by Tess Oliver
“John, you’ve been nothing but good to me. You cannot possibly have anything to say that would change the way I feel about you.”
He squeezed my hand and lowered his face. For a moment I thought he might sob. He let go of my fingers, stood abruptly, and walked to the window. “Do you remember when you and Emily were nine and you’d eaten some strawberries? Emily became very ill.”
“Of course, how could I forget? Father was so worried he called the doctor. And you came too as I recall. It was the first time we’d seen you in two years.”
“There was a reason your father broke his silence and summoned me to come. The doctor needed to know some family history. He wanted to know if I’d had the same reaction to strawberries.” Dr. Bennett wiped his fingers along the dust on the window ledge then rubbed them together. He looked at me. “As a boy, I’d eaten strawberries and had become violently ill with a rash.”
My mind raced with confusion. “I don’t understand. Why are you talking about rashes and strawberries? What does all this have to do with the journal?”
He returned to his chair. “Emily’s reaction to the berries was not a coincidence. It was inherited. I am Emily’s father.”
I sat stunned until the ridiculousness of his statement set in and I laughed. “Very amusing, John, but Emily and I came from the same womb. I daresay she was the bossy one even then, which would explain why I was so much smaller at birth.”
His face remained solid and grim. “It does not happen often,” he continued. “But I assure you, it is possible. Twins such as Emily and you developed from two distinctly different eggs. You and your sister share very few of the same attributes. Surely, you’ve noticed this.”
“John, this is beyond absurd,” I protested, but my mind searched for the reasons he would have to conjure up such nonsense.
“Your father saw such an alarming difference between you girls, his suspicions grew.” He reached up and touched his beard. “Beneath this facial hair, I’ve hidden dimples that I’ve always considered to feminine for a man’s face. You know Emily has some too. Neither of your parents had them. She inherited them from me.” His words came out quickly now as if he thought their impact would be less brutal if they flowed freely.
My body shrank back against the chair. Memories darted through my head and suddenly came together as pieces of a giant puzzle, the explosive end to a friendship, the tension on my father’s face when John spoke French with my mother, the endless differences between twin sisters. “You and my mother…” I could not finish. I expected tears to come, but my eyes were dry. “How could you?”
“I cannot make excuses for my actions except to say that there was a time early in your parent’s marriage, before you were born, when your mother was unhappy. She turned to me for solace.”
I stared at the man in front of me. “I don’t even know who you are.” I stood but my body felt like lead. My legs collapsed, and I fell back onto the chair. Dr. Bennett stared down at his lap.
“And Emily has known this all along?” I asked.
He shook his head but still didn’t look up at me.
“Damn it, John, at least have the courage to face me!”
His eyes lifted and now, and I saw it. They were Emily’s blue eyes. “Your father and I had agreed not to tell either of you… ever. It didn’t seem necessary.” He looked at the journal. “But he had written it all down. And in his crazed state, he’d forgotten and given the journal to your sister to guard. Or maybe he had wanted her to know after all. We’ll never know his motives. When Emily began to withdraw from us and from regular society, I figured the journal must have held the secret. She came to me to tell me she knew everything.”
Now rage at their deceit gave me the strength to stand, but as I raced by, he reached out and grabbed hold of my arm. “There is more, Camille.”
My feet faltered. I fell forward, but he steadied me. A whimper flew from my mouth. “What else could there be, John? Was my real father the Marquis de Sade? What other sordid details do you wish to impart about my ridiculously fictional life?”
“The journal may help Strider. There are some notes, some theories yet untested, which your father describes in detail. But it holds more than scientific notations. He wrote everything in it as if he wrote his own memoirs.”
I tried to shake loose from his grasp. “I don’t want to hear more.”
“I’ve begun this and now, you must hear it all.”
I wrenched free and stumbled sideways, slamming my knee on the coal scuttle. “Damn it,” I cursed and kicked it, injuring my toes and sending a black spray of residue over the rug.
I hobbled to the door.
“Your father was not accidentally contaminated.”
I stopped in the doorway without looking back. Momentarily, I wondered where Strider had gone to. Had he heard Dr. Bennett’s confession? Then John’s latest declaration popped back into my pounding head.
“It’s all in his journal. It’s the other reason Emily kept the journal from you, from us.” I heard the creak of the chair, and I knew he stood behind me now. “I’ve left it for you to read.”
He skirted past me, but I didn’t move. After a long moment, I looked back over my shoulder. The book lay open, its pages fluttering lightly with the energy produced by the hearth. The fire looked suddenly inviting. I could toss the entire thing into the flames to be rid of its scarring entries for good. But I knew it held possible hope for Strider, so it stayed there in the center of the table until I willed myself across the floor and into the chair, where once seated, I lifted it onto my lap and read. A blue ribbon held a place in the pages. I opened to the page. My father’s all too familiar script stared back at me.
A soul disintegrated by betrayal combined with an insatiable curiosity has brought me to this lamentable end. Science with a thoughtful purpose now driven by hatred and desire for power. My two sweet loves own my heart completely, but do not fill the void left behind. A chasm which began my unraveling, a chasm never repaired. The strength, the rage I witnessed from the beast I hunted held mystical appeal. I wanted it. I needed it. I took it. And as its blood coursed through my veins and invincibility filled my thoughts, the same question plagued my mind. Who would look after the angels with their glowing pink complexions and lyrical giggles? Destroying him would leave no one. Only one scenario remained. Bennett would have to live, and my own death must be by his hands.
The words played through my mind over and over sounding worse with each repetition. It had been intentional. No accidental contamination but a plan devised in the mind of a broken man. The walls of the marmalade room seemed to thicken with a suffocating heat, and I struggled to take a decent breath. My skin was icy, yet my body temperature seemed to rise. I jumped up quickly, upturning the table. The journal slapped the floor, creasing the corners of several pages as it landed.
The hallway and entry were a blur as I raced out. My palms stung from smacking the front door open as I flew down the steps and headed for any place that wsan’t home. The air chilled the sweat on my skin, and oxygen finally flowed freely into my lungs. I ran until a pulse beat in my ears, and my heels stung from blisters.
Under a copse of half naked trees, I found a bench. I sat there completely still and long enough for birds, convinced I was a heat bearing statue, to huddle around me. In my mind, I catalogued the day’s revelations in an orderly fashion finding them easier to deal with neatly arranged. The man I depended on and trusted more than anyone in the world, the man I had undying respect for had had an illicit affair with my mother. A mother, who I’d adored so much I’d held tightly onto a rag doll she’d made long after it was appropriate for me to carry a doll, had betrayed her wedding vows and broken my father’s heart. A sister, who I considered the second half of my soul, even after she abandoned me, was only my half sister. And a father, who I thought the bravest, smartest and most wonderful man to walk the Earth, had purposely contaminated his own blood with that of a murderous beast’s, just to
experience the power of being a werewolf. The list repeated itself in my mind several times. What started as a nearly silent giggle erupted into full laughter. My feathered visitors fluttered away to a new resting spot.
The bout of laughter subsided and surprisingly, I felt better. But not well enough to return home and face Dr. Bennett. I sensed someone standing behind me and knew it was Strider before I turned around. Seeing him standing there, tall and broad shouldered beneath the shadows of the tree branches, I had an incredible urge to throw myself into his arms. But I stayed on the bench.
“How did you find me?” I asked then realized it was a pointless question. His senses, no doubt, grew keener each day.
He sat down next to me and motioned back with his head. “I overheard a group of pigeons talking about an odd little sprite in trousers taking up space on their bench.”
I smiled. “Fine friends they are. One minute they are hovering around me to keep warm, next they are speaking badly about me behind my back. Obviously birds are another species not to be trusted.”
“Aye. Trust. It’s something I gave up on long ago. Although lately, a bit of it is coming back.”
“Really? Tell me how that’s done. I don’t see mine returning anytime soon.”
He picked up my hand which felt numb from cold but instantly heated beneath his fingers. He pressed my palm to his lips for a moment before tucking my cold hand beneath his arm for warmth. “Tis a simple remedy really. Find the right person to trust.”
A blush warmed my face. He trusted me. There was no guarantee that this would all work out well for him, but he trusted me. And I could do nothing for Strider without Dr. Bennett. Besides, my options were limited. I had no place to go except the place I’d called home for the past five years.
“Prim and proper rules of society were more than absent in my house growing up. It seems they were abhorred and broken at every turn. I knew my parents were extraordinarily different than most, but never had I expected this.” The calmness I felt was not from denial as I first thought, but rather from acceptance.
Strider pulled a chunk of bread from his coat pocket and tossed some crumbs near our feet. We were instantly surrounded by birds. “My father believed he was the picture of gentility and good breeding, but in truth he was a gin-soaked blighter. My mother was like a preening peacock when others were around, all smiles, beauty and charm, but underneath she was a heartless, selfish ogre.”
“But my mother . . .and John. I don’t understand how he could have betrayed my father.”
“Perhaps he loved your mother more.”
“But why would Emily not have told me? Why would she keep this to herself?”
“For the reason you are sitting here now. She knew it would hurt you. Or, perhaps, she thought you would feel differently about her if you knew.”
I turned my face and looked up at him. A hint of a smile curled the side of his mouth as he watched the birds at his feet. “You have an explanation for everything.” I slouched against the hard back of the bench. “Still, I shan’t be able to trust anyone ever again. Except possibly you,” I added quietly.
Strider laughed. “Me? You should never trust a scurrilous bloke like me.”
“That’s bloody grand, then I have no one.” I jumped off the bench and walked away.
“Wait, Camille,” Strider called from behind me. Suddenly his fingers were around my arm and he spun me around to face him. His brown eyes stared at my face and then his gaze lowered to my lips. “You can trust me,” he said softly and lowered his face to kiss me.
It did not last long, but it did not disappoint. I was glad he held on to me because I was sure that the solid ground beneath my feet had moved. We’d caught the attention of people passing by. Their wide-eyed stares made us both laugh.
Strider glanced down at my attire. “I suppose I should have waited to kiss you when you weren’t dressed in trousers.”
I shook my head. “I think your timing could not have been more perfect.”
Chapter 17
Cold rain fell for two days washing coal smoke from the air and leaving behind a clammy, uninviting atmosphere. Dr. Bennett and I spoke only when necessary, and Strider seemed restless. The experiments were not going well. This I knew not from words but from the lines in Dr. Bennett’s forehead, which grew more pronounced each day.
A dreary mood hung over the room as we sat silently round the fire. “Will you be visiting your sister when the rain lifts?” Dr. Bennett’s question shattered the quiet.
“You mean my half sister, don’t you?” My posture straightened. “I don’t know when I’ll have time to go to Bethlem in the near future.”
Dr. Bennett didn’t reply to my curt words but returned to his book with an expression that could not be described as anything but anguish. My gaze shot across the room to the settee where Strider passed the time folding sheets of newspaper into boats. How different his life would have been if his brother had returned and he’d gone on to a life at sea. How different my life would be if he’d gone to sea instead of the streets. Dr. Bennett and I would be sitting here in our orange room, sipping tepid tea and browsing books waiting for our next hunt. The blasted journal would still be locked in Emily’s nightstand. And my heart would not be totally lost to Nathaniel Strider.
“John, I’ve been thinking,” I said.
Dr. Bennett’s face lifted and a bit of the sadness disappeared.
“They use trace doses of smallpox to induce immunity to the disease. Could we not try something like that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Cami.” It was the first time he’d used my nickname in two days.
“What if the blood of the man who bit Nathaniel could work in the same way as the smallpox inoculation?”
He shook his head. “We are dealing with a mutation not a disease. I don’t see a connection.”
“Well, I believe it’s time to try something else. We’ve less than a fortnight and your theories are proving worthless.” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from being hurtful, and the look on his face assured me I’d been exactly that.
“I know every grave digger in London,” Strider said. We both looked at him. “If you can find out the cemetery where the man is buried, I can get you into his grave.” He lifted a two sailed paper boat in the air and admired his handiwork.
A long silence followed as we contemplated the grotesque deed of robbing a corpse of its bodily fluids. “Do you think it possible, John? Or has too much time passed?”
Dr. Bennett took the book from his lap, placed it on the table, and sat back. “The weather is cold and the ground damp enough to have slowed decomposition considerably. The corpse would still have flesh and fluids. But I don’t know, Camille. It seems wrong to go into the man’s grave.”
I sat forward. “Why the bloody hell would that bother your conscience? You sent the man there!” My anger was coming out in all the wrong ways. Dr. Bennett rose from his chair and plodded out of the room.
Tears burned in my eyes as I stared at the flames jumping in the hearth.
“Well done,” Strider said before leaving the room as well.
Curled into a ball, I’d cried myself asleep in the upholstered chair. I slept soundly until the gloom of the cloudy day had descended into the gloom of a stormy, black night. A few red coals sat atop a nest of gray ash in the hearth as I stretched up and rubbed the cramp from my neck and shoulder.
The wavering light of a candle grew brighter as footsteps traipsed through the hallway to the sitting room. Dr. Bennett’s silhouette filled the doorway. “You’re awake. I was afraid you might sleep there all night, and we’d have to free you from that twisted position.”
I glanced at the mantle clock. The light was dim but I could see I’d slept for hours. A flash of lightning lit the room. A clap of thunder followed, and although it was expected, the loud cracking sound startled me. “Where’s Nathaniel?”
“He left several hours ago.”
I sat forward and re
alized both my feet were numb with sleep. I stomped them hard on the floor. “Left? On a night like this? Where did he go?”
“I imagine he’ll be back shortly. He went to see a few friends about a grave.”
“Do you think my suggestion plausible then?” A part of me wanted to apologize for the harsh words I’d spoken earlier, but I still could not convince myself to do so.
He stepped into the room with Father’s journal tucked beneath his arm. His blue eyes were bloodshot and framed in dark circles. “At this point, we must try anything. Time is running out.” He sat at the table. “Camille, I see the way you look at the boy. I know you’re in love.”
I turned away and stared at the window pane watching the sheets of rain sliding down. All this time, I’d thought him too logical, too scientific to know about love and passion. All this time, I’d thought he was married to his books and science. All this time, I hadn’t known the man at all.
My face turned back to him. “We’ll not hunt this one down. I don’t care if he terrorizes and murders Londoners for the next hundred moons, I’ll not let you harm him.”
Before Dr. Bennett could respond the front door opened and closed. I jumped up from the chair and ran to the entry. There was always something about seeing him dripping wet, drenched through to the skin that made him extra appealing. His long black hair was plastered to his face and neck and his faded coat looked more dashing soaked with water. There was a puddle beneath his feet. “You must be hungry. Get changed and I’ll fix you a bite.”
The three of us leaned over the tall kitchen table eating soft cooked eggs and cold ham in the candle light. A wind raged outside rattling the doors and windows in the house. “The storm should let up by morning. I promised them a bottle of gin and a pound note for one hour at the grave site. We’ll need shovels and a lantern.”
“And something to draw and collect blood,” Dr. Bennett added. I dropped my spoon, and it clattered on the wood table. “How else do you expect me to collect a fluid sample? Although after several weeks, most of the fluids will have collected on the bottom.” Now Strider’s spoon fell to his plate. “Oh really? With the carnage you’ve witnessed, Camille,” he turned to Strider, “and as I recall, the first time we saw you, you were slicing the finger off a dead woman.” He lifted his own spoon and slipped a dripping piece of egg into his mouth.