by David Liss
Miss Crawford closed her eyes and stilled her breathing.
“You quiet yourself.” Lucy had not intended to say anything, and she regretted the words the instant she spoke them. She hated when words escaped against her will. It was a feeling she knew too well. With Mrs. Quince, the consequence for a slip of this kind might be a pinch or a slap or a public scolding, and Lucy winced out of reflex.
Miss Crawford turned to her, the surprise visible upon her face even in the feeble light, but there was nothing dark or angry. “You know more of the cunning woman’s craft than you admit.”
“Only … only a little,” she answered. “I attempted to learn to read the cards once, but I was not very good at it and—and it ended in a quarrel.”
“With whom?” asked Miss Crawford.
Lucy surprised herself by telling the truth, though she had never before spoken of how Mrs. Quince treated her. She hated that the world would know how helpless she was, but now she found she wanted to tell Miss Crawford. “Mrs. Quince. She was kind to me once, long ago, but since that quarrel, she has not been my friend.”
Miss Crawford clucked her tongue. “I don’t believe I much care for your Mrs. Quince, so we may safely forget about her. I would like you to look for the source of this man’s curse.”
Lucy felt cold fear grip her. It was a near-blinding panic. Was it fear of Mrs. Quince or something else? She did not know why, but she did not want anything to do with helping this man. “I can’t,” she sputtered. “I know nothing of these things.”
“You know how to quiet yourself,” said Miss Crawford. “I cannot do it. At least I cannot do it well, for I have not the concentration. You must simply grow quiet and then, with your mind rather than your eyes, have a look about.”
Lucy shook her head like a child. She had not attempted to enter this state of concentration, not since that afternoon, the last time she’d tried to read the cards with Mrs. Quince. She recalled it now in a jumble of images—Mrs. Quince’s freckled complexion turning bright red, cards flying across the table, a crystal pitcher shattering. Mrs. Quince accusing Lucy of plotting against her. A slap across the face, shocking in its force and suddenness. Lucy had been unable to comprehend. She’d only known magic as something silly and trivial, something for street performers, or a kind of parlor trick practiced by wags like Jonas Morrison. She’d never understood why Mrs. Quince had taken the matter so seriously.
The thought of quieting herself filled her with a terrible anxiety, but she knew it was Mrs. Quince who made her feel this way, not the act itself, and certainly not Miss Crawford. As much as Lucy wanted nothing more than to step back and recede into the wallpaper, she was determined not to disappoint this lady. She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I shall try.”
Lucy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then repeated this action several times, slowing her breathing, trying to slow her heartbeat though it pounded loud and quick. She tried to silence the chatter in her mind. She felt the light of the candle. The proximity of Miss Crawford, and the strange man on the bed who radiated a dangerous warmth.
Then there was something else. Something red and black and angry. It burned, and yet, in her mind it seemed both cold and wet. On some deep level Lucy understood that if she paused to consider the contradictions of what she experienced, the sensation would vanish, like a vivid dream that dissolves into a jumble of images only seconds after waking. She held on to this experience by the thinnest strand of gossamer, and it nearly eluded her entirely. It was a glimpse of something that flickered like a candle and that she could only understand by putting together fragments. She had no knowledge of what it was, but she knew precisely where it was.
Breaking her concentration, Lucy strode forward. She opened the stranger’s coat and, gripping the lining in both hands, she tore it, and there, tucked in the folds of the cloth, was a little package of white linen, no bigger than a crab apple, tied with what appeared for all the world to be human hair.
She began to reach out toward the bag when there was at once something between her and the bundle. It was dark and ill-defined and empty, and yet, for all its shapelessness, it seemed to Lucy to have a face—not composed of features precisely, but points within its blankness that stood in for features. It turned to Lucy and gazed upon her with its indistinct eyes and opened its absent mouth to reveal an even more black and undulating abyss within. There was something sick and wriggling about it, as swift and jittery as a beetle’s legs as it lies upon its back. It was more terrifying than anything Lucy had ever imagined. It was terror itself, given a cold and shimmering nonform. Lucy’s legs grew weak, and though she did not know it at the time, she would later realize she had nearly passed water where she stood.
If the encounter had lasted longer, Lucy would have been unable to resist the urge to flee, but from the moment she first saw the thing until the moment she acted, only a second or two passed. She had almost no time to feel the full brunt of the terror, and so she reached past the shapeless thing and grabbed the cloth sack and yanked it away.
She looked back and saw that the dark presence had gone, and the stranger was awake, staring at her with glassy eyes, but then he sank back to bed, unconscious once more.
Lucy took the little sack, and realizing she was no longer in the quiet state, she held it out to Miss Crawford.
The lady looked at the bag and then at Lucy. Her sea-green eyes were wide and moist. “Miss Derrick,” she said, “that was most impressive.”
Lucy held the package in her shaking hand. “What was that?” she managed, though her voice cracked as she spoke.
Miss Crawford put her own hand over Lucy’s and smiled. “There are dark things in this world, and you have seen one of them, but it is gone now. Now we must get rid of the instrument that attached it to this man,” she said. “A curse of this kind works upon the principle of sympathy. Whatever has linked the stranger to this bundle must still be in effect, so we must be careful how we destroy it. If we were to burn it, for example, it might cause that man to develop a fever or blisters, or possibly even burst into flame himself.”
Miss Crawford took the package, set it down upon the little bed table, and began to untie it. The cloth unfolded as a square, and within in it, made of the same cloth, was a little effigy of a man, so bland and featureless as to be a model of any living person with four limbs and a head. Around its little cloth neck were tied strands of hair.
“Now we may safely destroy it,” Miss Crawford said, clutching it in her hand. “It is inert. I shall toss it in the fire on my way out.”
Lucy could not cease thinking of the shapeless creature she had thought she had seen or almost seen or sensed or whatever it had been. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but then decided it was better not to know. Already she began to doubt she had seen anything at all, to tell herself that her mind had combined shadow and smoke and fear and created a formless chimera. She liked believing this better than believing that the shape she had encountered was real.
To distract herself, she turned toward the man. “Ought he not to awaken?”
“I expect he will soon enough,” said Miss Crawford. “Though free of the curse, he has been through an ordeal, and he will need time to recover.”
They departed the room, and Miss Crawford put her hand on Lucy’s arm in what felt like a gesture of friendship. Lucy looked up at Miss Crawford and saw her beautiful smile, and though she wished to hear more praise, she understood no words could ever capture the same force as that expression of respect and benevolence. Miss Crawford liked her. She approved of how Lucy had conducted herself. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Lucy felt as though there was a person in the world to whom she mattered.
4
ONCE MISS CRAWFORD HAD DEPARTED, THE FATE OF THE STRANGER remained a matter of significant consternation for Uncle Lowell. He sent Mrs. Quince several times to investigate whether or not the stranger had yet awakened, and Uncle Lowell advised th
at she not be quiet when opening and closing doors. Still, as though a drunkard, the man showed no sign of rousing.
Lucy slept very ill that night, distracted as she was by her astonishing evening. Had she truly removed a curse from this man? Miss Crawford had seemed so sure of what she had said, and at the time Lucy had certainly felt that something had happened, but as each hour passed, she began to doubt that very much had happened at all. There had been no bright lights or shattered glass or other signs of wondrous things. The creature Lucy had seen, or believed she had seen, had been but shades of darkness, and it was possible, even likely, that the whole incident had been but an outburst of her imagination under Miss Crawford’s guidance.
On the other hand, there was much that an overactive imagination did not explain, such as the stranger’s peculiar outcries. He had said she must not marry Mr. Olson, but he had also said she must gather the leaves. She did not know what that meant, but the words echoed in her thoughts all night, like a haunting tune that, once heard, could not be forgotten.
Back and forth she debated with herself, pondering what was real and what was not, so the next morning at breakfast she was possessed of little appetite—in part from fatigue, and in part because, in the light of day, her situation with Mr. Olson seemed far more alarming than any supposed curse. Her life, which had been so unhappy, was on the verge of growing more terrible than she could imagine. There was no one to offer her advice, no one to tell her what to do, and this feeling of helplessness made her miss her father with such intense yearning that her stomach clenched and her lungs turned to stone in her breast.
Even as she felt his loss as an unbearable weight, she knew he’d been the man she cherished only in the last year of his life. Until her death, Emily had been his favored child; Lucy and Martha, the middle sister, had warranted little more than staccato bursts of conversation at meals. Mr. Derrick had room in his heart for only one of his motherless children, and Emily—clever, observant, and learned—was the obvious choice for a man who spent nearly every hour of every day sequestered in his library, tending to household business or losing himself in his books.
Lucy had never resented her father’s overt preference. Her father’s favoritism had always felt proper, so the emptiness she felt now had a familiar quality. Even when he had still been alive, for much of Lucy’s life, she had yearned for him. She’d wanted him to talk to her, to tell her his private jokes, to invite her into his library and share his ideas and frustrations, but he had been always too busy with his solitude or with Emily.
Emily, for her part, had always appeared slightly embarrassed by her father’s favoritism. Many times he would call for her and she would cry back that he must wait, for she was talking to Martha of a book, or listening to some gossipy story that Lucy was telling. It was Emily who taught Lucy the workings of the household, how to deal with merchants and tradesmen and laborers, who addressed her questions about the wider world and her own transition from childhood to adulthood. When she had been small, she went to Emily to cry over an injury or a slight from a friend. For a girl who had grown up without a mother and with a distant father, Emily had been the closest thing she had to a parent.
After Emily’s sudden and unexpected death, Martha and Lucy feared their father would never recover. He shut himself away, barely ate, and spoke little but what the operation of the household required. Only once he had withdrawn entirely did Lucy understand how much of her father she had experienced through Emily—through the clever remarks no one but they understood, their conspiratorial whispers, the sounds of their laughter or spirited debates, muffled by the closed library door. Papa might have withheld himself from Lucy, but he had been there for Emily, and that had always been enough.
Then, one day, Lucy and Martha had been in the sitting room, sewing in mournful silence, when the library door cracked open, spilling forth sunlight. For weeks he had kept the curtains drawn, and now both sisters looked in wonder as their father walked to the door and stared for a long moment. “Lucy,” he said, “I should like to speak with you.”
She set down her sewing and entered the library, where he invited her, rather formally, to take a seat across from him by the window. They remained silent while Lucy breathed in the scent of tobacco and juniper. Mr. Derrick looked at his daughter, and Lucy stared out the window until she could stand the silence no longer. “We all miss her, Papa.”
“Of course we do.” His voice was clipped, almost impatient. “Tell me of the books you like to read.”
The demand astonished her because it had no apparent connection to what had come before and because Papa had never before shown interest in what she read, or if she read at all.
“I like novels,” she said.
“Novels are fluff,” he said, hardly allowing her to finish speaking before he passed judgment. “Do you read anything else? History, philosophy, books upon the natural world?”
Lucy brightened, because she believed she could answer to his satisfaction. “I am now reading Mr. Lunardi’s account of his balloon voyages in Scotland.”
His eyes, long red from crying, grew wide, and faint creases grew at the side of his mouth. “Why do you read upon that? What is it that interests you?”
“There are machines that allow people to fly,” Lucy said, filling her voice with wonder—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. She was sixteen, and the distinction between performance and sincerity was not always clear, even to her. “How could I not be interested in marvels?”
He took Lucy’s hand in his, and he wept unabashed tears, copious and silent. When he was done, he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, smiled at Lucy, and let go of her hand. “I should very much like,” he said, “to hear more upon the subject of ballooning.”
From that afternoon until his death, Lucy had been his new favorite. She visited his library daily, talking to him of the books he gave her. He exposed her to the rudiments of ancient languages, Greek and Latin and especially Hebrew, upon which he instructed with an endless vigor. He directed her studies in astronomy, history, and particularly botany, keen that she be able to identify all manner of plants. He demanded that she learn the lives of medieval and Renaissance thinkers—dabblers in new science and old alchemy. She would struggle through these books all morning, and then her father would quiz her throughout the afternoons.
Then, after a few months of that, came the walks. Papa had always valued his privacy and quiet in his study, but now he took Lucy out into the woods surrounding their estate. He would bring his botanical books and test Lucy on her ability to identify barks and weeds and flowers and plants, making certain she could distinguish between common, Persian, and Algerian ivy or fringed, smooth, or hairy rupturewort. He talked of his love for those woods, of how he treasured the animal life, even the insects. Once he made her watch as an army of ants devoured a sliver of apple, for even when disturbingly savage, nature was always beautiful.
Never, not once, did he ask Martha to join them, and when Lucy suggested that she come along, he had dismissed the notion with a wave of the hand, as though the idea was too absurd to warrant a serious reply. Lucy found she wanted Martha’s forgiveness for this sudden and unexpected elevation, but Martha refused soothing. “He’s found comfort in you,” she had said. “And so have I. And I’m glad it is you and not me.”
“This is silly,” Lucy answered. “It can be both of us.”
“I am not like you and Emily,” Martha said.
“I am not like Emily either,” Lucy protested.
Martha had hugged her again. “You must not think I am jealous. I am only happy. Emily was bright, like the sun, and we could not see each other when she was here. But we see each other now.”
It was true. In the weeks since Emily’s death, Lucy and Martha had become inseparable. The idea that they had once been distant, while undeniably true, now felt absurd. It was why Lucy felt betrayed when Martha, shortly after their father’s death, accepted a proposal of marriage from their relation, a clergym
an named William Buckles. Harrington, the family estate, was entailed upon male heirs, and Mr. Buckles, a distant cousin, inherited the property. Martha believed she was looking after her sister as best she could, and when she’d broken the news to Lucy, they’d hugged and cried as though they had suffered yet another calamity. Lucy had looked at her sister, her quiet, bookish sister who never asked for anything, who never resented her siblings, who never dreamed that she ought to hope for happiness, and felt so gripped by love that it nearly broke her heart.
“You cannot marry him,” Lucy had told her. “I know it is horrid to say, but he cannot make you happy.”
“He can make you secure,” Martha said. “How can I be happy otherwise?”
If Martha did not marry Mr. Buckles, she too would have nowhere to live, but Lucy believed this fact never occurred to her sister.
Papa, for his part, had detested the idea of the marriage when Buckles had first proposed it, for he detested Buckles as a simpering buffoon, but Papa died only a few months after the proposal, leaving the girls paupers. When Mr. Buckles renewed his offer, Martha accepted at once. In the end, the marriage did little to ease Lucy’s situation, for Mr. Buckles would not have his wife’s sister live in what was now his house. With no money, no prospects, and no parents, Lucy removed half a country away to Nottingham to live with an uncle, not even a blood relative, who did not much know her and had no wish to remedy that situation. Through no choice of her own, she rarely saw her sister, and now, her sister’s infant girl. They were the only family Lucy had in the world, but Mr. Buckles did not much care for travel, or for guests, both of which were a bother.
Uncle Lowell’s breakfasts were not the best. He served no bacon with his eggs and no butter with his bread. He preferred for himself a weak porridge and fresh fruit when in season, dried when it was not. He instructed Ungston to prepare small quantities of eggs as a concession to his niece, but he often observed that he did not love being put to the expense of serving what he did not eat.