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Arabella did not remember most of her first day in Lost-Hope. She sat in a little boudoir with a rug under her feet and a worn, weathered grey stone floor underneath; there was moss sprouting in its crevices, and if Arabella looked at it for more than a moment, it grew right before her eyes, as if entire days had passed with every second. She would then startle and gasp: what time was it? Wasn't she due at home? But the urgency would evaporate instantly and she would sink back into oblivion. It flared up again when she looked at the paisley pattern of the rug and saw it wriggle like a myriad of worms. But even that could not shake off her stupor.
Then a door opened and a woman walked in. "I am your maid, my lady," she said. "My name is Skitter Jane. It is time to dress you for the dance!"
A dance. Arabella recalled Emma saying she took part in endless nightly dances, but perhaps it was just a coincidence. The maid's dress was a color that made Arabella forget the colors she knew; when the woman moved, the folds of her skirt flashed like long, thin cracks of lightning - spidery cracks of lightning. The cap on Skitter Jane's head was a round, convex body of an arachnid, and those spindly flashes were its legs. Arabella wasn't shocked by this image. She calmly concluded that the color of the maid's dress was Spidery Lightning.
She didn't know how she knew. It was akin to a long-forgotten language that she was discovering. The woman had to be a fairy. Only fairies had such colors. That meant Arabella was in Faerie, but she had no recollection how she got there.
"Here is your dress," said the maid. From behind her back she produced a dress of gossamer-thin, rippling fabric, and flicked it towards Arabella. The garment landed on her, replacing the nightshirt and dressing gown that she was still wearing since this morning. She must have been dressed very inappropriately until now. How could she leave home in that?
That meant she didn't leave home by her own will. She was taken by trickery. It would follow that she needed to escape. The thought struck like a lightning bolt and died down, but her former placidity did not return. Escape. Escape seemed impossible, but it had to start with paying attention to what the fairy maid was saying, to understand what was being wanted of Arabella, and then maybe she'll find an opportunity to exploit it.
"Now we need to decide what color it shall be," the maid continued. Confused, Arabella looked down at her garment. Didn't it already have a color?
"It will become whatever color you decide to wear," said Skitter Jane. "I have a big selection here." She placed a small silver bowl with water in front of Arabella. Then she passed a hand over the bowl, and the water changed its shade.
"If my lady has difficulty deciding, I hope she won't mind a bit of advice," the maid said. "Our king and his guests love it above all when Christians wear the colors of their innermost souls."
"Do they?" said Arabella, surprised. The innermost workings of people's hearts were rarely decorative.
"Oh, indeed! Christian souls are endlessly fascinating to our royalty. For you see, our race does not have souls. Just to give you a few examples, some Christian ladies looked splendid in dresses of Delicate Fright or Burning Restraint."
"That's helpful, but it won't be easy for me to decide the true colors of my soul," she said. It had been a long time since the workings of Arabella's mind were straightforward or pure. Suddenly she realized she could use it to her advantage. She should pick ugly colors reflecting the ugliest corners of her psyche. That should put the fairy king off, and he may release her.
"Perhaps my lady could describe what goes on deep down in your bosom, and I will match it to a color," said Skitter Jane.
"I'll try," said Arabella. "You see... Jane, for a long time I felt my husband neglected me, and it wore heavily on my heart."
"What a brute! Did you cry often, my lady?"
"No, I put on a happy face. He was pursuing his calling, and I did not want to make him feel guilty."
"So," said the maid, eyeing her unsentimentally, like a hairdresser assessing an arrangement of curls, "you were withering from his neglect, yet you did it graciously. I think we have a color for that." She gestured over the water bowl. "Here it is! Graceful Withering!"
She flicked her fingers over the water, and Arabella's gown changed hue. From that moment on Arabella could not think of that hue as anything else than Graceful Withering. The conventional descriptions for it, such as dusty rose, fled her mind as soon as they entered, seeming wholly inadequate. You are now thinking like them. Do you still believe you can escape this place?
"Now for the necklace," said Skitter Jane, and spread her fingers. Something stretchy oozed between her fingertips and solidified into a necklace. There were gems dripping off of it, insubstantial as water. "The gems need a color too. What other mysteries does your soul contain?"
"Ah, well," said Arabella, "here's something that has tormented me for a while. A dear friend implored me to seek help for her, but her husband swore me to secrecy. He was embarrassed of her condition and terrified that a word might get out. I've carried the weight of this secret for years."
"That's perfect," said Skitter Jane. "I have just the color to represent it."
She passed her hand over the water bowl again, held the necklace above it, and the gems lit up with colors that arranged themselves into words whose meaning emerged slowly; it was like learning letters in a hitherto unknown alphabet. They spoke about Arabella's hesitation, about her conundrum of whether to tell Jonathan what she noticed about Emma. They whispered that she chose to keep her promise of secrecy to Sir Walter Pole. They snickered at Arabella's burden of betrayal.
Emma was not mad! - a realization dawned on Arabella.
"What an excellent color!" the fairy chirped. "It's called Burdened Loyalty!" She sounded as if describing a pattern in a new upholstery fabric catalog.
With those words, the necklace settled around Arabella's throat. She felt like she was choking. Emma was not mad. The halls where Emma said she was forced to dance really existed. And Arabella was the only person Emma could confide in, and she failed her.
"Oh, that regret, that exquisite regret!" Skitter Jane exclaimed, clasping her hands. The lightning-spider legs that extended all over her dress flashed in quick succession. "More of that regret, my lady, please, it infuses your gems with such a rare shade!"
Arabella's hands moved to tear her necklace off, but she saw a man in the doorway. His aura of silver hair made her gasp with recognition. Her arms drooped helplessly.
Skitter Jane saw him too. "We have finished just in time! His Grace is here," she said. She lowered herself into a curtsy and froze.
I used to call him The Gentleman with the Thistle-Down Hair, Arabella recalled. Her memories were coming into sharp focus. This is who she was dealing with.
Graceful Withering and Burdened Loyalty, she repeated to herself, clinging to those words with white-knuckled grip. Those emotions are ugly. The fairy king will be put off by those qualities. Fairies despised burdens, heavy loads, obligations, things that faded or withered. He will eject her from the court, set her free. He will.
"My precious Arabella!" cried the king of Lost-Hope. "How splendid you are tonight! What a treat you are for the eyes!" He paused an arm's length away to look her over. "I expected you to be as sweet as marzipan, but you are full of zest! How lucky I am! Come with me!" He offered his arm to her.
She could not lift her hand, paralyzed by a creeping dread of having made a mistake.
"Come with me!" he repeated insistently. "It's been ages since we enjoyed a Christian soul so complex, so redolent of bitter and sweet flavors. Come and let my court feast on your beauty for a hundred years!"