The music became more intense.
The Wili gathered around Giselle’s grave. The automaton rose up from the grave, dressed as a Wilis, complete with filmy wings. She danced with them, her face as blank and free of emotion as I expected. She didn’t even have the serenity of her sister Wili.
Then three of the dancers herded Hillarion back into the clearing. Over the next few minutes they forced him to dance with them with ever increasing speed. They pushed him around and around, prodding him to continue when he flagged. Limp and exhausted, he gripped his chest and collapsed into a marvellous stage death.
The satisfaction, almost glee on the faces of the Wili did not reach the silver shadow dancer. But she lifted her gaze from her own feet to the motionless man. And then she stared upward, into the lingering clouds of steam.
I saw what she saw, movement. Mysterious shadows, transparent forms that might be the outlines of women.
The true Wili waited.
Not much time now.
Giselle danced her solo of welcome into the sisterhood of the Wili.
And then Albrecht entered carrying a bouquet of flowers. He searched about, unaware of the Wili or of Giselle. He placed the flowers on her grave and knelt in true regret.
The Wili pounced upon him.
The true Wili chose that moment to flow into the open mouth of the automaton. They had found a willing a vessel to inhabit, to give them substance and power.
I struck the huge kettle drum with the padded stick with all my strength. Again and again, I pounded the instrument, setting up a deafening reverberation. The silver dancer stopped her dance in mid step, grabbed her ears and shrieked.
I dashed up the side steps to the stage.
“What is going on here?” Lady Ada demanded. She hastened onstage with long, angry strides. Charles Babbage approached from the opposite side of the stage.
Emma circled around behind Lady Ada. Her nimble fingers barely brushed the apron pocket containing the key.
The dancer continued to scream in pain.
I searched the array of levers behind the stage managers’ podium for a clue.
“Stop that! Give me back the key,” Lady Ada demanded.
“Oooooh,” Emma moaned, swaying between Lady Ada and the automaton. She panted as if she’d laced her corset too tightly, holding the back of her right hand to her forehead. She swayed and moaned some more. “The Wili, they’re here. They’re hungry. Oh so hungry. They need men’s souls. They thirst for vengeance.” She spread her arms so that the colourful shawl flared out, taking on the silhouette of wings.
A bit over-dramatic, but Lady Ada and Babbage hung back.
Deftly Emma hid the golden key inside her bodice. They would not get it away from her easily.
The automaton began to revive as the echoing drum beats faded. I had to hurry.
The levers backstage presented a puzzling array, different coloured handles, different lengths. I’m sure the stage hands knew them all intimately. Where would they logically reach for an emergency bleed of steam in an overheated boiler?
The third one from the left that stuck out an extra inch from the others. The one with a red silk twist of thread tied to it. The thread matched the fringe on Emma’s fabulous shawl. I leaned all my weight onto it. I did not want to move.
Hatpins have many uses. I jabbed one into the hoses snaking away from the control board.
Steam escaped through every piercing, hissing and whistling loud enough to wake the dead.
Or crush a silver dancer.
The mechanical dancer ran right and left, forward and back, circling and tearing at its mechanical ears. It howled. Its knees locked. Its spine bent at the hips and froze.
Lady Ada’s newest creation stared blankly at the floor. Temporarily dead.
“Give me the key!” Lady Ada demanded of Emma. “I have to reactivate the dancer.” She had to shout to be heard over the whistle.
“Myrta, Queen of the Wili stole it,” Emma stated, still in her breathy vision voice. She acted her role so well, I wondered if she truly communicated with a Wilis.
I had to hurry, before the ghostly spirits overcame the codex and restarted the dancer on their own, with souls that wanted violence.
In a flash I was across the stage and fumbling with the back panel of the automaton.
“No, Magdala,” Lady Ada cried. She ran to my side. Her hands covered mine. “If you remove the codex now, before she’s been properly deactivated, you will ruin the internal structures.”
“Good.” I wrenched open the panel.
Steam rose up to fill my mouth and nose. Foul stuff smelling of sulphur and rotting wood.
Was it steam, or the Wili trying to choke me?
Lady Ada tried to force the panel closed again. I gave her an indelicate shove with my elbow to her midsection. She doubled over.
In the seconds Lady Ada took to recover, I yanked out the first golden card of the codex to reach my fingers. The sulphurous mist thickened. I coughed it out of my mouth and held my breath. Then I grabbed a second card and a third, throwing them toward Emma, who neatly tromped on them, her heel gouging the delicate punch holes that guided pins and gears.
The mist tried to gag me. Or possess me. I cupped my hands and waved it back inside the automaton and slammed the back panel shut. The mechanical dancer jerked and flailed as spirits tried to make the gears and joints move. It began a St Vitus dance of death, rocking off balance, stumbling, circling blindly. Trying to find the music that would lead it back to life.
With one last jerk back, the dancing doll toppled, and crashed to the stage, all joints locked. Inert, dead, merely a lump of useless parts.
I breathed a sigh of relief and fell to my knees, coughing out the last of the Wilis effluvia.
“What have you done?” Charles Babbage screeched. “You’ve ruined my experiment.”
“I have no doubt you will try again, to prove that souls can inhabit machines, in hopes of resurrecting your wife and children,” Lady Ada said. She breathed heavily, eyeing me warily. “I presume you have an explanation, Madame Magdala.”
“Of course I do. A tale best told over a cup of coffee. But until then, I must inform you that Lord Reedstone is proposing a law in the Lords that will classify a soul as property. Theft or involuntary relocation of a soul will be punishable as larceny.”
Charles Babbage blanched. Lady Ada drew a deep breath. Her features settled into a calm mask, marred only by rapid breathing and a strong pulse beating visibly in her neck. “I sincerely hope this will be the end of attempts to bring my depraved father back into this world.”
But it wouldn’t. She and I both knew that.
I said, “Come, Emma. We will retire to the nearest cafe and allow Madame Carlotta to resume her rightful role as Giselle. She needs to finish this rehearsal, and we need to return to the Book View Café. Tell me, have you ever ridden a Pegasus? It’s quite an adventure.”
“Oh, I look forward to it. When do we leave?”
Introduction: Dancing in Cinders
More adventures with Madame Magdala, an entirely new story written just for this collection.
Dancing in Cinders
Irene Radford
March 1835
I thought about light and glass frequently that . . . interesting . . . year. Watery spring sunlight drifted through the rain-spotted windows of Café du Paris on Charing Cross Road in London. The shaft of yellow sunlight pierced thick mullioned glass windows and turned my café au lait to shimmers of gold that enticed me to look deeper into its depths, find truth in the whirlpool I made with my spoon.
Not now. I couldn’t afford the time or distraction of getting lost in the swirls and patterns of my coffee. Deliberately I put down the spoon and sipped. The barista had to be French or Italian. One of the few things the owners had done right was to hire him. I didn’t trust any Englishman to serve a decent cup of anything but tea. Or maybe beer, though the Bavarians did that better.
And I didn�
�t trust the tall fur trader sitting at the centre table. He sat alone, yet he’d placed his tall top hat—excellent beaver fur died coal black to match his frock coat—at one place beside him, and his caped cloak—lined with a Hudson’s Bay trade blanket for extra warmth—on the other chair, as if reserving those places for people he expected to join him. He’d been there an hour and he never looked up at new patrons entering with anything like expectation. Instead he looked wary and keenly observant, shifting his attention from newspaper to seated patrons, and back again. The weathered lines around his jaw and eyes and his permanently sun-darkened skin told of a hard life. I needed to see him walk to know more. To know if he’d been hired by my lady’s enemies to kidnap her.
He hadn’t the look of the romantic, glory-seeking followers of Lord Byron.
In the meantime I could imagine the intensity of the fur trader. While not beautiful, as so many dandies were in London these days, he was rugged and attractive in a raw sort –of way.
And he appeared taller than me. His long legs stretched beneath the chair opposite him and the table top brushed his first rib. Few men topped me. That made him more attractive by the minute.
Not today. For either of us.
This lean and hard man, practical and decisive, was obviously on home-leave and hadn’t been in London long enough for the coal-smoke-filled air to soil his fresh-from-the-tailor linen and waistcoat.
Occasionally his fingers flexed as if they itched and he reached for the pocket of his cloak as he reassured himself that his weapon was loaded and close to hand. Smart man.
My hands felt the same way. As a governess, I’d spent too many years protecting my young charge to be comfortable without a pistol in my pocket, a stiletto disguised as decorative hat pin, and a skene dbuh tucked into the top of my boot.
Another time I might be interested in this man. I allowed my assessing gaze to linger a little too long on his thin-lipped grimace. He looked up just then and returned my stare with equal assessment and a regretful smile.
I sat with my back to a corner, as I did most afternoons at this time, the multi-paned window to my left and a bookshelf filled with newspapers and magazines from Paris, Lyon, and Marseilles on my right. Those papers sadly needed replacing; the news was a month old.
Another figure walked between me and the suspicious fur trader. I’d noted her when she arrived a few moments before and dismissed her the moment she ordered tea and marzipan for herself and a young maid loaded with shopping parcels. The girl’s country seamstress might be skilled, but she hadn’t visited London in over a year, probably three. Her pleated skirt didn’t flare wide enough, and knotwork in a vaguely Celtic pattern adorned the area between knee and hem. That trim hadn’t been in fashion for quite some time. The ribbon on her hand-decorated bonnet was clumsily finished and the rooster feathers adorning the crown might be colourful and attractive, but they were not proper ostrich. I guessed she came from landed gentry—her muslin gown might be out-dated but it was of good quality.
“Madame Magdala?” the girl asked shyly in an educated accent. Her hands shook slightly, so that her teacup rattled in its saucer. She must have recognized me as my alter-ego, then, in spite of my proper black dress. A sharp girl. The maid took a chair at an empty table three places to my right, toward the back of the café.
“Yes?” I drawled affecting the east European accent of my alternate personality.
“I… I was wondering what you charge for a reading?”
She didn’t look as if she could afford my usual fees. My reading was typically a novelty for friendly and casual looks into the future for the wealthy and fashionable and their courtesans who attended salons on the fringe of high society. Those fees padded my bank account quite nicely.
The money I earned as Madame Magdala was needed to secure a safe future for me and Miss Augusta Ada Byron.
This country girl though, looked as if she truly needed advice from me, Miss Elise the governess, and not some Gypsy fakery. Was she the reason the swirls in the coffee compelled me?
“For you, my dear, nothing. Sit. Join me.” I gestured expansively. The polite murmurings around the busy café stilled as all turned to gape at me. Madame Magdala is flamboyant and always the centre of attention. My alter-ego, Miss Elise, governess to Miss Byron, was meek and invisible. Well maybe not meek. I could defend my charge vigorously when I needed to.
“Vhat do you need, my child?” I asked the country girl.
“Aemelie Griffin, Madame.” She held her gloved hand across the table in greeting.
I brushed her palm with my fingertips, polite but distant, not inviting intimacy.
“I… am in London with my cousin. For the Season. But I… I have no interest in the dandies my cousin thinks are appropriate for me and my station.” She kept her eyes lowered and her words quiet.
“Ah,” I sighed with appropriate romantic depth. “Another has caught your eye. Perhaps someone above your station?” If there was a title involved, it was minor or distant in her family tree.
“Lord William, Baron King,” she said even more quietly.
My attention riveted upon her, forgetting those around me. Baron King was dangerous. The future I had witnessed within the swirls of coffee had grand plans for Lord William.
“How did you meet Lord William?” I picked up my spoon without thinking and stirred my coffee into a deep whirlpool. I would not look into the swirls just yet.
“He’s our neighbour back home.” She looked up, hope sparkling in her eyes and a half smile on her lips. “I’ve known him all of my life. But of late he spends more time in London than at the estate. He’s making a name for himself in politics.”
“I see. At home you are one of a very few pretty girls of the right class to attract his attention at assemblies and private gatherings. Here in London you are an insignificant shadow among many beautiful women bent upon marriage to the most eligible bachelor of the Season.” We were in early March. The Season had not officially begun, but ladies flocked to the city with their debutantes in tow, scrambling for access to the best modistes, and lining up invitations to the balls, musicales, and garden parties. All to find husbands for the girls. To become the wife of a man wealthy enough to support her was the only respectable occupation for a young lady, unless she waited too long and had to settle for the position of governess or paid lady’s companion. Such as I had done.
Yet my motives were more… radical. I had chosen my place primarily to protect those endangered by Lord Byron’s depravity. Over the years I decided to avoid marriage. I’d not let any man gain control over me, by law, or by love.
Miss Griffin’s blushes drew my attention away from the spinning coffee and my own musings. Lord William was already much in demand.
“Yes.” She heaved a tremendous sigh that lifted her bosom dramatically. “My father is the rector of the parish.”
Across the room, the mysterious, attractive fur trader took notice of her quivering bosom.
Hmm. Perhaps he was no enemy, but merely a man on home leave in search of a city wife. Did he have a country wife—perhaps a Red Indian country wife—whom he had left in the wilderness until his return? Many traders did.
This girl deserved better. But I also needed her to open her eyes and seek a husband closer to her station in life. Sir William was not fated to love her. I knew that. A vision in my coffee had told me.
I might find truth there. I might find only coffee. I never knew. My clients always presumed I found, and spoke a true vision. I made certain of that.
Keen observation told me more than my vague and symbolic visions.
My eyes tracked the circular motion of the golden liquid. My perception closed inward, and darkness dominated the periphery. The patterns danced within the circles. Dancers waltzing the patterns of life.
The girl, Aemelie Griffin, danced around the edges with a tall and lean man full of intensity. A man strong enough to protect and love her in an uncertain world. Their steps took on a dif
ferent cadence from the waltz–a stomping country dance, exuberant and joyful.
I couldn’t help but smile at the truth of that image. For at the centre of the dance, still following a graceful and romantic waltz, glided my girl, Miss Ada, with her own strong man with hints of gold in his hair—like a coronet. An Earl’s coronet.
But the coronet turned to flames encircling them, burning all in its path to cinders. The flames reached dangerously close to Miss Ada’s glowing skirts.
“I have it on good authority that Lord William will attend Lady Hasselwhythe’s salon tonight.” I pitched my words so the fur trader could hear them clearly. Lady Hasselwhythe and I had an understanding. I had vowed never to reveal her string of young lovers to her husband, and she had issued me an open invitation to her salon. Any evening, with whatever company I chose. “My card. Present it to the footman at the door.”
“Oh, thank you, Madame. Bless you,” the girl gushed. She clutched my hand tightly as she rose. She practically danced out the door. Her maid followed tiredly.
I scooped up her marzipan and ate it, letting the sugar and almond paste restore some of my depleted humours. A vision always left me limp and listless for a time.
Then I held out a second card toward the fur trader.
“And will Lord William truly attend the salon?” he asked in a deep gravelly voice, as if he’d swallowed too many dusty winds.
“At some time in the evening, perhaps later than expected. But the young baron’s first destination is a private musicale evening. You have Miss Aemelie Griffin to yourself for several hours. Convince her quickly that she is in love with you.”
And then my charge, Miss Byron, proceeded into the café and ordered hot chocolate before she even looked for me. She had known I would be here. Her maid flopped into a chair at the same table Miss Griffin’s servant had just departed.
The fur trader gathered his hat and cloak and left, dragging his right leg slightly. In that moment I doubted that he would return to his wilderness. If he did, he would take a wife with him to a staid job in one of the fur factories rather than exploring the wilderness in search of beaver and otter. Either way I suspected Miss Aemelie Griffin would be satisfied.
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