by Vered Ehsani
~~~
With a finger, I traced the S-shaped dragon stamped into the thick, yellow paper.
“There is a fourth mandate,” Prof. Runal said behind me as he re-entered his office and closed the door. “A fourth one indeed, but we don’t need to bother about that one, now, do we?”
I had no idea since I wasn’t sure what a mandate was, nor did I appreciate the meanings of the first three.
Once he was seated, Prof. Runal turned to stare straight at me in a most unnerving fashion. That was when I observed his rather sharp and long canine teeth.
“Dear Beatrice,” Prof. Runal said gently, “do you see what I am?”
Clearly I did, for I was staring at the teeth. The wet dog smell was also quite overpowering, but I thought it would be rather rude to point out his body odor. After all, it wasn’t from lack of proper hygiene on his part. So I wisely remained silent and contented myself with a quick nod of the head.
“You have a rather unusual and marvelous gift in this modern and overly enlightened age, truly marvelous,” he said, rubbing his hands in time with his words. “Sadly, others don’t share this knowledge; they only see what they’re brainwashed to see, which is very little, very little indeed. And so they become terribly upset when confronted with their ignorance. Therefore, you mustn’t share your insights with polite society, not at all. Do you understand?”
I thought about that for a moment and wondered if this meant he was part of an impolite society. Instead, I asked, “Does that include my family?”
“Most certainly it does,” he said, his face grim.
So I promptly agreed with the sage gentleman.
He leaned back into his large armchair, satisfied with this verbal agreement. “Have you heard of the Society for Paranormals & Curious Animals?” he asked me, nodding toward the framed paper.
He paused, rubbed the side of his landmark of a nose, and then, as if to clarify, he said, “It was originally the Society for the Study of Paranormals & Curious Animals, but we felt that a five letter acronym was one letter too long.”
I shook my head to indicate I hadn’t heard of this Society. The shaking head also signified that I wasn’t impressed they’d eliminated such an important word as “Study.” And I wasn’t persuaded that I wanted to hear more.
It is a marvel how much can be communicated in one small body movement.
He smiled and winked. “Not to worry. You’ll be hearing from us again. Yes, I think you will.”
It sounded rather ominous to my tender ears. But I was in no position to protest, having just been saved by the strange man from certain incarceration in one institution or another. So from that day forth, I exerted much effort in pretending I didn’t see anything at all, a task that at times proved to be both burdensome and complicated.
The good professor called in my father and pronounced me cured. Father was overjoyed that he’d avoided the embarrassment the alternatives would’ve caused. He even took me out for tea and cake to celebrate.
When we arrived home, Father announced to his wife that their child needn’t be locked away from the light of day and all was well with the world. She said nothing but pulled me into an unusually intense embrace, one I assumed at the time was as a result of her relief.
And that was the last truly blissful memory I have of childhood.
More pressing issues overtook us, not least of which was the demise of my younger brother. Whatever wealth we had was lost by the time I was fourteen because of my father’s rather unfortunate, grief-induced interest in horse-racing and the placing of bets on said horses. My parents soon after removed themselves from my story (or were removed, depending on whom you talk to regarding the issue).
It was at this juncture that the Steward family intervened, or to be exact, were forced to. Upon internment of my parents’ remains (what little was left of them), I was summoned to the office of Advocate Horace Jones, Esquire, a rather impressive name for a most intimidating man.
“Sit there, child,” he said, pointing to a chair in the corner while sifting through a stack of papers, “and keep quiet while I sort out your future.”
I didn’t much appreciate being referred to as a child. And I wasn’t sure what the chair had to do with my future, but it seemed this haughty man was in charge of both.
So I sat, clutching to my chest a small bag containing my entire earthly possessions: a few items of clothing and an intricately embossed, metal teapot my mother had treasured. I focused on breathing as quietly as I could manage, all the time ignoring the ghost of a shriveled-up woman who kept shaking her fist at the lawyer.
Some days passed, or so it seemed to an energetic and imaginative young person such as myself, before a plump couple entered the office.
Before Advocate Jones could glance up from his impressive stack of papers, the woman said, “See here, you, I don’t very much appreciate the tone of this letter.” With a flourish, she tossed the offending letter onto the desk.
I didn’t understand how a letter could have a tone and I eyed it with some trepidation.
Advocate Jones leaned back in his seat and fixed a frigid stare on the woman who flinched somewhat under the intensity of that gaze. After a cold silence, he said, “I presume you are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Steward?” He held up a hand to ward off another tirade. “A simple yes or no will suffice.”
“Yes,” Mr. Steward promptly said, to cut off any further comments by his wife.
“Good,” Advocate Jones said, although there was nothing good in his voice, only ice and vinegar. “I am Advocate Jones, appointed by a certain Mr. and Mrs. T.J. Anderson, with whom you are acquainted and related, or so I’ve been led to believe.”
Mrs. Steward began to protest but ceased as the advocate turned his gaze on her. She nodded, her chin wobbling above a frilly pink lace collar.
“We can therefore presume you are equally familiar with the last will of Mr. Anderson, appointing you the legal guardian of their offspring, one Beatrice Anderson.” He gestured in my direction and I momentarily stopped breathing as all three adults stared at me.
The Stewards appeared considerably less than impressed with whatever they saw sitting on the chair in the corner, or perhaps it was still the poorly toned letter that had upset them so.
“I believe Mr. Steward had consented to the arrangement, given that you, Mrs. Steward, are somehow closely related to the Anderson family,” Advocate Jones said, “and therefore there’s little more to be said. Sign here and take the child.”
“What about their estate?” Mrs. Steward said.
“What about it?” Advocate Jones asked.
Mr. Steward placed a hand on his wife’s arm, as if that could restrain such a boisterous woman, and said, “Surely there’s an estate that comes with the child, so we can cover the costs associated with housing and feeding her.”
Advocate Jones was busily working away on the papers in front of him and didn’t bother looking up when he said, “There’s no estate remaining, nothing at all, only that small pile of skin and bones over there.”
The paper was reluctantly signed, the Stewards reluctantly took me home, and I even more reluctantly followed them to it.
I was, of course, grateful to avoid the life of a street urchin or other equally nasty fates destined for the average orphan. It was only thanks to my parents’ persistent lawyer that I now had a roof over my head, food on the table, and legal guardians.
On the carriage ride home, Mrs. Steward berated her husband for ever agreeing to be guardian for the child of a couple they barely knew and with whom they seldom socialized.
“How was I to know they would…” Mr. Steward hesitated and glanced at me. “Pass away so inconveniently?”
“Because that’s the type of people they were,” Mrs. Steward retorted with little regard to my presence. “The inconvenient type, the type who would abruptly die and leave behind an orphan for someone else to take care of. It was a poorly planned time to die. How dreadfully irresponsible
of them.”
“They were related to you, my dear,” Mr. Steward said but very softly. The clatter of horse hooves on cobblestones combined with Mrs. Steward’s angry mumbling to cover up his words quite neatly.
Fortunately, Mrs. Steward’s reluctance was quickly overcome when her acquaintances praised her charity. She paraded me in front of her tea guests as proof of her graciousness in fulfilling her social obligation to an inconveniently deceased brother.
Aside from the loss of my parents, life was going reasonably well until I met (and soon after wed) Gideon Knight. Or rather, life continued to go well even then, until the day he was murdered. Rather than just expire and go away, he developed the inconsiderate habit of haunting me.
And that is a brief summary of the tragedy that is my life.
Chapter 6