Arcane Gateway

The Autumn Party-1

The Autumn Party

That night was to be the most wondrous night the Thaden house had known since my father first purchased it six months prior. After years of pushing against the malicious cloud of sickness and loss that seemed to hover around our family, he had taken a step forward, furnishing our new home with an elegance that few could criticize. Anticipation had gnawed at my heart that entire week. I had spent most of my after school hours watching the hired help bustling here and there to prepare our home to receive over a hundred guests—the first party my father had held since my mother had passed away in 1985. Memories of earlier parties had brightened my imagination with colors—rich ladies in fabulous attire floating through the gardens like fairies, chatting and laughing, dancing and drinking, nibbling on cheeses and chocolates, patting my head and complimenting my girlish dress.

When I had first learned of the upcoming party, I had fully expected to be included. I had always attended our family’s parties when I was a little girl, when my radiant mother had danced in my father’s arms. But for some reason, my father had decreed that I must spend the entire evening and night upstairs in my room, away from the cavorting adults, away from the music and colors, away from the savory dishes made only for this day.

I did not understand, and the greater part of me longed to pitch a fit, for all of my attempts to persuade him otherwise had fallen flat. I could not comprehend what had prompted my amiable father to transform into a tyrant who would lock his only daughter away in a tower. We usually got along well, the two Thadens who had risen above to conquer, to succeed. But he hardly looked at me as I confronted him one final time in the front parlor, having dressed myself in a dusky autumn-colored dress printed with oversized flowers and trimmed with gold. It was one of my best dresses; its lifted bust made me look older than thirteen.

“But Pappi, I spent over an hour getting ready when I got home today! I even had Lise do my nails”—I waved their golden sparkles toward his face—“and she did my braids, too—”

“Lise was just humoring you,” my father interrupted, his expression looking as though it had been chiseled from stone, his gray eyes turned away from me, toward the picture window. “She knows quite well that the matter is settled. Tonight’s party is for business contacts, for adults.”

“But Leon and Lothar are coming. They’re not that much older than me!” I retorted. “I saw their names on the guest list with Onkel Derek!”

My father sighed and shook his head, his gaze drifting to the left but passing over me, settling on something in the entrance hall behind where I stood with my fists pressed against my hips. “A gathering of my clients is no place for you.”

“But there’s going to be dancing!” I pointed out, gesturing at the five musicians my father had hired to provide music for the gala. They were in the process of tuning their violins, cello, and guitars in the far corner of the room, studiously ignoring the row between father and daughter. “They wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t going to be dancing. Ava and Morgen went to the Wagner party last month, and they’ve been going on and on about dancing and flirting—”

“As if I’d want my daughter to gain the reputation of a flighty vamp!” my father responded with a vehemence that derailed my train of thought. He glared down at me and took a step forward, reaching out to brush away the single tear that had escaped my left eye. I felt moisture welling behind both eyes and glowered at my father from behind my glasses. I hated how quickly the tears would come whenever I tried to argue. I knew that made me look weak.

“It’s time for you to go back upstairs with Lise,” my father told me gently, doubtless sensing my wavering emotions. “She can bring you first dibs on the food before it’s set out in the dining room and parlors. Something from every dish if you want.” His lips curled into a conciliatory smile. He pitied me.

“Come on, Swanie.” Lise beckoned me from the foot of the front staircase, but I was still too provoked to go quietly. I blinked against my tears, and I felt my cheeks starting to burn at the direction of my thoughts. But I had to get it out.

“I’m n-not going to . . . do it with one of your guests.” I stepped backward when I said it, suddenly horrified at myself. My heart thudded beneath my dress.

My father laughed once and waved for me to go. “No, you certainly are not, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop some of them from trying.” My father’s chief servant stepped to his side to murmur something in his right ear before sliding away to vanish through the doorway to the other parlors. “That’s what I thought. Swanie, get upstairs. People are starting to arrive.” He strode toward the vestibule, shoving me in front of him as he went, directing me to where Lise stood at the base of the steps.

I sniffed and heaved a sigh, thinking that maybe I should plot some sort of revenge against my father. How could he possibly lump me in with the ditzy girls in my class at school? Sure, maybe they were the only ones who gushed about going to parties with adults, but still. “Mutti would have let me dance with her,” I threw toward my father’s back as I paused on the first step; I heard Lise gasp. “And Dane would have wanted me to go so I could tell him all about it. I was the one who told him stories, never you.”

“Enough!” my father roared, and Lise fairly dragged me up the stairs. But I thought I saw his proud shoulders falter a bit, where he stood waiting to greet his guests. Good, he needs to hurt as much as I do, I thought.

I heard Lise shut my bedroom door behind us soon afterward, but by then I could not see straight thanks to my tears. “Really, Swanie, you shouldn’t have said those things to your Pappi,” Lise chided me, though her voice sounded comforting. “Tonight is a happy night for him, for your family.”

“I don’t care. I want to d-dance with everybody else,” I insisted. My words began to break when images of the hospital bed in the room across from mine assaulted me, the sounds of machinery and wheezing, of the grim voices of doctors. “I w-want to . . . t-tell . . . Dane . . . ab-about dancing. I . . . want to tell . . . I want D . . . Dane . . . .” Sobs overtook me, and I collapsed into my nanny’s arms.

My mother had been gone for over eight years now, and my memories of her had grown hazy with time, though I often missed her when I went to bed at night, recalling her sweet voice singing lullabies to me until I fell asleep. But my younger brother had not yet been gone a year, and dark memories of his suffering arose at times when I least expected them—like the last time I went to the doctor’s office to get a booster shot. I had panicked, and I was told later that several nurses had to carry me from the waiting room to the exam room. Apparently I had sobbed while the doctor tried to listen to my heartbeat and breathing. I had been sent to a psychiatrist at his request, and I had been given pills that I had stubbornly thrown away. They had muddled my thoughts, which exacerbated my pain.

Lise held me until I cried myself out, leaving the room with a pledge to bring back a little of everything from the kitchen in a few minutes’ time. The unspoken warning was clear: do not bother trying to sneak out.

In her absence, I plodded toward the bathroom and removed my glasses, disgusted at the sight of my streaked mascara and blush. “You really have to get over this,” I said after I had washed off my makeup, blinking sternly at the gray eyes in the mirror—they matched my father’s exactly. “Pappi will never let you go to any of his parties if you can’t get it together. And Dane’s not coming back. He’s with God now. With Mutti. And people don’t come back from there.”

By the time Lise came back with a tray in tow, I sat primly upon my bright blue couch, ready to put forth the appearance of contentment. Lise tried to cheer me up while I ate, telling tales about silliness in the kitchen. I blocked out most of her words, concentrating instead on the food, for my father had given it his all for this party. Even when unhappy, I still relished filet mignon, fresh curried herring, white truffles, and pasta Bolognese. My father had ordered a case of Almdudler from Austria for guests who preferred non-alcoholic drinks, and the taste of that beverage brought a smile to my face at last. “You need to swipe more cans of this to put in my fridge before they’re all gone,” I told Lise, glancing toward where my mini fridge sat with a microwave on top, two paces away from my stereo.

We danced together for a short time once I had determined myself stuffed, her servant’s Dirndl whirling with my more stylish dress. I put on the music that my classmates deemed cool at the time—Snap! and U96—and we playfully switched styles as the songs changed, covering the entirety of my room and balcony. Finally Lise begged for a break, saying that she was getting winded, her graying blond curls having escaped their pins long before. So I collapsed on my bed while she rested on the couch before loading up her tray with our used dishes and silverware. “I’m not going to lock the door,” she mentioned on her way out, “because I trust you not to get caught if you decide to prowl around.”

I jerked into an upright position on my bed, my mouth dropping open as my eyes darted toward my bedroom door just in time to catch her wink. One final song from U96’s CD chugged away on my stereo before I decided how to react. When the song ended, I jumped up and switched the music off, then darted for my closet, intending to discard my brilliant dress for my most obscure set of pajamas.

Some time later, I positioned myself in a shadowy alcove behind where the railing to the front staircase curved toward the second floor hallway, trusting my navy blue patterned pajamas and black hair to keep me concealed from the revelers below. My spot afforded me a decent view of the entryway and the edge of the front parlor, from which drifted the smooth sounds of a nocturne. I took mental notes on the fashion and agility of the dancers that passed through my line of vision, soon convincing myself that my skills far outweighed most of theirs. But of course many of the adults were already drunk. I wondered whether my skills at ballroom dancing and ballet would slip away from me if I was drunk.

So absorbed was I in the dancers that I did not notice him standing behind me in the dark hallway until he spoke. “Watching the festivities, are you?”

My heart leapt into my throat, and I spun around, my fingers fastened to the iron bars of the railing. I quickly recognized Hans standing there in his serving attire—perfectly pressed black suit, snow white button-up shirt, black bow tie, shiny black shoes, white gloves—regarding me with a rather shrewd expression. Though I had rarely spoken to Hans, I knew that he was my father’s chief servant, a middle-aged man usually in the background of things who said little. As long as he decided not to tell on me, he was safe; and he probably would not, since his first words to me had had nothing to do with my presence in the hallway. So I relaxed my tense stance and answered his question. “Yes, I am.”

“And what do you think?” He looked past me now, over the railing at the guests thronging the wide vestibule. They had paused in their dancing as the song transitioned into a waltz by Schumann; soon all began again.

I turned back to look, feeling a touch of envy. “I think it’s amazing,” I replied with feeling. “I can’t wait until I can be down there, too.”

There was a pause, and then Hans made a rather dismissive sound. I turned back to him and found him leaning against the wall within arm’s reach of me, looking down at the dancers with a critical expression. “That’s not real dancing, that down there,” he commented.