Serpents and Stairways

Chapter V? - Part 1

It was the loneliest of times. It was the brightest of times. 

It was the once-upon of times.

That distant summer, several months before Dinah was meant to leave for the boarding school, her mother brought her along for a trip to the Northern Empire—as if to spend more time with her daughter before their parting. As if. They visited, it seemed, every single twice-removed grandfather, aunt, and friend of Tatiana. And every one of them she (a former ugly duckling of an impoverished noble family, now, turned caramelized with diamonds ugly swan) told of their magnificent home sweet home, of successes of her husband, who was lacing up the railroad corset of their young country, of her acquaintance with Agatha Christie, and of destructor knows what else.

Dinah observed in dread as her mother's advertisement of their incredible happiness and prosperity, stock after stock, rolled along the worn-out rails. Back home Tatiana was different—preferred tea dresses to ball ones, and would spend most of her day in linens, binding the plot lines in sheets of yet unbound novels, sent in handfuls by the young authors whom she was in correspondence with.

Only much later it had occurred to the girl that her mother wasn't bragging on that trip—but offering excuses. "Yes, you think that I had sold my noble and maiden honor to a wealthy industrialist heathen for beads and trinkets. Maybe so. But look how great those are!" She'd say, blowing 18 karat gold dust into the eyes of anyone who judged her family.

Timur and his parents' house was one of the stopping points on their triumphant path. The man of the family lived in the city, to keep an eye on the factories he owned, and the rest of the family to keep an eye on him. The mother, before marriage—Tatiana's best friend, seemed disinterested in the guests, and only Lyasan, Timur's grandmother, was full-heartedly glad to see them. She belonged to one of the turkic peoples of the Northern Empire, wore embroidered sherwal and luxurious izu chestpiece, played quray—long flute made out of a dried stem of a particularly poisonous umbellifer, and once, right in the middle of yet another gilded retelling of a solemnsumptous-dinner-with-the-president, suddenly hugged Tatiana over the shoulders. Dinah's mother started crying bitter inconsolable tears like a little girl. Dinah remembered that evening, and had never seen Tatiana cry ever again.

She already knew Timur before that visit, and despite him being the first pal from this side of the veil, there wasn't anything special about their relationship. They weren't close but, just like other children of their age, made friends easily—Dinah stepped out into the garden, Timur invited her to hunt falseblossom spiders, and in such a relaxed manner as if she was a regular at their house.

So what was the trigger of their story? Nothing of notice, at first glance. Timur had on one of his shelves a tome of Don Quixote in albion translation. Dinah, who'd already terminated every book she took with her, started reading it before sleep, but didn't complete it in time for their departure. Deciding that there would be no hurt in that, she asked to borrow the book, promising to send it back the moment she was done with it—Don Quixote arrived back home in October, still unfinished and in the company of a long letter on the horrors of life in boarding schools.

Albion of the time considered abundance a perverter of the young souls. Hence, no matter how much the parents spent on their child and whether that child was a prince in blood, or a heiress to an industrial empire, private schools deemed necessary to spend the allowance not on leisurely comfort of the students, but on salaries for teachers and tutors as quenched and tempered as money could buy. Rooms were kept cold, as were the heads, lost or broken things weren't replaced, and complaining was silenced with punishment—a classic "young ascetic" set.

Dinah was punished often, and almost every time—for a reason. She metallurgically snapped at everyone who made fun of her monocle or thick asymmetric lenses in her glasses, quoted Jane Eyre at inappropriate moments, and not only couldn't but also wouldn't get rid of her accent, holding onto it with her literal teeth.