my senses to find myself on a crowded dance floor, caught in the embrace of an unfamiliar man with dark skin and a vague, abstracted expression. An echo, I realized. I had a moment’s panic as I realized I didn’t know how to dance, but that faded when I understood that I didn’t have to know. I was bound to Elyssa, and she knew. My feet would follow her feet, my body would turn and sway precisely with hers.

  As my fear subsided, my curiosity rose. I was unable to turn my head to look around, but soon enough the motion of the dance showed me more of the people nearby. There was Elyssa, simpering in the arms of a man who looked identical to the one who held me, except that his face was full of life and curiosity and his eyes were fixed intently on Elyssa. Nearby were her other two echoes, similarly held by blank-faced men who looked just like the one holding Elyssa.

  Three echoes each, I thought. Are there always three?

  I still didn’t know who had echoes and who didn’t—or why anyone would have echoes to begin with.

  As we continued to twirl around the dance floor, I kept glancing around as much as I was able, trying to absorb information. It was quickly clear to me that any group of people wearing identical clothing included a man or a woman and that individual’s echoes. I never saw anyone with more than three echoes, and most had only one or two. Some didn’t have any echoes at all. Those people seemed to be mostly relegated to the sidelines, serving refreshments or clearing away dishes. They were dressed in dark, unadorned clothing—much like Trima’s—and did nothing to draw attention to themselves. The word servants popped into my head.

  So there were at least two classes of society, and only the glittering beautiful class had echoes. Which must mean echoes were symbols of status or wealth or power. I couldn’t think of any practical reason for people to be followed around by creatures that looked exactly like them and copied their movements absolutely—but then, I wasn’t used to thinking at all.

  As I watched the dancers, I realized something. Even though four people might look exactly alike, it was easy to tell which ones were echoes and which one was not. The echoes all had unfocused eyes and blank faces; they smiled and laughed, but their expressions were rote and superficial, and they never spoke aloud. And there was something else odd about them, something indefinable and insubstantial, as if you might put out a hand to touch their shoulder and instead pass your arm right through.

  Whereas the men and women they emulated were solid and hearty. Their faces showed emotion, their voices carried conviction, they were brimming with life. They were real, and the echoes were not.

  I was an echo. Maybe I wasn’t real.

  But I was beginning to think I was.

  Over the next few months, as I continued to fugue in and out of consciousness, I began to gather more bits of information about my life. I learned that Elyssa and her father and her aunt lived in a manor house in a province called Alberta, and Alberta was in the western half of a kingdom that contained six other provinces. Apparently, many of the people who lived in the three western provinces disliked their king, who lived in a far-off city called Camarria located in the province of Sammerly.

  I also learned that society across the seven provinces was commonly divided into five classes—high nobles, low nobles, merchants and professionals, the working class, and the persistent poor—and only the high nobles were ever blessed with echoes. I learned that people with echoes were referred to as originals, and that they were envied by anyone who didn’t have echoes of their own.

  I listened closely, but I never heard anyone specify what category echoes might fall into. It was as if we didn’t even exist. Or perhaps we were so much lower than the persistent poor that we didn’t even deserve a class of our own.

  None of those details interested me as much as gaining an understanding of the small, essential conventions that governed my day-to-day existence. I discovered that anytime we were someplace where other people could see us, Elyssa made sure all of her echoes were bound to her. If I woke up during a dinner or a ball or a stroll through the garden and there was even one other person nearby, I would always find myself walking in concert wi
th Elyssa.

  But if I opened my eyes and found myself in our familiar rooms, chances were good that the other echoes and I would be slumped on a sofa or even relegated to a darkened bedroom while Elyssa retired to some other part of her large suite, and we were no longer synchronized with her movements.

  In fact, once I was awake for the last hour of a very long dinner and the short walk back to Elyssa’s bedroom. Another woman strolled down the hallway with us, chatting with Elyssa and trailed by her own echoes, and all of us moved in lockstep. But the minute we had followed Elyssa into her own room and she had closed the door, I felt that binding compulsion snap. It wasn’t just that she released us—she seemed to fling us away from her, as she might kick off a pair of shoes that pinched her feet and made every step unendurable.

  I remembered something she had said to me the very first time she had brought me to consciousness. I hate you. I wish you would die.

  Did everyone hate their echoes? And if so, why weren’t all of us dead?

  Something else I learned: Even once we were alone in our rooms and Elyssa released us, we echoes had very little volition. If she dumped us on a sofa or a set of chairs, we could shift around to achieve some level of comfort, but we never moved very much or very far. I had a chance to observe our nighttime ritual once when I happened to be awake for it. Trima and another serving girl came in and helped us wash our faces, comb our hair, and change into our nightgowns; during this time, all of our motions were flawlessly coordinated. Once the maids left, Elyssa instantly released us, barely waiting till the door closed to flick us away. She stalked toward the echoes’ bedroom—a small, shadowy chamber with three hard beds—and pointed at the doorway. “Go to bed,” she commanded, and we shuffled past her till we could flop down on our mattresses. Then she closed the door and left us in darkness.

  I was awake for a long time after that, and I heard her moving around the big open room of sage and lavender for another hour. Eventually I heard another door shut, and I assumed she had closed herself into the last room of the suite, a much larger bedroom that held an ornate bed. To my memory, Elyssa had never allowed the echoes to follow her into that room.

  There was a single, narrow, heavily curtained window in our bedroom and it admitted barely enough light for me to see my hand before my face. But I glanced around the room anyway, straining to see the other echoes lying on their own beds.

  I supposed I had never been alone during the whole period of my existence; I had always had two replicas at my side and Elyssa before me, leading the way. But I truly thought I might be the most solitary creature in all the world.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I jerked into consciousness to find myself in a man’s close embrace. His arm was around my back, and he held me tightly to him as he pressed his mouth fervently against mine. His free hand roamed over my body until it closed over my breast and squeezed. I wanted to yelp and wrench back, but instead I found myself leaning in, wrapping my own arms around his waist, returning his kiss with a dizzying heat of my own.

  Then, abruptly, I broke free and pulled back, staring up at the man holding me; around me, three other pairs of lovers did the same. I could hear four sets of kissing partners breathing heavily in the dark. We were in some kind of library or study that was unfamiliar to me, so I guessed we must be attending a party at the home of a nearby lord. Perhaps we had recently had dinner and now all the other guests were dancing, but Elyssa and her partner had snuck off to try to find a little privacy. This particular room clearly hadn’t been set up to entertain visitors, as it offered no candlelight and the windows were swathed in heavy drapes.

  “What must you think of me?” Elyssa asked breathlessly. “Behaving like a wanton.”

  The lord dropped a brief, hard kiss on her mouth, and all his echoes responded in kind. “I think you’re everything that’s wonderful,” he said.

  She laughed, pleased with the response. “You’re so sweet to me.”

  “You’re the sweetest girl in the whole Kingdom of the Seven Jewels.”

  This time her laugh was more rueful. “I’m not. Really, I’m not.”

  “You are, though.”

  She freed one hand to lift it up and skim her fingers gently across his face. I did the same, stroking my echo’s cheek, though his expression did not melt into ecstasy the way the lord’s did. “I know what people say about me,” she said softly. “How I’m so unfriendly. So unlikable.”

  “They’re jealous. The women especially. Because you’re so much more beautiful than they are.”

  “I like to hear you say that.”

  “It’s true! I have never seen a woman as stunning as you are.”

  Now she lifted both hands, rested them on his cheeks, then slid them down to curl around the back of his neck. “You’re good for me, Roland,” she whispered. “I wish I could always be with people who thought so highly of me.”

  “You could be—you could be with me always—”

  She laughed again and shook her head. When he started to protest, she silenced him with another kiss, straining against him as if she was trying to meld her body perfectly with his. Against my will, I followed her lead, kissing Roland’s echo as if I was trying to devour him. This would be a good time to slip into insensibility again, I thought, as his arms tightened around my waist in such a way that I could hardly breathe. I didn’t have the faintest idea what came next, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it, and there was no way I could stop it.

  Fortunately, someone else could. There were voices in the hall, coming in through an imperfectly closed door. Elyssa and Roland leapt apart so quickly that Roland had to spin his arms to keep his balance. Elyssa and all her echoes pressed their hands to their mouths to hold back laughter.

  “Are you sure they came this way? They might have gone to the garden instead,” said someone who sounded like a young woman.

  “Wherever they went, they shouldn’t have slipped off like that! If her father finds out …” Another woman, this one older and more judgmental.

  “Then don’t tell him! I’m sure they’ve done nothing truly improper. But we do need to find them before the games start.”

  Their voices faded down the hall. There was just enough light for me to see the laughter on Elyssa’s face as she gave Roland one last kiss. Then he crossed to the door, looked out, and motioned her to follow. In a few moments, they were strolling sedately down the hall, engaged in sober conversation, and rejoining all their friends in a large room set with many tables.

  “There you are!” someone called out. “I sent Cali and Marietta to look for you. Come on. Let’s play cards.”

  I was still in my conscious state that evening when we returned to Elyssa’s home and Trima and the maid began undressing us for the night.

  “Was young Lord Roland at the dinner this evening?” Trima asked as she pulled the dress over Elyssa’s head.

  My own dress was coming off and my face was buried in the clouds of satin, so I couldn’t see Elyssa’s expression. “He was,” she said, her voice indifferent.

  Trima made a sound of disapproval and my face was free again. I could see the maid was frowning. “I don’t like that,” she said.

  Elyssa glanced quickly at the other serving girl, then back at Trima, and all of us shrugged infinitesimally. It was obvious Elyssa was conveying a message: Let’s not talk about this now.

  Trima pressed her lips together, then said, “And Lady Cali? She was present as well?”

  Elyssa talked freely about the other guests until all of us had been dressed in bedclothes and the second maid had vanished out the door. Then she flung off her restraints on the echoes, pointed toward our room and commanded, “In you go.” As soon as we were laid out on our beds, she shut the door behind us with a little unnecessary force. She usually did.

  “So tell me about young Roland,” Trima said in an even voice.

  I had picked the bed nearest the door, and now I sat up, cocking my head in that direction so I could h
ear better.

  Elyssa laughed, a wistful sound. I thought she might be pacing restlessly around the room. “Sweet goddess, he is the most delightful man! Naive and unworldly, of course, and I’m sure I’d get tired of him in a month if I was actually married to him, but he makes me feel so …” She couldn’t seem to find the right word. “Adored,” she finished at last.

  “You want to be careful that you don’t do anything that can’t be undone,” Trima said severely.

  “I have been most proper.”

  “Somehow I doubt that. But as long as you have not been completely abandoned—”

  Elyssa laughed again, and this time the sound had a cynical edge. “Dear Trima, don’t you worry about that. I’m even more interested in preserving my marriage prospects than my father is. I’ll be careful.”

  There was a short silence. “I would have thought he would have planned your marriage sometime before this,” Trima said finally. “Your mother was eighteen at her wedding, and you’re already twenty-four.”

  I heard a thumping sound that made me think Elyssa had flung herself onto some piece of furniture. When she was alone, she tended to move with a deliberate inelegance, as if to make up for all the perfectly polished mannerisms she had to maintain in public.

  “Yes, but the fashion has changed for my generation,” she drawled. “Or, at least, it has changed for all the high nobles who might have some remote chance of marrying into royalty. Prince Cormac has not yet taken a bride. Therefore, any high noblewoman with two or more echoes to her name wants to wait and see if he might choose her. And, of course, the noblemen cannot marry if the women will not accept their proposals! I predict that the day after Cormac’s wedding, every girl my age will have a husband. Or at least a fiancé.”

  “Then I hope he gets married soon,” Trima said. “Now, come on. Up on your feet and into bed. You’ve had a long day.”

  It was another fifteen minutes before Elyssa was safely ensconced in her room and I heard the main door close behind Trima. I had had a long day, too, but I was filled with an unfamiliar, discordant restlessness, a sensation that ran under my skin like bubbles rising in a glass of champagne. I tried to lie back down, but I couldn’t make myself relax under the coverlet, so I sat up again. I wished I could get up and stride around the room just to work off some of my unaccustomed energy.