The Mystery Guest

There are still a few seats to fill, so I populate them with the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. I add the Cheshire Cat, who is curled up on a chair smiling and smiling at the far end of the table. There’s one empty chair left, and that one is for me. I’m wearing a pristine white gown with cap lace sleeves and petticoat ruffles to my ankles.

I call for a toast by tapping my porcelain teacup with a freshly polished silver spoon. The high-pitched tinkle is a delight to my ears. “To Gran,” I say. “And to my finest storybook friends. Thank you for being loyal and true, from the first page to the last.”

We drink tea and eat scones with clotted cream. We have a spelling bee, and I spell “stupendous” correctly on the very first try. We are the True Silver Knights of the Table Rectangular, kindred spirits, the only friends I’ll ever have.

A small sting rips me from my daydream. A single drop of silver polish has landed on my forearm just above my glove. I rush to the sink, where I douse the burning spot in cold water. It relieves the sting, but when I turn back to the tea party, my friends have vanished into thin air.

“Wait, come back!” I say, but my imagination fails me. I look down at my tatty apron, no ruffles and cap sleeves, just the threadbare truth.

It’s then that it strikes me. I realize with some urgency that I’m in need of a washroom. I take off my rubber gloves and exit the silver pantry. Yesterday, Gran showed me the washroom I’m to use. It’s not the visitors’ powder room near the entrance, which Gran calls the “gold de toilette.” And it’s not the washroom off the kitchen, the one with the massive whirlpool tub. And it’s certainly not the washroom upstairs. I’m to use the servants’ washroom, which is downstairs in the basement, where the walls are dank stone and where every nook and cranny houses a hairy spider with terrifying, beady compound eyes.

“It has the bare necessities,” Gran said yesterday as she pulled the cord on the naked bulb and led me down the creaky, slippery stairs.

Now, I stand in front of that basement door just off the kitchen, steeling myself to open it and descend, but my legs are stuck to the floor. I cannot move.

Knock, knock, knock, I hear.

I nearly jump out of my skin. I turn to see Jenkins’s protruding eyes staring at me through the glass of the kitchen windows. He shakes his head several times and says something I don’t understand.

“I can’t hear you,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Jenkins moves from the window to the glass door. He opens it, but he doesn’t step inside. Rather, he shoves his head through and whispers, “You don’t have to go down there.”

“I do,” I say. “I need the washroom.” I remember what Gran said, how Jenkins looks a fright rather than like a pudding, which would be preferable. He’s covered in little scratches, presumably from rose thorns, and he carries a menacing array of sharp tools in the leather belt around his waist. The sight of his razor-sharp clippers sends a shiver down my spine. Still, he’s better than spiders. And he’s my only hope right now. “Please, sir,” I say. “Will you accompany me to the cellar?”

“I wish I could, Little Mite,” he says, “but I’m not allowed inside the house. Dirty workman and all that business. If the Madam caught me, she’d tan my hide. Then she’d kick me to the curb. Just use another loo. If you’re neat about it, Mrs. Grimthorpe will never know,” he says with a wink.

I nod and swallow.

Jenkins closes the door quietly, then removes the hedge clippers from his belt and begins to savage a hedge by the window.

I breathe deeply a few times to steady myself. Gran told me explicitly that the main-floor washrooms are off-limits, and the last thing I want is to anger Mrs. Grimthorpe by breaking the rules and thereby cause the tanning of my own hide, which sounds horrifically unpleasant.

I head to the front of the house and stand under the icy shards of the modernist chandelier. Perhaps if I use an upstairs washroom, evidence of my presence will be attributed to Mr. Grimthorpe or his secretary. I tiptoe up the main staircase, the treads creaking under every footfall. The stairs wind to a small landing with a window and then up another flight to the second story. I make it to the top and am peering down a long, cavernous corridor wallpapered in a dark design that’s meant to be brocade but looks to me like hundreds of squinty eyeballs watching my every move.