by H C Turk
“You say, miss, that I’m to be returning to the wharves again?”
I did. I had the sinner return this witch to her massive casket so social with all its white apparel.
“You say, miss—. Beg pardon. You say, missus, that I am to wait while you gain my fare from your husband on the Queen’s Flight? The very ship underway now?”
The grandest vessel on the Thames seemed much less massive once removed to the river’s center. To the nearest boatman I called in question whether that ship be the one my dream believed, and yes. How typical of my dreaming for a sinning male to know more of my own casket than I. How typical of my living to have such difficulty dying.
I found myself without further dream, further instructions. I had been told only to wait, but my family had not, could not. Of course, while I had been wavering in my dream, the partially alive pair of Eric and Marybelle had gained the Queen’s Flight. Having procured magic for only the prison, they could not delay a sailing. And since they had departed on their bridge without me, I found that again I could return to that static home which fit. But, no, my dreaming changed once more, for the Queen’s Flight became static itself. Her sails were lowered, and witch eyes could see a great iron hook tossed over like Marybelle and her stone. This metal was attached with a chain dreamed before, all that mass arresting the boat; and clear was this event. Eric had managed to detain the boat, waiting for the wife; and who was she to reject time’s master?
From box to box I moved, stepping from the coach to floating caskets holding staring, sinning men. With my influential visage, no difficulty had I in achieving a craft and its crew for the purposes of conveying me to the Queen’s Flight, a spry boat with fine sails sure to catch the cumbersome Queen in brief minutes, miss. Er, missus.
Since my dream presumed no drowning from this smaller coffin, scant terror had I upon dropping over the gunnel without allowing any sailor’s hand in aid. And well I settled on a hard plank with minor regard for the boat’s rolling side to side, for it seemed well attached to the river, even as these sinners were attached to me.
Typical they were to discuss transporting me gratis if only they could fuck me lifeless. Typical they were to be unconcerned with that flat chest when the other was decently lumped, and always the fundament remained for kneading and the thighs for fingers to crawl upon and gain the graveyard of my vulva. Typical was I to kick their testicles and jab their faces with my fingernails, and Jesus cure them as he had cured me. Unacceptable business was this, however, for the males shoved me harshly to the boat’s bottom where that desired end of mine became wet. Thereafter, with unpleasant speaking, they denied me further courtesy, for they returned to the dock despite all the world’s gold available to pay them for taking the wench to the Queen’s Flight—let her swim. Of course, she could not.
No hand these sinners offered as the lady quit their crate; and who could say of other sailors staring even more sexually at that wet fabric clinging to and thereby revealing the buttocks below? The witch could, presuming her further dream, one of endless males at her gender while ensconced in their boat caves. Nevertheless, the husband and sister awaited on that static casket; and who was I to deny them my dying after having killed them so often? But with no boat available, I would have to swim.
Of course, I could not.
The populace of the Queen’s deck stared. Not so acute were my eyes in this realized dream as to distinguish their faces, but certainly they knew of me, and were shouting and gesturing at the wife, the sister, to join, if only I were witch enough, family enough. If only I would not fail again. If only I could find enough love to accomplish an act instead of merely emoting, merely suffering, merely performing philosophy. If only on this last occasion I could love someone more than I loved myself.
Active were the docks with men unloading boats, all of them moving and sweating, most staring at me, some with loud voices mentioning their desire, mentioning my organs. Therefore, sinners’ minutes I walked before finding a tall stack of crates to hide my entry into the Thames. What a terrible dream this was to be so falsely real, for with all my nightmares of drowning in the ocean exactly as had no one in my life—not Mother nor Marybelle nor any witch nor sinner I knew—I would be the first, drowning not in the ocean, but the broad Thames so appropriate in being a sinners’ thoroughfare. Therefore, I entered the river with no alternative, for this was not my life, but a nightmare; not my living, but my death. Into the water I stepped to walk farther than I could see. Into the water to find the nature of nightmares, for when they end, the real begins, a realm superior in strength to dreams by being their source, nightmares being minor imaginings compared to the waking torments to have caused them. Into the water I moved to find myself awake, find that final instance of a nightmare turned real, and appropriately turned inverted; for I found my reality nightmarish. Enter the Thames to end my dreams, along with my life.
• • •
“Yes, sir, and that be a generous sum to end my worry, for you know the funds go to my employing company and not to me. For meself—”
“Are you sure the woman is as described?”
“A most comely and youthful person she be, sir, with the pale skin and most black hair you tell of. And, with my apologies, she did have to correct me for saying her a miss by telling me she be a missus.”
Eric drew stares. How uncouth for a gent to be seen with no waistcoat, and his hair a terror of singed, asymmetrical patches. Not to mention the throbbing red on his neck, skin that was painful even to view. He did not bother to explain, however. More dramatic explications would soon be required.
“She said she would achieve funds from her husband on the Queen’s Flight and then return to you?” Eric continued. “Did in fact you see this journey of hers?”
“No, and, sir, I did not. A waiting I continued, but with all of these boats and people here walking about, I lost her sight amongst them.”
This was the second of two land vehicles waiting for Eric at the docks. As the husband sought a sailor, Marybelle proceeded to the first vehicle, the covered wagon of bad happenstance.
She would enter the cave in my place. Before the imperfect dreaming, the plan had been for Marybelle to pass as “the servant’s sister” as per Eric’s booking, while the thin witch played the stowaway in a mariner’s chest, and the true servant boarded normally. But Alba was now chasing after the belief that all of her family had departed. Marybelle would thus box herself in a coffin more comfortable than the last.
“Aye, gent, and I saw your very missus headed out with two sailors of my acquaintance. I am presuming that the Queen they have reached by now and perhaps returned, though I see them not on the water nor along the wharves. A great lot of water we have here, mate, and likely they’re out on it again. But if you’ve a need to be at the Queen’s Flight, sir, well, my own craft is available for an easy voyage. It seems the Queen is anchored now, and probably waiting for your very self, sir.”
“I welcome your offer, sailor, but I’ve a further problem. Not only did I fail to board the Queen’s Flight, but so did a most important chest. A fine fee I have for he who conveys me and this weighty item to the Queen.”
“Well, sir, and my brother is with me here. I see it not on the dock—can two good men handle the chest, then?”
They could with Eric’s help and Grand’s money. And a thing of heft it was, the sailors moving the chest from the wagon and into the boat with no damage, Eric and the other males out to the Queen’s Flight, hoping to find the wife there.
They did not. Eric learned this before boarding by looking up to Elsie with a questioning expression, receiving a negative gesture. Then came difficulty with the chest. The captain would not have it until Eric had a good fee for him, the sailors of Eric’s conveyance and those of the Queen’s Flight requiring true exertion to load the thing, but on board it was with no damage, then dragged below decks into storage.
As this activity commenced, Eric heard Elsie’s story. Staring at hi
s hair and neck, she told of all the anguished pleading required to convince the captain into lowering the anchor. But praise God you’re reaching us, sir, and you say the missus is released? Pray Jesus, have they taken her back? You’re saying she was seen on a boat coming here and never arrived? Oh, and sir, are you thinking with her poor swimming that…?
The captain was saying they could tarry no longer. Eric replied that another person was due to fill his booking. The captain was saying they could tarry no longer—until Eric silenced him with currency. Nevertheless, they could not miss the tide despite any passenger’s generosity. As Eric considered returning with the boat whose sailors had remained at his request, the other passengers began wondering of the delay. For whom were they waiting now? they demanded. The answer, however, was readily evident. Of course, they awaited Lord Magistrate Naylor, for there he came.
Every idea in Eric’s life seemed to rush through him at once, and all were useless. Though he did not stand near the magistrate, Eric would not bother to hide. Meet again these two men must, the topics for discussion obvious. As Naylor stepped from the boarding ladder, he turned directly to Eric, staring as he approached the younger man, speaking with no introductions needed.
“My best wishes for your injuries, Mr. Denton, and what be the cause?”
“I was, in fact, assaulted on your streets by a hoodlum wielding a torch, quite an imaginative weapon. And you have my regard for the investigation that now commences, does it not?”
Not regarding that crime, but another; for with his first look, Naylor understood. He understood that his witch had been released with magic, the medium her sisters, and now he faced the instigator.
Feeling hot himself in the neck, Naylor turned away, taking the Queen’s captain aside for official speaking, an official investigation. How many in the Denton party? Three, but only two present. The third being? The servant’s sister whom Mr. Denton says may yet arrive; therefore we wait—but cannot for long. The magistrate then inquired as to the Dentons’ baggage. One large chest stored away but minutes ago.
The captain would know of English law’s interest in his ship, but Naylor would not admit that his most important prisoner had escaped, that he had allowed her heinous evil to again be set loose in London.
As these men spoke, Naylor’s party moved throughout the ship, their orders given on land: to search for a particular face, one known by all, for these males were jailors from Montclaire Prison well familiar with the comely escapee. Though a few handsome women were discovered, none resembled the witch, the wife. The chest was readily found, found to contain several smaller bags much like the remaining cargo in the hold. Nothing there contained any prisoner, any untoward person—and neither did any other niche of the Queen’s Flight, for all were examined.
More than ever before in his career of integrity, the magistrate knew his witches. Standing at the deck rail, he waited with the passengers for that missing person. Naylor recalled the witch’s first, inferior proof of her race, and looked to the Thames, recalling her distress at simply waiting on a clear pool’s bottom. If she attempted to walk this far, he thought, she would surely die. Therefore, Naylor was certain that he need only wait, and without his activity, the witch would be ended, out of his life, his land.
Not long was his waiting. Minutes later, Naylor stepped to the anchor chain, for how else would she board? Looking down, he saw a dark shape against that chain, too high to be the anchor. Unclear, but clear enough. The shape was covered with apparel—it wore a dress. The shape had dark hair, hands holding the thick metal. Distorted from the water’s movement, the shape was thick one ripple and thin the next—but what shape could it be except the body Sir Jacob had lost?
He looked away, and waited. He looked away, and was uncertain of his view. The witch was seen, yes, but more than her face, more than her appearance. The magistrate as well saw her danger. He saw his parent dead. He saw her killing a man. He saw all the men who would kill her, the latter perhaps including himself. Walk that far and die, he had thought, but the magistrate had been wrong again. Perhaps, perhaps, he thought, if she can remain breathing water long enough for me to decide her, then she deserves to live; and this was a new idea within him.
He looked down to the shape another moment, then moved away so that he could not see. He instructed his men to continue searching even though they had searched everywhere often. He told the captain to have his passengers quit their complaining, for he was in no position to accept such criticisms, not with space in Montclaire, more space than that morning, too much of God’s separation.
He sent Eric’s boat away. No further use had any passengers for these sailors, correct? the magistrate asked; and no one disagreed, not Mr. Denton, who was within hearing, though not nearby.
Nothing changed for Naylor, for no thoughts came, no decision. Nevertheless, after a sinners’ moment—a moral moment—he found relief, certain that no longer would the witch be his concern. Then he ordered all the guards into the boat again, and joined them in returning to London.
“I suggest, captain,” Naylor called up to the Queen’s Flight, “that you weigh anchor and be on with your journey, for it is long and will never begin if you continue waiting for nothing.”
The captain could not disagree. As Sir Jacob and his people retreated, the captain ordered the Queen’s anchor raised. Naylor looked. Naylor viewed the chain on the ship’s opposite side reach deck with no shape attached but that bare anchor on the end. Then Sir Jacob looked away, not turning again to the great vessel.
The captain could not disagree, but Eric could. As he turned to his first mate to have the sails raised, the captain was interrupted by Eric. Further waiting would net the captain further currency. The situation now, the ship’s master insisted, is one wherein all these paying passengers must be convinced—have you enough funds for that, sir? But Eric had not. Therefore, he ran to the rail near the anchor chain, looking down to intensely call back to the captain that a person was swimming below. A loud response ensued amongst the sailors of the Queen’s Flight, but none could see a person on the Thames. Below, the person is below the surface, Eric insisted. You must lower the anchor again to allow the person a path upward. Foolish this seemed to the sailors, but Mr. Denton proved himself most serious by removing his shoes and gently dropping overboard, for near enough was the magistrate’s starboard boat for its passengers to hear a port commotion. Once in the water, Eric called out that, yes! indeed a person was here and the anchor must be lowered since the person was sinking. And who was the captain to argue with a half-burned man attempting to save an invisible person from drowning?
Down, down he dove, but the Thames was too deep here for him to gain bottom. But he could see, see a witch pull herself up the anchor, her head eventually gaining good air. Astounded were all those aboard the Queen’s Flight to see this rescue, though none heard her speak, heard her describe her sighting to Eric. And when the ugly woman was brought aboard, none of Mr. Denton’s further allegations were doubted.
Chapter 44
Clear Spirit
I could hear the harbor voices through the salt. This was my first thought upon entering the Thames; my second was a poor reinforcement: that this submerging was exactly as terrible as I had dreamed, had recalled, had experienced and now lived again, for this was no dream. At once I recognized the day’s entire truth: that Marybelle lived, somehow lived, praise God yet lived, and that she and Eric had released me from prison, that we all would leave for America as carefully planned by my family. We all would continue living if only I could save myself, if I were witch enough to breathe the ocean that had killed my nights.
Immediately after this recognition came dying, the experience of breathing nothing, of being a fish, a fish dragged onto dry land and drowning on air. Instant flashes of panic assaulted me: of walking farther than I had ever imagined, nearly as far as Marybelle in the Irish Sea, an experience so deathly she could not describe it to her sister. A second panic was the impossi
bility of my leaping up for God’s pure air, for the smothering brine was too deep, an atmosphere above me. Then I forced myself to consider as well as fear, forced myself to accept the needed water, easing my breath out and the water in, air from the water seeping into my lungs. This firm intent restrained my emotions, which would ruin me if released; for I felt myself an infant confronted by sinners, a race never seen before stinking to scare me breathless; and so I was.
My only goal was to retrieve a known process, that of breathing not water, but the air in water, an activity never to have failed me, never to come easily. I became thoughtless, having no idea of other people living or dead, for the only person I knew was me, and she was dying. No thoughts of Marybelle impossibly alive had I. No notion of Eric so foolish as to desire me continually came. No idea passed of Naylor seeking my ashes. Only I existed, and I was drowning; but with all my intense feeling, the process of breathing water was not forgotten, was not rejected, eventually becoming manifested in the real, for I found myself surviving. Then came the next panic, for I recognized my mediocrity, the witch achieving air but typically little, not enough for walking forever, all the way to God or Satan.
I was walking: away from pilings, over mortar and brick shards, across depressions and mounds in the river’s bottom as though it were land, dry land with air; but no. Wet it was with only hints of air, scarcely enough to support me even if all my effort went to avoiding those panicked thoughts one failed breath away, one bad emotion removed. All of my effort was required to continue systematically with the process of moving my cheeks, holding my throat in a particular manner, allowing water to move in and out and its air to seep farther, not rushing lest that thick, unnatural fluid within me cause me to gag as though puking up a sinner’s prick. Then I would choke, and then I would die.
I was walking, and no more of the sinners’ words could be heard. Darker my atmosphere became, for above was deeper water, no cleaner here, and my eyes and nose were smarting. Carefully I reached to pinch my nostrils together, not accomplishing this closure before since all of my effort had been required for the mechanics of water breathing, effort required to avert that panic behind my mind, the panic of failing with some small aspect of my mouth or throat or lungs, thereafter to choke and gag and drown and die. But so superior did my nose feel that I was able to continue with better control of that imminent panic. Sensing my body beyond fear, I considered closing my eyes, which were stinging, but I required vision to guide me to the Queen’s Flight. But close my eyes I might have regardless, for I saw no ship, and knew not where the vessel was situated. Being lost, I became frightened, so frightened that I stifled on water and nearly choked. Nearly choked, and then I turned immortal, impossible; for I became totally filled with prayer for great God to aid me, yet was totally filled with awareness of the upcoming drowning, and was totally filled with such terror that I could have nothing else within me, terror I could not consider, only feel, feel the panic as all in a witch’s moment I gasped and then was completely filled with the need to save myself, for there was not enough air.