thought. Without any windows, actually. Makes sense.
"You will be staying here," he gestured to a door as they approached it. "I hope you will be comfortable." Seth unlocked the door with a key, let it swing open, and stepped back.
She took a step forward. Inside was a perfect replica of her apartment bedroom. She walked in, and looked around, amazed and slightly freaked at the tiniest details he had recreated, right down to the rings of water damage on her bedside table. The colors were a bit off, everything was a little too saturated, but otherwise she might have been back in Missouri. Taking a breath to speak, she paused a moment.
"What is that smell?" she asked, putting a hand over her nose and mouth.
He poked his head in the door cautiously, almost like he didn't want to invade her privacy. As if, she thought sarcastically.
After a moment, he smiled a little. "That, my dear, would be you. Or at least you when you were human. Naturally, your things still smell like that, although the scent will fade with time and use." His voice was a little melancholy, and he closed his eyes to take a deep breath. "I think I shall miss it."
Tanya stared around, now truly freaked out. These were not replicas of her things, they were hers, somehow transported from her locked and deadbolted apartment. "How the hell did you get my stuff?" she demanded.
He shrugged and smirked. "I can be very persuasive."
Glaring at him, she moved around, touching things. The soft fabric of a T-shirt, the slightly sticky surface of the bedside table. She opened a dresser drawer and found the box with her keepsakes in it, Ettienne's necklace on top.
The smell seemed more familiar to her now, reminding her of homecomings after a long hunting trip, only multiplied. It brought back long forgotten memories.
Nana had died when Tanya was twelve. Since she'd never married or had children of her own, her will had specified that Tanya should get "first pick" of the things in her home. She could remember walking through the rooms, unable to believe that her Nana wouldn't come back tomorrow. She picked things only from her bedroom: a beautiful old vanity set, the crazy quilt from her bed, and a bookshelf full of wonderful old books. She couldn't read half of them because they were in Russian, but they smelled like Nana and sometimes she would take one out and just flip through the pages to remember.
Sinking onto her bed, Tanya ran her hand over the old threadbare quilt, and suddenly she was fascinated by the swirling patterns of color and texture. She sat down and began smoothing her hands all over it, her breath speeding up as she started overloading again.
"Careful," Seth warned, snatching up her hands. "Close your eyes, and just touch," he instructed.
Slightly panicked, she did as he suggested, and he let her hands fall back to the quilt. "Slowly," he advised. She drew her hands down the quilt, marveling at the variety of textures.
"Now," his voice took on a mesmerizing tone. "Open your eyes and look at them, one at a time."
Tanya did so, recognizing old jeans, a sundress, pieces of her mother's wedding gown, an old pillow.
"Now try to smell, and sort out each scent."
Lowering her head, she breathed in deeply, searching for the smell she knew should be there, the softness of lilacs that Nana had always had about her. She caught a faint whiff, old and stale, but there was something else overpowering it. She tilted her head to the side, frowning.
"What is it, Tatiana?" he asked softly. She hadn't noticed that he had sat on the opposite edge of her bed, his hand trailing over the quilt. It kicked her right out of the trance she was in.
"Out," she said firmly. When he didn't budge, she tried to reach out and shove him, overshooting and landing on the floor in an unorganized heap. "Get out of my room!" she shouted.
He stood, looking like he wasn't sure what she meant.
"GET OUT!" she screamed, and then clapped her hands over her ears.
"Of course," he said stiffly, and left, closing the door behind him quietly as if nothing had happened.
Picking herself up carefully, Tanya stood and began to ransack her things for the source of the out-of-place smell. It was as if her entire room had been mysteriously transported to this prison; every last thing was exactly where she had left it. As she drew closer, the scent growing stronger, she began to realize what it might be. Opening the bottom drawer of her vanity, she found a bottle of perfume. She removed the cap, and suddenly the noxious fumes filled the air, making her nose burn and her eyes water.
Well I might as well cry, then, Tanya thought helplessly. She never wore the lilac perfume, and had only bought it because it made her think of Nana. But now it smelled nothing like her or lilacs, just a chemical mixture that was as much like the flowers as chalk was cheese. She had to get rid of it, couldn't stand to be near it another moment. Capping it, she looked to the window.
Except the window wasn't there. It was the only thing missing from the picture, the blue curtains framing a blank space on the wall where it should have been. Right, she remembered, no sunlight. Looking down at the bottle, her heart ached. She didn't want to get rid of her favorite reminder, but it looked like that... monster had left her no choice.
Storming over to the door, she stared at the handle. There was no lock on this side, not even a hole in the doorknob. Which meant it could only be unlocked from the outside. Does he mean to lock me up in here? she wondered, horrified and outraged at the same time. Her hand shook as she reached down to test if he had already locked it.
The knob turned effortlessly, and the door swung open to reveal Seth, leaning patiently against the walkway railing. "Yes?" he asked in his damnably polite British accent. He had the audacity to smile invitingly at her.
"Go to hell," she spat, and threw the perfume at him before slamming the door.
Seven
A fortunate thing that door is steel, Seth mused, otherwise she might have broken it. He had caught the bottle of perfume out of the air before it could shatter on the stone floor below. Now as he sat in his favorite chair, in the study, he pondered the small artifact.
The label read Lilac Breezes, but like most modern perfumes the scent was nothing like the flower it was named for. He imagined that his Tatiana, now gifted with a much more accurate sense of smell, had detected this as well. But why did it seem so important to her? He knew she never wore it.
He closed his eyes and thought. Lilacs. Her elderly aunt, the one she called ‘Nana,’ had grown lilacs in her yard. He still remembered the smell of them as he watched her play in the garden. Smell was a powerful memory trigger—perhaps she kept it as a memento mori?
Seth put the bottle away in a drawer of his desk and ran his hand over the smooth grain of the mahogany top. It was a comforting feeling, along with the smell of leather and books that pervaded the room. Tatiana's awakening had gone more or less to plan—he had expected her to be angry, outraged even. But he had not anticipated it would bother him so much.
Breathing deeply, he settled back into his chair and looked around the study. The architect he had hired to renovate this warehouse had done an excellent job. When Seth had asked that there be no windows, that every door be perfectly sealed, the man hadn't even blinked. Then again, Seth had chosen him because he specialized in underground luxury shelters for paranoid eccentrics. The architect had simply installed a top of the line ventilation system and found creative ways to make up for the lack of natural light.
Once Seth had calmed sufficiently, he left the study to disassemble the structure that had held Tatiana aloft during the extended process of changing her. He had been so excited, so impatient for her to arise that he had forgotten that once she did, he would no longer enjoy the closeness to her it afforded him. Before, he could touch her whenever he wanted, could stay within arm's reach night and day, and take care of her every need. Now she would want to assert her independence again, as well she should. Every child must eventually grow up, he reminded himself.