by Paul Butler
“You must know your mother is too old to be with child,” I say quickly. But I can feel my eyelids batter and I can see the disbelief on the girl’s face.
“It would be very foolish to try to lie to me again,” Emma says quietly, holding the candle very still. “I’m the only friend you’ve got.”
I know I am undone this time. My confidences must be spilled to this girl like fish guts to the knife. She holds me utterly in her power. “Yes,” I say with a sigh, “she’s pregnant, and I don’t know whether the curse will be lifted. I tried. I told her I thought it would work, but I’m not sure.”
Emma jumps off the bed and tugs on Mary’s dress. The little sister follows. “Good,” she says. “I was going to set light to your bed if you’d told another lie. It would have spread and burned your cabin down in no time at all. I’m glad you decided to trust me.”
She leads Mary around me and gains the doorway. “All I’ll ask for now is that you keep me informed about Mother. Tell me as soon as you know the sex of her child. I may require your help.”
She opens the door, turns back, and smiles at me oddly.
“Do you believe my parents are cursed?”
It takes me a while to answer. The girl’s expression, though frivolous, challenges me again to be truthful.
“Not the way your mother thinks, no,” I find myself saying.
I thought Emma would not understand my meaning. However much I dislike her, I have no wish to insult the person who holds my fate in her hands. But it’s obvious straight away that she does understand. Far from being insulted, my admission has had the opposite effect. The girl’s eyes glisten with delight.
“I know exactly what you mean,” she says. “What could my parents have done to deserve such children? That’s what you are thinking. With what manner of changelings have they been burdened?”
She stares at me for a moment longer. Then, grabbing hold of Mary’s hand, she lets out a laugh and disappears with her candle through the open door.
I am left in darkness.
———
I drop the last of the firewood David Butt collected into the hearth. Tomorrow it will be gone and I must start to forage again. The very idea makes my bones ache and I would like to save some fuel. But tonight I must stay warm, as I cannot sleep. Emma Rose has murdered sleep.
The sentence stops me for a moment. I hold from striking the flint again so my thoughts can settle. Apt though it is, the idea of “murdering sleep” isn’t mine. I crouch in darkness, allowing this echo to lead me back to its source. I find myself sitting on a hard stone floor in a small damp cell. The playwright’s cell is much worse than my original room in Newgate, but it surprises me how much I appreciate the company. I could do with a cellmate now, rather than the odd parade of people who come and go like characters in a nightmare. I think of my former prison companion and wonder how long he lived. He’s bound to be long dead by now, of course, or else he’d be more than a hundred years old. Everyone from my golden years is gone. The only companions I have now are the dry sticks at my feet. I strike the flint hard and the twigs take. Smoke wafts up as I poke the burning stick ends under the pile. My chest heaves as I cough, splutter, and cough again.
The room takes on the gold of the flame and, as if my hearing were awakened by light, I distinctly catch a plaintive call of “Sara … Sa-ra” from below. The sound, I realize, has been there all the time, as constant and as unnoticed as my own breathing.
———
Mr. Jarvis’s description of ungodliness and sedition had prepared me for something more than the harmless-looking man whose cell I was to share.
I was worried enough when the guard, Gilbert, gripped my upper arm with one hand and unlocked the cell door with the other. The clank of the lock sent reverberations through my heart. The guard pushed open the door and made a bit of a show of hauling me roughly into the cell, though his heart wasn’t in it—I could tell—and his grip was rather loose. When I had got my bearings, I turned to see the playwright sitting on a blanket in the corner.
“What’s this?” he asked the guard. He frowned at my presence as though surveying a mangy animal he had been asked to purchase.
My first thought on looking him over was one of amazement that such a slight and insubstantial creature should have so upset a man like the governor, so full of power and importance. My second thought was one of indignation that his looks and words should have disparaged me before I had had the chance to disparage him.
“Governor’s orders. She’s to share with you.”
The stranger looked at me once more and groaned. Then he gazed up to the tiny barred window through which daylight scattered. “You took away a hundred faithful bedfellows and replace them with only one. Why must you cut me off so savagely from all society?”
“What nonsense is this?” the serving woman demanded. “You had no company before.”
“The blanket of which you robbed me, madam, housed so many fleas that each night seemed an orgy.”
“None of your filth!” she snapped. “You should be glad we took the blanket away if it was infested. If we’d known you were using the tiny creatures to gratify yourself, we would have taken it away earlier.”
The stranger raised his eyebrows and smiled at me.
The serving woman looked in my direction. “I’ll be bringing food for both of you later on,” she said. “Everything will work out fine,” she added softly.
“Thank you,” said the playwright, waving at them both and smiling in an exaggerated fashion. “Thank you so much for not starving us!”
The serving woman gave the playwright one more forbidding look and followed Gilbert from the cell. The door clunked shut. Then came the sound of the bolt being drawn. I remained where I was, not more than four yards from the stranger. For a moment there was not the slightest sound. Then the playwright drew up his knees slowly and clasped his hands together in a steeple.
“Well,” he said without taking his eyes from the window. “What manner of jape in life’s comic dance brings you to Newgate prison?”
I backed away to the opposite corner and sat down. “It’s not a joke and I don’t find it funny.”
He lowered his gaze to meet mine. An earring almost lost in the curls of his reddish hair lent him a roguish look his delicate frame could not quite sustain. Thin lines formed about his eyes as his lips curled into a smile. His was a face accustomed to laughter, it seemed, and the thought scared me. If ordinary things like humour could exist here, this meant people must cease to see the horror around them. In turn, that meant they saw this place as home.
“Oh, but you are wrong,” he said with a hoarse laugh. “We must take what merriment we can. Life makes little sense if you try to take it too seriously.”
I had never met a playwright before, but even at thirteen I found this man fitting into my preconceived notions—his affectation, his inability to see things as they are, as though life were only a performance. “That’s nonsense,” I said. “I do take it seriously and I hate being here. So should you.”
“You know that I am a poet and a playwright?” he asked with quiet pride.
“Yes,” I replied sullenly. “They told me.”
“Know, then, that I view misfortune differently from most people.” He gazed at the steeple of his hands as he spoke. “I’ve come to see life itself as a play, a play with random and unplanned scenes.” His voice rose dramatically and he paused for an instant before continuing. “Life is like a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”
“When you write about it, I suppose it must be.”
His face showed some surprise. But he was too arrogant to be insulted.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Thirteen,” I answered, looking at him askance.
“And what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” I mumbled.
“You must have some idea.”
“Maybe I do, but I’m not going to tell you, am I?”
“I don’t see why not,” he said, tilting his head and trying to make me out. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours.”
“I know your story already,” I replied, picking at the straw near my foot.
“Fame at last! Even if it’s fame within these cursed walls, it’s better than the pit of oblivion.”
“I don’t see it’s anything to be proud of, writing about witchcraft and assassination.”
He smiled again, reversing his steeple and turning his palms upwards to examine them. “I didn’t write about witchcraft and assassination,” he replied quietly. “I wrote about the corrupting power of ambition. Never mistake the cover for the book.” He smiled to himself, still gazing at the lines on his palms.
His evasions made me restless and irritable. I twisted a straw in my fingers. “They told me you had witches in place of clergy and that a rightful king was slain.”
“Oh, yes. It was a story from Scottish history. A nobleman, Macbeth, murdered the king Duncan, concealed the crime, and became king himself.”
“So it is about assassination.”
The playwright breathed in very slowly, then smacked his lips. “No, I told you,” he said, “I write beyond the details. Events are only important for what they reveal in men’s hearts.”
“You’re just playing with words,” I said.
The playwright closed his eyes for a moment and gave a bitter, soundless laugh. “Why won’t you tell me your crime?” he asked. “Did you murder someone? Am I safe here with you?”
He didn’t smile but I could tell he was joking, and the question made me relax a little.
“They think I’m a witch or something,” I said.
“Who does?” he asked.
“My parents … my mother and stepfather.”
“Why?”
“Because of Ireland. They think the forest infected me with evil.”
“No, what incident caused them to turn you in? Something must have happened.”
I had been twisting a straw around one of my fingers, thinking quite beyond the words I spoke, about Thomas Ridley’s red lips and sandy hair. Suddenly I realized the straw was around my fourth finger and resembled a wedding ring. I pulled it quickly from my finger and let it fall. “My stepbrother,” I said, feeling my face burn. “They found us together.”
“Ah,” the playwright said thoughtfully. “For how long had you lived together?”
“A few weeks. My mother only just remarried.”
“Ah,” he said, as though he had discovered something.
“What do you mean, ‘ah’?” I demanded.
He ignored my question and asked his own.
“How long has your father been dead?”
“Not long. Scarcely two months. Why?”
“Why? Because the more guilty people feel, the more likely they are to accuse others.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that your mother and your stepfather cannot endure the idea that you are judging them.”
“I’m not judging him.” I shook my head, wishing we had not started on this. “You don’t know anything about it. What kind of fool ends up in prison for writing a play anyway?”
“What kind of thirteen-year-old ends up in prison?” He seemed amused again. “As you are less than half my age, you must be more than twice the fool; you have achieved the same degree of folly in less than half the time.”
I stared at him hard for a few moments, then looked away, gazing up towards the window.
We were silent for a while. I thought of Thomas, trying to picture what he’d be doing now. Was he remonstrating with his father, or somewhere in the prison offices below, perhaps, arguing to gain my freedom? Try as I could, I failed to picture Thomas locking horns with Mr. Ridley or Mr. Jarvis; in either case it would be like a feather doing battle with a stone.
A movement from the corner interrupted my thoughts. Something had stirred under the straw. The playwright pulled some crumbs out of his pocket and whistled softly. I glanced over to see two black eyes and a quivering snout emerge from under the straw. “Looks like I must seek out what company I may,” the playwright said softly, whistling again and bouncing the crumbs upon his palm. “We two are not the only fools.”
I wanted to remain angry with the playwright, but there was so little else to do. The rat was large and grey when it fully emerged. As it approached, then scurried away, stood on its hind legs, sniffed the air, and squeaked, the creature excited first my attention and, before very long, something else. Its shining eyes and eagerness drew tender pity from some deep well inside me.
The playwright threw a crumb, which the rat caught in its pink hands. “We three sages will dine and sup each night together,” he told the animal, “and talk of the world beyond this prison; who rises, who falls, who wins, who loses.”
“I never said anything against my stepfather,” I said sullenly. “He couldn’t think I was judging him, because I gave no clue.”
I thought too much time had passed for the playwright to remember how our conversation had stalled, and I felt foolish for starting again at the same point, but I didn’t know how else to join the odd camaraderie taking place in the cell.
“Oh, do you like him, then?” the playwright asked quietly, holding out another crumb, trying to get the rat to come closer.
“No.”
“And do you like the fact your recently widowed mother has married him?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then, unless you are a very much better actor than you appear, your very presence judges them. Is that not so?”
I stared down at the straw by my feet. This time, I had to admit, he had a point.
CHAPTER TEN
Is it my judgment that Simon Rose fears? Do I hold a blade of condemnation over his quivering form, as I did over my mother and Mr. Ridley, without even knowing it? I listen to the crackling fire and try to imagine the workings of a mind still plagued by nightmares after more than forty years of life, a mind so terrified of an old woman that approaching her is out of the question—even when a loved one goes missing, even when the old woman may hold some particle of information about the disappearance. What would my playwright companion have made of such a creature? What demons of guilt or fear must cower within such a breast?
The plaintive search still goes on in the darkness beyond. I hear footfalls in the forest, the snapping of twigs, men calling to each other. They have given up calling her name. Soon dawn will lift the veil of night, and any forlorn hopes lurking in the darkness will scatter into comfortless day. The searchers will realize the lost one has slipped beyond reclamation. They will return to their homes to plan for more searches, but hope will have gone from them.
A rustle of leaves and the scuff of wood—something stirs outside, very close to my door. My heart stops as I turn from the fire. Simon Rose has come! He has braved the night at last because he suspects I know what happened to Sara. Perhaps Emma has told him about her sister’s visit and my own lie.
The door slowly creaks open and I rise, my breath suspended. But Elizabeth Rose, not Simon, slips in. She closes the door, her movements deft and silent as a lizard’s.
“I couldn’t knock,” she says quietly, her large eyes blinking in the glow of the firelight. “They might have heard.” She goes over to the bed and sits. “We haven’t found her. I knew we wouldn’t.”
“But it’s not even a full day yet,” I say, recovering my breath. “When the daylight comes you will find your Sara.”
Elizabeth gives a nervous smile. “Emma told me everything about her visit,” she says quietly.
My legs turn to lead. I daren’t try to sit; any movement might cause my collapse.
“You’ve no idea how grateful I am to you,” she says, glancing up at me. The firelight shines golden pools in her eyes and I see they are filling with tears.
“Grateful?” The weight of uncertainty drags me down at last; I collapse upon the chair and
grip its edges with my fingers.
“Emma is so sensitive. She feels things more deeply than you can imagine.”
Blood rushes around my ears so fast, her words are muffled.
Yet I understand the danger is passing. Whatever Emma has told her mother, it is nothing that will damn me.
“She told me how you comforted her and Mary,” Elizabeth continues. “Poor Emma is so distraught about Sara. I don’t know how she’ll take it when it’s clear that all is lost.”
I run my hand over my forehead, trying to fathom what Elizabeth has said.
Emma, sensitive and distraught? I, a comfort to her? I have a sudden vision of Emma: Each of her hands holds the strings of a puppet. One of the puppets has the large eyes and delicate frame of Elizabeth Rose. The other is an ancient and hag-ridden creature like myself.
“I let Emma and Mary know I was with child. I had to tell them something that would ease the pain of their sister’s loss. Emma made me promise to come to you often as the baby grows inside me. She said you were so wise and sympathetic, you would ensure a happy outcome. ”
“Of course,” I say hoarsely. I am beginning to see there are worse things than detection, and that my unwitting role in Sara’s death, and even the lies I told afterwards, may be easier to own up to than the crimes that lay ahead. There is a pit yawning for me, a downward pathway to betrayal and self-disgust if I remain at the mercy of Emma Rose. Something rumbles inside my chest, a primal warning to extricate myself from this fate.
“But Simon is the problem now,” Elizabeth whispers.
“What about him?” I ask.
“He thinks you are responsible for Sara’s death.”
The hammer-blow comes with sickening power. A minute ago, when Elizabeth first entered and I was braced for any onslaught, nothing happened. Now that I am tired and slackened with relief, it hits me. And it hits with such force I can feel my secrets spilling like caplin teeming from a broken net. It is relief that sweeps over me as I part my lips to speak.
“Elizab—”
“You mustn’t blame him too much,” she interrupts with some passion, “although I see it must hurt.” I hold off for a moment. It seems I was mistaken; she does not concur with her husband. “Simon is the most superstitious man I have ever known,” she continues, her tone almost a plea. “It’s part of his faith, you see, his tendency to see monsters lurking in every shadow. In the daytime he’s a man true and brave, but at night his courage scatters like the sand. It’s his burden. As spiritual leader he has to be more sensitive than other men …” Her speech trails away, and she seems embarrassed for a moment. “Simon’s father told him a story about you,” she continues. “When I mentioned you tonight, he told me again, in more detail than before. His fear of you is fresher than ever.”