'Ah, Mr. Pierce.'
'The one and only,' Will agrees.
The housekeeper inspects him suspiciously, her eyes linger on the leather jacket, the boots, the slicked back hair, black and shiny.
'Follow me,' she commands. 'No grease on the carpets!'
'Wouldn't dream of it.'
Will has never seen the mansion from the inside. If anything, it seems even more humongous now. Looking at the over-sized bronze statue of a gaunt man with a strict expression, he whistles. His guide ignores him. She leads Will up a flight of stairs, past a door and all the way through a long corridor.
'Man, all of that space, gotta be a hassle, especially for her.'
'Miss Annie is quite capable of navigating her home,' the housekeeper replies.
'She's a tough one, all right.'
The woman stops in front of another door.
'This is Miss Annie's room,' she explains. 'I shall see if sh-'
'Cool it, I got it covered from here, Jeeves.'
He ducks under the outstretched arm and knocks two times.
'Oi, Bennett, you in there? What, too fancy to answer your own door now?'
'Young man!' says the housekeeper.
'William!' says the closed door.
He grins. Her voice is high and shrill and loaded with indignation.
There is sigh behind the door, then: 'Well, you'd better enter.'
'Sure thing,' he turns back for a second and winks. 'Thanks for the tour.'
He puts on his most winning of smiles.
'Hmph,' the woman walks off, her heavy steps echoing through the hallway.
'Nice carpets, your dad's got style.'
Only when the door closes behind Will does Annie answer.
'Oh, get bent, Pierce.'
'Right now?'
She smiles at him with her mouth only, her eyes busy glaring. Will likes her eyes, they're large and deep and the colour of chocolate.
'What's with your folks anyway? What, they keep you on the second floor?'
He's quickly crossed the room and plonks himself down on his host's bed. The perfectly made up blanket wrinkles around his buttocks.
'I'm not kept anywhere, Pierce. This has always been my room. There was no reason to change it.'
Involuntarily, Will stares, stares at Annie's fierce expression, her diminished body and her last remaining limb. Despite her clenched jaw, she looks tiny, reduced.
She is sat opposite her bed and has not gotten up to greet Will, nor could she have. Her left shoulder is empty, as evidenced by the puffy yellow sleeve that hung from it, limp and useless. Her torso was slim and petite. Looking down, Will saw her dress draped across the chair. There were no legs, nor even stumps to fill it. Only her right arm wasn't gone entirely, with a short nub, three maybe four inches in length, still going strong.
She meets his gaze. Her face is framed by curly auburn locks and her dark eyes challenge Will's words.
'Guess not,' he shrugs.
They exchange a faint smile.
'I hear,' Annie's voice is no longer raised. 'You are having trouble in English.'
'My English is just fine. Mr. H just needs a little help seeing that.'
'I'm sure it'd be a whole lot easier to see if you read the play he gave us.'
'Interesting idea you got there.'
Annie leans forward as much as her belts allow and places her stump on top of a small book on her desk and drags it towards the edge. It slides off, but she quickly presses it against her sternum before it can fall.
Annie pushes the small joystick on her right and with a low humming, the chair moves closer to the bed.
'You got yours?' she asks.
He shrugs and decides to play along for now.
'Think so.'
Will makes sure his sunglasses are tucked into his shirt in a visually pleasing manner and then crosses his legs taking up significantly more space than necessary. Finally, he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a battered copy of Romeo and Juliet.
'Where are you?' Annie asks.
Will glances at the index. From deep within his memories, he draws out a lesson he'd once put tremendous effort into ignoring.
'The window,' he said. 'She's at the window and he's all hot for her.'
'Really?'
'Yep. Amazin' scene. Totally romantic.'
Annie raises her eyebrows. Her book now lies on a small table affixed to her right armrest just behind the little joystick. She's opened it up and now drags her stump across the pages, turning them. As soon as she finds what she's looking for she slams the reduced appendage down onto the book, making sure it stays open. Will quickly opens his own copy on the same page. Her eyes fly across the text.
'You like this scene, do you.'