by E. J. Dawson
It was his respect for her position that rattled her most.
Her appointment book was full.
There had been quite a few names on the list he’d left for her, along with the people she needed to book. Calling them all had been a tedious but rewarding affair.
But whatever hope she had of balancing the scales between them was hollow in her chest. For all her prejudice, he was a kind man.
“I have your suitcase packed,” Letitia said, ignoring the gift. She went to his bag and rather than giving it to him put it beside the door. “Would you like tea?”
If her offer surprised him, it didn’t show as he nodded. Letitia collected the tray from the other room and brought it into her session room. Though he had made himself comfortable in her private room, she wasn’t about to entertain him there. When she returned, he hadn’t sat but stood staring at the garden below her window.
He still didn’t turn about as she poured, helping herself to a cup.
Whatever was weighing on his mind, Letitia thought it would take time to divulge. Perhaps she should have listened to him before. But she would do so now.
“You have recoiled yourself in fear from both me and my sister,” he said, “and I would like to know why.”
Letitia’s fingers pressed hard to the porcelain cup’s side, willing the heat to sink into the coldest reaches of her troubled mind. She’d allowed them the time to converse on what he wanted most, but that he chose to start with such a question had her scrabbling for an answer.
Letitia sought a way to escape confessing her dread from her cup, but it didn’t help. Nor did his assessing eyes as he came to join her at the table, drinking the tea but waiting with all the patience of a mountain.
And he was like a mountain, even without the heavy coat on his shoulders. She’d seen it when he’d worn only his shirt. Long arms and broad chest. He was strong, even if he did work as a lawyer, so there must be something else he did to keep such physical fitness. She’d told herself to discard any idle inclination to let her eyes rove over him and wonder.
There was no fear of a shadow that followed him, giving her a measure of calm and an ability to speak of why she would not help him, though her resistance weakened.
“You and your sister have had something dark happen to you,” she said, choosing her words with care, “and it follows you, this shadow and its purpose. It is not beyond the veil, or it could be something….not of this earth.”
“I am not sure I understand what you mean,” he said, though he sat forward when she spoke, clear in his comments but not with condescension.
Letitia struggled to find the words to answer him with an honesty he might understand.
“We all have souls,” she said. “Those souls cross over when we die, but to where isn’t for us to know here and now. These souls go through what I like to think of as a veil between life and death.” Letitia didn’t miss the way his eyes darted to the one she wore now. At the wry twist of his lips and subsequent irritation, she took it off.
His expression changed from slight mockery to one of satisfaction. At what, she wasn’t sure, but she put the veil to one side so as not to distract from the conversation.
“When someone passes through the veil, they leave a…stain of their passing.” It didn’t sound nice, even as Letitia said it, but it was the only way to phrase it. “I read that remaining mark through a scrying bowl, see the world from that person’s eyes before they die, for a time. I cannot stay when they die, because it can drag me into their death if I’m not very careful. Dying is one of the most profound things we experience. When it’s happening, it can be easy for it to overwhelm me, for me to become lost in the death itself.”
“It’s why you don’t take murder victims.” He pursed his lips, brows furrowed in confusion. “But you help war widows and other people who died in accidents. Like my brother-in-law. They are sudden deaths. They are dangerous, too.”
“Yes,” Letitia said, “and I always find out the circumstances so that when I see their final moment coming, I extricate myself from the vision. I don’t let the vision extend into active combat—just the moments leading up to it. That way, even if the death is unexpected, I won’t fall into it. Emotions can run high and be confusing. To the untrained, you can believe you are becoming the person, and so when they die, you don’t know who you are and you can die.”
Mr. Driscoll pushed away his cup, folding his hands on the table in front of him.
“But that isn’t why you won’t help us with Finola,” he said. “And you’re afraid of us because of this…shadow that follows us.”
He wasn’t dismissive of her fears, there was no contempt in his voice, but all the same, his eyes were cold as they regarded her. Letitia guessed he might think her a coward without accepting what the risks were.
“I’ve had a similar spirit follow me,” she said, being clear in her warning while remaining cautious not to give too much detail, “and it stole my life and my sanity. And it is my burden to bear. I still do not wish the same burden on you. There is something different, and far more treacherous, that slumbers in your shadow.”
“What kind of danger does it pose?”
“The kind that taints the soul forever.” Letitia’s voice lowered to a whisper. “The kind that never fades, that stays with you in nightmares.”
Mr. Driscoll swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Finola has such terrors. Do you?”
Letitia rolled her lips and considered denying it but after a moment gave a clipped nod.
“That’s how you convinced both my sister and me you weren’t there for our money,” he said. “I thought…I thought if I gave it to you, I could dissuade Mrs. Quinn from trying with anyone else. You were right about my brother-in-law. For a moment you made her believe.” The sentence sounded unfinished, as though he would have added himself, but the words never came.
“There are many people out there who would fool you for your money, Mr. Driscoll.” Letitia sipped her tea. “I am not one of them.”
Something about her empathic tone drew him to study her.
“I’ve gathered as much,” he said. “It doesn’t serve you to cause a scene like what happened at the café without due course. You are aware in ways I am not of this…darkness that follows those of my home.”
She could hear the fear in his voice and that he took her words with due consideration, but so too was doubt there.
“You didn’t come because you wanted to know Mr. Quinn was thinking about his job or his family before he died,” Letitia countered. “You came because something happened to your niece, something unexplainable to anyone with an ounce of reason. There is something you aren’t telling me about the situation, but here’s what I can tell you. A dark spirit has attached itself to your family and will hurt them in unspeakable ways.”
His knuckles turned white as he stared at her, but whatever he opened his mouth to say, he appeared to think better of it, as his lips became a firm line and his hands relaxed.
“I can’t send her to Scotland to recover,” he said. Letitia knew he had spoken to Mrs. Quinn, but then Letitia hadn’t given him all the information he may need.
“And if you send her to the asylum, she will die.”
It was a cruel thing for her to say. She saw the shock on his face and shook her head at it, and his stubbornness.
“Did you think I didn’t know?” Letitia said, wanting to hammer home the gravity of her fears. “I was a widow, alone and friendless. Your niece is not. They locked me up, and only the kindness of a stranger brought me back to sanity.”
Gone was the surprise but his gaze drifted to her abdomen.
“Is it why you have those scars?”
Letitia went numb, head light and reeling.
“The doctor told me,” he said, allying any concern he had seen them himself. He had the grace to avoid h
er furious gaze as he explained. “He mentioned the scarring when commenting on your constitution. I merely listened. It was Mrs. Finch and Ms. Harland who changed your gown.”
Letitia’s face burned with intense embarrassment, shame, and dread that a relative stranger should know something so intimate about her. More than one, in fact—the house she resided in full of women who would empathize with such scars now would consider her with sympathy, if not pity. She stood, and he braced himself, but she turned away and paced the room. She withdrew her hand from her stomach to her hip, her gesture self-conscious under his assessing gaze.
“You had no right,” she said, wanting him to leave. “I never asked for your attentions. My past failings are now common knowledge, and you have displaced me within my own home.”
“My apologies,” he said after several moments of watching her. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Yes, you damn well did,” Letitia bit out as she tried to compose herself. What would Mrs. Finch’s kindness turn to knowing the wounds on her body? Would the sunshine that came from Imogen change now that she had seen Letitia’s weaknesses? It was several minutes before she could resume her place at the table.
“Yes,” she said, “those scars were how I ended up in the asylum. Can you imagine the experiences that went with them? Don’t send your niece to the asylum if you love her.”
It was his turn to be furious.
“I do love her,” he said, biting out the words one at a time, “and it’s why I am here. It isn’t why I stayed, but if I could but tell you, you might be the one person who can understand why I may not have a choice—”
He broke off, clenching his jaw to hold back the words, the muscle tensing and releasing. Whatever he would have said next Letitia waylaid it.
“You must understand,” Letitia said, “if I fail—if something were to happen, I may not be able to remove myself from it. I may make it worse.”
There was a bark of laughter, sudden and sharp, so surprising Letitia started. There was no humor in Mr. Driscoll’s face, nothing but a hard sneer that held no nuance of amusement.
“Finola can’t sleep,” he said. “She’s kept awake by nightmares of someone coming to take her, to do…the most awful things to her. At night she makes the kind of plea no family would ever want to hear, as though some being is torturing her as she sleeps. There is no rest, only waking hours of fear and the assault that comes at night. She is living in a waking nightmare. We’ve had to start a dosage of morphine and have a nurse on hand to help manage her. Aside from having her committed, Abby and I are at a loss as to what to do.”
As though it was the last stone pillar in the wall of her defenses, he knocked it down. Letitia’s quest in America, and her purpose in London, was always to avoid the fate she herself had experienced. Denying assistance now only disproved her own philosophies and how far or how much of herself she would be willing to sacrifice.
But those morals she clung to, which she held dear when patrons demanded more, would make her out to be a liar if she didn’t help Mr. Driscoll now and go to Finola as someone had once come to her. But this time Letitia would arrive long before the darkness consumed this girl.
Even if she did not yet know the cost.
For all Old Mother Borrows’ teachings, she never meant for Letitia herself to become a tutor but only to contain the darkness within, the power Letitia wielded with such ease because she was so strong. So much stronger than she had any earthly right to be. And it was because she was tainted with something not of this realm.
“I’ll meet her.” Letitia was proud her voice didn’t tremble, wiping sweat-slicked hands on her dress. The fear there, sitting behind her eyes, made her feel like prey looking for any chance to escape its predicament. But her spine straightened with her experience. She would not let another girl such as herself into the hands of doctors who didn’t know what they were doing.
Mr. Driscoll’s eyes drifted closed and the lines of his face eased. He wasn’t old—a handsome profile had been rendered fearful by his perpetual scowl.
“Thank you.” He got to his feet and went to the door.
“You can’t mean for me to see her now?” Letitia asked, shocked.
“I do, Ms. Hawking,” Mr. Driscoll said, “as I am afraid you will say no later, and I will not let this matter lie a moment longer. Someone needs to help my niece in a way I cannot.”
Letitia hesitated, her decision’s sudden ramification causing her to catch her breath.
“If-if I cannot help her,” Letitia said, “I mean, if I do try and cannot, will you consider taking her to Scotland, despite the risk?”
Mr. Driscoll froze.
“You may have to drug her the whole way,” Letitia pressed on. “But I promise you, there is a woman in Scotland far better able to handle this than I. I would ask you to send for her, but she will not leave her homeland.”
Old Mother Borrows hadn’t come herself to collect Letitia—she’d sent her granddaughter. Letitia never found out why the old woman would never leave her home, but she was in no position to ask.
“I will,” Mr. Driscoll said. “But please, only if you come now.”
Letitia bit her lip, the last vestiges of fight slipping away.
“Will you take me home when I ask, without question?” she clarified, and he nodded.
Letitia collected her veil, coat, and purse, and as an afterthought grabbed a small vile of juniper oil before she joined him at the door. Waiting until she locked it, he led her down to his car where the driver opened the door. Mr. Driscoll let her slide across the leather seat and placed a rug about her knees as he got in beside her.
“Are we going far?” Letitia felt a clenching worry she had allowed Mr. Driscoll to commandeer her.
“My house is on the far side of town,” he said, “and I do not wish for your cold to return.”
She turned to the window as the driver pulled the car out into the late afternoon traffic. People were thronging from businesses to return home, and at some moments they crawled along. Mr. Driscoll fidgeted beside her. He took out his pocket watch, glancing at the time, and put it back with a sigh.
“Are we in a rush?” Letitia asked as the driver got around a slow horse and carriage to pull out onto a stretch of road leading away from the city.
“I have been fighting for weeks to have some hope, so you must excuse me if I cannot wait to see if you hold the answers Mrs. Quinn hopes for.” Mr. Driscoll added nothing further, and Letitia wondered again if he was speaking for himself and not Mrs. Quinn. “If you can see her at night, when things are at their worst, perhaps you may understand why I think our time grows short.”
“What in her behavior has changed?” Letitia asked, suspicion sharpening her words.
“The visions are stronger, and she lashes out at people around her more often. She can see thoughts of the unwary,” he said, rubbing his brow with one hand, “and though it affects my sister and the staff, it doesn’t seem to reach me, and I assumed someone such as yourself would be immune against it.”
The girl was gifted. Whatever had happened to Finola was not unlike Letitia’s passage through the flame—emerging from the other side gifted, forever altered but not the same. There would be little Letitia could compare to her own suffering.
“You could have warned me.” Such a power of mind reading was intimidating. Letitia would not allow a young, traumatized girl to see her innermost darkness.
“I just did,” Mr. Driscoll replied, staring down at her. In the back of the car, he was close, and it reminded Letitia of the woody scent she’d gleaned from him when he’d helped her to bed. The way his fingers trailed over her skin, and with such tenderness as he pushed her hair from her eyes. The heat of his body when he held her, so unlike the fire of her fever. Fiercer, brighter, purifying.
And she would never tell him the effect it had on her.
“You must understand that my presence could make things far worse,” Letitia said, disbelief he’d kept such a thing from her. “If Finola can see my past, then this could be disastrous.”
“It isn’t the same strength that I have come to understand of your gift,” he said. “I assumed it was guessing, but my sister says it is not so. There is enough in Finola’s words that lead me to believe she is…gifted. But so, too, does it come with a taint. Finola knows things that she should not. That nobody should ever know, least of all her.”
The latter was spat out with such bitterness it stunned Letitia to silence.
“What matters is that she is just a girl,” he went on. “She turned fourteen three months ago, and she shouldn’t be robbed of her innocence like she is with these abhorrent nightmares. The things she describes when she is asleep are the last words you want to hear, let alone from your own flesh and blood.”
“What happens in them?” Letitia asked, determined to know the details before she faced whatever had driven Mr. Driscoll to such measures.
He clenched his hands on his knees, trembling with rage as he uttered words that should never be spoken. Of a violence and perversion, and the darker nature of men…
She comprehended his meaning with stomach-churning revulsion, bile coating her tongue. It was every woman’s worst fear to have a man take them by force.
Finola was just a girl…
“When did this first start?” Letitia began, forcing herself to ask. “Was she alone?”
“No,” Mr. Driscoll shouted, startling the driver who swerved before straightening the wheel. “The doctors checked all of that for me. She wasn’t out of my sight for more than a few moments, perhaps ten minutes.”
“What do you mean she was out of your sight?” Letitia’s gentle tone simmered the anger roiling off Mr. Driscoll.