My curiosity about the letter overtook my propriety. Mrs. Northe knew me. Quite well. If that was lying out in plain sight, I was meant to see it. At least, that’s how I justified sitting down to read it.
My dear niece Maggie,
It’s up to you whether the devils will have you or not… Karen tells me that you seem detached from the reality that you are in, in that you are not taking responsibility for your actions but are blaming them on others. Me, for one. Natalie, another, Mr. Bentrop and that book still more...
Here is where I have failed you. I didn’t know about that book until it was too late. But some part of you had to know it wasn’t a good book, Maggie, didn’t you? You’ve insisted on trying to get information out of me. Why wouldn’t you have brought that book to me? Mr. Bentrop turned you against me? Over the course of a couple of dinner parties? He is not a nice man, Maggie, nor are his associates. They are trying to pave roadways for the type of terrible energy that nearly killed you, the kind you willingly brought into your own home, resurrected in an altar in your closet.
I beg you to see that I dissuaded you from the wrong types of paths; I encouraged you to sit with our simple, quiet séances. But they were not flashy enough for you. It was not exciting enough, it seemed, to merely set a soul to rest. Power was more entrancing for you, and parlor tricks to charm a crowd. There are plenty of charlatan spiritualists out there who can train you in the ways of the trick table to create knocks as if a spirit were corresponding. That isn’t my brand, it isn’t my way, and I’ll not encourage mere theatrics. I’ve told you this countless times. But I want you to see these convictions of mine in print, on paper, here in this vulnerable hour, I want you to understand the difference between the type of evil you courted and the type of peace and light in which I strive to live. And, yes, of course, there is a harrowing gray area between.
I know that you are jealous of what Natalie and I shared. I am fond of Natalie, and I always will be. She was called by God to do something very specific. She had to be the one to rescue Lord Denbury’s soul. You must accept that as fact and move on from it.
And now you, dear Maggie, are called to turn your life around.
In doing so, I daresay you might be far more powerful than you could ever have imagined. For you stared down the Devil, after inviting him in and now you have the chance to repent and say no. It is brave to recognize you made a mistake and to devote your life to a different path. There are two paths. Two walks in this life, and in the life of a soul beyond its body. This is the point at which you must choose.
You must take Karen’s words deeply to heart. She and Amelia were the two brightest spots of my youth, and when all of us were beset with dark energies, we pulled each other through into the light. I have to believe Amelia is there as a guardian angel, willing you into that same better day; she was always powerful in spirit.
Please don’t ever think you haven’t been important to me. Your soul was crying out for attention, and I was fixated upon Natalie’s particular dilemma. For that I apologize. But I did trust that you were strong enough to not be overcome by darker whims. Prove that to me now in showing me you know the difference between the darkness you courted and the light that your family and friends offer you. Don’t worry about the retribution of your family, you leave that to me, I’ll make them come around.
I hope you might be moved to write back. Natalie has asked after you; she wants you to be healthy and happy as much as I do. If she can forgive you, seeing as she almost died due to your lack of understanding, you are further along your path toward a greater power. Embrace it.
Your aunt,
Evelyn
I set down the letter and sat slowly upon the nearest settee, my heart very full. I prayed very hard for Maggie. For Mrs. Northe. For myself. I sat in silence until Mrs. Northe swept in, all grace, graciousness and grandeur.
Dinner was quiet and lovely. Lavinia had dinner sent to her room as she was tasked with correspondences to all of her Association, trying to make sure no further lambs were lost in the dark wood of chemical temptations offered by wolves. But my dream haunted me and I wondered if I should warn her. But what could she do? She was already trying to assess the damage done, and she was perhaps psychologically still at a critical juncture. Jonathon was again out. With no explanation as to where. The thought that he may be avoiding me made my stomach twist in a terror as gripping as my nightmares.
Home once the sun set, I returned immediately to my room. Diary in hand, I sat at my window, looking out at what I could of the city, the avenue beyond. It was all right that I was restless. So was New York. The city had always, in its own way, understood me. Then I looked down and examined the words I had written.
White Horse.
Tavern.
Chaos.
Stevens.
Bits of conversation came back to me as I stared at the first two lines of my notes. The new White Horse Tavern. I’d heard my father’s friends at the Metropolitan talking about its recent opening. That would be the site of the next attack. And if I knew my dreams, the result would be within days of the dream. I had no time to lose; I had to investigate. Tonight.
I’d done this before: dressing in men’s clothing in order to investigate a scene.
Last time I’d ended up in a part opium den, part brothel in the Five Points, on the trail of a murderer, trying to protect innocent victims. It was certainly one of the braver things I’d done.
This time, simply donning men’s clothes so as not to be questioned or accosted while I examined a mere tavern near Greenwich Village after dark seemed like far less dangerous quarry. Still, upending my gender and pretending to be something I was not has its anxieties.
I stared at myself in the mirror, dressed in one of Father’s plain brown cast-off suits that I’d had secretly tailored down to fit me during my first foray into subterfuge, back in the days when saving Lord Denbury’s soul was a methodical process.
Looking at the youthful creature in the mirror, my auburn locks tucked and pinned up beneath a newsboy’s cap, I felt far less certain about the exact right course of action. Though my instincts were strong, I now had experienced more trials and errors by which to second-guess myself.
The fact that I’d survived against all odds with the help of God, mentorship, love, and some benevolent spirits didn’t make me feel much better about tempting fate once again. At what point would God deem me foolish and stop watching out for me when I was obviously putting myself in situations where I might need divine intervention?
The danger of crying wolf seemed a distinct possibility here, and yet I didn’t know any other way to confront the clues granted to me in my dreams but this. If I did nothing, I was a coward without a gift. This was a way of taking my knowledge into action without dragging anyone else along with it, in case my dream world was entirely wrong. I didn’t want to make anyone else liable for my mind’s unpredictable eye. Along with any sort of power, a great responsibility comes hand in hand. That was surely a certainty for the ages.
I stared at myself in the mirror in the same way I’d done when I’d first donned men’s wardrobe for the sake of espionage; surprised at the young boy before me, I knew that I was me, and yet here I was certainly not as society would have me. It was a nice blending wardrobe, nothing too fine, nothing too shabby, brilliantly and forgettable in the middle-class range.
I snuck out of the house by ten, blessed by early and heavy sleepers on Father’s and Bessie’s count. I was far more the night owl. Watching men’s gaits to try to embody their strides, I went out to Lexington Avenue to hail a cab. My allowance for penny candies, ribbons, and newspapers had been increasingly co-opted for spy-craft. I corralled a downtown-bound hansom cab, and the small compartment clopped and bounced down cobblestone blocks until the streets went at odd angles, and old New York streets took over, donning family names and early histories, banishing the numbered grid to the uptown streets it had served since the beginning of the century.
The White Horse was as you’d expect of any tavern: loud, raucous, filled with liquor and men. I sidled up to the wooden bar and ordered a drink in a low voice, whatever I’d heard the man a few steps ahead of me order. I knew nothing of liquor or beer; I’d sip the glass and not drink it as I scouted for my target, not wanting any substance to make me any less sharp. It didn’t take terribly long to find the man in question.
I nearly physically recoiled at the sight of him. Somehow my dreams had foretold enough about the man that even though the description hadn’t been clear, my gut knew exactly who it was. The predatory nature about him, his stance, his eyes, the way he seemed to sniff more than breathe, all of it had the air of animal more than human that spoke of a possessed body. His behavior wasn’t overtly so, otherwise no one would entertain his presence, but it was subtle enough for me to feel and see that something was a bit off. But obviously the man was targeting those with little to lose, easy prey, who tended to overlook such things as eyes that shined a bit too oddly and movement that was a little too much like a puppet.
He was holding court, it seemed, looming over a table of bleary-eyed young fellows who were considering the man’s words, one with skepticism, another with hope, one with desperation, and one who seemed a bit too intoxicated to focus. I wondered if somehow I could distract them, break the spell this man seemed to be casting over them like a pall. But then directing the man’s focus onto me seemed like a bad idea, considering the dream. I knew I was staring at all of them a bit too intently, rudely, but hopefully from the shadows I kept to, no one would notice.
And then I felt arms slide around me from behind, and just as I jumped, about to cry out, I heard a familiar, delectable British accent purr my name. The whisper in my ear stilled me immediately.
“Shh... Natalie. I know it’s you,” came Jonathon’s murmur and the action of his arms and the murmur of my name made me weak in the knees. “The trouble with disguises,” he continued with a bemused chuckle in my ear, “is that, when it comes to me...I can always see your light. You can’t hide the vibrant color of your soul. Not from me.”
I drank in his words. We’d had such awkwardness, such distance, I was afraid the kind of dreamlike words and intense passion our relationship had been built upon had been banished to the world of his painted prison, I feared our poetry was lost in the “real” world. It would seem he still had fine words for me. Perhaps it took a bit of unexpected espionage for them to return. Thankfully we had magic to bring us home. He could see the colors of my aura, the clue that had allowed his soul the agency to communicate with me even in his prison. And it would seem I was illuminated by magic still...
“I love it when you find me, Jonathon,” I whispered back to him. “And I always want you to…”
He kissed my temple, breath hot against my ear as he murmured: “You ridiculous thing, you, what on earth are you doing here?” My body thrilled from head to toe. I relaxed in his hold and leaned against him.
It was good that we were wholly in the shadows, considering how I was dressed. The bohemian freedom championed by such circles as Nathaniel Veil’s Association had no precedent here, and so two men embracing in this sort of intimate manner was simply not allowed in society at large.
Maybe someday it would be. For my part I didn’t see anything wrong; love was love, a soul was a soul, I’d learned firsthand that the spirit defines the person, not the body it was in. But society, I knew well enough from the disability that still cast its occasional silent shadow over my life, didn’t like things to be anything but “normal,” expected, traditional, unquestioned. But considering paranormal had become my normality, all things had to adjust accordingly. I could only consider my own spiritual, psychological, and physical well-being and say my own prayers, knowing I’d gotten this far by a faith that was larger than the time and the constraints in which I lived. I couldn’t count on society to know how to adapt alongside me.
“How did you know to come here, Jonathon?” I murmured, turning my face to graze my nose against his fine cheekbone, warmed also by the fact that he wanted to touch and be close to me no matter the clothes I was in, a reassurance that reached across myriad boundaries.
“I asked you first,” he countered.
“A dream. Foretold,” I answered. “You?”
“I followed him.” Jonathon indicated the man in question, who was ordering a round of drinks for his captive audience. “From one of Brinkman’s addresses. He was coming around from the back of the building. I saw a sparkle of the red and gold of the demons’ light bounce about him, the color flashing out of the corner of my eye. No other addresses seemed to wield anything of particular interest or note. I’d watched each for many hours. I didn’t really think, I just came this way.”
“Same, once I put the pieces of the dream together enough to evince the clues as leading to this location, I donned this disguise and made my move.”
“Is this what you wore the last time you went someplace a lady shouldn’t go on her own?”
I nodded. Jonathon held back a laugh. Whether I was or wasn’t convincing, he didn’t say, and I didn’t get the chance to ask before the man we were watching pulled a few glass vials out from his long, pale coat pocket and put them on the table, where the youthful audience stared at them with a mixture of hunger and apprehension. Jonathon seized my tall glass of stout and a second glass of ale that had been abandoned upon a nearby ledge. Gesturing for me to stay put, he then suddenly he stepped out from the shadows. I noticed he’d dressed down considerably, to mere shirtsleeves, suspenders, and trousers like a regular factory worker. A grubby cap with the brim pulled low concealed his fine black locks and a bit of soot was smudged over a chiseled cheekbone.
It’s true that his more lordly appearance might have given him away, and in this case he didn’t seem to wish to play the demon to this Stevens fellow, just in case he was being sought as such. We both had come in covert costume, it would seem.
Jonathon stumbled artfully forward, careful not to tip the glasses, until he jostled toward the table. He ran right into Stevens, first spilling the dark stout onto the man’s beige coat, then spilling the second glass over the glass vials, overturning them, sending a tiny puff of red powder near Jonathon’s face. He batted the particles away with a faux drunken movement. I wasn’t sure how potent or volatile the substance was, and I hoped there was no effect from his proximity to it.
Disrupting the whole scene rather brilliantly, causing far greater hubbub and commotion around him, Jonathon fumbled over an apology—in an impressive New York–styled accent—before stumbling on to say he’d go get someone to help clean it all up. Stevens barked after him not to bother, the man’s dark and troubled eyes flashing, his drawn face scowling as the youths at the table blinked and reacted.
Jonathon circled round the tavern, I lost sight of him in a cluster of bodies for a moment, and suddenly he returned to me in the shadows. Upon his return, he was sans cap and wearing a dark black jacket, blending into the shadows with me.
“Where did you...” I gestured to the coat.
“Hung upon a coat tree in the back of the bar,” he replied. “Brinkman wrote me a note with a few tips. Useful things, really.” Before I could ask further about fresh communication from the spy, Jonathon continued. “Watch for any changes or anything to do with those vials or the content. I’m going to speak to the management about someone coming and trying to make sales of products that were not sold by the tavern itself, something that might keep Stevens watched, and hopefully reported to the authorities.” He stalked off, and I watched the unfolding reactions at the table.
The four youths seemed to have broken from a trance. They stared at Stevens and at the dripping mess before them alternately, their brows furrowing. Three of them stood to clean themselves off and walked away as if they weren’t exactly sure of themselves; one just turned from Stevens but remained sitting, using a kerchief to wipe down the surfaces directly around him, his shoulders hunched, either tired, drunk, miserable, or all three. Stevens clenched his jaw and turned to pace in the dim light of the tavern lanterns, thinking no one was watching.
Just as the group dispersed and the moment was foiled, I noticed two young black-clad women in short black cloaks and hats with net veils peering in through the tavern window from the street beyond, arm in arm. They waved at one of the young men within, and his visage brightened at the sight of them.
My heart pulled, as all of them reminded me of the characters in my dream. In my dream, there had been screaming as young men were turning into monsters, transformed by insidious means, dehumanized to wretched experiments meant to keep the victims in fear. Here, there were only smiles. I wanted to cry out in triumph. We changed the fate of the night...
Inside, Stevens turned, his sallow face hard and haunted. I wondered what drove that man. Was it as misguided as it had been with Doctor Preston, reanimating out of love? What made Stevens want to alter a person so? Or was he merely a possessed body, the actual original researcher having long ago been dispatched?
He stole a glass from a ledge where a few smart-looking fellows were hotly debating politics and downed the beverage. His fist clenched and his arm raised, seeming ready to throw the glass before he then thought better of it as one of the staff approached him. I overheard the manager gruffly ask about whether he’d been trying to sell products in their establishment. Stevens was immediately contrite and ordered more alcohol. I wished in that moment this “doctor” of questionable repute would have picked a fight so that a local police officer would have been called to take him in. I thought about throwing something to seek escalation, but escaping a bar brawl wasn’t in my particular expertise.
Confident the doctor wasn’t going anywhere as he sat back at the table now wholly abandoned, defeated, a glass of liquor in each hand, I took my eyes off the man and searched for Jonathon. Feeling so vindicated by Stevens’s failure to incite another incident, I turned to Jonathon upon his return to the shadows surrounding us and nearly threw my arms around him. Instead, I merely stood very closely, hoping to regain the scorching intimacy we’d had from the moments our souls had first met within the magic of a canvas...
“Let’s not be strangers, Natalie,” he said, reassuring my foremost concern as if he’d read my mind.
“Let’s not,” I replied eagerly. “I’ve been so worried, can feel you withdrawing—”
“I’ve a lot on my mind,” he interrupted, his voice hard. “Dark things, Natalie. I don’t want to burden you—”
“I want—need—to know everything. I want to bear the weight of that burden with you, just like when your spirit kept darkening that painting.”
He sighed heavily. “Home is calling me, Natalie. I’m going to have to return to the estate at some point. I can’t avoid it any longer.”
“I’m coming with you,” I declared.
He just gave me a pained look.
“I don’t want us to be apart,” I insisted. “I want us to be together and for everything to be perfect, never pressured, never looking over our shoulders, but just perfect.”
He stared at me, and I could see the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “So you will accept me? If I were to ask...again?”
My heart jumped at this, but it still had to be for the right reason. “If you ask for no other reason than for your own desire. Not because anyone forced you to. I’ve never wanted to say yes to anything more,” I whispered, achingly. He nodded, biting back a smile, seeming in part placated, in part still nervous. “Besides,” I added, “don’t you think the forces at work would like to see us split apart? We can’t give them that opportunity.”
“True,” he agreed. “Tonight, I do think a crisis may have been averted.”
We had intervened before further victims had been ensnared for Stevens’s experimental purposes, sowing seeds of chaos. I felt a proud surge flood my body. We were clever, resourceful, and gifted. We were more than the enemy would expect of us.
As we left, for we could not stay out into the night indefinitely, we had to step from the shadows and into the brighter gas-lit entryway. I cast one look back over my shoulder. The man, Stevens, was staring at me. Right at me. Through me. His eyes flashed oddly, unnaturally.
And suddenly I didn’t feel so clever anymore.
Jonathon and I shared a hired carriage back to our respective residences. I doubted he’d have to sneak back into Mrs. Northe’s in the way I’d have to sneak back home; men did not have to answer to their whereabouts. Lord Denbury was lord of his own domain, and that would never be questioned. A young woman was not afforded such freedom of destiny.
But the particulars of freedom were lost to me the moment that Jonathon closed the cab door behind me, shutting us into the dark compartment. Somehow being truly alone together in full cover of night gave us permissions we hadn’t allowed ourselves of late. The intense situation we had just shared brought us back to each other, to the partnership and perils we had become so familiar with. With those perils also had come passion. He and I must have been of a mind, for the moment I reached for his hand, he took the opportunity…
“Will you permit me a moment of not being entirely gentlemanly, Miss Stewart?” he asked in a hot murmur in my ear. “We’ve been trying to be so proper and behaved—”
“You’re permitted,” I nearly gasped. He tore the cap from my head and entwined his fingers in my hair. Pulling me into his arms, he kissed me deeply, again and again, hands roving, until the carriage slowed its pace. East down the block stood my home, and I could not remain locked in his embrace indefinitely.
With a reluctant groan, he released me to catch my breath. I was just as woeful to be let go. But the driver wouldn’t just sit there without question or further payment, and we did not dare to be suspect in our actions. Silent as I descended the carriage—I was afraid my voice would tell tales of me—I donned my cap once more, hoping no one was watching the front door of the divided townhouse, and that I could quietly ascend to our top floor rooms as undetected as I’d descended.
I was in luck in returning to my bed unnoticed, though the eyes of Stevens still haunted me, as if I could see him hovering at my window like some creature in my beloved Gothic yarns. The sorts of tales that had once so titillated me left a far different taste in my mouth now that I was living what would only be believed as fiction.
That night came a nightmare, as if the night’s victory was just a tease, as if I couldn’t possibly be afforded a sensual dream of Jonathon’s kisses alone, heaven forbid. Just as I was beginning to feel we were gaining ground as lovers and partners once more and winning against enemies in our waking hours, the dread fear and reality of his looming departure was writ large over my unconscious hours and the dread I could not entertain while awake had full reign while asleep.
This time the dream was shared with Jonathon, as we used to when our souls met in the painting and our consciousness was linked in dreams, a life-saving particular his curse could never have predicted. I was so glad to see him in my mind’s eye, thrilled that he had returned to my resting self, but it seemed he didn’t see me down the hallway from his striking silhouette. He was preoccupied on something before him, far, far away down the endless corridor that was such a continuing construct of these dreams. Always a corridor, with different particulars. This time it was the long hall of a house. A fine house. Perhaps his...
Something was calling him, voices, murmurs. From the empirical evidence of our horrors thus far, I knew that a swarm of murmurs in my mind meant that the dark magic of demons was amassing, building, coalescing, drawing him out and away from me...
This was the darkness gripping hold of him as he’d intimated to me at the tavern, and I called out:
“Jonathon, don’t follow shadows...”
He looked over his shoulder, back at me. His bright eyes were at first pained, but then flashed oddly, like the demon’s once did. He turned back, away from me once more, and kept walking. Ahead of him was a familiar old room, his study, in Greenwich, England. The study he had been painted into, a painted prison we had both become all too familiar with. I couldn’t think he was walking back into it willingly... Forces would fight for him, yet, would he ever fully be free and could he ever regain his home? Could that place ever feel safe? What place could feel truly safe again when demons invaded with little care for doors or decorum, rejecting the sovereignty of soul? But thankfully, even though the devils wove their way into my dreams, so did the angels.
Jonathon cried out far ahead of me, there was a burst of light, the door to his study splintered. He cried angrily and ran off into the darkness, pursuing something as all the gas lamps around me suddenly lowered their flame.
They’re coming for you... A warning whisper in my mind.
If the devils had anything to do with it, they would part us. Separate us and pick us off one by one because as a team, we were invincible. Or, at least, had been thus far, thanks in no small part to some divine intervention. In our separation would lie our downfall, I was sure of it. Why in the world had I turned down his proposal? It was just what the devils wanted. Maybe they were at work within us more than we knew.
The nightmare meant that in the morning I rose at the time my father rose. He always did take to the morning better than I. Before I could face anything or anyone, I jotted down the details of the dream in my diary; purging the images was cathartic, and yet I still had to log details of the dream as potential clues.
I’d been careful to take the time to be fond with Father, and with Bessie, our housekeeper who moved in after her Irish husband died building the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge. A friend of my mother’s from protestant civil liberties circles, Bessie had angered both her own family and her husband’s by the sheer fact she was black and he was not. She hadn’t had options, resources, or legal recompense when he died, and being a friend of the family, she filled a necessary void here, my widower father not knowing much what to do to keep the house when I’d been away at school learning Standard Sign.
“I assume you’ll be going over to Mrs. Northe’s today?” he asked, when I knew the question really meant if I would be seeing Jonathon.
“As one would only expect, and as she should,” Bessie said matter-of-factly, shifting a piece of bread from her plate onto mine when she saw I’d taken to my food rather quickly. I caught her winking at me. I returned a wink when Father wasn’t looking.
Bessie must have been encouraging Father not to be so worried about Lord Denbury’s proposal, as he simply didn’t press the issue further after her comment. She knew all too well the damage various familial pressures could do to true love across boundaries.
Father shifted the conversation to acquisitions, and I mentioned what I thought the collection lacked, and then we were all off to our respective duties and errands.
I spent a little longer on my appearance, pinning up my hair with seed pearl pins Mrs. Northe had gifted me, sure to wear the nicer of my two lace-trimmed cream blouses, noting the slight tear in the sleeve had been repaired. Bless you, Bessie. I wore my best overskirt with its slight bustling at the back, a deep plum, my favorite color, with a little matching plum vest trimmed in mauve that made the piece seem like a whole ensemble. After the delicious kisses he gifted me the night prior, I wanted to be at my feminine best, though my best dresses were ball gowns I’d been given as gifts. A mere trip to Mrs. Northe’s parlor did not necessitate a ball gown, fine as the parlor was.
The maid let me in, gesturing me into the parlor, and ran down the list of who was in, who had been in, and who was out. It was quite the rotating guest list. Mrs. Northe and Lord Denbury were both evidently out, but Lavinia was looking a bit lost in the parlor. The maid was quick to fetch us both tea. The black-clad girl, hair partly up and partly streaming down her back in a fetching deep red stream, looked like a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting in mourning.
“Natalie, I’m very glad to see you. I wanted to tell you something I heard. One of my associates dropped this note for me.” She referenced a small card in her lap. “He was out at the new White Horse Tavern, downtown, and he thinks he got a sense of the man who was behind the substance. And he said he thought someone looked familiar, someone who...interrupted the man in question, just as he was pressuring a group of lads. I don’t suppose...Lord Denbury is on the trail of anyone, is he?” she asked hopefully, as if my Jonathon could be the hero she seemed to need.
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure that we were letting on any word of our activities to anyone. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Lavinia, there was something about her that compelled me, but I would let Jonathon be the one to share what he’d been up to. I assumed perhaps he was taking Mrs. Northe to the location in question, from whence he’d followed Stevens. Before Lavinia could press me further, there was some commotion at the front door.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar British accent crying out: “Darling, I’ve come for you!”
Lavinia looked up, wide-eyed, partly in ecstasy, partly in shock, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. And then her cheeks turned as red as her hair. We both knew exactly who that voice belonged to.
Nathaniel Veil had returned from England. And it would seem he was on a mission.
I could hear the maid protesting with him that he needed to be announced, but he charged right into the parlor in an imperious swoop of black fabric and flying locks of hair, not bothering to take off his cloak, tossing aside his top hat onto a nearby chair, and practically diving across the parlor and onto his knees before the divan where Lavinia perched so gracefully.
Enter Nathaniel Veil.
Tall and wild, the Gothic actor—all in the finest black, tailored vestments—did not leave his persona behind on the stage once he took his bow. Instead, he lived his theatricality in every moment, to the fullest, the energy and powerful presence entirely overtaking a room. I had to stop myself from laughing, not because I found him foolish, but merely because I was so entertained by his full commitment to being unquestionably dramatic. It was contagiously delightful.
And Lavinia’s expression was rather priceless. I could see the joy on her face, but as he took her hands in his and kissed them with flourish, a fierce pain took over, and her whole demeanor darkened.
“Ah, you finally pay attention to me now that I’ve gone and done something terrible?” she murmured. “You fly to the side of your injured toy?” He looked up at her in horror. “And you might want to be just a touch less rude, Mister Veil,” she added, “and say hello to Miss Stewart, who does happen to be in the room with us at present.”
“Hello, Mister Veil,” I said gently from across the room. “It is so good of you to come. I am sure your Association will derive great comfort from your presence.”
Veil sprang up and instantly was across the room and back down on his knees again, taking up my hands in his this time. He did not kiss them, thankfully, for poor Lavinia’s sake, but he did hold them to his breast and spoke with absolute earnestness, his accent every bit as delectable to me as Jonathon’s was. “Miss Stewart, I am so frightfully glad to see you, too, have you been taking good care of my dove here and my best, bosom friend? Where is that glorious cad Den, anyway?”
“I… You mean Lord Denbury?” I said, trying to hold back a chuckle, having forgotten Veil’s pet name for Jonathon, a name I was not allowed to utter under any circumstance. Ever.
“Yes. Where the devil is the man?” Veil jumped back to his feet again. A towering presence, he paced a few steps before throwing himself onto a pouf. I opened my mouth to answer, but he was onto another subject, addressing Miss Kent. “I’ve sent a call to round up my Association. We can’t have anyone trying to take advantage of them again, so we’ll rally the troops here. How are they, Vin?”
It seemed everyone important to Nathaniel had a pet name. I cringed at “Vin.” He dared not call me “Nat”; he could save that nickname for himself, surely.
“They are all passable. Trying to mitigate any damage done,” Lavinia answered, her tone even. “As Miss Stewart said, your presence will do them good. However, I suggest setting a firm tone. We can’t have this seem like errant behavior will make you come running.” She stared into her teacup. “And before you ask or assume, I was not trying to do that to you. I was genuinely interested in…options.”
Veil crossed the room to her again in a mere step. Even though there wasn’t room for him, he sat down beside Lavinia, edging her over, her own skirts spilling over his trousers, the two of them a streaming splay of black fabric. If his next words were an act, then he was a very good actor indeed, for he seemed utterly sincere. There was nothing he did by halves, but his truly contrite and earnest tone could not be denied.
“Promise me you’ll talk to me before you turn to anything else,” Veil said gently. “All of you. I want all of you to feel supported. Is that clear, Vin? I didn’t start my Association out of ego. I started it to save lives. Do you remember how many near suicides we had our first year as acquaintances, all brought together by some old dark loneliness that was sown down deep in our bones?”
“I do remember,” she whispered, barely audible.
“The point is we have each other, rather than substances, rather than drastic measures. In the Association, all are cared for,” he murmured. Lavinia wouldn’t look at him, merely nodded. He took a black-gloved finger and placed it under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “And some are cared for more than others.”
“Nathaniel, please don’t,” she murmured. Even though he had turned her face to him, her eyes still refused to meet his. Blushing furiously, she was surely uncomfortable that I was in the room still. This kind of intimacy was rather shocking to be shared with an acquaintance in the room, but Veil didn’t seem to care; he flaunted custom regularly, the whole of his life and his actions public and unapologetic. I was amenable to honest conversation between lovers, but Lavinia didn’t know me well enough to know I would not judge her for it.
“Where are you and your Association meeting, Mister Veil?” I asked, lest he try to press the intimacy issue further and publicly kiss her, a shock indeed.
“Why here, of course,” Veil replied as if that were obvious. “Mrs. Northe did say I was welcome in her home when she wired me.”
“Ah. Yes.” I smiled. “But does…Mrs. Northe know about potential…company?”
Veil blinked a moment. “You don’t think she’ll mind, do you?”
I took a moment to choose words carefully, stifling a surprised chuckle at his oblivious regard for anyone but himself and his own. “I’d think she’d appreciate a bit of an advanced notice, as would the staff, Mister Veil,” I finally replied.
Lavinia just stared at me with a wide, horrified stare, trying to mouth an apology. It only made me want to laugh again, until I imagined what it would be like if I were the staff. Maybe I’d go help them. I had benefited from Mrs. Northe’s acquaintance, learning how the upper echelon lived, but when one was as distinctly middle-class as I was, life could go either way and so would my empathy.
“Yes… I suppose you’ve a point there, Miss Stewart…” Veil murmured. “Did I mention you’re looking lovely? Purple. Suits you. One of the rare colors I’m fond of.”
He bounded up again and darted into the hall; it was impressive how quickly he moved, preternatural almost. It fit with his persona eerily well. I heard him call into the hall: =
“Lovely young miss who I entirely, rudely, bowled past at the door, would you do me the kind favor of preparing for guests?”
My jaw hung open at the sheer cheek of the man.
“How… many…” I heard the poor, beleaguered young maid reply.
“Oh, I’d say about forty,” he offered cheerfully. “Give or take a few.”
“For…ty…give or take…” came the frightened response. There was a scuffle down the stairs to the kitchens below, and I heard a clatter of a few pans and fire irons.
“Thank you, beautiful!” Veil cried after her and bounded back again to Lavinia’s side. She had been able to do nothing but stare after him, helpless to stop the tumbling, sweeping force of nature that was the man she so clearly couldn’t help but adore. “So. Darling,” he said, edging back onto the seat, practically in her lap. “I think just a good meeting, all of us, among friends, would do a lot for morale, don’t you think?”
Lavinia nodded.
Veil then looked over at me, remembering his earlier question that had gone unanswered. “I say. Where is that charmer of yours, Miss Stewart?”
“I appreciate that you think I’m the keeper of Lord Denbury’s whereabouts, Mister Veil,” I said with a chuckle. “But I haven’t a clue.”
“Well, would you find a way to fetch him?” Veil said as if exasperated. “Otherwise, he’ll miss a bloody good show! Impromptu parlor shows are my favorite.”
“Neither Mrs. Northe nor Lord Denbury seem to be in at present, Mister Veil,” I said in response to Nathaniel’s insistent belief that I should know the whereabouts and goings-on of my suitor at all times. “So we’ll just have to wait.”
“Unless they ran away together,” Nathaniel said dramatically. Lavinia snorted.
I didn’t bother replying. Considering Mrs. Northe was the wisest woman I knew, I didn’t think she was the type to run off with someone who could be her son, no matter how attractive he was. But then again, jealousy was a funny creature and flared up at the most inopportune moments. She had always been keenly interested in his welfare and well-being…
Before the green-eyed monster could entirely run away with my sensibilities, the maid I recognized as having been with Mrs. Northe for years, a thin woman who must have been hiding from all the commotion, bobbed her head at me before handing me an envelope. I could feel Nathaniel’s keen, dark eyes upon me like a hawk.
“This place is full of secrets and missives!” he exclaimed. “I felt, from the moment I entered this fine house, caught up amid plots and espionage!”
Lavinia leaned forward from the settee, a fond smile on her face as she said in a stage whisper: “Everything, even the smallest thing, feeds his imagination.”
“Oh, but it is espionage, Mister Veil,” I replied with a wink and opened the note.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, seeming rather delighted. But my humor was short lived.
My heart faltered a bit. The letter was from Maggie. Nathaniel and Lavinia were lost to a bit of banter as I was lost to the words of the misguided young lady who was as much enemy as friend, yet a girl whose destiny I felt was awkwardly entwined with mine.
Dear Natalie,
I write this to you from Chicago, which is an odious place compared to New York City. It’s crowded, loud, smelly. Not that New York doesn’t have its foul districts, but this swine-butchering city seems so uncultured comparatively. But Karen is trying to endear Chicago to me, and day by day she wins a bit of it over to me.
I’m sure this letter sounds very frivolous thus far. That’s probably what you think of me. Frivolous, shallow, with no idea what I’ve done.
But I do know. Please don’t think the worst of me. I realize I nearly died. And I nearly dragged you with me into the madness.
I realize I nearly killed you.
I do not know what else to say but that I am sorry. And I am so very glad that you, Jonathon, and Rachel, and whatever forces were on your side, managed to save us. I owe you my life, misguided as it is. But seeing as I’m still alive, I might as well make the best of it. Though the fashion here in Chicago is at least a year behind New York. Not that I’ve had much time for shopping.
Karen is teaching me myriad mysteries I don’t even begin to know how to describe to you. Perhaps you will see them in person. I long to return to New York, but I am advised that the dark magic needs space and separation. Something you probably already knew.
But things are afoot here in Chicago, Natalie. There are other “doctors” doing other “experiments.” Auntie was out here, having left us to our own devices, and her and Karen and the late Amelia did a bit of snooping, and it seems there’s a subterranean racket of missing bodies and body parts, of possessions and soul-ripping. Karen said other recent instances might also be related to the collective trying to grab hold in the strangest ways.
But really, is what they’re doing entirely evil? Is there not a point to experimentation? Asking questions? Seeing what the limits of the body, mind, and spirit may be?
I wonder these things, and then I wake with carvings on my arms and Karen has to bless me and wash my arms down with holy water. Karen says that Amelia is watching over me, she’s sure of it.
I cannot help but wonder if Karen and Amelia were more than friends and were actually in one of those “Boston Marriages.” Could you imagine? How scandalous. You should ask Auntie about it, though I doubt she’d tell me the truth. She never did like me being nosy in other peoples’ business. I can’t blame her. It has gotten me into trouble.
Karen said that Auntie told her that you suffered the same markings as I have. Runes? Some ancient language repurposed for something terrible? Perhaps you can share with me your thoughts and how the terror of it made you feel, for right now I am feeling rather put upon and wholly alone. I’ve never done well with solitude. Perhaps that’s something I could learn from you too.
Not that you’re alone, now, with Lord Denbury… I burn with shame. I don’t know what else to say upon that count. That’s another apology and contrite plea for forgiveness for another day. Though I doubt it would surprise you to hear I’m still rather jealous. What woman wouldn’t be with such a catch as he?
Rachel has been by to check on me, not that we can communicate other than by notes we write one another. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to be able to speak, and yet she is full of joy and hope, the sweetest soul. I can learn a lot from her about being grateful. That’s another thing Auntie always said about me. Ungrateful. But not Rachel, who bears her burdens lightly and with grace.
Rachel says, well, wrote, when she came over for tea, that she’s very busy putting all the souls to rest that were pulled to the reanimate body that a researcher here was working on. She says she feels a sense of purpose in fighting all this dark nonsense and that sense of purpose is something I’m trying to cling to.
What about voices? Do you hear voices, Natalie? Whatever you can tell me of your experiences with the forces that Karen refers to as “the Society’s darkness,” will likely be of great help.
Or, you might tear this letter up, wanting nothing to do with me ever again, and I could not blame you for that, even though I would be sad. I might not have ever been a good friend, but maybe, in the end, I can be.
With hope,
Margaret Hathorn
I sat with these words, a ponderous weight upon my heart, not sure whether to be amused or appalled by Maggie’s flippant, socialite tone shifting so effortlessly between gossip, deadly matters, and plaintive soul-searching. I went back and reread her previous paragraphs.
She was so close to what I would consider a redemptive tone, and yet she still justified the experimentation. Until she entirely denounced them, it was likely that the dark magic would still cling to her, call to her, and worse. It might still work through her.
I had denounced the demons entirely, and yet the runes had still managed to invade, carving their ways onto my arm as the dark magic sought me out. What was it doing to her, when she so clearly was still tainted?
I had been staring so intently at Maggie’s words, as if I could somehow will further meaning, insight, and direction from the paper itself. Frankly, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. But at the sound of rustling fabrics and soft murmurs, I looked up.
The number of persons in the room and milling in the halls and stairs beyond had increased dramatically, though the sound had not. Mister Veil’s Association could be an eerily quiet bunch.
“Oh...” I murmured, my cheeks burning from the realization of sudden, further company. “I see it is time for a show...”
There was a cluster of dark-clad persons shifting silently in the hall, moving slightly on their feet as if they were feathers on a breeze or ghosts not touching the floor. Others had quietly entered the parlor.
Two waifish, lovely women sat draped on either side of Lavinia, having entered silently while I’d been reading the letter. Their legs were tucked up on either side of the settee but fabrics trailed down to the floor. Lovely heads rested with a preternatural stillness on Lavinia’s shoulders. One was raven-haired and the other was dark brown–haired. Their expressive eyes were kohl-rimmed and their lips were painted a dark red. And then I realized what was slightly scandalous about one of the women. She was in trousers. A fine riding suit coat and trousers. And I didn’t think she was, like I had recently been, participating in espionage, and so this was simply her choice of evening wear rather than a choice of safety and subterfuge.
“Natalie, please meet my best friends, my kindred spirits,” Lavinia said softly, gesturing to the compelling persons at her side. “Raven and Ether.”
“Hello, Miss Stewart,” Raven replied, in a voice that was a lower register than I’d expect of a rather consumptive-looking woman, and then it occurred to me that Raven and Ether weren’t women at all. But young men. I took this in a moment.
They were the ones in my dream. These two were the women outside the White Horse Tavern. I looked at them, one to the other, trying not to stare, trying not to be rude, simply trying to take them in as they would wish to be considered.
I had lived most of my life with a disability. I knew the precise look I did not want to give them, a look of confusion or pity, a look that made them feel as if they were just as much the outsider as I’d always felt, a look that they were somehow wrong… No, I was better than that… This whole company was better than that.
As a child, all I’d wanted was simply to be accepted for who I was, without others’ demands of what that might be. If I had never begun talking again, I would still want to live a full, whole life. Not a half life. Not a cast-off life. Being my own person ran contrary to the idea and expectation that I was to give myself over entirely to the stronger sex and a more dominant will… Clearly these two didn’t want to give themselves over to that idea, either and instead were presenting quite an uncommon alterative. It was bold. It was something I had never encountered. But lately, the world saw fit to throw me new challenges.
Nathaniel Veil’s Association was a safe haven for those who wished to buck society’s expectations in an increasingly dramatic number of ways. Raven and Ether could surely see me puzzling through this, over them, and their choices in presenting to the world. They merely returned my gaze with a gentle patience that was admirable, considering that when people had given my inability to speak a similar baffled and pained, pitying expression, I was far quicker to scowl. Their gracious attitude made me want to be more generous in how I looked at others, most especially when surprised.
“Raven, Ether, a pleasure,” I finally managed to reply, and smiled a genuine smile. Ether’s sallow face suddenly transformed as he returned the smile, all without breaking the wistful pose against his friend’s shoulders. Raven’s darkly stained lips curled up in an engaging smirk.
“We saved one another’s lives,” Lavinia murmured. “We’d had a pact, all of us, that if we couldn’t see the light, then we’d all die together in the dark.”
“But he stopped us,” Ether whispered lovingly, nodding toward Nathaniel, who was greeting Associates at the door with handshakes and kisses on cheeks to each and every one, filing them into rows and places.
“He was known as the Dark Angel around London,” Lavinia explained. “He’d find out who in our social circles were at their wits end and try to rally them back, by his sheer force of will. Or, if they went ahead and attempted to take their life, if they were unsuccessful but injured, he brought them to Lord Denbury, who would dress the various wounds of the afflicted, and any other family members would be none the wiser, or none the poorer, for the service. I came from wealth, but not many of our Association do, and your gracious lord’s clinic saved many a life that London could have cast aside without a second glance.”
My heart swelled with pride at this, and I ached for my valiant Jonathon, who had done so much for this world in his young life thus far. I wished so dearly he was by my side, especially as our reconnection after our bit of espionage had been so...passionate. In this place, with these people, we could simply be ourselves and not worry about censure or propriety. We could simply be loving creatures who had become our own Dark Angels to one another.
It was inspiring, the emotions these quiet and sometimes awkward persons around me exhibited merely in their expressions, their choice of dress, tone of voice, movement, words, the interesting weight of their souls, some lighter, some heavier, depending on their inner burdens. We said so much to one another without even saying a word. From years without speaking, I could read bodies, expressions, attitudes and energies, gestures and physical quirks like I were reading books. The stories that these bodies and faces told were amazing novels in and of themselves. And every beautifully dressed person that entered, each with their own distinct style yet all adhering to the mourning dress as a unifying characteristic, was a new story.
But before I knew it, the room was utterly filled with eager-faced persons of dramatically different class, race, creed, and age. The binding factor was the fashion, and the figure before us, and his themes. And Veil, the master, was ready to put on a show.
“My darling ones,” he boomed, accentuating a London upper-class accent when his own was slightly less defined. “We are gathered here today to reaffirm that we are the masters of our own destiny. You shall not give over that mastery to any other thing, person, rule, substance, or vice. You may only give it over to spirit, to love, to something vital, not something draining or cruel. You may only give over to that which makes you better. Never something that makes you less. My dark stars, take your place in the sky. Shall we begin?”
Applause, cries of happiness, gasps, and murmurs, the joy of anticipation launched him into his natural place: center stage of life.
He took stage in the front entrance foyer, visible by all those who had gathered in the parlor, and visible by those waiting on the stair, an impromptu gallery and balcony, concentric circles of dark colors and black crinolines, velvet bands and heaps of ribbons and bows, veils and cloaks.
The keening strain of a violin came from atop Mrs. Northe’s grand staircase. From the chair where I sat I could see the musician at the top of the proscenium frame that the parlor pocket doors made. One of his associates, a tall, sturdy woman with skin nearly as dark as the clothing she wore, was playing, her dark limbs, swathed in black lace, moving the bow as if gently raising and closing wings. Her eyes were closed, but now and then when a note hit a resonance that vibrated in our bones, she would flash a slight smile, a bit of white teeth a glint against dark skin, lips, and fabric. That little twinge of joy was the ebbing and flowing crux of Veil’s show, and we the audience were caught up in all the sparks of life amid talk of shadow and death.
Veil began to sing, soft and sweet, a melancholy Shakespearean sonnet on themes of pining love. With the violin wafting down to us as if it were from on high, it was like it breathed with Nathaniel’s beautiful and resonant voice, vocal and strings equaled one living thing. Several of the audience members clutched at their hearts. Some reached out for Veil with trembling fingers as they knelt in pools of lace and tulle. Some leaned toward him from the banister as if tethered to him by invisible strings.
I must have been more sensitive, far more raw, than when I’d last seen Nathaniel’s show, for it touched down deeply within in ways I hadn’t allowed it to before. The Gothic themes of his shows, composite pieces of existing text, poetry, and popular fiction dealing with the natural, the unnatural, the supernatural, the veil between life and death, and all the great mysteries, it simply hit too close to home. I think it did for all present, everyone raw and on edge.
But it was just what we needed.
He coursed through his show. I’d never seen the same show twice; he plucked different texts from Walpole, Shelley, and Le Fanu, from the great romantic poets, and of course, a running threaded theme of Edgar Allan Poe, my personal favorite and that of this crowd. If I’d found this Association earlier in my life, perhaps I’d never have had such terrible nightmares, as all my darknesses could have found a healthier home in this circle.
But then again, we are granted the friends we need exactly when we need them. Mrs. Northe had instilled that particular confidence in me. I needed my loneliness; it was how I knew I could survive against other odds. It was how I knew I couldn’t just wait for someone or something else to save me. But knowing that I could get by with little else but my own wits and company and then finding community, that was a long overdue comfort.
I could feel the group dynamic breathe and shift like a woman adjusting to the stays of her corset and arranging her skirts, sitting poised and on the edge of delight and discovery, all of us gazing at our captor, Nathaniel Veil, who paced the space at the center of the packed circle like a great and graceful wild animal, clutching us all by the throat with his captivating presence—at one point he did clutch a few people directly by the throat in one of his stints as Vampir—and making every one of us swoon; whether for him or for the gentleman or lady in our hearts, he brought out all the passions within us and exorcised them exquisitely.
And then suddenly the quiet, seductive, safe bliss of the show was shattered by the door flinging open and a flailing form tumbling into the foyer, blowing past Nathaniel, and nearly trampling a few of the youngest Associates who were clustered upon the floor.
A tall, round-cheeked man, marked as older than many of Nathaniel’s Association by his graying hair, but similarly dressed in mourning finery, seemed in the throes of agony, droplets of red—blood, surely—staining his face and throat, shining stains upon his black waistcoat, the sight of him evoking gasps and screams from Associate members. He raged and snarled and made a move to overturn the fine table, vase, and mirror near the door, but Nathaniel, who was a head taller than the struggling man, charged up to him and clamped a hand on his shaking shoulder.
“George,” Nathaniel said sternly. “This is not you. You’ve been affected by a toxin.” The man, George, gurgled a cry.
“The city can’t be safe,” George snarled. “For the city is the toxin. Chaos the only cure.”
George tried to struggle with Nathaniel, but the imperious actor was stronger than he looked, or he was channeling his presence into brute strength; perhaps seeing that he was the protectorate of this fascinating coven was its own enhancement.
George cried out in pain again before peering a head around Nathaniel’s broad shoulder and eerily piercing me with a darkly reflective gaze.
He dropped to his knees, dust flying up, a red dust. Perhaps it wasn’t blood all over him but powder that had mixed with his perspiration. I thought of Poe and the Red Death coming into the party...
And then the man spoke. But as he looked up at me with oddly reflective eyes, something green and violet shining in them, reflected in them, the light of my own aura and power, I knew he was no longer a mere man. But something terrible had taken him over.
George flung himself across the open space between us and crumpled before me in a heap of red powder. Before he lost consciousness, he spoke.
It was a voice I knew all too well. The voice of a demon. He pierced me with a phrase the demon had once used to address me:
“Hello, pretty...”
And then his eyes closed and his head struck the floorboards. He was either unconscious or dead.
The body remained too near to me as it fell flat, but even though I wanted to scramble away, shock and terror rooted me.
There was then, as one might imagine, panic in Mrs. Northe’s fine home. A few screams pierced the suddenly fraught room, awash in murmurs and stirrings, our collective trance so rudely jarred into a living nightmare.
Lavinia rushed up to Nathaniel and murmured in his ear. He placed a protective hand upon the small of her back, nodding confidently as she shared something insistent. She drew the tulle veil that spread back from behind her feathered, beaded fascinator around her face and cupped the gathered fabric against her mouth with a lace-gloved hand.
“No one breathe freely,” Nathaniel cried, putting his red silk cravat to his mouth, and others followed in his example. Lavinia made a move to withdraw, but he held her close and through the veil, I saw her fair cheeks redden.
“It’s the powder to be careful of,” Lavinia clarified for everyone’s benefit, her usually soft and timid voice now carrying with the weight of necessity and authority. “Take care.”
Everyone did as instructed; cravats and silk scarves, shawls and gloves, all created a shield. I did what I could with my sleeve, wishing I had some of the draping, flowing fabrics so many of the Association boasted.
“Stay here,” Veil instructed to his crowd. He moved toward the front door in order to survey all of his crowd at once rather than having his back to anyone. “We must see if George was followed, if there were any others targeted. Were any of you approached? Have any of you been pressured by any ‘doctors’ or anything bearing the seal printed on that original leaflet?” His coterie shook their heads. “Then Lavinia has taken good care of you indeed since the first incident. We must remain vigilant.”
“Is he dead? Georgie?” asked a mousy girl draped in black velvet, pointing a satin-gloved finger at the floor. I peered closer. There was a slight hitch of breath from the man’s back, barely perceptible but there nonetheless.
“Not dead yet,” I stated, hoping to help keep calm, as a death among us might trigger any number of unfortunate reactions. I wiped at my nose with the edge of my sleeve.
Veil gestured to a slender man in dark, embroidered silk whose black hair was slicked back and braided—Chinese, I assumed, though in the cultural fugue that is New York City, one should never assume. The intensely focused man nodded and slipped out the front door, his compact frame tensed. Perhaps he was Veil’s bodyguard, this quiet man who I hadn’t noticed until that very moment he was drawn out, as he’d blended with the more ostentatious crowd, a good safety measure.
Just then I heard a familiar voice of someone who was clearly surprised by a stranger at her front door.
“Excuse me, and you are? This happens to be my home. Did I summon for a party I forgot having thrown?” Mrs. Northe, key in hand, stood framed in her grand doorway of beveled glass, decorative ironwork, and carved wood.
Just as lovely as her home, she wore a deep green satin dress that was neither casual nor formal, the very definition of elegance in all she presented to the world. Her slightly off the shoulder dress was made more modest by a gray shawl that glimmered with silver beads. Her lace-gloved hands, the only part of her that showcased any tension, were fisted tightly about her keys, fan, and reticule. Were the situation not dire, the look on her face would have been pricelessly amusing as she took in her home overrun by a coven of striking, black-clad creatures positively dripping off her stairs and furniture, filling her halls and parlor, wide-eyed and trembling.
“Well, well,” she murmured as she swept in her front foyer, shaking off apprehension so that her presence might command the room in nearly as impressive a manner as Veil. “I’ve an unexpected murder of crows to host, do I?”
Murder was an unfortunate word for a cluster of ravens, considering the circumstances. I doubt Poe would have written this scene; he’d surely find it distasteful and a bit much.
“The lady of the manor, I presume!” Veil cried, bowing, his ascot still cupped to his mouth, though that had no effect on his being heard. His voice could boom no matter what obstructed it. Mrs. Northe gaped slightly. He maintained his bow as he continued.
“Nathaniel Veil at your service, madame.”
He swept his hand about him, presenting his compatriots. “If you’ll forgive us, Her Majesty’s Association of Melancholy Bastards here needed to host a meeting for our collective safety…” Veil stood upright again, towering over the woman whose home he had overtaken as she looked up at him blankly. “But as you can see from the supine body of Mister George Fernstock there, our little soiree has been interrupted and compromised. And a damn shame, that, as I was putting on a right good show.
‘”Tell me, my esteemed lady, do you advise we call the police on this matter or just hope for the best?” He gestured around him. “Oh, and do be aware of a red powder. It seems to be the culprit of madness. That’s a very lovely embroidered shawl you have there, madame, I’d suggest breathing through it.”
Mrs. Northe blinked, unable to look away from Veil as if he were a fascinating species of creature she’d never encountered up close. She’d seen him on stage, of course, but close and in person, his quality as force of nature was truly something to be reckoned with. After a moment she brought the shawl draped elegantly over her shoulders to her face. She searched the crowd, met my eyes, and her shoulders eased slightly. I gave her a look that hopefully read how glad I was to see her.
There was a questioning look in her eyes that made me uneasy. I never liked noting her in any attitude but firmly in control, cool and collected and exuding a confident plan. But I needed to remember she was human, not my guardian angel, not my fairy godmother of mythic quests. We were all just trying to stay one step ahead of madmen, to varying degrees of success. And something wasn’t quite right—man lying unconscious at my feet aside.
“I do think at this point, Mister Veil,” she replied finally to his query, “that the police will need to be involved. My associate in the clerk’s office and I have gathered enough information about some of the Master’s Society property to prompt proper scrutiny, and I’d rather leave that up to authorities. I am not a vigilante type, and I’d not suggest that course of action for any of your associates, either.”
The black-clad crowd shook their heads. Like most people I’d ever met, they simply wanted to be left in peace and given leave to be their own masters and mistresses.
Mrs. Northe approached me. She bent, and unceremoniously, she proceeded to draw me away from the body on the floor. Through her intervention I felt able to move, though I was oddly light-headed. The room spun a bit as I stood.
“Have you seen Jonathon?” she asked quietly. “He and I were supposed to investigate a site that may be the very crux of the Society’s New York operations, but he didn’t show. That isn’t his style…” She trailed off, frowning as she stared at me. I didn’t like her words, and I didn’t like the look on her face even more so.
She wiped something off my lip. There was a bitter taste in my mouth. She brushed her fingertips over my face, and then over my collar. Her lace gloves came away red. I felt a dull sensation blossoming in my stomach becoming sharper as panic opened into full bloom.
“What?” My voice sounded far away to my own ear. “What did you say?”
“Jonathon,” Mrs. Northe continued. “Not that you’re his keeper, but I thought perhaps he was with you… It didn’t seem like him to not turn up… I don’t mean to worry you...”
“Jonathon,” I murmured. “Jonathon.” The sound of his name was an exotic spice upon my tongue. He was the whole of my heart, and he was absent. That was…unacceptable. I cocked my head to the side in an abrupt movement that felt foreign. My breath was heavy and strained against the stays of my corset that were suddenly violently tight against my rib cage.
Damn Jonathon Whitby. Damn his beauty. Damn his hold over me. Were there not greater things to be held in the clutches of?
I heard laughter, low and far away, deep and rumbling, like thunder. It was not mine, and it did not seem like the laughter of anyone in the room, which had dimmed significantly. Whispers coursed past my ear like wind.
Oh, that couldn’t be a good sign. Whispers in my mind, unless they were warnings from my mother, were to be avoided. My mother was dead. This was not her whispers. It was a crowd. That meant something else entirely.
I closed my eyes. My body shuddered with strange sensations that were both seductive and vaguely disturbing in their sudden sweeping intensity, as if every inch of my skin were suddenly on fire and sensitive to suggestion. And pain. There was a deep, widening, vicious chasm of pain...
And then the curtain was drawn on rage. A pure, unchecked, heretofore unheard of rage took center stage.
“Where is Jonathon?” someone shrieked.
It took me a long moment to realize that someone shrieking was me. I think I tore at something. Or someone.
That’s the last thing I remember before darkness overtook me in a swift and obliterating shot.
Awake or dreaming? I couldn’t tell what state I was in, other than that it wasn’t a good one. All I could sense concretely was that there was pain, throbbing pain as if I were on fire. My mind swam.
I was laid out horizontally, in what I assumed was a bed, from what I could tell by the feel of my back, but I was not lying in comfort; everything was pins and needles. Every sense and sensation felt raw and chafing. I was warm and perspiring, and yet my teeth chattered, and a constant, slow, undulating tremor went up and down my body as if I were my own tide, rolling in and out.
Trying to open my eyes was a gargantuan task I was not suited for. My eyelids would not respond, so I remained in a shallow darkness and tried to discern meaning.
There was the constant sound of screams. Whether the screams came from my mouth, my mind, from others, from nightmares…I was not at liberty to say, for I was not at liberty at all. My faculties were entirely compromised. I was not free. Something had taken over me. Some part of my mind was still my own, as I wondered if this was what it was like when a body was overtaken by a demon.
If I was entirely far gone, or entirely overtaken, perhaps I wouldn’t have had a sense of self at all. It was said that people who were truly mad did not ask if they were mad. So perhaps, in this terrible state, there was hope for me.
The first thing I remembered as a product of true awareness, rather than swimming in a timeless sea of discomfort and confusion, was that I was laid out somewhere familiar, and there were voices. Outside of myself. But there remained many voices within myself too. I had to take a moment to sort out one versus the other.
After some time trying to pick apart the noises and distances, I began to recognize the exterior voices. Mrs. Northe. My father. The low, deep resonant voice repeating prayers. Reverend Blessing. He was praying over me. Was I being exorcised? What had happened? Had the demon, in speaking to me through that poor wretch who collapsed on Mrs. Northe’s floor, transferred something unto me? Into me?
Was the pain I felt actually all those runes again carved onto my flesh? Was there any hope for me, or was this the beginning of the end? What had I done? Why did my wrists feel so sore?
A particular searing scream from my own mouth shook me fully alert, and I looked up into the dark-skinned face of Reverend Blessing, who was anointing my head with oil and murmuring scripture.
I renounce thee...
I tried to help him in my mind, to echo, to reiterate, to join in the scripture by my own renunciation of the evil that had clung to me, but only unintelligible noises were coming from my mouth. My cheeks burned in shame; it was like the ugly sounds I made when first regaining my atrophied voice...
That’s when I noticed I was bound.
What had I done that required that I be restrained? A turn of my head revealed that my wrists were done up in long white strips. Ripped fabric from sheets or pillowcases were wound round my wrist and tied to the metal headboard in one of Mrs. Northe’s pleasant guest rooms that at this moment felt very stifling and utterly unwelcoming.
My stomach churned in a sickening roil and clearly that nauseating sense of horror read on my face, for my father rushed to me with an awkward reassurance that was hardly reassuring...
“It’s all right, Natalie. You didn’t hurt anyone. Too badly.” He chuckled nervously, miserably. “Just a...scratch or two, it was fine—”
I made some kind of sound of protest or shame, my blush further ignited by humiliation and frustration.
“Nathaniel and I held you back as you turned, before anyone was hurt,” Mrs. Northe added. “You received the brunt of the toxin borne in on that poor fellow... And that stuff...changes people. It makes sane persons into animals.”
I wanted again to retch at this, but something stopped me, something small and lovely. Even in my fevered state, I noticed Mrs. Northe take my father’s trembling hand in hers, not in a measured gesture of comfort but a motion on instinct, a gentle act that was so natural and intuitive to her that wanted to join in that collective comfort, for us to be a family. Whatever fear and confusion raced inside my scattered mind, those same raw emotions were writ large directly on my father’s face... I wanted to be well again for their sakes, for Jonathon’s sake; all that was important to me bolstered me. I regained some sense of myself in my regard for my loved ones, as if I touched the foundations of some sacred site and the divine reached down to steady me in return.
I seemed not in a fit state to respond to them, so I merely bit back a sigh, a cry, a heaving and exasperated curse. I felt my body conspire against me and the whispers near my ears threaten to drag me back under into the murky depths once more. Before I lost consciousness again, I overheard Mrs. Northe say something about Jonathon.
His name was the one thing that could keep my eyes open.
“Where?” I managed. Mrs. Northe and my father exchanged a look. The nauseating feeling I was fighting returned in force, but now layered with a fresh terror.
“What...what about Jonathon!”
“He’s gone. We don’t know where. It’s been two days.”
My eyes rolled back in my head, my whole sense of self and sensation pitching and roiling as if I were tempest-tossed in the worst of seasick throes. Before I lost myself again, I prayed with all my heart, then, that I could dream, and in that dream, find the man I loved and see where he’d gone and what he’d need of me if I could shake off these dreadful curses of ours...
When I thought I had the very worst luck a girl could possibly encounter, then the heavens proved me wrong in giving me a helping hand, extending down into my tired, addled brain and granting comfort and a useful turn. God or the angels or merely my clever subconscious, granted me my wish. Unsure what to thank, I said a prayer of gratefulness to all.
A dream. At last. A shared dream. Like Jonathon and I used to have when his soul was bound to a painting and I was his one tether to the tactile world. Some part of that original bond of soul to soul held on and connected. Love and truth will out.
Never mind the dream ended in nightmare. My dreams always did. My dreams forecasted unerring doom on sliding scale. It would be up to Jonathon and me, our waking selves, to make the tragedy into a happy ending. My nightmares were riddled with roundabout clues, gifted from some higher power than I could give myself any credit for, and their ignominious end, those terrible moments right before I wake, were the worst case scenario that we had no choice but to risk our lives to avoid.
But what I was presented with in the depths of my fitful rest was no solution, only information. But a tether to a missing lover was far better than no exchange at all.
I was getting very tired of the endless dark corridor in my mind where the dreams and nightmares take place, the narrow playground of terror, the dark, dank space where all things come to pass, where all clues are unfurled amid various horrors, my vulnerable mind unable to suitably brace itself against the inevitable onslaught. I wondered if at some point in my future I would see that hallway in my actual life and I would know that something important if not abjectly horrible and life-ending would take place there.
I did not know what of my dreams was clue and what was fancy. ‘I had never known that balance or how to structure it. I dreamed and then I woke. How else can one live life, but to make sure their waking life is full of love and actions of grace? I could be held accountable for a mind in shadow that reveals what it would.
But there he was, Jonathon. Paces ahead of me down the dimly lit corridor that had no discernible light source and yet was luminous as if by an eerie phosphorous.
The British lord stood stiffly elegant in his fine black frock coat, navy waistcoat, and an azure ascot, his striking figure a greyscale palette with a splash of blue highlighting the spectacular color of his eyes. He was all the more striking for being against the run-down corridor, like in an old grand house but with wallpaper and paint peeling, wood panels cracked and splintered, foundations slightly askew so that the world was like a carnival mirror.
Jonathon’s innate grandeur set against this sickened space made him all the more beautiful in contrast, and I could feel, with a swift punch to my gut, his absence from me. I could feel his distance as though a needle were pricking into my skin and drawing away something precious, threading out my heart in a thin bloody line of passion.
Immediately, upon seeing him there in my mind’s eye, in this corridor where our minds entwined, I somehow knew that he was no longer in New York City. I shuddered as I tried to take steps forward in this rotting corridor toward his handsome form. But my feet were uncooperative and the length of the corridor just kept lengthening, drawing us ever farther apart.
He stared at me longingly, then turned that beautiful head and began to walk away. As he did, a low and rumbling chant began to lift into the air as if a storm was rolling in and fast. I called to Jonathon, and he stopped. He cast a sad look over his shoulder.
“I’ve gone back to England once more, darling Natalie,” he said. With great effort I raised my lace-swathed arm to achingly reach out to him. He continued, with a weary, grim tone. “I have gone where you cannot follow. There was no time. I was dragged along, bid not to write to you for fear of tracking. But you’ve got to look to the numbers. The toxin will go wide. There was a sequence. Find it before it finds the city.”
And then the corridor around us started to collapse. Jonathon in his paces ahead began running. But not to me, away from me.
“Let me go and save yourself,” he cried. If he said anything further, his voice was overrun in a horrid din, and I lost sight of him in the shadows.
There rose into the air, filling my ears like a violent swarm of insects, a chant of terrible numbers. A fog of red smoke rolled in like water filling the moldering corridor. And then the walls came crashing down.
I fell beneath the force of the rubble, and my last sensation was of the life being pressed out of me as my lungs filled with acrid, stinging smoke...
I awoke with the gasping cry of, “I have to go to him.”
No one was with me in the room, one of Mrs. Northe’s fine guest rooms where I was still bound to a bed. I couldn’t be sure when I’d be well, released, or safe around anyone, let alone the man I loved and was desperate to join, no matter the danger. Was I not in danger here in New York? Was I not in danger no matter where I went, when the demons seemed always able to pinpoint me, their insidious instincts by now having trained on my scent?
I closed my eyes, moaning in pain, burning physical aches. I thought about what Jonathon had shared. His words. There was something in them to stir results. I had instructions to give. I couldn’t find any numbers or any sequences while tied to a bed. I figured I’d better start being useful by screaming for help.
The sound of my screams certainly sent the house staff scrambling. The door to my guest room–prison was opened, and two starched-hatted maids in black dresses and white aprons peered blanched faces at me before darting down the stairs in a cumbersome tandem, gingerly calling for the lady of the house.
I heard Mrs. Northe muttering under her breath as a swift tread up the stairs came closer and closer.
“I have to go to him, Jonathon,” I cried. “He’s in England.” I could feel my panic rising, calling out to her even before she entered the room. “He said to let him go and save myself, I don’t know what to do, what he’ll do, I have to—”
“You’re not going anywhere, Natalie,” she murmured, her tone more weary than I’d heard it for some time as she turned the corner into the room. She was dressed down; in a plain workaday linen skirt, white blouse with sleeves rolled up, and an open linen vest; she must have been at work on something. She moved to a water basin by my bedside. She dipped a cloth in water and ran it over my forehead that I only now noticed was warm for the contrast of cool water.
The next piercing physical sensation was how much my wrists hurt. I must have been wresting against my restraints in whatever level of precarious state I’d been in. The sight of the bonds made me freshly fierce.
“I will find him, I will find Jonathon,” I cried. A wave of anger that felt foreign and reckless, huge and unwieldy, crested inside me like a cat extending claws. While the impetus of emotion was mine, it’s scope was something that I could only imagine that the Master’s Society would want to exploit in their endless drive to further misery... I tried to trade the anger for pleading, thinking I might get further on that sentiment, staring up into Mrs. Northe’s wide, piercing hazel eyes that missed no detail and seemed to know me too well. “I know where he is, he told me, I have to go—”
“You know I can’t enable a mere sentence from a dream,” Mrs. Northe said gently. “But tell me more about the dream.” She dipped the cloth again and soothed my brow, fussing over me but making no move to undo my restraints. “I do appreciate that you often reveal clues—”
“Don’t treat me like a prisoner.”
“Tell that to the man you threw a punch at before Nathaniel managed to wrestle you to the floor downstairs,” she replied. I could feel the color drain from my face. “Not that it was your fault,” she added, “but we must take the greatest care. I think you’re in the clear now, my dear, and I’d like to unlash you, but let’s be careful here, let’s see how you deal with what you’re telling me, let’s just talk a bit, you and me, so I can ascertain your mood and your physical reactions.”
“Did...did the demon overtake me?” I asked sheepishly, trying to think back to what I dimly recalled as maybe having been an exorcism... “The demon, the one we destroyed, it...it spoke to me through that poor man George... At least, I thought it did...”
“I believe you were merely in the grip of the toxin. Parts of you remained distinctly...you. Stubborn. Passionate. Opinionated. Hating to be restrained.” She chuckled. “Reverend Blessing was here with me as I would suffer no possible risk to your soul. Your father was relatively terrified, but seeing that you had a small army around you, save Jonathon, he knew you were being taken care of. It didn’t follow that you were actually possessed. Truth be told, I think you’re too spirited for anything to have room in there,” she said smiling, tapping me on the sternum.
I felt a partial smile break through my anxiety. I tried to get a read on my body, my heart rate, my skin, the parts that ached, what seemed natural or unnatural. I tried to breathe and relax as she spoke. I needed to appear well. I needed to be well. Mrs. Northe continued, maintaining a calm, soothing tone as if her words were extensions of the cool compress.
“And I’m not sure we should be thinking of the demon as just one, but rather, a negative force. I’ve been in my study, writing letters to my gifted friends to see if they’ve wind of a shift in their séances or communications with the dead. I’ve been trying to make contact with spirits myself, to seek a window in, to see if a whole army of hell is upon us or just isolated bodies of negativity seeking hosts—”
“Mother,” I blurted. “Did you speak with my mother?”
Mrs. Northe shook her head. “She remains elusive. Not out of love, I’m sure, but...”
I looked away, another wave of emotion threatening to drag me under. I needed to remain sane. I needed to get out of this damned bed, and no further fits would get me out of it any faster. Mrs. Northe took her cue and changed the subject.
“If something was possessing George, it left with George, who remains comatose in a nearby hospital, with a police officer on guard. It would seem the toxin does like to feed upon emotion. Hence Veil’s Association being quite the group to target. Lovely people, truly, though I had to eventually insist they all leave my home after all the events.”
“Did they overstay their welcome?”
“Ah, no, they just like finery as a whole, it would seem, and I’m not sure any of them are much used to fine homes, so they were a bit entranced here. I admit, I did, once you were seen to, have quite a wonderful conversation with Mister Zhee about Peking. Amazing city, Peking. I’ll have to take you sometime.” Mrs. Northe said this so casually as if China were not on the other side of the world but just a train ride away. I supposed, for the wealthy, distances were not as long or as implausible. She was examining my limbs and skin as she continued speaking.
“He misses it very much. His wife, of course, he misses more so. What a shame this country won’t let the women of his country in. Who can begrudge a man for taking work when it’s offered and wanting to be with his family while he does it? Is this not a city were the world comes to make their way?”
This was news to me that only men of China were allowed here and not the women. How painful. Mrs. Northe seemed satisfied with the look of me; at least I couldn’t discern any concern on her face, and while she did not unwind my bindings entirely, she did loosen them as she continued:
“It seems one of the Association members managed to extract Zhee from a crime syndicate that kept him as if he were a slave. Frightening what people will exploit from the needy. That Association”—she shook her head in amazement—”is filled with amazing stories of resilience and reinvention. No one there is exactly as they seem, and every last one of them has a fighting spirit in them that utterly defies their romanticisms. Zhee is now a valuable asset to Veil, a guard and friend, teaching Veil about the East and about the various disciplines he practices. Veil is like a sponge. I’ve never seen anyone drink up and absorb more details; he is an endless student of the world. Ridiculous and irascible, but what a good heart inside that restless, attention-seeking body. Maybe one day he’ll even commit it to that poor, pining Lavinia.” She chuckled, leaning close to murmur the last, as Lavinia was likely in the house, still “recovering” until she made her own way.
I hoped, for Lavinia, that Veil would do just that, help them build a life together now that she’d lost her parents’ blessing, good will, and fortune. Fortune.
“Now, can you speak about the dream without an adverse reaction?” Mrs. Northe prompted.
I took a deep breath. I thought of that terrible corridor and tried not to relive the horrible sensation of its collapse, of being trapped, of watching Jonathon disappear from me...
“Jonathon is gone,” I managed to say after a moment. “Back in England or at least en route. He was telling me I couldn’t follow, and something about numbers, about the sequence, about that being important.”
“Would he not have told us he was traveling again? He said nothing to me, were you informed—”
“I think the spy must have dragged him away before he could write,” I replied. As Mrs. Northe’s eyebrows raised, I bit my lip. I remembered we hadn’t ever told her about Brinkman. I swallowed hard. “Oh. Yes. There was a spy in town.”
“Really? Is that so? And when were you going to mention that to me, pray tell? Were you ever going to—”
“For his safety, we thought we’d not—”
Mrs. Northe batted her hand to stop me. “Well, Rupert—Senator Bishop”—she hastily corrected herself from the easy familiarity—”will want to know that. I knew you were hiding something, something important, but I thought maybe it was just that Jonathon had stolen your virtue or something—”
“No!” I protested, my face growing hot with a furious blush. “He’s a gentleman—”
“A spy,” she continued, as if she hadn’t even heard me. I blushed even brighter but lest she think “the lady doth protest too much,” I let the matter go, and she continued. “How very interesting. Espionage. And you think this spy made off with Jonathon?”
“Why else would he not leave a note? Or send a telegraph via Morse, for transcript from the steamer? Information in our dreams could not be trusted without circumspection. I’d like to think he’d not hide his exit from me unless it was hasty, and that he was in danger. Society operatives must have trailed him and found him, so he ran. I hope I can trust Brinkman to keep him safe in the meantime. Until I can get there.”
“You’re not getting there, Natalie, I can’t possibly—”
“You can’t expect me to just lie here—”
Her hazel eyes now flashed at me like lightning. She was shaking. “I could never live with myself, I...I just can’t, Natalie. There are things I know, things that Amelia told me before she passed, things I’ve intuited—”
“About what? You can’t play that game with me again; you withheld things from me before, about what the spirits said, about what my mother’s spirit said—”
“The simple fact is if you go to England, your father will never trust me again for putting you in direct danger. And he’d never again trust you. And he shouldn’t—”
“Why? Why do you even care about my father? More so than me?” I blurted finally. She turned to me and smiled, and in that smile and the soft, nurturing look in her eyes, I felt the full breadth and scope of my youth in comparison to the life she’d lived, and I felt very small.
“Natalie Stewart. Let’s not play games with who has more of my affection.”
“What do you even see in my father?” I grumbled, suddenly very resentful I woke up screaming and he was not there, as if this whole maddening part of my life just didn’t include him at all. “When I went under, did he just stand in the corner being terrified, when you were doing things, or did he step up and acknowledge what’s going on? Where is he now?”
“He is at work, so you can keep the roof over your head—”
“But truly, I ask you, what do you see in him, he’s not of your league—”
“Natalie Stewart, you listen to me right now! Don’t you dare for one more moment let that toxin inside of you make you more ungrateful than you already are.” I’d never heard her take such a scolding tone, and I was taken aback. She took a deep breath. “Your father is a quiet, kind, intelligent man who treats me not as an inferior species. You’d be surprised how rare that is. While aware of my wealth and status, he does not put me upon a pedestal, for that is just as alienating. He meets me eye to eye and mind to mind. He shares his thoughts and is interested, genuinely, in mine. He has a quiet confidence that does not seek to dominate me but allows me my strengths as I would allow anyone theirs. This is a very difficult quality to find in men of this age, my dear.”
Her tone shifted from this spirited defense of my father to something more gently world-weary. “You’ve been spoiled by Jonathon, a man of a forward mind, dear. You don’t really know the sorts of gentlemen that are out there, seeking to strangle a woman and keep her forever at heel, forever seen as solely domestic, forever out of realms of thought, employment, rights, and issues considered too intense for our ‘delicate’ sensibilities.” She bit upon her words as if they were sour. “Delicacy be damned. Delicate is for lace, and I look damned fine in lace, but my spirit should not be confused with what I wear.”
I sat with all these words a moment, utterly taken aback by this chastisement, surprised by the depth of response, and suddenly I felt a pride in my heart for the man who had always tried to do right by the women of his life. I imagined, from what I’d heard about my mother, she’d have said something similar. Seeking out powerful women only meant he was confident enough in himself not to have anything to prove. Nothing but love. And the pursuit of art. Ah, what a poet’s soul I’d come from. The emotions that had been so thick and violent within me now made me want to do nothing but weep. I had to hold myself together.
And I had to do right by my father. I couldn’t just disappear to England, even if I did manage to escape from under Mrs. Northe’s watch and board the next steamer. I owed him more than that. But he’d never let me go. And yet I had to go. Would it come down to choosing which of the men in my life was more important? The man who raised me or the man I hoped I’d someday marry? That wasn’t fair, was it, to have to choose?
I looked up at her pleadingly, and that was no ploy, it was simply how I felt. “I have to do something. I can’t just lie here... Surely there’s something to do, to stop the evil creeping in...” I trailed off, remembering what else Jonathon had said. “The numbers. The numbered sequence. I think he might have meant that sequence that Crenfall was repeating. It’s important. Very. I truly think lives hang upon us knowing what it refers to.”
The look on her face proved she was taking this as deathly seriously as I was, altered state or no.
“Yes,” Mrs. Northe agreed to my prompt. “Yes, we do need to think about those numbers. About any and all connections we can draw. Let’s apply our thoughts to the paperwork I’ve managed to get hold of in the past few days.”
“Paperwork?”
She smiled craftily, rising from my bedside and going toward the door. “It’s good to know people in clerks’ offices. For the devil is often in the details, my dear.” She disappeared into another upstairs room and returned a few moments later with a few brown folders with papers inside.
“It would seem,” she began, taking a seat beside me once more, “the Master’s Society has been making major investments in New York City, by all kinds of means. Some overhanded, most under.” She held up a stack of deeds, receipts, and a ledger. The top papers were stamped with the distinct gold and red dragon-flanked crest. “These transfers of assets, and general encroachment, have been happening within the past few years. A great deal of the property is centered around Grand Central Depot. If you recall, that poor madman Crenfall was on about the ‘grand and the central.’ When Lord Denbury and I were out examining various suspected Master’s Society properties before he disappeared, we concluded there must be a hub of something that will either be built or will occur around that area.”
“I hope it’s enough to take to authorities to examine? What can people like us do about mere property? Will anyone believe the underhanded aims of the Society enough to, what, what would we even suggest, raid these premises?”
“I’m not sure if the truth of the Society will be believed, if my dealings with the New York City Police Department are any indication. They don’t take kindly to the idea of the paranormal. Well, they’re not particularly hostile, they just don’t believe—”
“At their own risk,” I grumbled, and Mrs. Northe scowled.
“Well, yes, but you tell that to the sergeant who still has your diary in custody.”
I felt my face go hot again. I’d truly like to get that back… There were so many personal details that just should not be public record…
“I’ve been discussing all this with Lavinia, to see if she has any insights,” Mrs. Northe mused, gazing out the small window that presented a tiny sliver of a courtyard between her property and the townhouse beside. “Somewhere, between all of us, we’ll figure out the chink in the demonic armor. She needs to feel empowered by what has happened around her, and not a victim. What happened here in my house, with all of the Association present, to that poor fellow George, and then to you, it dealt Miss Kent a bit of a regressive blow. ‘She’s not been seen out of her room much. I think she still feels this is somehow all her fault.”
I sighed angrily, trying to move. “It isn’t, none of this is anyone’s fault but the fault of evil—”
“She’ll appreciate hearing those reassurances from you, and I encourage you to tell her that.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to let me up?” I said, shaking at my bindings.
“Ah.” Mrs. Northe flushed, embarrassed. “Yes. I’m sorry. You do seem to be behaving yourself, so I suppose it’s time…”
I looked up at her, trying to honestly remember the extent of the madness I’d glimpsed, those indistinct hours that were taken from me. It was all so hazy. But I’d never forget feeling so horribly compromised. Having a distant sense of faculty and having control taken away from you was, as Lavinia had said, the most horrible cruelty. “Was I really that awful?”
“I’m sure you could have been worse, the effects could have been worse. You could be like that poor George and still be comatose.” Mrs. Northe sat upon the edge of the bed, leaning over to undo the bindings upon my wrists.
As I turned them and winced, rolling them in an aching stretch once released, Mrs. Northe picked up a minty salve from the bedside table. With a generous dab of the cream, she gently rubbed and treated the raw skin, mothering me as she continued. “The toxin is not to be trusted nor believed. Turns lambs into lions. Thank goodness it managed to stay contained within my house and we cleaned up the residue without much damage, else I’d not have had a house left.”
Mrs. Northe helped me up to a seated position against the headboard, and I groaned, all my muscles aching and on fire from the lying down without being able to turn and all the struggling I must have done. The way she tended to me, I lost all the resentment about being bound up; she’d done it for my safety and for that of everyone around me. She had such a maternal way about her, and part of me wanted to ask about children, what she really thought about not having any, even though she sort of had surrogates in me, in Miss Kent, in Maggie...
Maggie... I hadn’t told Mrs. Northe about the letter. There wasn’t anything in it that was particularly private or damning; it was mostly just Maggie being her usual self, but it was worth mentioning the fact that I read her as still hovering on the edge of vulnerability and needing all the prayers and support she could get. She was precarious, and while I felt I should write back, I wasn’t entirely sure what I should say. I was precarious too. Hardly confident. False reassurances from my sickbed would be of no use, the ailing counseling the ailing...
“What is it now?” Mrs. Northe asked, looking at my expression, which must have been telling. That, or her extraordinary depths of perception would have allowed her to feel the shift within me as much as see it.
“In all the madness,” I began with a sigh, “I forgot to tell you a letter arrived from Maggie. While you’re looking at paperwork, you might as well read it. I would like to know if you think, as I do, that she still has a ways to go until we would call her recovered... The letter is on your writing desk in the parlor if you’d like to take a look.”
Mrs. Northe nodded. “I will.” She exited to collect it and any other extraneous evidence.
The desire I had to help Maggie, wayward as she’d been, was nothing compared to the wave of panic that again crested inside me when I thought about Jonathon, out there on his own.
Mrs. Northe would not let me go anywhere, without a fight. My father… Well, of course in his mind anything remotely questionable, much less outright dangerous, wasn’t an option. But I would go one way or another. Better to ask forgiveness later than permission now, especially when I knew the answer would be a resounding no... The hesitant forgiveness given from others would be nothing compared to the lack of any I’d ever give myself if I lost Jonathon. If the worst came to pass and I didn’t try to find him… I was not worthy of the divine intervention I had earned thus far.
Not to say I was infallible, invincible, immortal. I was, most certainly, mortal. And here I was, ready to tempt every fate I’d yet encountered. How reckless. How necessary.
I simply had to go... It was inevitable, truly, and I’d learned that there was a certain magnetism to inevitable things. Once I knew something had to be done, it simply had to be so.
Whenever I could be assured that the sequence Jonathon warned me about would lead to one mystery solved, he himself would be my next case. I just had to figure out how a young woman traveled across the Atlantic unaccompanied... I’d have to put on the suit again, pretend. And I’d also have to steal some money... I wondered how much a steamer ticket to England would cost me...
Lavinia Kent interrupted my musing machinations with a desperate cry, wild-haired and wide-eyed at the door.
“Nathaniel’s gone! Utterly gone! It isn’t one of his tricks, he has vanished.”
I stared at the lovely red-haired young woman, framed in the doorway, clad in a black velvet robe that was somewhere between a dressing gown and a priest’s habit. She appeared like a fraught archetype that one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s painters might have dreamed up, perhaps a rendition of her own ominous name utilized in one of Shakespeare’s most gruesome tragedies. But since I’d had plenty of experience with cursed paintings, I’d take Lavinia’s three dimensions over canvas any day, though the reality of her panic and worry cut straight to the bone, her passionate heart exposed for all to see.
“And do you have any idea where your dear Mister Veil may have gone to?” Mrs. Northe replied, rising to her feet and going to the door, keeping utterly calm in the face of Lavinia’s panic. “It seems we’ve a rash of handsome Englishmen disappearing out from under our noses.”
“No,” Lavinia fumed. She began pacing in the hall, like a nervous raven, black fabric swirling as she stalked. “I do not. But I have my suspicions. I believe he has returned to England. He said he wanted to help Jonathon. He was looking all over for him yesterday. So I assume he’s at least part way across the pond.”
My heart seized with many emotions, firstly hope and pride that Jonathon had such good and loyal friends to rally around and help him. But I simultaneously seized up in pain, for I was not there, not a part of the chase, not immediately following after. After all, I had as much of a claim to him as a friend had... I was his love... I wanted to be his wife... Why the hell was I still in New York when my heart traveled across the Atlantic? My whole body ached to run out the door and down to the piers right that very moment...
Mrs. Northe was eyeing me, and I had to keep my calm, for she was gauging me, and I had to keep in her good graces. There would be no going anywhere if she suspected me...
I spoke very gently in my most reasonable tone. “Do you happen to know if Jonathon told Nathaniel he was leaving for England? Because he didn’t give me any clue—”
“No,” Lavinia replied, stopping her pacing to come into the room and speak with me. “He said he was hoping he’d have seen Jonathon but was struck by a memory of the persons who targeted the Denbury clan to begin with, a night he still feels guilty about. And I’m sorry to be so rude and think only of myself and my heart... But are you...feeling better, Miss Stewart?”
“Do call me Natalie, I insist, and yes, I am, thank you. Thank you for helping keep order in the house, I understand it was...difficult. I am sorry for—”
“You apologize for nothing. It was I who brought this whole terror upon us—”
“The Society targeted you, you couldn’t have known—”
Lavinia’s bright eyes flashed darkly. “I should not have let anything in,” she moaned. Shame made her cheeks burn nearly the color of her hair. “I should not have given a substance faith that I didn’t have in myself. I should not have allowed my Association, my treasured comrades, think, for even one moment, that there was a shortcut to their health when we’ve all taken such great and measured strides together.” She clasped her graceful hands together. Her every move was theatrical, whether she knew it or not, and yet all of it entirely sincere. “Proven medicine for ailments is one thing. Risks like what I undertook? No. I hope one day I’ll forgive myself, but today is not that day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to write some letters of inquiry on Nathaniel’s behalf.” She bowed her dark red head and disappeared.
Mrs. Northe was about to open her mouth and comment on the situation when the doorbell rang and the door was opened unto my father, who was shown upstairs, and soon after, the maids rushed about to make sure all of us had tea in nearly the blink of an eye. None would look at me. Surely they were frightened. And yet they remained in this house. Mrs. Northe created that kind of unbreakable loyalty.
“I... I’m so relieved you’re recovered,” was all my father could manage, coming into the room. I struggled to stand for the first time in what had evidently been a few days, wincing from the aches, but it felt so good to be upright.
When my father looked at me, he still blanched, as if he were staring at a ghost. Mrs. Northe had been through enough séances and exorcisms, it would seem, to not have been phased by the toxin’s effects upon me; she treated me no differently, and for that I was grateful.
But for my father, though the inexplicable things that had followed Jonathon and then, by default, me, become commonplace, they could never be fully understood, never fully accepted. And yet, despite this, he cared enough for me and for Mrs. Northe, for this family of fate, to try his best to stare it all fully in the face even though I knew how utterly terrified he was. I wondered if he heard my mother’s whisper, ever, in his mind, and if it steeled his gentle heart that was so full of love it sufficed for strength. I’d like to think he did.
We stared at each other for a long moment, as if summing one another up. My heart twisted in anguish for what I knew I had to do, break his heart all over again and disappear once more. He might never forgive me. I had to take that risk. And looking at the kind, distinguished face of a man who simply wanted to love me, for me to be happy without threat... It nearly made me ill, sick, and enraged all over again. What right did any evil force have to try to sunder something so lovely as the persons I had in my life?
I thought I was going to finally go home with Father. I hadn’t had the heart to ask precisely how long I’d actually been Mrs. Northe’s crazed invalid...but he stopped me as I started gathering whatever of my things sitting around the vanity had been brought from home during the interlude.
“Natalie, not that I don’t want you home, but perhaps one more day under this roof? To truly make sure you’re...yourself again? I just...” And he looked at Mrs. Northe with a mixture of fear and wonder. “I feel you’re safer around Evelyn than you would be around me. She can...protect you better than I could. She knows... I was helpless. I suppose your Jonathon knows too... I just...wouldn’t... I don’t know what to do...”
He was the same man who desperately wanted the best for me despite his own personal cost. When faced with my disability, when I stopped speaking after Mother died, he sent me away from home to the finest school that the country offered so that someone more skilled could help me. I only just now understood, looking into those eyes that seized my heart with the force of their love, that cleaving me from him for my own good was the hardest thing he ever had to do. He’d lost his wife, and here his daughter kept needing expert care that he could not provide. And yet he did not let his pride withhold what I needed. What trust in grace. What wondrous love.
I moved to my poor, overwhelmed father, and embraced him. Hard. “Go home and rest, Father, you look like you haven’t slept in days.”
“I haven’t,” he admitted.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve gotten this far, haven’t I?” I said, offering him a smile that he returned.
“By the grace of God,” he murmured, kissing me on the head and slipping quietly back down the stairs. Mrs. Northe escorted him to the door, and I heard him thank her gently in the downstairs foyer. “I’m sorry for all the trouble, Evelyn,” he added.
“You’re quite welcome, Gareth,” I heard her reply. “And no trouble was had. But if there had been, your family would be worth it.”
There was a long moment before I heard the front door close. I actively did not think about what that long silence might have meant.
Mrs. Northe did not come back upstairs. Perhaps she was pondering the same things I was, how beautiful and rare it was that a loving gentleman left the women he cared most for in the world to their own devices. Not because he was not interested, or thought himself above the goings-on. But because he trusted us. Despite all we’d both done in direct opposition to what would have engendered trust. Surely, the late Helen Stewart was somewhere helping our family cope... Or, maybe, my father didn’t need any help at all, he was just very gifted at letting people do what they did best and caring for them as they did so.
I was left alone. I found I didn’t like that fact, as I felt as though I might jump out of my skin, impatient and restless. So, as with anything I didn’t like, I sought a remedy for my state. I poked my head into the hall. Down the lavishly papered and plush-carpeted hall, Lavinia’s door was open. I padded down to its frame and left one rap upon the dark wood.
At the sound, she looked up from a small Turkish suite where she sat writing by the lavender light of a gas lamp with a purple glass shade. It make her look oddly spectral, slightly ghastly. I was sure she’d like the effect, provided it was in her control. It was clear the Association appreciated theatrical morbidity but wasn’t fond of violence or actual threat. They sought to make light of death, not actively court it. That’s where the Society had misjudged them.
Lavinia gestured me in and rose to close the door behind us.
“So,” she murmured. “We’re in a similar boat, are we not?” As she emphasized the word boat, I wondered if Lavinia was, in fact, thinking exactly what I was thinking.
“I’ll never be let out of here at this point, I fear,” I replied. “Mrs. Northe knows me too well. But I have to escape. I have to get on a steamer, and I have to get to London. To Greenwich, to his estate, wherever he is... The trouble is,” I said, wringing my hands, feeling helplessness rise inside me like the raging tides so recently had, “I don’t know the first thing about England, or international travel.”
“Well. Good thing I’m British, then, isn’t it?” she replied. “I’ll take you to England, Natalie. I have to follow the man I love. As do you. And I feel much better about it not undertaking it alone. Everything happens for a reason, so they say, and one cannot fight the types of battles we’ve been chosen to fight on our own.” I stared at her. Her lovely face, one I’d seen so often scared and nervous, was stalwart and resolute. I wondered if I’d looked the same way when I’d made the dangerous decisions I had in protecting Jonathon in any number of ways. Do not stand between a resolute lady and her love, that’s for certain.
I nodded, squeezing her hand. “Yes. All of this, yes, Lavinia, thank you. And I hope to leave as soon as possible—”
“Tonight. I’ve packed a bag, I’ve secured money. I knew my parents were tiring of me long before they cast me off, so I’ve gathered and saved a considerable amount, and I’ve been clever about it, lest I lose it all to one unscrupulous thief on the boat.”
I stared at her, impressed. “Your parents were wrong to cast you out merely for company you keep. I think the Association is wonderful, creative, and true to themselves, and there’s nothing inherently broken about any of you. It’s the world that needs assimilation when the individual needs only one’s self. I am glad that if I’ve been subjected to the hells I’ve been subjected to, that it’s been alongside fairly spectacular company.”
She beamed. “There’s an early-morning steamer, but we’ll be seen by house staff in the morning, so we’ll leave tonight, at midnight, prevail upon a friend of mine who lives not terribly far from the Cunard offices, wait out the midnight hours, and tomorrow morning, we begin. It takes too many days to cross the Atlantic to waste a single one more. Go to your guest room and gather what little useful you can. We’ll have to procure other items in transit.” She moved to the large mahogany wardrobe across the room, opened it, and handed me a hat box. It wasn’t luggage, but it would have to do.
I nodded at her and moved quietly into the hall. I remembered what had felt best when anything frightening had been placed in my path, and that was to move around it. To act. Paralysis would kill me. The only thing to fend off any recurrence of the madness that had overtaken me was to again stare the demons down, one by one. The Master’s Society and all its misguided experiments preyed on a mixture of fear and chaos leading to conditions for domination. I had to hope the demons and their agency hadn’t factored in the spirited rebellion of those they crossed. But it did make us marked targets.
I hoped that night I could dream, to pluck details from Jonathon’s innermost mind, wherein I would also see, surely, clues to my own doom. I had to believe those warnings could be avoided. If some increasingly slippery part of this ungodly puzzle would come for me regardless, I might as well meet it in battle...
Lavinia and I had agreed upon a time. We had packed what we could.
In each of our respective rooms, the bedclothes molded under the covers of each bed looked convincingly like a sleeping body.
We thought we were very clever.
We met in the hall at the appointed time, using the soft chime of the grandfather clock at the end of our corridor to mask the sound of the opening doors, the jostle of bags and the hatbox that served to carry far more than a hat, and our careful tread. Sneaking down the staircase as the bell continued to softly toll, we were painfully aware of every creak and slight murmur of the house, wincing at any and every sound.
We reached the downstairs landing. I could feel the tension thick in the air as we turned to each other. This was it. The point of no return. We were going forth unto an unknown world, an uncertain destiny, a future from which there might not be any coming back… And yet neither of us felt we had any other option. That was what the demons had done, propelled us forward on a terrible course that we could not begin to fathom the end of.
And then there was a movement from the shadows, blocking our path.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Mrs. Northe scowled, turning the gas-lamp key of a front door sconce and throwing us into illumination.
So much for clever.
She placed one arm on either side of the doorframe to block us; the lavish bell sleeves of her thick satin dressing gown trimmed in fine lace spread and unfurled like formidable wings.
Lavinia shrank back, her shoulders falling, and she stammered in an effort to defend us, though her tone was one of distinct guilt. “Mrs. Northe, forgive me, you misunderstand—”
“No, she doesn’t misunderstand,” I murmured gently, ruefully. “She knows exactly what’s going on. Clairvoyance, and all…” I set down the hatbox before I went to her. I took one of her hands in mine, moved by the fierce quality upon her face, the face of a mother protecting her brood from leaving the safety of a den to run directly toward predators. “What? What is it that you see that has you so concerned when you know that avoiding the inevitable does us no good?”
“Death,” she choked.
I swallowed hard. “Death if I go, or death if I stay?”
“I...don’t know,” she said, looking at me helplessly. A helpless Mrs. Northe was one of the more terrifying things I’d encountered. Lavinia just looked from one of us to the other worriedly.
“I can’t take the risk of staying behind,” I said finally.
“How can I bear the risk of letting you go? I can’t let you. When I went Chicago to help my Amelia pass onto the next plane, she warned me that death lay ahead. I can’t allow you to doom yourself—”
“But the doom will find me if I am marked for it, you know that. It will find a way, but so will I. You know me—”
She closed her eyes as if the threat that next came out of her mouth was as intolerable to her as it was to me. “I could have you sent to an asylum—”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
“I’d dare anything to protect you—”
“You have.” I fought to keep my words gentle. “You always have protected me. You always will. Just...let us choose our paths.”
“Your father will—”
“Never know, because you’ll make up something brilliantly creative—”
“Natalie, I sense death,” she cried. “You’re not prepared—”
“Do you see my death? Or simply death?”
“Not precisely, no, I can’t forsee a specific fate, but danger and death is a certainty, I cannot risk you—”
I sighed heavily. Lavinia was ashen pale at my side and yet still resolute. “I’ve faced death awake, I’ve faced it dreaming. I don’t like the idea, but I’ve a strong notion it will come for me regardless. I’d just rather it not be expecting me.”
There was a very long time where Evelyn Northe and I simply stared at each other.
“You realize you’re the bravest girl I’ve ever known,” she said finally. I felt tears threaten to sting my eyes, but I fought them back.
“I learned bravery from the mother who pushed me out of the way of a carriage and was run down instead. I learned bravery from a stepmother who doesn’t flinch at dark magic.”
Mrs. Northe blinked a moment. Then she realized that “stepmother” meant her, and it was then her turn to blink back tears.
But the moment of deep sentiment was short lived. Mrs. Northe’s expressive hazel eyes rolled back entirely, and her tall, slight form began to shake uncontrollably. A voice came from her that was not entirely her own, it was singsong and eerie. “They’ve gone to the house, and it is ashes…ashes…”
“What…what’s going on…” Lavinia said, looking at Mrs. Northe and then to me, terrified.
“I think… She’s channeling something,” I said slowly. “I hope it’s a spirit…”
“Let’s go,” Lavinia said and stormed to the door, blowing past our suddenly incapacitated hostess. “Natalie, come on. This is our chance—”
“But we can’t leave her—”
Lavinia rushed back into the base of the landing to emphatically ring the maid’s bell, picked up my hatbox from where I’d dropped it and shoved it at me, grabbed my hand, hoisting her satchel over her shoulder, and we flew out the door.
`Out the front door, I heard Mrs. Northe cry out: “Beware…all ye who journey there...”
It was hardly the parting words I wanted to hear. I wanted benedictions, not warnings. But then came a telling, shrieking addition.
“Heed the sequence,” Mrs. Northe cried, from whatever forces were utilizing her. “The order. The book.”
And that, I knew, was a clue. This was too chilling of a note to leave my mentor and spiritual warrior upon, but as Lavinia was physically dragging me away, I’d take whatever help I could get.
I paused outside just a moment, to see if there was anything else to be gleaned, but the maids had descended about her then; I heard fussing, and I could see the grouped shadow inside the beveled glass of the door. I was confident she’d be taken care of. Hopefully her staff would call Blessing, or maybe that senator, one of her powerful friends—if she didn’t come to after some time entranced.
At least the spirits were trying to help us.
At least I hoped it was the spirits speaking through her and not something else…
What happened to get me onto this steamer was an elaborate process that I undertook without pausing for reflection or consideration. Lavinia and I agreed to banish sentiment and second-guessing, like discarding excess ballast from a ship, in order to make ourselves light, efficient, dynamic, and quick. Uninterrupted by fears or beset by counterproductive worry.
She had planned this out on her own, and I was not a hindrance to that plan. Rather, I think my presence emboldened her. Having spent a life without speaking, I was quite used to doing things on my own, and where Lavinia faltered, I stepped up with confidence. Where I was out of my league in the business and details of international travel, Lavinia filled the breach.
We passed the few hours until the next boat out with one of Lavinia’s Association friends down near Pearl Street, a convenient walk from Cunard offices for the tickets. From there, it was a brief jaunt to the pier and then out on the first express steamer possible. I kept looking around for Mrs. Northe, or my father, fully expecting either of them to try to intercept us there—it wasn’t like steamers to England kept their schedules private.
Part of me wanted them to stop me. But the rest of me knew this, just like everything else the dark magic had wrapped us up in, was inevitable. Mrs. Northe was likely still recovering from what had been a somewhat violent-looking channeling, and my father was still asleep. I promised myself I would write and wire him whenever possible. I owed him that much and so much more than my circumstances allowed me to give.
I moved, acted, and reacted as if I were a horse with blinders, staring straight ahead at my next immediate objective, unable to heed my mind’s various cries, denying the sense memory of what it was like to have that dark magic breathing down my neck and prickling upon my skin. Though those discomfiting sensations threatened to overtake me one by one, I beat them back with sheer will. I drove myself like a draft horse pulling weight, moving onward toward a specific task.
It was the second or the third day in—the days began to blur immediately—that I allowed myself to truly pause for breath, staring out over the vast and unfathomable Atlantic Ocean under a brilliantly moonlit sky that I hadn’t seen quite so unhindered in some time, due to Manhattan’s constant gaslight. I permitted a moment to take stock of myself and my state. My anxiety kept pace at a dull thrum to match the steam engines decks below my boots. I had hoped against hope the steamer would make a bit better headway and arrive to port a bit ahead of schedule.
This large, impressive boat made me nervous. While the view above me and around me remained spectacular in theory, the truth of it was terrifying. I had never been this far out on the ocean, and I didn’t realize how much it would unsettle me until it was far too late to turn back. The steamboat was indeed a wonder, but its behemoth engines were also like strange monsters of this modern world that seemed at any moment able to turn into dragons that could eat us all alive. My father was right. My imagination was far too fertile.
Every now and then I felt tears itching at the very back of my eyes like small pixies, emotional imps demanding I pay attention to all the things I refused to face. All the potential realities. All the potential finalities. But I bit everything back. Perhaps the rolling crest of seasick nausea was its own blessing, for it was quite a distraction.
In the pocket of my modest linen pinafore, I palmed my notebook in a trembling hand. That simple action allowed for my tensed shoulders to fall just a fraction. Each of my notebooks through the years always proved such a comfort as they were the infallible way I communicated with the world. On a page, I could converse and present arguments with my inner self that needed to externalize its thoughts. The written word had proved in my life to be far more reliable than speech ever was. I’d had far more years writing and communicating in Standard Sign than I’d had actually speaking. The written word held a power that the ephemeral spoken word did not, and I valued the written word like I would a vow.
I flipped through to the latter pages of the notebook, where I’d managed to write down Mrs. Northe’s final warnings. I knew better than to ignore or disregard anything out of that woman’s mouth, especially if she were in contact with the spirit realm.
A book. A sequence. Whatever had overtaken Mrs. Northe zeroed in on those items. I wondered if any of what had come before, the countercurses we’d learned, the ways of a split soul, beating the Society at their own games and particular experiments would serve us anymore, or if we were instead dealing with another layer of puzzles. The aforementioned clues would crop up, surely, and I hoped I would know them when I saw them and have an instinct as to how to solve their mysteries.
But first, the only sight I was desperate to see was Jonathon Whitby’s beautiful face. I wondered if he missed me. If he’d propose again. I’d not hesitate. I’d say yes. Every moment away from him, every circumstance keeping us apart, proved that I simply didn’t want to live a life without him. Here I was placing myself in danger just like I’d always done for him, because I simply couldn’t take a reactive stance. I had to do something, and it was for his sake, because he was such a good soul. And I’d seen it, held it, cherished that soul. I’d never met another quite like his. Never would. Never needed to.
Everything around Jonathon had been targeted, as the powers of evil always gravitated toward the brightest lights. And we now sought to control the epicenter of that outbreak.
I wondered if there was yet a reason to be revealed as to why Jonathon and his family had been chosen as an initial point of entry for the Master’s Society, besides Jonathon’s inherent goodness. What of his family? The Denbury lineage? Was it as noble and good as its heir?
The fleeting thought crossed my mind that Jonathon might be dead. I swiftly blocked that from even being a possible reality. Not only did I pray for God’s help but I demanded of God’s will that Jonathon lived. I needed to dream of him again, to keep me going, to remind me why. I needed him to be there when I landed. I needed something solid.
And then, at the corner of my ear, came a whisper, a tiny kiss of sound upon the wind, a flicker of white at the edges of my vision. Mother. Mother’s whisper, that had haunted me so beautifully since I lost her so early in my life.
She was there to remind me why too. From her perspective, she didn’t want any more demons walking the earth than I did. She was protecting not only her daughter, but the whole fabric and web of life around me. While I might need something solid, so too did I need a shade.
There was so much of the spirit world to cherish and appreciate. It was not all a world to fear. It was a world that had helped me against the demons as much as the living had. Somehow my close contact with the spirit of my mother made death’s sting less terrifying. The demons counted on fear, fear of them, fear of chaos, fear of death. My mother vastly mitigated my risk, and the demons had vastly underestimated us.
In that moment I truly understood the lesson my soul being split from my body had taught me. There were two worlds at work every moment of our lives: the tactile and the spiritual. Each and every one of us lived a double life. Body and spirit. Solid and shade. And there was, of course, a constant battle over them. We needed to make friends in both worlds, because there were enemies in each.
And just because Mrs. Northe saw death, it didn’t mean it was mine. She specifically couldn’t pinpoint the future. And that was for the best. I needed to believe in the power of free will as much as I needed to believe in God. Being a puppet of a divine puppeteer never suited me; it would be with God’s help and my own will that we would conquer the problems laid before us. I didn’t overestimate myself. But I was damned sure of my calling.
I’d not risk anything before finding Jonathon. We were a good team, and we couldn’t dare be separated further. That’s when the demons had leverage. But the demons hadn’t accounted for my guardian angels that had passed on. I was reminded I was not alone. I had friends in both worlds.
The wind took a stronger turn, and I felt the need to retire, and I ducked down the narrow stairwell and down two levels toward our room. Lavinia had procured us distinctly middle-class comportments. She denounced first-class passengers as a nosy lot that would ask too many questions, but that steerage would simply be too miserable. Middle class was all I’d ever known so I simply tried to move as invisibly through this trip as I’d moved all my life as a mute female. I’d been cast out of “proper society” so long ago, frankly it afforded me far more freedoms than the scrutiny Lavinia had to seek actively to avoid.
It unsettled me that at dusk the dimly lit corridor leading unto our bunks resembled the constant corridors of my nightmares. As I opened the narrow door to our tiny room, Lavinia was laying on her stomach on the top bunk in a pool of sumptuous black fabrics, writing. She nodded to me as I entered and kept writing.
The realization about the familiar corridor must have affected me on a conscious and unconscious level for sure enough, that night a nightmare came in all its resplendent horror.
Why couldn’t I simply have a pleasant dream about nothing at all? That might be the greatest gift my mind could give, an entirely mundane dreamscape. What a lovely interlude. Maybe, some night, I would be granted that simple pleasure. Tonight was not that night...
It didn’t surprise me that I was in a corridor again. That a simple corridor could take on as many troubling dimensions as it did in my nightmares was perhaps a credit to my powers of invention and manifestation. But a sinking realization hit me during that dream. The corridors were leading up to something not metaphorical but real and what might be found there would mean life or death at some future date. The corridors would lead up, eventually, to one. Or, at least, to several corridors. But halls all in one place.
The Denbury Estate.
Jonathon had once described his home to me while we communed soul to soul when he was trapped in the painted image of his Greenwich estate’s study. The architecture before my dreaming eye followed his descriptions. I stood at the end of a very long, shadowed corridor with gaslight sconces down several sets of doors, all of which were open, some dim threshold manifesting in gray gaps of light amid the dark structure of the house itself. Dark wooden paneling and deep purple wallpaper, arches and carving all in gothic styling, an aesthetic akin to something the Brontës would write about. My life had followed a relative Gothic novel style thus far, why stop there? These were just the culmination, the inevitable final chapters, were they not?
Looking from side to side, I noticed there were numbers painted haphazardly on each door. In a specific sequence, winding down from higher numbers to lower. The pattern; the one Crenfall had been repeating in the asylum. That was odd; houses didn’t generally number their rooms. So perhaps I was to consider that a metaphoric clue, not literal.
I’d honed the skill of logical deductions while dreaming illogical things. By now I’d had a bit of practice. Perhaps my mind knew that my life would depend upon it and my every faculty was expanded as a result; perhaps when my soul had split from my body, the part of my mind associated with these realms had taken on greater strength, capability, and a certain dominion over what was presented.
But before I could ruminate further on the nature or logic of the numbers, the hair rising on the back of my neck reminded me that I was in a nightmare and that something dreadful was about to be seen, done, heard, felt, or any combination of the lot. It was the most terrible of inevitable things, to have become so familiar with that dropping, sickening dread swinging like the pendulum in Poe’s ungodly pit.