Darker Still

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  Somehow, even if Mrs. Northe appeared to dodge a question at first, she always managed to answer it more sensibly than if she had merely said “yes.” I thought of those swarming threads of vibrancy and shadow from my recent dream and nodded. The world had ceased to have clear yes or no answers; the world was gray scale. Save for my mission—that was black and white, survival or failure against evil.

  My heart was heavy but my duties were clear, and there was, frankly, no point in belaboring the issue further. I embraced Mrs. Northe and dried my eyes, and Father took me home. I gave him a very long hug good night that he seemed to awkwardly appreciate, chuckling softly and likely wondering what flight of fancy had made me sentimental. Part of me wished to tell him everything, to unburden myself of my fear, but that would have done him more harm than good. My fate was sealed, and no one else could help or stop me.

  Later…

  The strangest thing has just happened. Bessie ushered Maggie into our parlor. Father was holed up in his study, so I received her with a smile. I opened my mouth to speak but was too nervous I’d sound inelegant, and I didn’t want to have to explain my “cure.” It was all right because she clearly planned to do all the talking.

  “Oh, Natalie, dear, I’ve only a moment. I’m expected at the Bentrops’ but I just wanted to invite you, this weekend, to my house. She leaned in and in a whisper said, “Fanny and I are staging a séance.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. She continued, giddy.

  “I was given a book as a gift. It’s fascinating and full of incantations! Mr. Bentrop’s niece and I became acquainted at a ball. She had me over for tea, and we got on famously. Mr. Bentrop says that I might have particular talents, provided I study hard, but that I mustn’t ever let that book out of my sight because it’s one of a kind. It’s good to be in his favor. He’s richer than anyone can quite tally!”

  I gave her a warning look. This sounded like the sort of thing Mrs. Northe would never have approved of. And how did I know that name? But in her rush, Maggie was off to her engagement in a whirl of turquoise taffeta before I could place it. When I did, a chill crept over me.

  Bentrop. He was one of the men in line to buy the Denbury portrait. One whom Mrs. Northe had described unfavorably.

  I’ll have to tell Mrs. Northe that the man was meddling with young, impressionable women. But later. I must now prepare myself for tonight’s dread deed.

  Later…

  I’m sitting at the desk by my bedroom window, waiting for the pebble to strike the pane to indicate that the hired carriage awaits me below. Then I shall slip away and to the task. I write this so I may again go over the plan, for in writing I find calm, focus, and purpose. Perhaps someday I’ll try fiction. Or, perhaps, I’ll merely publish this account instead. No one would believe it real.

  I’ve dressed in a fine gown fitted to accentuate my femininity, my best dress from last year. I’m not fond of it anymore; it has too much lace around all the edges. I have altered the neckline so that it might plunge a bit too low. I have dabbed lavender oil upon my wrists and behind my ears. My hair is done winsomely, up but with a few stray locks curled around my ears and neck to suggest a style that’s nearly undone. Men seem to find undone hair a delicious tease. I need not practice blushes or looks of surprise, fear, or innocence. Those will come naturally enough, I don’t doubt. I needn’t hide my apprehension either; the demon will likely feed upon it.

  I’ll act as though I am lost and think myself locked inside the building, yet am drawn to the painting, just as I was from the start. The demon knows he’s compelling. I will lock several of the floor’s exits from the outside, leaving less-known passages open. (I dare not block every means of escape.) But I think it hardly out of the question that a girl with no voice might have wandered below stairs and found herself lost, trapped, and without recourse to call for help. I would appear the trapped little lamb to Denbury’s possessor, a girl already associated with the painting. An offering.

  I will scribble the plea of my situation upon a note card, and this will surely ensnare the fly—for I will declare my name. As foretold.

  Arilda.

  This should seal his interest in me as quite an unexpected catch. Arilda is an uncommon name. An uncommon saint. For an uncommon purpose.

  Dear Saint Arilda, fighting to be taken by love, not by force. Mary and I agreed that the only way to give oneself to a man was to love him, and that the claim, while a man may suggest it, is ours to make and no two ways about it. Naming has power. So does the body.

  However, I hope not to follow in young Arilda’s footsteps as a martyr slain on a tyrant’s sword. It is bold to use such a telling name, but Mrs. Northe and I are wagering that the demon has grown too proud not to think me a fortuitous gift rather than a trap.

  Oh! I am startled. The pebble strikes! Mrs. Northe’s hired help is at the door. The hour is at hand. I’ll need all the prayers I can muster.

  Later…

  (Upon the bench in Denbury's exhibition room)

  Dear God.

  Imagine my surprise when Mr. Smith escorted me down to the exhibition room and there I found Maggie staring up at Denbury, the curtain of his painting drawn to reveal him. She was murmuring up to him, a black book in hand and with a pentagram marked on the floor in chalk.

  “Maggie,” I choked. I actually spoke her name.

  She whirled to face me. Her face flushed furiously, and her jaw dropped. She glanced in horror at Mr. Smith and then again at me.

  “What are you doing here?” We both spoke at the same time.

  “You’re speaking!” Maggie cried.

  “I work here,” I declared, ignoring her exclamation. I glanced at Mr. Smith. He was expressionless, but if I wasn’t mistaken, a part of his mouth curved as if he was amused.

  “This late at night? Who’s this? Isn’t that one of Auntie’s servants?”

  Mr. Smith raised an eyebrow and walked away. I’m sure he didn’t consider himself a servant; that much was clear. Maggie rushed up to me. I pushed her inside the room and closed the door.

  “Maggie, what are you doing?” I demanded.

  “I had to do this,” she blurted. “I hid upstairs in the museum until closing. I’ve been studying. This is what I’ve been given.” She lifted the book, which bore a golden goat’s head on its black leather cover. I didn’t recognize the volume offhand from Mrs. Northe’s library, and I was fairly sure that she and Bentrop didn’t share the same reading list.

  “I can’t get him out of my head or my dreams!” Maggie exclaimed, rubbing her head as if it ached. “I’m trying a summoning spell to bring Denbury’s spirit here, to talk to him—”

  “Maggie, this is dangerous, a man like Bentrop and a book like that. You don’t know what you’re doing. That pentagram—”

  Her eyes flashed. “And what would you know about it? All the time spent with my aunt…Has she been teaching you all the things she’s denied me? What makes you think you’re so special? Tricking me into thinking you’re mute—”

  “No, that isn’t true,” I said. My voice, nervous, was inelegant. Surely Maggie could see I wasn’t entirely cured. I blushed furiously, ashamed at the sounds. “I could speak all along, with some work. I just suffered trauma when I was young so I never did. Your aunt has been helping me regain speech.” It was partially true.

  “Because she likes you better than me.”

  “That isn’t true. Maggie, listen to me. Something very bad is about to happen, and you need to get out of here.”

  “Why? What do you know? Why do you keep things from me?”

  “I’m here because I’m helping the museum with a problem. And you need to go,” I stated.

  I had to clean that pentagram off the floor. I threw the exhibition-room door open again and stalked to a nearby supply closet. Maggie followed me as I grabbed a towel. Mr. Smith was standing patiently in the hall. His fiercely sharp eyes and quiet manner made him a man not to be questioned. Maggie gestured to him.
/>   “Why is Mrs. Northe’s man here then, and not your father—”

  “Maggie, please…”

  I reentered the room, knelt, and began to rub the yellow chalk off the floor.

  “What are you doing? I made that for the spell—”

  “Maggie, listen to yourself. You sound mad. You can’t go around drawing on museum property. And certainly not something like this.”

  “Something’s going on, and you’re going to tell me. I’ll tell Aunt Evelyn you drew the pentagram. I can make her take my side!” It was incredible how an entitled, wealthy girl could rely on threats. I stared up at her.

  “I’m sorry. I really do like you, Maggie, but you have to go home.” I moved into the hall. “Mr. Smith, I desperately need you to make sure Miss Hathorn gets home safely. She is not part of the equation.”

  “Natalie,” Maggie called, “what are you—”

  “And please keep her quiet,” I added.

  Mr. Smith advanced to the open doorway with a look on his face that made Maggie take a step backward.

  “You’ll be sorry, Natalie. I could ruin you in society.” Maggie was such a pretty girl. But ugly when angry.

  “I’m not trying to be in society,” I replied. “I hope to explain one day, Maggie. I really do.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Maggie hissed at Mr. Smith as he reached for her arm and exited. “I have a driver outside.”

  I watched as Mr. Smith followed her anyway, to make sure of it.

  It hurt to lose the only female friend my age I’d managed to gain.

  Flustered, I was shaking horribly as I wiped the floor clean. But I had a task to do. Lives depended on it.

  After securing every obvious door to make it seem as though I truly was trapped, I stowed a small bag with a few amenities and every piece of my jewelry—the only valuables I had—in a darkened alcove just past the exhibition room. I pulled out a small vial. Oil used in blessings. Mrs. Northe had given it to me. I took a dab onto my finger. I wanted to counter the pentagram. Its marks were gone, but anxiety still hung in the room. While I knew a pentagram could be used for a sign of luck and blessing, I couldn’t credit Maggie for knowing which direction to draw it, as the direction changed the meaning from good to ill.

  And so I countered the pentagram with a small mark of the cross upon my forehead: an act of blessing and forgiveness, of cleansing, hope, renewal, and the power of the Holy Spirit. I needed angels on my side tonight, and so I called upon that sacred vow granted me as a baby, a vow I renewed now as a woman in this moment, a vow to reject the Devil.

  Of course I had to go in and see Jonathon. Just one moment. We’d said good-bye earlier, but it was not enough. Not that I would ever have enough of seeing him. Even from looking at the portrait, I could tell he was in fading health. He was pale, and his fine cheekbones looked even more pronounced. The beauty that so enticed me was turning harsh.

  He was loath to let me out of the embrace that I fell into, as I always did when I fell into his world.

  And I was loath to let him go as I watched him brighten. Some of the pallor reversed, to my great delight, as he caressed my cheek.

  “You look so lovely, too lovely,” he murmured.

  “No I don’t. The lace is absurd.” I chuckled and gestured to my neckline. “You like that it’s cut low.”

  He tried to offer a smile, but his flirtatious nature was fading. Only weariness remained. “Natalie, someone was here. I think it was that friend, the girl—”

  “Yes, Maggie. She’s out of the way now, not a trouble. She was being foolish and…well, trying to summon you as if in a séance. She’s quite…taken with you.”

  Jonathon sighed. “Even now? I’m sure I look quite the fright.”

  “A ghost of yourself, but still, even the Devil can’t take the beauty out of you,” I exclaimed.

  “So you are then too?” Denbury asked.

  “What?”

  “Taken with me?”

  “Oh, helplessly,” I breathed. This compelled him to seize me and to steal one last kiss. I was addicted to them.

  “Natalie,” he murmured against my cheek, “you know you don’t have to do this—”

  “Too late,” I replied, “You and I are in this madness together, thick or thin. This must be done. The women of Five Points—or wherever he strikes—will bear his torment no more.”

  His expression was complex, but he murmured, “God be with you.”

  “And also with you,” I replied, as in my Lutheran liturgy, a comforting structure amid the events that had torn our realities apart. “And he will be. He’s on our side, you know,” I replied with false bravado. Our eyes were honest; we each knew how terrified we were.

  “I’ll be on guard, ready to drag him in here forever,” he growled. “I beg you to be careful. If you are in too much danger, leave. We will find another way.”

  I moved to the edge of the frame, hand outstretched toward my body in the museum.

  “Natalie, look at me.”

  I turned.

  “Swear you’ll abandon this course if you’re in grave danger.”

  “I swear,” I said to assuage him. “I love you,” I murmured, wanting love to be the last thing we said before facing battle.

  “And I you,” he replied, his voice shaking a bit. I stepped out and down into myself again, trying to hide my own fear.

  I sit now upon the bench, practicing the phrase upon which lives hang. Lives should never be down to mere words, but I suppose they always are. Whether declarations of war, law, or treaty…words ever determine lives.

  I hear noises above. Subtle, quiet noises. Likely the fiend is in the building. I cannot pretend I am not terrified. I am, most assuredly, terrified. I feel Jonathon’s phantom hand at the small of my back, bolstering my courage and reassuring me that I am never truly alone. I yearn to feel that touch in this life, in this reality. It is the only thing helping me keep my wits. The sounds grow closer.

  I must look distracted, unaware. I’ve closed the curtain, having given Denbury a kiss upon the air as I drew it. He could not move to acknowledge it but kept staring at me until the last. Forgive the trembling, telltale jagged edges of my writing that betray my fear.

  I hear a slow and sauntering step down the hall. I’ll turn the page and write something benign, lest he see damning script. I must act surprised…demure…everything he expects. Dear Lord, be with me now. Steady my resolve to do what must be done. I shall turn the page and fold the cover over. The fiend closes in!

  • • •

  And I think, dear diary, I’d like to travel to Italy, where I could see fine art and where perhaps the men are as beautiful (and perchance as scandalous) as legend would have them…

  I must pause, someone seems to be at the door of this chamber where I sit, trying to pass the time while locked away. Am I saved at last?

  Half an hour later, if that

  (Oh, Time, you are unreliable, and Terror, you affect it.)

  I write this as the visage of Lord Denbury is being cut into pieces. Oh, gruesome sight, oh, harrowing night—a poet of such unnerving talent as Baudelaire could not even begin to pen an account of this. I can hardly believe it as I sit here to recount it. I begged Jonathon’s leave to write this, to sort out the tumbling mess of my thoughts and my senses, struggling to comprehend these last moments…

  The demon was dressed as a lord every bit as beautiful as mine, but with that darkness, that pallor, that hollow-eyed terrible mask, those reflective eyes that make him not my dear Jonathon but a devil. He slid into the room like a snake.

  His lowered head fixed me with a gaze I thought might asphyxiate me in the instant. “Oh! Hello, pretty thing. Why, you look familiar…” His voice was a terrible purr. “What on earth are you doing after hours in the basement of a museum?”

  I bit my tongue and gestured to my ears, nodding, and to my mouth, shaking my head.

  “Oh, that’s right, my mute beauty!” he exclaimed. Now for the next snare�
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  I shook my head. I ripped a page from the diary and scribbled a plea, placing myself entirely in his hands…

  I tucked the diary beneath the bench and held the paper out to him. He read. His eyes widened.

  “Arilda? Lost and locked in? Your name is Arilda?”

  I nodded and gave him a quizzical look—as if why on earth should that matter? Though I knew very well why it did. I tried to appear as if I was falling into his trap when in fact it was the other way around…

  I practically could see his mouth water. “Perfect,” he said, in a tone that made me shudder. “Oh, you are a treat indeed.” I suppressed a violent shudder and instead smiled with what I hoped was a look of charming enticement, rather than a grimace.

  “I don’t have to go out hunting tonight, Denbury,” he called in delight. “The prey has come to me!”

  My eyes flickered to the curtain, to the painting, to the man inside. Thinking of Jonathon, I was bolstered. He loved me. He loved me. And this…form…before me was not my love.

  The demon advanced. “What a rare and succulent gift. My powers increase. Subjects laid at my feet, my quest opens unto me! Have you ever been with a man, fair one?”

  Now I did allow myself to shudder. Part of the act, I looked appropriately horrified. The demon wanted to defile a lady. I wanted to spit in his face. The look on my face seemed to satisfy him, for he laughed. I didn’t need to fake or stage a blush; my cheeks were scarlet from his forward talk.

  “No, of course not! You are a virgin saint…” He approached closer. “Perfect. Do struggle, will you? Act your part. It will add to the effect. And who knows, perhaps someday they’ll canonize you too!”

  Horrifying, so terribly horrifying, yet he was mesmerizing, it was true, for he still was Denbury—in the flesh. Something of his otherworldliness, something of his demonic nature had a sort of intoxication, a drug to it, beyond his handsome trappings. I recalled how Jonathon had been immobilized, and I watched the demon’s hands to see if they contained some weapon.

  The fiend’s eyes were now luminous with an eerie quality beyond their animalistic bent and clouded. Reddened. Blood pooled in the tear ducts. I took his untoward approach as my cue and backed away.