The Orchid And The Ember by Safa Shax at Inkitt

Chapter One

New York City, 1927.

I had always thought the city sounded different after midnight. During the day, New York belonged to everyone—the businessmen hurrying along Fifth Avenue with their newspapers folded beneath their arms, the shopgirls carrying paper parcels against their chests, the delivery boys weaving recklessly between automobiles, the women in fashionable coats stepping carefully over puddles left behind by the morning rain. But after midnight, when the respectable citizens had retreated behind the polished doors of their townhouses and the electric signs began to glow brighter against the darkness, the city seemed to shed its manners. It became something secretive and restless, something that whispered rather than spoke. From the window of my bedroom on the fourth floor of my family's brownstone, I could see the glow of Manhattan stretching beyond the rooftops, hundreds of windows illuminated like tiny stars beneath a black velvet sky. Somewhere down the avenue, an automobile horn sounded twice, followed by the distant laughter of a woman and the faint, almost ghostly rhythm of jazz drifting through the night. I pressed my fingertips against the cool glass and watched the city breathe. At twenty-four years old, I had already learned how to smile when I was unhappy, how to remain silent when I disagreed, how to lower my eyes when a man spoke too confidently, and how to wear a beautiful dress as though it were not another kind of prison. My mother called it grace. My father called it discipline. Society called it becoming a proper Ashcroft woman. I had another name for it. Disappearing.

Everyone in New York seemed to know the Ashcroft name. It appeared above the entrance of banks, beneath newspaper articles, engraved upon invitations, whispered across dining tables and mentioned with admiration by people who had never been invited inside our home. My father, Richard Ashcroft, had built his fortune through investments, railroads, property, and a collection of businesses so complicated that even I had stopped trying to understand where one ended and another began. He possessed the sort of wealth that did not need to announce itself because everyone already knew it was there. Our house stood on a quiet, fashionable street where black automobiles often waited outside polished entrances, and our dining room contained a chandelier imported from Paris that my mother insisted had belonged in a palace. We had servants who knew which flowers I preferred in my bedroom, which tea my mother drank in the morning, and which newspapers my father wanted delivered before breakfast. We owned more silver than we could possibly use and enough china to serve a hundred guests. Yet there was something strangely empty about the house. Perhaps it was because every room had been designed to impress someone. Nothing had been chosen simply because we loved it. Even the portraits hanging along the staircase seemed less like memories and more like warnings. Generations of Ashcrofts stared down at me in expensive clothing, their faces stern and composed, as though happiness had never been considered an important family tradition.

They called me the Orchid.

The name had begun as a compliment. My mother had once told a society columnist that I reminded her of an orchid—delicate, rare, elegant, and difficult to cultivate. The newspaper printed it the following week, and suddenly people I barely knew were calling me the Orchid at parties. I was told that the nickname suited me. I had dark brown hair that my mother preferred swept into elaborate arrangements, pale skin that required endless creams and powders, and eyes that had apparently inherited my father's intensity but none of his patience. I was told that I moved beautifully, that I dressed beautifully, that I spoke beautifully. Never once did anyone ask whether I felt beautiful. They simply admired the picture I presented. The Orchid was the woman who entered a ballroom without wrinkling her dress, who knew which fork to use at dinner, who could dance without stepping on a gentleman's shoes, who laughed softly rather than loudly, and who never, under any circumstances, caused a scene. Evelyn Ashcroft, the woman underneath all of that, was apparently much less important.

I had begun to wonder whether anyone would recognize me if I stopped performing.

That evening, I stood before my dressing mirror while my maid fastened the final pearl at the back of my neck. The dress my mother had chosen was the color of champagne, its silk catching the light whenever I moved. Tiny beads had been sewn along the waist and neckline, creating a delicate shimmer that made me look, as my mother had said earlier, "perfect." I stared at my reflection and wondered what perfect was supposed to feel like. The woman looking back at me seemed almost like a stranger. Her lips were painted a deep rose, her lashes darkened, her hair pinned in a careful wave beneath a jeweled comb. Around my throat rested a string of pearls that had belonged to my grandmother. Everything about me represented something—family, wealth, reputation, expectation. Nothing represented choice. I lifted one hand and touched the pearls. They were cold against my skin. "You look lovely, Miss Ashcroft," my maid said softly from behind me. I gave her the smile I had perfected over twenty-four years.

"Thank you."

The words came easily.

They always did.

Downstairs, my father was waiting.

He stood beside the fireplace in the drawing room with one hand resting against the mantel, speaking to two men whose names I recognized from newspaper columns. Both men turned when I entered. Their eyes traveled over my dress before returning to my face, and I felt that familiar sensation of being examined as though I were an expensive object in a shop window. My father looked at me for precisely two seconds before nodding with approval.

"Good," he said. "You're ready."

I smiled. "Apparently."

His expression hardened slightly.

"Apparently?"

I immediately regretted the word.

"Nothing, Father."

"Good."

That was how conversations with my father usually went. One word from him could close a door before I had even reached it. He crossed the room and offered me his arm. I took it because refusing would have created a scene, and scenes were forbidden in the Ashcroft household unless my father was the one creating them. As we stepped into the hallway, I caught sight of myself in the enormous mirror beside the staircase. My father and I looked like a photograph from one of the society pages: the powerful businessman and his elegant daughter, perfectly dressed and perfectly composed. No one looking at us would have guessed that I had spent the previous hour imagining what it would feel like to walk out of this house without asking permission.

"Tonight is important," my father said as we descended the staircase.

"Another charity dinner?"

He glanced at me.

"More than that."

I knew immediately that I was going to dislike whatever came next.

"The Whitmores will be there."

I stopped halfway down the stairs.

My father continued walking before realizing I was no longer beside him. He turned.

"Don't."

"I haven't said anything."

"You were about to."

I slowly descended the remaining steps. "Why should I care whether the Whitmores are there?"

"Because certain families understand the value of alliances."

There it was.

The word alliance.

It was never marriage when my father discussed it. It was always an alliance, an arrangement, a sensible union between families whose fortunes could strengthen one another. Somehow, by changing the vocabulary, he made it sound less like a transaction and more like good business.

I followed him toward the front door.

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"I am telling you to behave with maturity tonight."

"I always behave with maturity."

My father stopped with his hand on the door.

"No, Evelyn. You behave with obedience. There is a difference."

The words struck harder than I expected.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he opened the door.

Cold October air swept into the hallway, carrying the smell of rain, gasoline, and the city. I stepped outside, holding my dress above the pavement as our chauffeur opened the automobile door. Before getting inside, I looked back at the house. Its windows glowed warmly against the darkness, but there was no warmth inside me.

I wondered, briefly, what it would feel like to leave and never return.

Then I got into the car.

The journey across Manhattan felt like being carried through a dream I had never been allowed to enter. The streets were alive despite the late hour. Women with bobbed hair and feathered headbands emerged from automobiles wearing dresses that glittered beneath electric lights. Men in dark suits stood outside restaurants, laughing with cigarettes between their fingers. Taxis moved in endless streams, their headlights cutting through the mist. Every few blocks, I caught glimpses of signs glowing above buildings, advertisements promising perfume, cigarettes, automobiles, vacations, happiness. New York seemed determined to convince everyone that life could be reinvented if one simply had enough money and courage.

I pressed my forehead lightly against the window.

Perhaps that was why I loved the city.

It never seemed satisfied with what it already was.

My family was the opposite.

We protected the past as though it were sacred.

The automobile turned onto Fifth Avenue, and the city suddenly seemed brighter. Buildings rose around us like monuments to ambition. The newly fashionable Art Deco style had begun appearing everywhere, all sharp geometry, polished surfaces, dramatic lines, and metallic brilliance. I loved it more than I could explain. There was something about the architecture that made me believe the future might belong to people willing to imagine it differently.

Perhaps that was why I noticed him.

At first, I saw only a man standing beneath the awning of a building.

The automobile passed too quickly for me to see his face clearly, but there was something about him that made me turn my head. He was taller than most of the men around him, dressed in a dark suit that looked simple rather than fashionable. His posture was still, almost unnaturally so, while the city moved around him. One hand rested inside his coat pocket, and the other held a cigarette between two fingers. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't speaking. He wasn't trying to attract attention.

Yet somehow I noticed him immediately.

For one strange second, our eyes met through the rain-streaked glass.

Then the automobile moved forward.

I turned around in my seat.

He disappeared behind us.

I don't know why I kept thinking about him.

Perhaps because I was accustomed to men looking at me.

They looked because I was an Ashcroft. They looked because of my dress, my family, my face, my reputation. They looked at the Orchid.

But that stranger had looked at me differently.

As though he had been looking for Evelyn.

And somehow, without knowing my name, he had seen her.

The automobile finally stopped outside the Van Alen residence, where the evening's party was already spilling onto the sidewalk. Music could be heard from inside before we even entered. A line of expensive automobiles stretched down the street, and several photographers waited near the entrance, their cameras flashing whenever someone important arrived. My father stepped out first and offered me his hand.

"Smile," he murmured.

I did.

The flashes began immediately.

"Miss Ashcroft!"

"Over here!"

"Evelyn!"

I turned toward the cameras, lifted my chin, and gave them the expression everyone expected.

The Orchid had arrived.

Inside, the ballroom was magnificent.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling like frozen waterfalls. Gold geometric patterns climbed the walls, and enormous arrangements of white orchids stood upon tables covered in ivory linen. Women moved through the room in glittering dresses, their bare shoulders dusted with powder, their lips painted crimson or rose. Men gathered around the edges with champagne glasses in hand, discussing business, politics, automobiles, and the stock market as though the future were something they had already purchased.

A jazz orchestra played at the far end of the ballroom.

The trumpet cut through the room first, bright and daring, followed by the piano and drums. Couples danced beneath the lights, moving quickly across the polished floor. I watched them for a moment, fascinated by how freely some women seemed to move. Their laughter was louder than mine. Their dresses were shorter. Their hair was cut in bold bobs. They danced as though nobody had ever told them they were supposed to be delicate.

My mother touched my elbow.

"Don't stare."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

I smiled.

"Then I suppose I was admiring their courage."

My mother's eyes narrowed.

"That sort of woman is rarely respected."

"Perhaps she doesn't need to be."

My mother looked genuinely shocked.

"Evelyn."

Before she could say anything else, a young man approached us.

He was handsome in the polished, predictable way of men my parents approved of. His hair was perfectly combed, his suit impeccably tailored, and his smile carefully practiced.

"Evelyn," he said.

I recognized him immediately.

Thomas Whitmore.

The alliance.

"Thomas."

He bowed slightly.

"May I have this dance?"

My mother smiled before I could answer.

"Of course."

I looked at her.

She looked back at me.

There was no point resisting.

Thomas offered his hand.

I placed mine in it.

The orchestra changed songs.

He led me onto the dance floor.

For several minutes, I allowed myself to become exactly what everyone wanted me to be. I smiled when Thomas spoke. I laughed when he made a joke that wasn't particularly funny. I moved gracefully when he guided me through the dance. He told me about his father's plans to expand their company and asked whether I preferred Paris or London. He spoke about the future as though it were already written.

I listened.

I nodded.

I smiled.

And all the while, I felt myself disappearing.

Then, over Thomas's shoulder, I saw him.

The stranger from the street.

He stood near one of the ballroom's tall windows, half concealed by the shadow of a curtain.

My heart gave one sharp, inexplicable beat.

He was older than I had first thought, perhaps late twenties or early thirties. His dark hair was slightly disordered, as though he had run his fingers through it too many times. There was something restrained about his face, something difficult to read. A faint scar disappeared beneath the edge of his collar. His suit was well made but lacked the ostentatious elegance of the men surrounding him.

He wasn't looking at the dancers.

He was looking at me.

Thomas said something.

I didn't hear him.

The music seemed to fade.

The entire ballroom became distant, blurred around the edges.

For the first time that evening, I forgot to smile.

The stranger's expression did not change.

He simply watched me.

And then, slowly, he lifted his champagne glass.

Not a toast.

Not quite.