The idea of this overgrown ape attacking me with a bar of soap is more than I can stand.

“Fine!” I snap. “I’ll take a bath. But only if you leave.”

“You don’t get to set terms,” the ape laughs, shaking his oversized head at me. “I’m supposed to supervise.”

God, I want to puke, just from the smug expression on his face. He’s not watching me get in that tub, not voluntarily anyway. What would Mary Lennox do?

“If you try to make me put that dress on, I’ll rip it to shreds,” I tell him calmly.

“We’ve got lots of dresses,” the ape says, as if he doesn’t care.

I see the flicker of annoyance on his face, though. His instructions were to make me wear that dress, not just any dress.

“Go away, and Klara can help me get ready,” I insist.

The smug smile fades off his face. Instead of an ape, he looks like a sulky toddler.

“Fine,” he says shortly. “You better hurry up, though.”

With that attempt to salvage his dignity, he goes back out into the hall.

Klara looks relieved that the confrontation ended that easily. She gestures toward the bathtub, which is now full almost to the brim with steaming water. She’s scented it with some kind of oil—almond or coconut.

At least I know her name now.

“Klara?” I say.

She nods.

“Nessa,” I touch my own chest.

She nods again. She already knew that.

“What’s his name?” I point toward the door where the ape just disappeared.

She hesitates a moment, then says, “Jonas.”

“Jonas is a dick.” I mutter.

Klara doesn’t answer, but I think I see the tiniest of smiles tugging at her lips. If she understands me, then she definitely agrees.

“What about your boss?” I ask her. “What’s his name?”

An even longer pause, in which I don’t think she’s going to answer. Then, at last, Klara whispers, “Mikolaj.”

She says it like the name of the devil. Like she wants to cross herself afterward.

It’s obvious she’s a lot more afraid of him than she is of Jonas.

She points to the bath again and says, “Wejdź proszę.” I don’t know a single word of Polish, but I’m assuming that means “Get in, please,” or “Hurry, please.”

“Alright,” I say.

I strip off my sweatshirt and jeans, which were getting kind of gross, and then unhook my bra and step out of my panties, too.

Klara looks at my naked body. Like most Europeans, she’s not embarrassed by nudity.

“Piękna figura,” she says.

I’m assuming “figura” means “figure.” Hopefully “Piękna” means “pretty” and not “gangly” or “horrifying.”

I’ve always liked languages. My parents taught me Gaeilge as a child, and I took French and Latin in school. Unfortunately, Polish is a Slavic language, so it doesn’t share many words. I’m curious if I can get Klara to talk to me, to see if I can catch the gist of it.

I know she’s not supposed to talk to me. But she is supposed to get me dressed. The more I pester her, the more she relents so that I’ll cooperate with the bathing and the hair-washing. Soon I’ve learned the words for “soap” (mydło), “shampoo” (szampon), “washcloth” (myjka), “bathtub” (wanna), “dress” (suknia), and “window” (okno).

Despite herself, Klara seems impressed that I can remember it all. It becomes a game, one that she’s enjoying almost as much as I am. She’s smiling by the end, showing a row of pretty white teeth, and even laughing at my poor pronunciation when I try to repeat the words back to her.

I doubt she gets much in the way of pleasant interaction with Jonas and the others. The only people I’ve seen around this place are hulking, surly, tattooed men. And of course, the Beast, who’s apparently called Mikolaj, though I find it hard to imagine him having an actual mother and father who would give him a real human name.

He claims the Butcher is his father.

I suppose that’s possible. After all, my father is a gangster. But I don’t trust anything Mikolaj says. Lying comes easier than breathing to men like him.

Klara insists on not only washing me, but shaving every inch of me below the eyebrows. I consider putting up a fight about this, but I go along with it, if only because she’s finally talking to me and I don’t want that to stop. I do make her tell me the words for “razor” and “shaving cream,” and also “towel” as she dries me off.

Once I’ve got the towel wrapped firmly round my body, she sits me down in a chair and starts brushing my hair.

My hair has gotten too long lately. Since I wear it up in a bun or a ponytail every day, I hadn’t really noticed. It’s almost down to the small of my back, thick and wavy and taking forever to dry as Klara tirelessly works the blow dryer and the paddle brush.

She’s good at that, as she seems to be at everything.

“Did you used to work at a salon?” I ask her.

She quirks an eyebrow at me, not understanding the question.

“Salon? Spa?” I say, pointing between her and the blow dryer.

After a moment, her pretty face lights up in understanding, but she shakes her head.

“Nie,” she says. No.

When she’s finished with the hair, Klara does my makeup, then helps me step into the green dress and a pair of strappy gold sandals. The material of the dress is so thin and light that I still feel naked after she zips it up. And, indeed, I am naked underneath, the clinging material not allowing for so much as a thong.

Klara puts gold earrings into my ears, then steps back to admire the effect.

It’s only then that I stop to wonder what, exactly, I’m getting dressed up for. I was so caught up in the bizarre process that I forgot to wonder about the purpose of it all.

“Where am I going?” I ask her.

Klara shakes her head, either not understanding, or not being permitted to say.

Finally, I’m ready to step foot outside my room, for the first time in nearly a week.

I can’t help my excitement. This is how pathetically constricted my sense of freedom has become. Stepping out into the rest of the house is like traveling to China.

I hate that I’m escorted by Jonas, sulking over the fact that he didn’t get to watch me take a bath. He tries to grab my arm and I shake him off, snapping, “I can walk just fine on my own!”

He snarls at me and I shrink back, like a kitten that takes a swipe at a big dog, then immediately regrets it.

Still, it worked. He lets me walk down the hallway on my own, stalking ahead so fast that I can barely keep up in the spindly sandals.

Why in the hell did they dress me up like this? Where am I going?

I can only hope they didn’t go to all this trouble just to make a pretty corpse out of me.

It’s evening again. The house is lit by electric lights, but they’re all so faint and yellowed that it might as well be candlelight.

I’ve yet to see the interior of the mansion in full daylight. It might not be much brighter than it is now. The narrow windows and thick stone walls don’t allow much sunlight to intrude, particularly when the house seems to be set in the middle of a tiny forest.