Black Body

by H C Turk

  • • •

  “Kindly enlighten me as to the divergences I encounter, Master Eric. When in the past I’ve made use of public conveyance, the coachman informed me that his hiring would be charged to Lady Amanda’s account.”

  This was my response to Eric’s passing to the driver some coinage from his pocket, never smelled by me in that fabric locale.

  “Well and good, miss, unless you would have your transport unknown, for carriage drivers on account must notate all their charges. That person of the household responsible for billings will therefore be aware of everyone’s travels. Thus, I pay with my own coin which cannot be followed to its source—me.”

  “And by what method, sir, have you acquired such wealth?”

  “My father’s favorite gift for birthdays is a bit of coin, and I have no argument with his choice. However, I have been known when desperate for finances to hock some of my lesser possessions.”

  “Kindly, Mr. Denton, define for me that unpleasant word.”

  “Hock?”

  “Hock.”

  “It means to take some item like a fob to the pawnbroker who will pay one less money than the item is worth. Hocking is a type of selling in which one has opportunity for a set time to retrieve the goods before they are resold by the broker. But I suggest, miss, that you avoid this business, since usually the item of your own possession which you sell is immediately found missing by your betters. The item then gains for them great emotional value, as though it were an heirloom instead of a common gift oft received from relatives.”

  This economic method I would certainly recall, though how I might apply Eric’s expertise thereof was a mystery fit a sinners’ fantasy of witches. But any deliberation on the subject would come another time, for currently we had arrived, Eric having the coachman halt shy of his house as we exited with no handling of each other. The building yet seemed located on the wrong side of the world.

  As I stood away from the Dentons’ windows, Eric entered for his pet. More than desiring to see the dog, I was passionate not to see the parents. I remained in the shade of a shop’s portico until a bearlike creature with a pleasant gait came running, dragging a young man attached via strap as though horse and wagon. As the two approached, I stepped from the shadows, the dog appearing and smelling quite friendly until he gained my scent. Then he made to eat me.

  The dog began growling from the bottom of his throat, baring his teeth, hair sticking upright on his neck like ruffled feathers or the pants of an excitable lad. Unfrightened but confused, Eric bent to hold the dog while looking between his two friends.

  “I…I don’t understand, Alba. Never before has he been unfriendly toward strangers.”

  “I am no stranger,” I told Eric, “I am unknown. Never have I seen one of God’s creatures respond to me so viciously, except for sinning humans, and the influence of the latter has certainly caused the former.” Then I stepped toward the dog without fear.

  “Perhaps he’ll revert to a savage state if we force him,” concerned Eric proffered. “If he bites you, my father will have him shot.”

  “If he bites me, your father will have him canonized,” I corrected. “We will not force the creature, but allow him to understand.” Then I spoke to the animal, having learned from Eric that people and their pets conversed as though family.

  “Approach, beast, in order to sense me well, and thereby find me knowable. Perhaps you are confused by my apparel, wondering why this creature of such a wild smell wears the sinners’ fabric. Here,” I offered, and reached with one hand, “here is uncovered flesh you might examine.”

  Randolph stepped nearer, the large, tan animal stretching to present no more than his nostrils to my fingers. After he had smelled enough to place me in God’s kingdom, he leapt against my chest to knock me flat and grasp my throat with his reverted animal fangs.

  Immediately Eric grasped Randolph with all his body, attempting to pull a creature nearly as weighty as himself off my prostrate personage as people began noticing. One woman shrieked and a man called for a sword to slay the beast before it kills! I, however, promoted restraint with my words, able to speak because the dog was holding me, not consuming me.

  “Please remain calm, Eric, in that Randolph and I are,” I stated with some difficulty. The dog’s smell and tactile proximity produced a rich sensation to please me were it not for our respective positions. I then spoke quietly, my words only for this creature.

  “You need not taste a witch to understand her.”

  Randolph released me, pulling his face away to pant and drip saliva on my lips as though oozing the emotions of a lustful sinner.

  “Oh, and thank you for the refreshing drink of your spittle, ungracious beast,” I remarked while wiping my mouth. As I rose, Randolph cooperated by moving aside as I attended to my sinners’ clothing. The dog then sat between me and his master, reaching to lick my hand as I straightened my dress.

  “Apologies beyond that token display are in order, sir,” I told Randolph. “Perhaps you might explain your disreputable behavior to the crowd you’ve collected.”

  The dog had scant concern, and Eric was too aghast from the entire affair to react immediately, even upon noticing the nearby buzzing and staring from curious Londoners.

  “Let us be stepping away,” I suggested to Eric, looking between the two social males, the garbed one comprehending at once as he pulled his pet’s strap, the shorter creature with the superior coat moving as per his master’s bidding, both beasts looking behind to make certain I followed.

  “And you’ll be excusing us, folks, in that we’ve other young ladies to be trampling,” I called out to the audience, my convincing imitation of Elsie either an astonishment or further embarrassment to Eric, who continued to walk his dog and the witch.

  Moving past the accumulated sinners, I found myself cackling. Though more disruptive than the common laugh of sinners, the cackle of this white thing was not the shattering richness of a decent witch. Since I attempted to contain the sound with a hand before my mouth, the cackle became more of a chortle, appropriate for a witch escaping a crowd with one hand suppressing herself and the other patting a dog with instincts of eating her, the animal’s master sensing this foolishness and snickering in kind, though he was sickened from the taste of dog spittle against lips, despite the mouth’s being mine.

  Our spirits remained fine as we continued. With no need to be chary of London’s unnatural aspects, I came to appreciate Randolph, and again achieved enlightenment. I learned that humans and animals could live together not merely as familiars—as I had coexisted with animals on Man’s Isle—but as companions, Eric and his dog an even more compatible pair than Elsie and her witch.

  He responded to Eric’s every given sound and gesture with a look to his master, a wag of the tail. I could sense Randolph’s satisfaction in this excellent travel. Eric was not taking his dog walking, but walking with him. In his familiarity with the locale and the society, Eric led the dog even as he led me, but neither Randolph nor I was subservient to this man.

  “I usually take a different route,” Eric described, “but since the people there are neighbors, I would be hallooing the lot, and thereafter they would be asking my parents of the girl with their son. I cannot imagine attempting to explain.”

  Eric’s character increased with his speaking, for he revealed himself as active and humorous, the latter appreciated by me in any type of person, the former considered dangerous by witches in that sinners’ unchecked activity oft reduced our populace. And I hoped this boy would not reveal himself as too active, too much the conventional sinner—like Rathel—but would remain discreet in his destruction, like Elsie.

  “Forgive my rudeness, Mr. Denton, but I notice that lately you become less congested in speech. Perhaps the exterior air has loosened your breathing.”

  Displaying unreal indignity, Eric replied, “Forgive me, miss, if my gentlemanship has been lessened through inattentiveness. In fact, my breathing comes e
asier as I find myself less intimidated by my company.”

  “Whyever should the dog your virtual brother intimidate you?” I asked, then feigned enlightenment. “Oh, your reference is to she who has brazenly slid from her combative lessons of ladydom to cause all those about her unending shame. Aye, and I’m sorry now, lad, for the pain that I’m causing you,” this last spoken with my Elsie imitation. In accord with his emerging personality, Eric replied with a brazen offer.

  “Would you care, Miss Alba, to take Randolph’s lead a time?”

  “Oh, no, dear me, I would feel most uncomfortable to be pulling an animal about.”

  Laughing, Eric reported, “You will find, miss, that the animal being controlled has fewer than four legs.”

  Looking down to the dog, I felt that by taking his lead I would enslave him as the sinners did cattle. The impediment here was my sense of immorality at accepting one too many of the sinners’ ways; for this latest unnaturalness would not be toward my own person, but a respected creature. But the dog’s odor was compatible, his demeanor companionable, and I found no argument with Eric’s describing the person-pet relationship as one of friends.

  I took the lead. Being an intelligent creature, Randolph recognized immediately that an inferior now had his helm, and began to drag me about, onto the street where we both were nearly run down, whirring carriage wheels tearing past us, drivers shouting down at the crazed girl and her dog, Eric chasing after as he attempted to wrest control of the beast while preventing his own hide from being crushed.

  I returned the lead. After fleeing the street and gaining control of the dog and thus our own lives, we sat upon the walkway before a clock repair shop, collapsing from the emotional exhaustion of near death. And we laughed in relief with scant sophistication as proper English folk passed at some distance only to glower and look away.

  “One has no such difficulties in the wilds,” I informed Eric, attempting to regain a normal rate of breathing. “No carriages are there to run one down, and the animals and human folk go about their separate concerns without being tied together.”

  “Pets are not supposed to be dangerous, Alba, but they should always be satisfying.”

  As we spoke, Eric and I viewed each other around the intervening dog, whom Eric commenced to pet. This pleasant task seemed like shelling peas, but vegetable processing does not include affection. Never had I known a witch to so contact an animal. But neither did my sisters harness and beat other creatures. Only sinners were so artificial in their antithetical extremes. But since this unusual relationship of pets was of mutual respect as well as affection, who was I to disapprove of genuine love in so hateful a realm?

  “Might you fancy a pet of your own, miss?” Eric wondered. “Truly, I consider dogs the best. Besides the enjoyment, however, one must accept responsibility. Alone in a great city, a dog would have difficulty finding decent food. Also, on his own he might be run down by carriage wheels—as we’ve unfortunately learned—or stolen.”

  “The ownership itself I yet find discomforting, Eric. How odd it seems to accept such responsibility for a creature who by nature should be free to control its own life.”

  “Not while living in a city, Alba, which is not a natural life for beasts. Therefore, we pet owners repay the joys of our animals’ companionship by caring for them properly. In a way, is it not like man and woman rearing children?”

  “I most lavishly hope not, Eric, but let us consider. God’s intent in the latter is for the race of humans to continue. The former is more akin to a man and woman marrying for lust. No, that is too bizarre a comparison. I’ve overextended the definitions of passion and friendship, and certainly pets are of the latter.”

  “I am hopeful that Lady Amanda would allow you to acquire a pet, Miss Alba,” Eric submitted, to my great relief not begging for a wedding in that I had broached the subject. “Certainly, a person with such concern and understanding of animals as yourself would be a superior mistress.”

  Rapidly I turned to Eric, having been struck with revelation.

  “Eric, I have a pet!” I exclaimed, grasping Randolph in emphasis.

  “You do, miss? I am surprised that only now you mention the fact. Is the creature so boring that you lost recollection?”

  “No, my sir, the lack is not in remembrance, but comprehension. Only upon considering your explanation of the concept of pets have I come aware of my own example.”

  “You do not refer to good Miss Elsie,” Eric stated slyly.

  “In fact, humorless lad, I am more that servant’s pet than the reverse, and better stationed in this uncomfortable land because of her concern. No, Master Eric, in fact my pet is one I’ve had as long as I’ve been in London, a beast who’s been a friend throughout.”

  “What type of animal is your newly comprehended though aged pet, miss?”

  “A spider.”

  After a pause mandated by disbelief, Eric responded: “I might have been correct in mentioning boredom, this being your cause for misinterpreting the beast.”

  “A simple spirit, but a calm companion. Unquestionably the spider is a pet by your own definition, since I am friendly with the beast, though uncertain of its feelings toward me. Nevertheless, my protecting the spider from zealous servants allows the animal to survive in the artificial environment of my chamber.”

  “I am not fond of spiders,” Eric commented, “and would prefer even a cat.”

  “Eric, our respective pets are quite remarkable: a common bug that never leaves its corner, and a fiend dog that nearly killed us both. But regardless of preference, what be our choice? The horses about are all occupied in slavery to the folk of London. If we could gain a regard for rats, however, an endless supply of pets would be available.”

  Not through mimicry but excited interest Eric duplicated my act of grasping Randolph’s coat, applying such force that the pet looked toward his master as though believing his doggy behavior improper.

  “Oh, and Miss Alba, I have this tremendous thinking!”

  “I would be most happy for you, sir, if your intellection did not cause such anguish.”

  “Anguish may be the eventual result, if recent history proves consistent, for the subject again is animals.”

  “Oh, praise God, you’ve a plan for entertaining us enormously by gathering London’s rats and constructing tiny leads for them to drag us about the streets in wheeled crates!”

  “You approach my true thinking, miss, as the spider approaches the dog in size. The wild animals that I suggest we study are heretofore harnessed, for they are in…the animal faire!” this last phrase acutely spoken as though worthy of excited acknowledgment.

  “How thrilled I am, sir, with your wondrous presentation, if only I had the foggiest notion of your thinking. What, pray tell, is an animal fair? A court of justice for God’s furry creatures?”

  “No, miss, faire with a terminating ‘e.’ A place of public entertainment, a place of amazement and uproarious laughing.”

  “Oh, you mean the opera. That’s ‘era’ with an anterior ‘op.’”

  “Miss, you mock me, and how apologetic I am to have irked you. But of course, I now recall your wild background, which is surely the cause for your lacking interest in a mere animal faire, considering the beast populace of your former home. Is it therefore true that elephants and zebras and giraffes were your neighbors on Man’s Isle?”

  “Forgive me, sir, but my Latin studies are not current, so I know little of your foreign terminology.”

  After Eric described the named creatures, I assured him I had no familiarity with such beasts, had even less belief in his own veracity.

  “Whereas the former of your imaginative constructs revealed some ingenuity, the last is too simplistic to impress. Why stripes of such dull colors? And why that common animal? Why not a house-sized coquina with metal feathers each a different rainbow hue? A horse with black and white stripes is scarcely worthy of a lad whose father invents cathedrals.”

  “
I do beg your pardon, unkind miss. Gentlemen seldom lie, though moreso than ladies, all of whom are perfect as you’ve shamed me into believing.”

  “Since previously we’ve established that social graces are wasted on us, we might skip society and return to nature. These…things…you mention: are they in fact amongst God’s living entities, or part of Satan’s strangest dreams?”

  “Real they are, miss, and God’s own creations. Furthermore, I am pleased to find you unfamiliar with them, pleased to say how utterly astonishing they are, as per my own knowledge. In fact, I have seen them myself, and smelled their unique presences.”

  “Tremendous smells, you’re saying now,” I Elsied him. “Here my interest resides, sir—in my nose—for we wild folk are sensitive to revelatory fragrances. I therefore challenge you to convince me of your descriptions, not in speech, but in the genuine world about us.” And I grasped the dog with both hands. Aware Eric understood at once.

  “Any friend of Randolph is an acquaintance of mine, miss, and I would not lie to an acquaintance, being occasionally the gentleman when not overly influenced by folks from the wilds.”

  “Influenced to the point of creating sentences that grow unwillingly in no comprehensible manner until achieving the category of composition,” I remarked.

  “Indeed, miss,” he replied.

  “And where in the world of your acquaintance do these astonishingly real animals reside? I speak not of flat geography, sir, depicted via map.”

  “Is Millney adequately real for you? Having journeyed from the African continent, the animal faire presently draws audiences in Millney’s locale.”

  “I am expected to believe your implication that these astonishingly real animals are nearby? For what purpose would they so reside?”