Free Copperhead by Tina Connolly

to the cheeky lower-class admonition: “Stay out.” Helen realized after she spoke that it was a woman, despite the fact that she was wearing slacks. Her heavy, dark brown hair was cut in an asymmetric bob that fell across one of the mask’s eyeholes, and the thick scent of jasmine perfume lingered around her. “You must be looking for Jane,” the woman said as Helen entered, stripping off her lilac gloves and blowing on her hands.
    “Yes,” said Helen. “I’m her sister. But—”
    “Helen!” she said. “How delightful. And so fashionably brave, too.” Her finger inscribed a circle around her own mask, indicating Helen’s lack of one. “I think someone beat us here. Do you know if Jane’s safe?”
    “I don’t know where she is,” said Helen, swallowing the crushing disaster down, willing herself to find hope. “But she probably wasn’t here when this happened. I hope.” Her sister was tidy; Helen could not imagine the room being the way it was on Jane’s account. It was unheated and tiny; cot and table and woodstove all in one room, with a single door leading to what she supposed might be the rest of the house, possibly a shared bath. The woman had turned on an oil lamp, and it cast an orange glow around the wreckage of the room.
    The room had been ransacked.
    “Perhaps she’s out being brave and bold and doing good works,” said the woman.
    “Maybe,” temporized Helen. She could not think. If Jane had not gone here, then where would she have gone? Helen and Alistair’s home? It seemed unlikely. What had she said? I have my own plans.…
    Helen sent tentative feelers out, wondering what the woman’s purpose was—and if anything could be deduced from her about Jane’s whereabouts. “I suppose you were here to see Jane? She’s trying to explain to you her— our noble goals? Talk you into letting her … you know. Work on your face?” she said. It was as tactful as she could manage around the frostbitten fingers and the tangled knots of worry.
    “You’ve got it all wrong,” the woman said. “I’m dying to have my old face back. Let’s rip it off.”
    “Really?” said Helen. “Most women have been very resistant. So far only—,” but she thought belatedly that perhaps she shouldn’t mention poor Mrs. Grimsby.
    “Well, I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” the woman said decidedly. “I wouldn’t have done it except it seemed good for my career. But then the visions!”
    “Did you have nightmares, too?” said Helen.
    “Oh, my goodness. Did you have dreams where a bunch of beautifully creepy men and women stood around you in a circle and then it turned out they were all wearing your face?”
    “Um. No,” said Helen.
    The woman paced around the overturned chairs, setting them up straight for something to do. Her face went in and out of the shadows flung by the oil lamp. “I’m an actor, you see. But I always got the odd roles. The wacky maiden aunt. The cryptic fortune-teller. And then I heard about this man who would make you beautiful, and I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to be the ingénue for once?” Her brusque voice momentarily went wistful. “You see what I mean, don’t you?” She pulled off her iron mask to reveal an exquisitely strong, purposeful face. Striking and glamorous with the fey, and yet Helen could imagine the face as it must have been before—the sort of woman you might call handsome if you wanted a way to describe how her face made you feel—a woman with purpose and character in spades, but not a beauty.
    “But it turned out you were the same inside as you were before,” Helen murmured.
    The woman heard her and laughed, a strong laugh like a ship breaking through the sea. It displayed a nice white set of teeth, even except for a gap in front. “Well, I expected that, you know. I’m no fool. But I didn’t expect the voices in my head. The wallpaper swimming in. And that is not worth it in the slightest, and I’m ready to take my old face