Villainess 2: DeeDee’s Curiosity Shop

Red Pill 7: Standoffs, Tamperings

Janet listened to the voices in the darkness for a time, still reeling from her dream, but on opening her eyes, she awoke to a cacophony of words flooding through the curtained surroundings of an infirmary bed. She listened for a moment and recognized the voices at the door, where her maids Susan and Marin were saying that Prince Blaise can’t see Janet right now, but Prince Blaise kept insisting that he at least come in to see her before leaving. Janet sat up and stretched her arms, yawning, then removed the sheets and swung her legs over the bedside as her maids kept insisting the Prince leave her be for today.

So Janet got up and pulled the curtains aside, revealing all the other beds in the infirmary empty except for hers.

“Ah, see?” Prince Blaise said, looking past Susan and Marin. “Let me speak to her.”

But Susan said, “Your Highness—”

“Sue, Marin,” Janet said, “just let him in.”

“But, my Lady,” Susan said, “you’re in no condition to—”

“There’s no helping it. I’m already up,” she said and sat back on the bedside. “Just let him in.”

Susan gave out a long sigh, and Marin was pouting, but they let Prince Blaise through the doorway and followed him to Janet’s bed near a curtained window. They stood guard by the curtain, eyeing him with their hands fisted at their sides, and Janet saw their glares. And right before their sightless eyes, Janet’s clones manifested in the infirmary on either side of Susan and Marin, all of them surrounding Janet’s bed with scowls etched onto their faces and glares of hellfire aimed at the Prince’s back.

The Prince dragged a seat over and sat in it, so that he faced Janet just below her eye level on the bed and sat there looking at her for a time. To Janet, his face seemed ashen in appearance and his amber eyes somewhat lackluster, but that could have been a trick of the light flooding through the curtained window behind her.

“What is it, your Highness?” Janet said.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“I guess so,” she said, then looked back over her shoulder at the light streaming through the window behind her, the sun glaring through a corner of the curtains on the window pane, before turning back to him.

“It’s almost four o’clock,” he said. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, Lady Fleming?”

“If me in an infirmary is ‘all right’ to you,” she said, “then I guess I am.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said.

“Then what is it?”

“I meant that you scared us this morning: me, Lord Woodberry, Miss Rosalie, and the rest of the class,” he said. “You’re not planning on harming yourself, are you?”

“I’m upset, your Highness,” she said, “but I’m not that desperate for your attention.”

“Then when you said, ‘I’m already dead to you,’” he said, “does that mean you took something beforehand?”

“No,” she said. “I was just—”

“Or were you just playing me?” he said.

Janet gaped at his assertion, mostly because it was true that she was trying to guilt-trip him at the time, but not to the extent of fainting in the hallway, which she couldn’t have foreseen, let alone think of offing herself. So she stood up from the bedside again and glared at him, saying, “My God, what kind of woman do you think I am?”

“You’ve said it yourself, Lady Fleming,” he said, standing up from his seat and meeting her gaze. “You’re desperate for my attention. You’re so desperate, in fact, that you’ve caused a scene in class just to spite me and humiliate Miss Edgeworth, and you even played the sympathy card in the hallway! Even for you, that was low.”

So Janet changed tactics and said, “Then you shouldn’t have said what you said this morning, and you shouldn’t have said what you said about my mother last Friday. As much as you hate me, I can’t understand why you used her of all people to spite me. Even for you, that was low.”

“Stop making up excuses,” he said. “It’s unbecoming even for someone like you.”

At those words, Janet saw a glowing green aura emanating from her clones, plunging the temperature of the surroundings enough to raise goosebumps on her forearms and make her maids shift their footing where they stood, though the Prince seemed to take no notice. Her clones all had Janet’s back in this, all with an axe to grind, and her suicide clone in particular lunged forward and swung at the Prince’s head, yet her hand passed through.

(So Janet’s clone broke into a tirade of curses neither the Prince nor the maids could hear, yelling, “You’re the one who should be ashamed! I should’ve never jumped off that railing without taking you with me, you BASTARD!”)

Which made Janet form a derisive smile at the Prince, taking him aback, so she said, “Don’t mistake my words for jest, your Highness.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, turning to go.

But before he got too far, passing through the crowd of Janet’s doubles, she saw her suicide double fixing an evil-eyed glare on the back of the Prince’s head as if she was boring holes through his skull with her eyes.

“Then answer me this, your Highness,” Janet said.

He stopped, turned, and said, “What is it now? I don’t have all day to spend with you.”

“This is hypothetical, but answer me nonetheless,” Janet said. “If I’d have attempted to jump to my death from the third floor,” and she stole a glance at her double’s shocked face, “would you have gone after me?”

Janet’s maids covered their mouths, looking on with wide and horrified eyes, while the Prince gaped and looked at her maids before looking back at Janet and saying, “Why are you even asking me that question?”

“Answer me,” she said. “Would you or wouldn’t you?”

“Of course, I would!” he said. “What do you take me for? I’m not a monster!”

“A ‘monster’ already used my mother to spite me last week,” Janet said. “Whatever else you’ve said about me, God help you for what you’ve said about the dead.”

“Don’t give me your sophistry, Lady Fleming,” the Prince said. “Your words mean nothing to me.”

Janet winced, cut to the quick like a blade over an exposed nerve, so she wiped the tears from her cheeks, even as her knees were beginning to buckle under the strain of another overwhelming question, and said, “Then why did you come here, your Highness? Was it because I didn’t jump to my death? Were you expecting me to die today?”

And the Prince gaped and stared, wide-eyed, and said, “Were you actually planning to—”

“Just answer me, your Highness!” Janet said, and her maids ran to her side, begging her to say no more hurtful words, even as the awful memory surfaced through Janet’s thoughts of those slow and sludgy steps she had taken along that godless hallway towards the staircase landing and the balustrade, and she found herself wondering what had moved her steps that way. Even in her dazed condition, in which her thoughts were clouded and her body seemed to move on autopilot, what would have driven her towards the place where one of her doubles had ended her life? What could have . . .

She looked up when Prince Blaise shook his head and said, “You’re too much, Lady Fleming. Get some more rest,” and he walked away and exited the infirmary.

After he left, Janet’s knees gave out, and she sat back on the bedside between her maids and doubled over and buried her face in her hands. Her maids wrapped their arms around her, and her clones came up to her and put their hands on her head and shoulders, and Janet’s suicide clone (brought to tears at Janet’s words) kneeled before her and hugged her.

(“I know you meant well, Janet,” she said, “but don’t ever say that again! I’ve already done it once, so don’t do the same! Please, promise me you won’t!”)

“Don’t worry,” Janet said in her hands. “I promise I won’t.”

“Who are you talking to?” Susan said.

Janet uncovered her face and wiped away her remaining tears with the sleeve of her bolero, breathing in deep gulps and breathing out, then said, “It was nothing.”

“Are you sure?” Marin said.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” she said and changed the subject. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

“You wanna eat out?” Marin said.

“No,” Janet said. “Just the usual at the dorm.”

So she got up to her feet with Marin’s help, while Susan snatched Janet’s beret and book bag from the side table next to the bed and followed them out of the infirmary.

All the while, Janet’s clones brought up the rear as they all exited behind them with a number of clones (including Janet’s suicide double) moving ahead of them down the main corridor past the afternoon clubrooms and the restrooms and into the open-plan parlor area, keeping a lookout up the steps towards the bannisters of the lower grand staircase and along the opposite Eastern corridor and even around the corner.

(Then her suicide clone doubled back towards Janet before they reached the restrooms and said, “Can you come to the bathroom, so we can talk? It’s important.”)

Janet stared at her spectral clone, wondering if it had anything to do with her dream of that haunted bisque doll, DeeDee Marionette, and slowed to a halt before the women’s bathroom.

“What’s wrong, my Lady?” Marin said.

“Wait for me here,” Janet said and followed her suicide clone into the women’s restroom, where she entered the bathroom stall furthest away from the door and closed the stall door.

When her clone entered her stall, Janet sat on the lid of the toilet and said, “What’s going on?”

“It’s bad,” her clone said. “After we all finished reading out our entries in her shop, we told DeeDee of our suspicions about Rosalie and Prince Blaise. So DeeDee took out the rest of her books from her private library and inspected them, one by one, including the one with our profiles in it. Out of all the books she checked, she found five of them tampered with (including ours) and one missing. Guess whose profile book is missing.”

“But how would I—”

“Just guess,” her clone said. “I’m sure you know whose it is.”

That’s when it clicked in Janet’s head, for she knew it in the marrow of her bones and said, “Dear God, don’t tell me it’s that vixen’s book!”

“It is, unfortunately,” her clone said.

“Damn that scheming two-face!”

“We don’t know if it’s her for sure,” her clone said, “but DeeDee has bigger problems right now.”

“Like what?” Janet said.

Her suicide clone was about to speak when the bathroom door opened, and Susan came walking in and saying, “What’s keeping you, my Lady? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be out in a bit,” Janet said and flushed the toilet, then opened the stall door and went over to the sink and washed her hands and splashed water on her face. After that, she grabbed a paper towel from a dispenser and dried herself before dropping it into the waste bin.

(“We’ll continue this later,” her clone said and walked out ahead of her, passing through Susan and the bathroom wall and into the hallway beyond it.)

“I was getting worried,” Susan said.

“Sorry. I was just preoccupied with my thoughts,” Janet said and followed Susan out into the hallway, where continued on her way with her maids into the open-plan parlor area. She glanced around at her clones staking out the deserted parlor area.

“My Lady,” Marin said, “who were you talking to?”

“Nobody, really,” she said, looking at her clones all searching the parlor area like constables, so she changed the subject. “Did you find the engagement ring?”

“No, we didn’t, my Lady,” Susan said.

“We’ll check the Lost and Found tomorrow,” Marin said.

“Don’t bother,” Janet said. “It may as well stay lost. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with that man.”

“What’s his problem, anyway?” Susan said.

“You know who that is.”

Susan grimaced.

“Yeah. That vixen,” Janet said, watching her suicide double lead her clones through the double-door entrance of the Academy, and she imaged herself going outside and cursing out the name of Rosalie Edgeworth with absolute impunity, her voice echoing through the courtyard and up in the sky.

(After that, Janet’s suicide clone came back through the entrance and stared at Janet’s maids, then came over and said to her, “Do you think we can trust your maids?”)

“I’m not sure yet,” Janet whispered.

“What was that?” Susan said.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Marin added, looking around the parlor area and passing insensibly through one of Janet’s clones as they passed through the double-door entrance into the outside courtyard. “Sue and I could’ve sworn you were talking to someone in the bathroom, and now you’re whispering to the air.”

“It’s nothing, I assure you,” she said.

(“Oh, before I forget,” her suicide clone added. “Expect two packages from DeeDee later tonight,” and before Janet could ask anything about them, her clone put her finger to her lips, then walked on ahead of Janet and her maids.)

To Be Continued