Darker Still

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  It was magical indeed, but…perhaps not magical enough. “If this were a true fairy tale, my kiss would release you from this prison.”

  He shifted, cupping my cheeks in his hands, his eyes holding the power to stop my heart, to cleave my heart, or to make it race. “But if I can’t have you, this…” He brushed his lips over mine. “Then I don’t ever want to leave.”

  I drew back, his words striking a chord. “That’s a dangerous thing to say. The demon would wish you to say so. You’ll leave this prison,” I insisted. “We have the counter-curse, and I will free you. We cannot live like this—”

  He sat back, his brow furrowing. “Of course…I…”

  I grasped his hands, desperately trying to maintain focus. The pleasure I felt destroyed my sense of time. I was moved to confess: “I was lost to you the moment I saw your portrait.” I touched his lips with my fingertips. “And now…I cannot imagine not having you with me. But this place has its dangers, and we’re so close to freedom. Mrs. Northe demanded I tend your spirit.

  “Speak of something other than death and spell casting, Jonathon. We need ironclad souls for what’s to come. You’ve seen what’s in my nightmares. Give me something else to dream of. Tell me of England, reclaim life beyond this prison.” I moved toward the bookshelf, to that place hidden from the frame’s view.

  “Where are you going?” He called from the center of the room. “Stay, sit with me.” His murmur was like a purr. “I can think of many more pleasant things than talking.”

  “From here, I can’t be seen. It’s safer, should someone notice the painting changed.” I took a seat against the shelf and gazed up at him. He maintained his position but shifted so that he could see me. “Stay there and tell me of England. I’ve always wanted to visit!”

  “Only if you’ll tell me all about your great city that awaits us beyond this frame,” he countered, offering a look that thrilled me head to toe. “So we two may dream of it.”

  “Of course!”

  Jonathon spoke of his country estate in Greenwich (the pale imitation of which we were currently inhabiting). I told him of Greenwich Village downtown and what I found lovely there. We compared the bustling streets of London to those of New York, what new inventions were where, how many of our streets were lit by gas lamp and how much of the riversides were industrialized. I regaled him with the glory of Central Park and he did the same about Regents and the gardens in Chelsea. I confessed how many New York neighborhoods had borrowed British names, and he joked that Americans were child imitators.

  We laughed and shared, dreaming up schemes and planning a future together. It was thrilling. A world existed outside this peculiar circumstance, and the more we talked about it, the more real it became. It was only a matter of time. Warmth fought his devilish contagion; every laugh and joke brightened him; and he complemented my wit at every turn, his just as sharp and engaging. Our limited world was aglow with appreciation.

  And all I wanted to do was kiss him more. Of the same mind, he moved to stand over me.

  “You say you can’t be seen here?” he asked, his voice low.

  I looked up. “No.”

  And suddenly he dove upon me with a flurry of action, kneeling over me, scooping me up to himself with a rain of kisses, and seizing caresses roving across my body. I gasped, arching myself to him and acquiescing to his exploratory touches, unable to help myself. The sensations were heaven.

  “If it’s our spirits here, Natalie, beyond our coil,” he gasped, “what could be more glorious than the coupling of two spirits? The joining of our hearts and souls by the spirit of our bodies—”

  “Coupling? Do you mean—”

  “I want you so terribly,” he said, shifting to look at me, his eyes wide and his hands trembling on the buttons of my blouse. “It’s all I can think of.” He breathed me in deeply, dragging his nose and lips up my cheek. “You’re the only thing that’s real in this hell.” He’d managed to undo a few buttons of my high-collared blouse, and his lips were instantly at my throat as he moaned, “Good God, you’ve given me my senses again. I’m starving to feel alive…”

  He tore at my blouse, and I couldn’t say that seductive abandon wasn’t appealing. I could still claim chastity. These weren’t actually our bodies, though we felt every sensation as fully as if they were; these were our souls. How beautiful was that? Here the laws of propriety were only as we made them. But still…I felt flush with furious desire, but my mind reeled with apprehension. “Lord Denbury, I don’t wish to deny you, but…is this truly the place for such liberties to be taken?”

  “Jonathon,” he insisted. “You must call me Jonathon, and I’d never ask more of you than you wanted to give, Natalie.” He cupped my cheek in his hand. The apprehension on my face stilled him as if it were a slap or a douse of cold water. He drew back. “I am too bold, surely—”

  “It isn’t that,” I breathed, touching his cheeks gently and knowing mine were similarly hot. “I want to be everything you need…But not like this, under mad circumstances.” I struggled to regain my sense, my focus, my power; the dangerous mission that was mine alone lay yet ahead of me. I straightened myself against the bookshelf and tended to my buttons.

  The truth was that I hesitated because he hadn’t yet said he loved me.

  And a girl could give herself only in love. Mutual love. Otherwise she’d ruin herself for nothing. A girl’s body was a prize. It had to be more than asked for. It had to be earned, worshipped, and avowed. Generally, rings and other oaths were a part of the bargain. Supernatural circumstances being what they were and with my life potentially on the line, I certainly felt I deserved a vow. A ring would be nice too.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, discomfort overtaking him. He jumped up. “I must seem the animal. Surely you’ve seen too much of that. Perhaps you think me too much like my other half.”

  “No, you mustn’t think that,” I scolded, straightening my dress as I moved away from our private corner. “There’s been so much upheaval in my life in so short a time…I just can’t give everything so soon—”

  I noticed movement across the frame, signaling our time was at an end.

  I rose and moved toward the image of my body beyond, turning to offer him this: “Before I met you within this portal, your other half accosted me at the Art Association. While I admit he was too bold, he did say one thing that’s true: that we’d be beautiful together.”

  I didn’t wait for his response. Tumbling back into my body, I startled a poor maid who must have begun to think I was an uncanny statue added to the exhibit room.

  “Are you all right, miss?” the matronly woman said, steadying my dizzy form while I was reeling to regain my balance from the cross between worlds I alone could feel.

  I nodded, blushing, and moved to pick up the pad of paper I’d left on the wooden bench at the side wall. She continued her cursory cleaning, looking at me warily as I sat to sketch as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Alternately she’d turn to gaze at the painting. Jonathon’s magnetism affected everyone, it was true. He didn’t look nearly as bad as when I’d found him. He looked refreshed, even vibrant now, and the fact gave me strength and courage.

  As did his kisses.

  Nothing could ever take away that exquisite bliss. I keep reliving it.

  • • •

  We dined early that night at Mrs. Northe’s home. She’d had the good sense to invite a man with whom to entertain Father, a British colonel who had more stories from around the globe than Scheherazade had in her Arabian nights. Plenty to keep my father entertained, and Mrs. Northe and I, as usual, took to our tea while Father and the colonel took to the den.

  I asked about Maggie, and Mrs. Northe said her niece had been pouting lately so she simply didn’t have the patience to extend an invitation. I pledged that once this madness was settled I’d make great efforts to regain our friendship.

  Mrs. Northe then relayed that at some point in the morning, guards had called on a
local mental alienist to “assist”—or rather, escort—Crenfall out of the Metropolitan, where the man had been distressing others as he shambled along—limping, she was proud to note, proving he’d been in her home the night of the break-in to receive her bullet.

  He was seen muttering to himself from one wing of the museum to the other. He’s currently being examined at a local institution. I doubt he’ll be released. I wonder. If we are successful, will the dark hold over that wretch cease, or will his last shred of sanity snap? What lured him to such a fate in the first place? Will we ever know?

  But no more distractions. The exciting thing (aside from kisses), the important thing was that we had the answers!

  To share my discovery, I again tried speaking in halting words. My face burned at the discomfort of it, but I fought for each syllable. Mrs. Northe signed to me that it was all right, that I didn’t have to tax my voice if I didn’t want to. Frustrated tears rolled down my face. I did want to speak. But I still hated how I sounded and wondered when that burden of shame would go away. There were many more inelegant pauses in my speech at the time than I’ve written here.

  “I…need to practice,” I said aloud. That simple phrase seemed to take ages to utter. My mind was a thousand times faster than my tongue. It was unbearable. But while I may lure the possessor with my disability, I would not trap him unless I overcame it and spat back at him the evil he’d dealt.

  “Of course, dear, and I’m honored that you do so around me.”

  I reminded myself that magic was flowing through my veins, magic that allowed me alone to share in Jonathon’s secret prison. Perhaps it was not magic but a miracle that allowed me to help restore him. Faith. I just needed to have faith, something that had been serving me well of late.

  I told her of the spell phrase, animus ren, of how they must be separate words, Latin to Egyptian, and she jumped up to consult her book. Her eyes widened.

  “Soul Name. Ren is the Soul Name. How fitting, of course! Good work, Lord Denbury! Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “I’m glad Jonathon did. It was like he was a whole new person. Here we have been trying to solve a mystery for a man. Men seem to like to figure things out for themselves.”

  Mrs. Northe laughed. “You are frightfully insightful, Natalie. Oh, and he’s Jonathon now?”

  I blushed. I went on to tell her about how the demon had called Denbury “John” and how surely the title “Beelzebub” would fit the bill for the counter-curse.

  “Oh, Natalie, that’s it!” she cried. “Of course. Answers are always in the space between. Well done, you two!” Then her tone became more serious. “And now, Natalie, it will be up to you to deliver the final strike.”

  I nodded gravely, accepting the task. Accepting my fate. And then we began to formulate our plan.

  I’ll detail the plan of course, but for now I need to set these pages aside.

  I’d like to sit and take a cup of tea with Father. I’ve neglected him of late, amid this obsession. And if something should happen…I want him to feel loved and appreciated, for nothing would have been possible without him. My life has meaning because he allowed me to be who I am. I’ve lived in safety because he did not cast me off. I owe him time and affection before I go and put myself in danger. I shall write “I love you” upon a little note card and hand it to him before I leave him. There could be no better parting words.

  June 19

  3 a.m.

  (Awaking)

  One last nightmare before I face the living nightmare and demand a reckoning.

  But this time…My nightmares might be learning…

  Running again. Pursued again. Perhaps by the demon Denbury, perhaps by only my own perceptions of shadows. Again the same dark, dank alleys in the struggling corners of New York that did, quite truly, terrify me. For good reason.

  Again the door, again tumbling into Denbury’s study and swiftly being caught up in his hold, as if he were always waiting for me. I suppose he was.

  And only in my nightdress.

  I don’t recall what I’d been wearing in previous dreams, but our heightened awareness of one another’s bodies had us crossing further boundaries. He most certainly noticed.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said, low and aching. A kiss was inevitable. And wonderful. To feel him against me without the boundary bones of my corset, able to arch to him in ways prohibited by all the trappings of female fashion…it was exquisite to say the least.

  But as he turned me so that I was cradled even stronger and deeper in his hold, breaking from me to sear my neck with kisses, I made the mistake of opening my eyes, there over his shoulder, and looking at the door from which I’d come and had been foolish enough not to close.

  I pulled back with a gasp. Jonathon did not turn around. “What is it this time?” he asked quietly.

  “The corpse, there on the threshold.”

  I could not see her face for the mussed auburn hair obscuring it, but she was in the same lacy white shift, her gray-white arms exposed. And on the forearm, a name carved into the flesh dripped congealing blood down her wrist so that it fell on the threshold with a faint, tapping rhythm.

  “Arilda.”

  Jonathon turned to face the phantasm. “I suppose there’s a Saint Arilda.”

  “There is,” I said quietly. “I need to stop this. No more women will die, because it stops with me. Now.”

  And then the apparition lifted its head.

  I choked back a scream.

  It was me.

  The corpse was me.

  Jonathon was instantly on the move. He pushed me behind him, trying to shield me from a sight that should’ve undone my senses.

  The eyes of the corpse—my corpse—stared straight ahead: vacant, dead, and yet still my body bled precious blood. My face was ashen, my lips were tinged blue, and the sight was everything one would expect in death, save that the lips moved.

  Worse, it…I…began to murmur. I recognized the words. It was the phrase. The spell. The spell I’d been saying, practicing over and over again privately. The lifeless eyes, the blue mumbling lips, and the dripping arm were more than I could bear. I’d had enough. Denbury didn’t need to prompt me this time.

  “Enough! All of this. I am done. We will win. I renounce thee!” I cried. “I tell you, I renounce thee!”

  My corpse-self turned to me, its eyes suddenly as alive as if I were looking into a mirror. She seemed filled with relief, and that body began to fade, to step backward, all the while murmuring the spell. The corridor behind lit up with shafts of light.

  One by one, pale and much like the white-silver halo I’d seen coming from Jonathon, glimmering threads surrounded my corpse-self and illuminated the corridor to make it an open, vast expanse. Out of that sparkling transformation came a familiar, stirring sight: Central Park, built by an engineer with the soul of a poet, my sacred place…

  We gasped at the vista that had replaced my dead body. It was a view that I’d rhapsodized about when we had regaled each other with our cities; there was my angel of Bethesda, sanctifying the waters and gently touching down upon the fountain at the center of that beloved Central Park terrace, the boat pond and lush greenery beyond. My cruel mind had willed something beautiful for us instead. “That’s my park. That’s my angel!”

  Jonathon pressed against my back, his breath warm on my neck. “Yes, Natalie. Banish the darkness and show me angels instead.”

  I melted against him, grabbing for his hand. “Now I’ve an abundance of angels…”

  Drawing him closer to that doorway, I yearned to make it reality, to bring him into that romantic place where we could promenade, blessed beneath those precious wings…

  But on the edges of that beautiful terrace hovered darker threads amid the trees and shrubbery. Cords of light shifted amid the utter absence of light, and countless thin, vertical masses moved inside a fabric. The threads were like people, souls, moving energy, raw materials…They almost seemed to wrestle with one another li
ke a jostling crowd fighting for space on New York City streets; they entwined, merged, parted, and disappeared—like brushstrokes of a painting come to jumping life, the picture never static but in progress.

  Jonathon watched with intense fascination, drinking in something other than his prison. I drew him still closer to the door, testing the boundaries. The threshold crackled and snapped like a whip. The cuffs of Jonathon’s sleeves singed. I frowned, easing him back a step. Yet the aura about him was palpable, a coiled thread of silver light reaching up from him as if he were tethered there to something divine. It made him even more magnificent—which I’d hardly thought possible.

  At the edge of the door, the shadows clung, trying to encroach on those places in my mind that had been so totally theirs. Yet the more we wanted that angel before us as we stood hand in hand, the clearer her statue became. But it was a struggle. The image began flickering, those lively threads swarming—as if a battle were being waged.

  I closed the door. As wondrous as the view might be, it was all illusion. We needed to begin staring at reality.

  But what of me? What of my own corpse lingering somewhere in that hall?

  A sudden sharp and burning pain seized my arm. Gasping, I pushed back my sleeve. My arm was bloodied, carved with the name Arilda.

  I was the next victim. But the beast did not have my name. That was the trick.

  “Saint Arilda,” I murmured, blinking back tears of pain. Jonathon snapped his cravat from his neck and calmly began binding my arm. He was a doctor, after all. Even in a haze of pain I still managed to revel in how his undone collar offered me a glimpse of his naked throat.

  “What of her?” he prompted with a smirk, noticing I’d drifted off in staring at him.

  I coughed. “Of all the saints,” I explained, “my friend Mary and I were fondest of Saint Arilda. She refused to give her body to a tyrant of a man who would lay claim to her.”