Part I: The Sea is Louder When You Close Your Eyes

The Ashcombe estate rested on the Dorset cliffs like an old god’s hand laid heavy over the earth—too grand, too quiet, and always watching. Below it, the sea sang in tireless rhythm, licking the rocks with salt-tipped tongues. It was here, on a windswept path tangled with heather, that Lady Evangeline Ashcombe first made Miriam Everly cry.

She hadn't meant to. Or perhaps she had, in the half-cruel way children sometimes do, testing boundaries like shutters against a storm.

“You’re meant to hold my hand tighter than that,” Eva snapped, her little boot scraping against a patch of loose stone. “You’d let me fall into the sea, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t,” Miriam said, her voice feather-soft, but the sting of the accusation had already flushed her cheeks. “I wouldn’t ever let you fall.”

“Well, then act like it.” Eva’s hand, small and cold, gripped hers with the possessiveness of a queen. “You’re mine. You were chosen.”

It was true. Two months before, when Lord Ashcombe had declared she must have a proper handmaid—a real one, Evangeline, not a playmate—Eva had howled and screamed and refused her supper until the walls echoed with her displeasure. In the end, her father relented, though not without bitter muttering. The Everlys would stay. The little one would serve. And Eva, triumphant, had claimed her prize.

She hadn’t known then why it mattered so much. Only that Miriam saw her. Not like the governess, not like the footmen who averted their eyes from her wandering ones, not like the physician with his pitying hands. Miriam never flinched when she looked too long or missed a step. She simply reached out and steadied her.

Now, Miriam wiped at her face with her free hand, sniffling. “I’m sorry.”

Eva scowled. The tears made her feel monstrous.

“Don’t do that,” she said abruptly.

“Do what?”

“Cry. You look ugly when you do. And I don’t want an ugly handmaid.”

Miriam almost laughed—almost. But she bit it down and nodded, smoothing her dress. “I’ll try not to.”

Eva blinked slowly, turning her face toward the sea. She could still see it, in pieces: the strange, jagged blue with its silver glints, the foam at the edges like lace on her mother’s old dresses. But the colors blurred more each week. Soon, she feared, it would all be sound.

“I want to sit,” she said, with sudden command. “I want to hear it.”

Miriam guided her to a flattish patch of grass, and the two girls sat with their skirts puffed around them like ship sails. Eva leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Describe it,” she murmured.

“You already know what it looks like.”

“I want you to do it anyway.”

Miriam hesitated, but then, like she’d done it all her life, she obeyed.

“The sea’s grey today. The kind of grey that looks like metal. The wind’s churning it, so there are white crests everywhere—like froth in a cup of milk. The sky looks angry.”

Eva hummed.

“You like when it’s angry,” Miriam added, smiling.

“Yes. I like things that feel more than I can.” Her lips parted slightly. “It sounds like it’s breaking. Doesn’t it?”

Miriam tilted her head. “A little.”

They sat in silence after that, the kind that only children and the very old know how to sit in comfortably. Miriam’s hand remained tucked in Eva’s. A gull cried in the distance. Somewhere behind them, the house loomed—but the sea was louder.

Eva stirred suddenly. “You’re never allowed to leave me.”

“I know,” Miriam said softly.

“I mean it.”

“I know.”