Chapter 3 - The Kneeling
The distance between the third stair and the floorboards where Nathan stood was barely six feet, but it took an eternity to cross.
His knees buckled slightly, the joints protesting with a dry, muted pop as he descended. He did not care about the bespoke cut of his trousers, nor the imported wool of his overcoat brushing against the dust of the riser. He dropped slowly, deliberately, lowering his frame until his heavy shoulders were level with the small, shivering heap of his children.
The smell hit him first—not the expensive French perfume of the women downstairs, nor the roasting chestnuts and pine of the holiday spread, but the stale, sour reek of damp cotton and starvation.
Nathan’s chest heaved, a violent, visible shudder rippling through his ribcage beneath the dark vest. He reached out with a hand that shook so violently his knuckles clicked together, his fingers hovering inches above Emma’s bare, ice-cold foot. The skin was the color of skimmed milk, the tiny toes curled inward against the drafts that sifted through the floorboards.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry as sandpaper.
"Baby..."
The word came out as a low, fractured rasp, barely louder than the rustle of wrapping paper downstairs. It hung in the cold air between them, heavy with a weight that defied its microscopic volume.
Emma stopped chewing. The dry crust remained pressed against her lower lip, a streak of gray mold dusting her pale skin. She didn't drop her head in shame; she simply tilted it upward, her movements mechanical, lacking the quick, fluid grace inherent to childhood.
"What are you eating?" Nathan asked.
His voice cracked on the final syllable, breaking into a dry, gravelly fracture that sounded like someone tearing dry parchment. His eyes darted from Emma’s face down to the plate resting between her knees, then back up to her small, pinched features.
The silence that followed was absolute. The string quartet downstairs played on, their cheerful Vivaldi notes floating up the stairwell like confetti falling over a grave.
May you like
Emma did not answer immediately. She took a slow, shuddering breath, her small ribs expanding beneath the thin, graying cotton of her nightgown like the ribs of an old umbrella struggling to open against a gale. Her gaze drifted past her father’s shoulder, toward the bright, pulsing warmth of the grand ballroom where the chandeliers threw diamond dust across the ceiling.
Then, slowly, her small fingers—stiff and red-rimmed from the cold—tightened around the edges of the chipped porcelain plate, holding it as if someone might reach out of the dark and steal her only possession in the world.
