Free The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist

still felt as if she had regained some of her footing. She stuffed the discarded things into the sideboard and made her way to the next doorway.
    This was quite large, clearly the main entrance to this suite of rooms, and it opened directly onto a crowd of finely dressed guests moving purposefully past her down a large, well-lit corridor. A man noted Miss Temple’s appearance in the doorway and nodded, but did not pause. No one paused—in fact there seemed to be some hurry. Happy not to be causing alarm, Miss Temple stepped into the moving mass and allowed herself to be swept along. She was mindful to hold her cloak closed, but otherwise had leisure to study the people around her. They all wore masks and elegant evening wear, but seemed a variety of types and ages. As she shuffled along several others nodded or smiled to her, but no one spoke—in fact, no one was speaking at all, though she did sense an occasional smile of anticipation. She was convinced that they were all going toward something that promised to be wonderful, but that very few, if any, of them actually knew what it was. As she looked ahead and behind, she saw it was really no great group in the corridor—perhaps forty or fifty. Judging from the number of coaches at the front of the house, this was but a fraction of those attending the party. She wondered where everyone else was, and how they had explained the absence of this group. Further, where were they going? And how long was the corridor? Miss Temple decided that whoever laid out the house was unhealthily fixated with
length.
She stumbled abruptly into the person ahead of her—at this point a short woman (which was to say, of her own height) in a pale green dress (a color similar to Miss Temple’s own, she noted with a pang) and an especially ingenious mask made from strings of hanging beads.
    “Oh, I am so sorry,” Miss Temple whispered.
    “Not at all,” the woman replied, and nodded at a gentleman in front of her, “I trod on
his
heel.” They were stopped in the hall.
    “We are stopped,” observed Miss Temple, trying to keep up the conversation.
    “I was told the stair is quite narrow, and to be careful with my shoes. They never build for ladies.”
    “It is a terrible truth,” agreed Miss Temple, but her gaze had shifted over their heads, where indeed she saw a line of figures winding their way up a spiral staircase, fashioned of bright metal.
    Her heart leapt in her throat. Roger Bascombe—for it could be no one else, despite the plain black mask across his eyes—was even as she watched moving around the upper spiral, and for the moment facing her directly. Once more, his expression was guarded, his hand tapping impatiently on the rail as he climbed, one step at a time, other guests immediately above and below him. He so disliked the crush of a crowd—she knew he must be miserable. Where was he going? Where did he
think
he was going? Then all too brusquely Roger had reached the top, a narrow balcony, and disappeared from sight.

    Miss Temple turned her gaze to the people around her—she had shuffled another few steps forward, her thoughts fully awhirl—and realized the woman in green had been whispering. “I’m sorry,” Miss Temple whispered back, “I was suddenly distracted with excitement.”
    “It is very exciting, isn’t it?” confided the woman.
    “I should say it is.”
    “I am feeling quite girlish!”
    “I am sure you speak for everyone,” Miss Temple assured her, and then blithely wondered, “I did not expect so many people.”
    “Of course not,” answered the woman, “for they’ve been very careful—the hiding of this group within the larger function, the subtlety of our invitations, the concealment of identity.”
    “Indeed.” Miss Temple nodded. “And what a cunning mask you have.”
    “It
is
very cunning, is it not?” The woman smiled. By this time she had taken a half-step back so she could walk next to Miss Temple and they could speak lower