Aghast.

Madeleine never did quite spend much time in school, but she supposes that aghast is a suitable word to wear. So she widens her eyes, parts her lips, and lifts her dainty fingers from the suede chaise.

"You want him to travel the country?" she screeches, covering her mouth. "You want my son to leave his poor mother all alone and travel the country? My goodness, Father, this time you ask too much."

"Madeleine, my child," Father Mansart says wearily, "It would be a good experience for him. To be taken under the wing of someone of Monsieur Barnette's caliber is an incredible honor. There are places the man can take him to where he can learn from other artists, where he can master his craft... you must think of the boy!"

"I must think of..." The woman lets out a breath of disbelief, and shakes her head. "I beg your pardon, but I think only of the boy. Child, come here!"

The dark-haired boy does not oblige, but instead shoots an icy glare across the room from his place beside the old priest.

Madeleine is mortified by his disobedience, and her beady eyes scan Father Mansart's expression for traces of contempt and disapproval. Why, she can't let him think her unfit to raise her own child - what disgrace! What humiliation!

"Erik, come here now!"

The older man nudges the young boy forward into the woman's thin, outstretched arms.

"My child," she purrs, "Mon fils chéri. Come to your mother." Her bony fingers trace the lines of her son's arrogant jaw.

"I think only of the boy," she repeats. "He is not like the other little boys, you know. He hardly speaks to me, and when he does, it is in riddles. I think of what others will say about him behind his back about his unnatural tongue."

She rakes her fingers through his raven hair.

"I think about how angry he gets over the most trivial things. He smashed all my good vases once because the ink from his new pen refused to flow properly, did you know that? I think about the way blood streamed from his palms afterwards, when he'd tried to clean it all up, and the way he smeared it all across his face like an animal when I told him to stop."

"Madeleine..."

She can't be bothered by the priest's concerned expression, so with a detached glaze over her eyes, she continues.

"I think about the voices. I think about the voices all the time. Erik and I aren't the only ones who live here - oh no. We often have guests. A little girl, an old woman, a young man no more than fourteen, fifteen. Oh, and Charles too! My darling Charles comes to visit me all the time! I have never seen them, of course, that would be absurd, but I hear them."

"Madeleine," Father Mansart interrupts, "I'm sorry to have upset you. Just forget that I ever-"

"I can't forget!" the woman yells, "I CAN'T FORGET, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?"

This time, her fingers skirt the edges of his flimsy cotton mask.

"I THINK OF WHAT OTHERS WILL SAY ABOUT ME ONCE THEY SEE HIS FACE. I WONDER WHAT THEY WILL DO TO HIM. I WONDER HOW BIG THE STONES THEY THROW THROUGH MY WINDOW WILL BE! I WORRY ABOUT WHETHER THEY WILL FIND ME HERE AND KILL ME THE WAY THEY KILLED SASHA!"

The woman's warm breath washes over Erik's bare face. The cotton mask burns in her palm.

Father Mansart blanches at the sight of the mottled skin that surrounds two dark, familiar eyes. He finds himself frightened by the gaping hole where the boy's nose ought to be, repulsed by the tiny capillaries that throb beneath yellow, paper-thin skin. But he does not flinch. The tears that glisten on the boy's ruined cheeks turn his stomach over, and shatter him from his reverie. So he crosses the room to retrieve the mask from Madeleine's trembling hand, and leads the boy quietly away, shielding him from his mother's terrible screams.

On Sunday, Madeleine says farewell to her son. Then she cries, for the air she breathes after his departure is the sweetest she has ever known.

Author's Note: I will be the first to admit that this chapter is not my favorite, but in the spirit of keeping this story moving along and finishing it by the end of September, I'll post in anyway. I've been staring at it for almost two weeks - any more and I'll go nuts! :)