These Ruthless Deeds

by Tarun Shanker

  “I missed you!” Catherine Harding half shouted, grabbing me and hugging me.

  “Mrrpph,” I said back, but I returned the hug with equal enthusiasm. I had missed my best friend, too.

  She reared back, adjusting her spectacles. “Do you know the number of letters I’ve sent to you in the past three months?”

  “Um,” I responded, very articulately.

  “Thirteen. You received thirteen letters, ignored your best friend thirteen times, and threw away thirteen unanswered letters.”

  Too many reasons filled my head and I didn’t quite know how to say them all. It was rather similar to the feeling I got every time I considered writing her.

  “I just…,” I finally said.

  “I know.” She grabbed my hand and leaned against the headboard next to me.

  “I couldn’t sit at a desk and write a letter about it.”

  “I know.”

  “There was a lot … happening.”

  “You shouldn’t have had to deal with her loss all by yourself.” She squeezed harder and I tried not to cry. I just nodded as she continued.

  “It’s unfair and horrible and I’m so mad for you.” She was almost crushing my hand now but it was exactly what I needed and I gripped back, hard. She didn’t break down crying or offer platitudes or tell me there was a plan for everyone or say that Rose was in a better place. Instead, she looked fiercely ahead, jaw set, ready to fight through my pain with me. I took a few slow, deep breaths.

  “Chocolate?” she asked suddenly.

  “Chocolate,” I confirmed.

  I got up, pulled on my wrapper, and called for my maid.

  “Now. Tell me everything. Who is Miss Lodge and why were you staying with her for so long?”

  “I … There’s a lot to explain,” I said.

  As I thought about how to begin, I finally understood why Sebastian had been so awkward when he tried to explain everything about these powers to me. It was a ridiculous thing to tell someone. With her pragmatic nature, there was only one way to convince Catherine. The same way I had been convinced.

  “Catherine, I am going to show you something very strange. You must promise not to scream.”

  Her round eyes narrowed. “I never scream.”

  I padded over to my writing desk and took up a letter opener, shiny and new and quite sharp. I sliced it across my index finger. I thought it a small slit but there seemed to be enough blood to alarm Catherine, as she gasped and came over.

  “Evelyn! Why would you do that?” She pulled out her handkerchief and hurriedly grabbed for my finger, but I pulled away.

  “Just watch,” I said, taking a moment before wiping the blood off and showing her the healed finger.

  She stared at it, frowning, at a loss for words, then searched my eyes. “Are you playing a trick on me?”

  I shook my head and put the letter opener down. “No trick. No joke. I know this sounds utterly mad, but while I was trying to—to find Rose, these few months past, I discovered something else. I can heal any wound, any illness in me or others.”

  Catherine stared hard at me, looking for a laugh that wasn’t there. “Evelyn, I’m sorry, but you must be mistaken; this is impossible.”

  “You try doing it to me,” I said, handing her the letter opener, which she reluctantly took while protesting.

  “This is silly—”

  I grasped her hand with the letter opener, pressed down hard, and dragged it across my palm. Blood dribbled out onto the rug and I winced more at the mess than the light stinging. I was getting better with pain. I’d tested my healing quite enough these last months.

  With a gasp, Catherine dropped the letter opener and fumbled again for her handkerchief.

  I stepped out of her reach and simply wiped away the blood so she could better see the miraculous healing.

  “This sort of cut usually takes a few seconds,” I said. “Just watch.”

  She did. She watched as the blood flow ebbed and my torn skin gradually closed and stitched itself back together. Besides the faint bloodstain, there was no sign my hand had even been cut.

  “Good morning, miss.” A knock came from the door—my maid. I shoved my hand behind me and positioned my feet over the bloodstains.

  “Come in,” I called, eyeing Catherine warily as she stared into nothing with a rather dazed expression.

  Lucy opened the door and set down a tray. A long moment of silence reigned as she turned, curtsied, and shut the door. I decided to let Catherine continue her contemplation as I wiped the rest of the blood onto my handkerchief and poured the steaming chocolate into the two cups the maid had left.

  I almost moaned after the first sip. If my parents were going to use their new wealth, I had to be glad for their cook.

  Catherine didn’t move for a long while. Then she pinched herself. “I … am having a lot of thoughts and questions right now.”

  “I imagine you must be.” I poured myself another cup and led her to the chairs in front of the fire. “I will tell you everything. First, have you ever heard of something called ‘saltation’?”

  And so I explained. The theory that these powers were a jump in evolution. Dr. Beck, his associates. The people—good and bad—who had helped me. Mr. Braddock and Miss Lodge.

  Catherine began to pace the room as I haltingly finished explaining Rose’s death. She poured me another cup of chocolate and sat next to my chair, on the floor, as I told her about Belgium, Emily Kane, and the Society of Aberrations.

  As if on cue, a slight crackling sounded and a piece of paper appeared in my hand. I opened my palm and Catherine gasped.

  “This must be from them—our rescuers from the asylum,” I murmured to her. I unfolded the note to read the short line. We would be so grateful for your assistance, Miss Wyndham. There is a sick little girl who does not deserve to die. Please meet Mr. Redburn in your back garden as soon as you can. It was signed by Captain Goode.

  “Was that—did someone just…?” Catherine was peering around the room suspiciously. We both jumped as a knock rattled at the door.

  “Come in,” I said, crumpling the piece of paper and shoving it behind me.

  Lucy entered. “Um, miss, there is a Mr. Kent downstairs and he—well, he said to tell you that if it is at all inconvenient he is happy to come up here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I apologize. He thinks himself very amusing. Please tell him Miss Harding and I will be downstairs shortly.”

  She bobbed a curtsy and left. I moved the gaudy fire screen and threw the missive into the flames. The sick girl was surely some play on my sympathies since their other approaches hadn’t worked. I had told them I did not wish to be involved, and uninvolved I would stay.

  “Catherine, will you help me dress?” I asked, taking off my wrapper. “Oh, and I should probably tell you, for all the time we’ve known Mr. Kent, he’s had the power to reveal anyone’s secrets.”

  * * *

  Catherine was still gaping at me twenty minutes later as we entered one of the many parlors. This one was yellow. That is, the chairs, the banquettes, the rugs, the settee, the walls, the ceiling—all were the same shade of bright, buttery yellow. Mr. Kent, all in shiny black, looked rather magnificent in contrast as he stared up at a painting of some general who had, of course, a yellow sash.

  “Curious, isn’t it, how a painting could be quite this ugly,” he said and turned, giving us both a brilliant smile.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kent,” I said wryly.

  “Miss Wyndham, Miss Harding, you both look lovely.” He bowed and was about to continue speaking, but Catherine was too overcome for niceties.

  “You ask a question and people respond with the truth?” She interrogated him immediately. He glanced up in surprise.

  “And here I thought we were supposed to keep our abilities secret,” he accused me.

  “She’s my best friend. I wasn’t about to leave her out.” I sank onto a long banquette as Catherine circled Mr. Kent, observing him like
a scientific experiment.

  “Demonstrate, if you please, Mr. Kent—ask me a simple question so I can see how it works.”

  There was an amused glint in his eye. “Who would be an ideal husband for Miss Wyndham?”

  “You would,” Catherine replied automatically then clenched her fists and grimaced. I stared at her, stunned. I hadn’t realized she thought of us in such a way. “Well, that settles it. Evelyn’s solution it is.”

  “I hadn’t ever realized there was a problem,” Mr. Kent said mildly.

  “Thank you, Catherine,” I said, before turning evilly to Mr. Kent. “I propose that you be forbidden from asking any more questions. All your questions must henceforth be voiced as statements and if necessary, with an added clarification that what you stated was a question. This way, we can answer you freely.”

  “Do you know—” Mr. Kent shook his head. “It is very difficult to do that.”

  “You have a way with words. You’ll figure it out,” I said. Catherine sat down next to me, and I smiled at him sweetly.

  Mr. Kent clutched his chest in mock pain. “I thought you were on my side, Miss Harding!”

  “I am on our friendship’s side,” Catherine replied, waving her hand at him. “Not on the side of making people confess things better kept hidden.”

  “Why would you want to hide the fact that Miss Wyndham and I would make a marvelous ma—”

  “Blast,” I spat out, sitting up. Another piece of paper was in my hand. The situation is truly dire. Mr. Redburn is waiting in the garden.

  Mr. Kent and Catherine both eyed the scrap of a note. “Is that from—I mean, one might presume that is the Society of Aberrations—end of question,” Mr. Kent finished awkwardly.

  Guilt curled in me. “Yes. I don’t know what to do,” I said, sighing.

  Mr. Kent raised his brows. “What are they asking?”

  “For me to heal a little girl.”

  “My God, the brutes, the monsters,” he mocked.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I told them no. I don’t trust them. I don’t believe they are telling us everything,” I said firmly, sticking to my line. Besides, this was not my concern. Plenty of people died every day and I could do nothing about it.

  “I never took you for one who would run away from someone who was hurt,” Mr. Kent said mildly.

  I looked up sharply. “I am not running away. I am already away. I don’t want to go toward people I don’t trust.”

  Catherine was peering at me through her spectacles with a mixture of pity and wariness. “Is helping one girl really so terrible?” she asked reasonably and annoyingly.

  “It would never be just one,” I said, feeling the curious combination of certainty that I was right and doubt that working with them would be as terrible as I feared.

  “They have been nothing but helpful,” Mr. Kent said gently. “And surely their being a government branch, with oversight, should assuage some worries.”

  I stood, staring at the rug, trying to think. It was truly garish. I stared at the equally awful walls instead.

  “They simply wish to have a well-connected and very powerful girl on their team, and in response they reward you handsomely,” Mr. Kent was saying, arms outspread.

  I stopped. “How handsomely?” He looked uncomfortable and I pressed. “Handsomely enough for my reputation to be scrubbed clean and my family’s fortunes to suddenly multiply?”

  Mr. Kent replaced his pained look with a bright smile. “For the fortunes, I could not say. But your reputation … That credit is due to quite another party.” He grinned broadly and smoothed his tie.

  “What are you—” I paused and it hit me. “Oh heavens, what did you do?”

  He shrugged innocently. “Let’s just say … that I’ve been … in a sense … blackmailing key members of London society and editors of the scandal sheets into preserving your reputation.”

  I gaped at him.

  “And by ‘in a sense,’ I mean that’s exactly what happened.” He smiled broadly at the room.

  “You—you’re serious?” I found myself half gasping the words but also not finding it terribly hard to believe. Mr. Kent never hid his worse qualities.

  He wore them like badges.

  “Come now, I can do some good on my own with my powers—I wasn’t so irredeemable before the Society of Aberrations showed up.”

  “I think there’s some confusion here about the definition of good.”

  “Why, Miss Wyndham,” Mr. Kent replied, looking as chaste and good as a debutante at her presentation to the Queen. “I think we can all agree it’s fair to punish these guilty people feigning innocence every day of their lives, all while helping a wrongfully accused innocent. I would certainly never ask you, but I suspect you agree.”

  “You cannot simply blackmail people into liking me!” I said, immediately thinking of the Athertons and groaning. “Do you know that a very prominent matron in London society was here with her oh-so-eligible son yesterday?”

  Mr. Kent sniffed, unconcerned. “Which eligible son?”

  “The Earl of Atherton.”

  “Oh my,” he said, looking pained.

  “Yes, he’s quite the most stuffed man. And it’s all your fault,” I said, huffing as I settled back next to Catherine, who took my arm in commiseration. We fixed Mr. Kent with twin glares that seemed to wilt him.

  “My deepest apologies, Miss Wyndham.” He bowed.

  I intensified my glare.

  He said, “If only there were something I could propose to keep these suitors away.”

  Before I could ask him what exactly he meant by that, another paper appeared in my hand. She is going to die. Please.

  “It’s just helping someone live,” Catherine said gently, reading the note over my shoulder.

  Blast. I took in my two friends, people I trusted with my very life. “Mr. Kent, you really do trust them?”

  “Not at all, I don’t trust anyone,” Mr. Kent said, shaking his head. “But I do trust everyone’s self-interest. I can easily see how a society and its members being rewarded for performing miracles can lead to a pleasant and long-lasting cycle.”

  He gave me a half smile. “Though it seems you don’t seem to trust my moral compass at the moment.”

  “You are right, but I do Catherine’s,” I said, turning to my always fair and judicious friend. “I told you all. You know how Mr. Kent feels. Is this the right course?” I would prefer to trust myself, but after the events of last year I was not at all sure I could.

  Catherine’s tongue poked through her lips a little as she pondered. “I cannot be sure, of course, but I do think helping some sick young girl today can only be a good deed. We can find out more in due course and decide whether you are better off without them.” She brightened as a new thought came to her. “Oh, I shall do some investigating! There are sure to be some references to the Society of Aberrations at the Records Office.…”

  And that was where we lost her. As soon as Catherine had a project, she could not focus anywhere else. She pulled out a pen and a worn little book of paper from her reticule, mumbling plans to herself.

  Mr. Kent and I shared a raised eyebrow and smile. Catherine really was dear.

  I sighed, standing. The Society’s note was strangely heavy in my palm. I could never let the girl die. I had known deep down, from the first piece of paper that fell into my hand, that I would help her.

  “Well then,” I said to Mr. Kent. “I am needed in the garden, I believe.”

  Chapter 5

  OF COURSE IT had to be a sick child, I was grousing to myself. Why couldn’t it have been a sick factory boss who exploited children? Or a sick orphanage director who denied children extra gruel? Those I could have refused easily. But, of course not. It had to be wide-eyed, squeaky-coughing, shivering children plaguing my conscience.

  Mr. Redburn deposited us on the drive of a lovely house and, to my surprise, Lady Atherton stood next to Captain Goode in front of the door.

&nb
sp; “Ah, Miss Wyndham. Thank you for coming. I believe you know Lady Atherton?”

  “Hello, Lady Atherton,” I said, curtsying confusedly.

  “Good morning, Miss Wyndham.” She smiled at me as if this were a perfectly normal morning call.

  “Lady Atherton is an associate for the Society,” Captain Goode explained. “She is continuing her late husband’s work with us. We have asked her to act as your chaperone if you continue to work with us, healing people around London.”

  A whoosh of understanding ran through me. It wasn’t just my parents’ money or Mr. Kent’s blackmail that had brought Lady Atherton to their fashionable new address.

  “My late husband spoke fondly of the Society’s powers, so I wanted to help however I could,” Lady Atherton said with a smile. “He always said power has a duty to secure the welfare of the people.”

  “I see,” I said, tiring of the blatant theft. “Did he get that from Mr. Disraeli?”

  “No, it was his own, I believe,” Lady Atherton insisted. “Though I’m sure he’d have been flattered by the comparison.”

  “Miss Wyndham, may I?” Captain Goode asked, holding his hand out.

  I nodded and gave him my hand. That strange warmth started to fill me.

  “How long does it typically take you to heal a patient?” Captain Goode asked.

  “Five to ten minutes,” I said, feeling the warmth blossom out to my fingertips.

  “Then this time it should take you one,” he replied. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small token. It was a dented old silver-looking piece with a strange marking.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “A deception,” he said, smiling and sending a wink to Lady Atherton. “We don’t want everyone to know about our powers, so we use things like this. We will be telling the gentleman that we have a powerful healing charm in our possession. I will give it to you and you will pretend to check her temperature while actually curing the child.”

  I frowned but he was already lifting the heavy lion knocker. It rapped down hard against the door.

  We waited a long moment. Behind me, Mr. Redburn sighed impatiently. Lady Atherton glared at him but he jumped forward to rap it again.