by Adam McOmber
I didn’t see Maddy in the alehouse, which caused my heart to race. Either she had wandered down the stairs toward the inner forest or she was concealed in some back room. Both options were equally undesirable.
I had no real way of communicating with the fellows in the Temple. To me, they were throwbacks to a lost era, dressed in ill-fitting suits and wearing hazy beards about their jowls. And yet I persevered, moving through what felt like layers of the real—successively digging deeper into the unreal, toward the long, stained plank of wood that served as a bar. Just as I was beginning to ask the barkeep if he’d seen a woman of my own character in this place, I was grabbed by the wrist, quite roughly, and turned to see an old man with some palsy in half his face. His blue eye looked toward his mouth, and his lower lip on the right side drooped nearly to his chin. He held me tightly, indicating that I should move along with him. When I tried to wrest my arm away, he only fastened his grip.
“Let her go, monsieur,” Pascal said, attempting to push his small frame between the man and myself.
The creature shoved him, and Pascal fell backward into the arms of a thick barmaid, who clutched him around his rather frail chest. She nearly choked with laughter as he struggled against her.
Patrons watched as the man dragged me toward the back of the Temple. We passed wax replicas of Victoria and Albert that were nearly translucent, as if their royal souls had come to ruin in this place. I realized even screaming would do no good. Everyone could see plainly what was happening; the twisted-faced man was pulling me toward a curtained doorway. Behind me, another man helped the barmaid subdue Pascal.
A thought rang inside me like a call to war—I could not pass behind the muslin curtain. I would not let the old man have me. I projected horrors onto the curtain, and felt pressure build inside my chest, as if water was pushing at some dam, surging and ready to be free. I could see shadows shifting on the curtain, coalescing to the point where they became the pale forest and the milk-white stream. And just as in Mother Damnable’s house, I could feel there was a membrane that separated me from that forest. Fighting against the man, I wished with all my heart I could tear through the membrane and escape the tavern.
Then the rumbling came, faint at first. I could feel it in my chest and soon realized the whole of the Temple was beginning to vibrate. Liquor bottles fell from shelves. Tables began to migrate across the warped wooden floor. I was connected to the entire room, and I was moving it. Controlling the objects. I sensed that I could cause the entire Temple to burst apart if I wanted to, and I knew what lay beneath the facade of common reality: the cool of the white forest, and it was waiting for me.
The fool who held me became terrified by the shaking Temple and released me. I wanted to bring the whole place down on his head, but I restrained myself. Instead, I walked back and collected Pascal from the startled barmaid and we made our way together through the tavern, down the stairs toward the Theater of Provocation. As we rushed, Pascal called out that we could not enter without an invitation.
“I just had an invitation,” I said.
“That isn’t how it works, Jane. Without a new invitation, things could be any which way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s unstable,” he said. “The theater is unstable. And just what happened up there? What did you do in the Temple?”
I didn’t know what to say to him. I still felt the rush of my own power. “I made the Temple obey,” I answered. “I made all of it obey.”
I tore back the curtain at the bottom of the stone staircase, and even before my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that something was wrong. The inner forest was gone. There were no trees, no battens of clouds, no animals lurking. Pascal and I stood in the cold empty chamber of the catacomb, surrounded only by pillars and dust.
“This can’t be,” I said. “They can’t have packed the whole thing up so quickly.”
“They did,” Pascal said. “I told you that. The Theater of Provocation does not behave as other places do. At any rate, Maddy isn’t here.”
“No,” I said, peering into the empty darkness. “No one is.”
• • •
As we left the Temple, a terrible sick feeling overtook me. First I’d lost Nathan. And now I’d lost Maddy. There were no visible police in the vicinity, and neither Pascal nor I knew the area well enough that we could find a station, even if there were such a thing in Southwark. We didn’t dare stay in the streets, as the malingerers appeared to have caught on that we were in distress. Instead, we climbed into the black coach.
“It’s possible she’s making her way back to La Dometa,” Pascal said.
“Why would she have returned alone without the carriage?” I asked. He had no logical response, which disappointed me, as I was so desperately looking for one. “We need to find Alexander,” I said.
“Oh, Jane, no. Not that.”
“He’s the only one we know who’s still in Ariston Day’s fold. He might give us some hint as to what’s happened. You know where he is, don’t you, Pascal?”
“I suppose I can guess.”
“Then take us there.”
CHAPTER 26
Alexander Hartford was working with the London Society of Medieval Studies on an expedition of archaeology. He’d procured the job as a means of legitimizing his stay in London to his father, the shipping magnate, and I assumed in some way it must also support his work with the Theater. Otherwise Day wouldn’t have allowed one of his Fetches to wander off into the real world.
According to Pascal, the Society of Medieval Studies had taken up excavation alongside the Society for Antiquities in a subcrypt of St. Michael’s Cathedral after a custodian had accidentally broken through a thin layer of decorative flooring in the burial chamber of Saint Dogmaels, discovering a forgotten stairway leading into the earth. Our carriage arrived at St. Michael’s, and its towering edifice put me immediately on edge. Churches, like Bibles, did not agree with me.
Pascal and I were greeted by a dark-haired clerk in a pair of wire-frame eyeglasses. He was fresh-faced, no more than twenty-five, and believed we’d been sent by the London Garden Society. Apparently the Garden Society intended to write an article on the excavation of the subcrypt for their monthly circular. We did not correct the clerk’s misassumption, and he politely held the lantern for us as we descended, telling me to watch the hem of my dress. “The black dust is apt to creep up and make all kinds of mess,” he said. “To be honest, I’m not sure why you gardeners want to know about the crypt. Nothing living down here—just a bit of mold.”
“We have a wide variety of interests that go beyond gardening,” I said, attempting to sound official.
In the burial chamber, members of the society worked carefully in shadowed alcoves, dusting stone vessels and recording details on tablets. The clerk informed us that the vessels contained burnt human bones that likely dated back to the Saxon era. “Houses of worship have been built on this site since the eighth century,” he said. “There’s even some conjecture about another burial chamber beneath this one. My opinion is that someday we’ll discover our whole city is just a series of graveyards, one stacked upon the next.”
Pascal slipped his hand around my arm and squeezed. “I don’t know about this Jane. I’m feeling claustrophobic.”
“That’s actually heartsickness you feel,” I whispered. “I’m quite familiar with it myself.”
We found Alexander at the far end of the crypt, covered in black dust and rather powerful-looking in his shirtsleeves and thick trousers. He was labeling pieces of a broken stone cross, and he nodded silently to Pascal, who made a sharp intake of breath, nearly like a squeak. Alexander squinted at me as I told him a few details of what had happened with Ariston Day and asked if he knew where Madeline might be.
“You denied Master Day?” he asked.
“What did you expect?” I said. “That I’d swoon and fall into his arms as all you gentlemen seem to do?”
“You
shouldn’t have denied him, Jane. He’ll have you regardless of your wishes.”
“Stop that, Alexander,” Pascal said abruptly. “Stop acting like you’re one of them.”
Alexander looked at his old friend in the dim crypt, still holding a piece of the stone cross in his hand. “If not one of them, Pascal, what am I?”
“You’re one of us,” Pascal said. “One of the good ones.”
“You’re good? A confirmed invert is good?”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” I said.
“How did I ever care for you?” Pascal asked. “Who did I think you were when we were together in France?”
Alexander scoffed. “Some delirious thing you built up in your head when you were a boy. Some fantasy.”
“I’m sorry for my delusions,” Pascal replied. “I’ll never let that happen again.”
“Madeline’s safe,” Alexander said, turning to me. “She’s gone away of her own volition.”
“So you know where she is then. Tell us,” I said.
“She’ll come back when she’s prepared to come back. I won’t say more. Talking to you is now forbidden.”
“What do you mean, forbidden?”
“I told you Day will have you despite your wishes,” Alexander said. “It’s all part of his plan. I don’t know the specifics, so don’t bother asking.”
“He can’t just toy with me,” I said. I considered grabbing Alexander and forcing my talent so deep inside him that it caused him to have a seizure like Corydon Ulster, but other than giving me the satisfaction of punishing him, what good would it do? Pascal would be horrified by my violence, and it was entirely possible Alexander didn’t have the information we needed. I could never be sure how much information the Fetches were privy to.
“Neither of you have any idea how deep this situation goes,” he said, and for a moment, Alexander appeared to be his old self, not some Fetch. “Come with me, and I’ll show you what we’ve found down here and then you have to leave.”
“Alexander, look at me,” I said, firmly.
He put the section of the stone cross in a basin and gave me his full attention.
“I want you to know that if Madeline doesn’t come back to me safely, I will harm you,” I said. “And then I’ll harm Ariston Day and all of his Fetches. I’ll show you things to make you wish you had no eyes. This crypt, for instance, is not a crypt. It’s a living, breathing organism, and it can cause you great pain if I instruct it to do so. Are you aware that I’m capable of this?”
He gave a single nod.
“Then you will transmit that information to your master as soon as we leave, and as for his plan, it won’t work. I will not be controlled. Now take me to whatever bit of rubble you want to show us.”
Pascal looked at me in awe as we followed Alexander deeper into the catacomb. We entered a circular room with a tall object draped in broadcloth at its center. Alexander pulled the cloth away, and standing before us was the same type of statue Nathan had described in his journal, the woman in Mother’s painting—the Lady of Flowers. Her head was lowered, as if in prayer, over a stalk of stone lilies held in the crook of her arm. Her face was like a mask, nearly featureless with only the slightest indentation to indicate eyes and mouth.
“Who is this?” asked Pascal.
“We don’t know,” Alexander replied. “Nor do we know why it’s in a Christian burial chamber, but it reminded me of the stories Nathan told us about the island of Malta. It’s some goddess, but we can’t ascribe her to any known religion. And watch this—” He pushed his hands against the stomach of the Lady, revealing a movable panel there. The panel slid away and the inside of the statue was hollow. I stared into her darkness.
“It’s empty?” Pascal asked.
“So it would appear,” Alexander replied.
“Not empty,” I whispered. “Full of silence.” This idol was the antidote to the storybook fables of the religions of Man, the goddess of nothingness. She had no story and did not speak. She was a never-ending hush, and I felt that silence spooling out within myself as well. But I would not believe that unmaking the world was my destiny. Ariston Day was wrong.
• • •
I nearly put my arm around Pascal to comfort him as we crossed broad and crowded Holborn Street outside St. Michael’s. He shrank inside himself against the noise of passing carriages and omnibuses, perhaps agitated because of the occurrences in the crypt. Certainly the transference caused by my touch wouldn’t help him feel better, so I merely remained close at his side as we made our way through London’s mud, returning to the Lee carriage.
“Do you think Alexander was telling the truth about Madeline abandoning us of her own accord?” Pascal asked.
I didn’t know how to answer. What motive could Maddy have for doing such a thing? She’d come along to Southwark to protect me. Alexander was a Fetch and part of the theater; he was, therefore, a liar by nature. It was difficult to even remember Alexander before Day had overtaken him. But there had indeed been a brief time when all of us were together and cheerful. This was after Nathan had returned from the war and before Day had sunk his barbed hooks fully into the skin of our boys. In their period of rekindling, Alexander and Pascal made for an excellent addition to our group—diffusing at least some of the tension. But those old days were past; we walked in the tatters of our own history.
“I don’t know who’s telling the truth these days.”
“But he was a good man, Jane,” Pascal said. “When I met him in Nimes, I was so alone, and he became my companion. He cared for me and would have done anything for me. How does a soul change so profoundly?”
I thought of Nathan and the laughing young man he’d once been. “One day, perhaps, we’ll know how the world is made, Pascal, but until then, I fear we are to remain as lost as this.”
• • •
I decided the only thing to do was return to Hampstead Heath and attempt to contact Vidocq. Telling Eusapia that her daughter had gone missing would cause her to drop even further into nervous illness. I could not look to her for help, and I knew neither my father nor the Ashes could assist us. “Jane, what were those threats you made to Alexander?” Pascal asked. “And what did you do in the Temple? How did you cause it to shake?”
We were hurtling north on Harley Street toward Hampstead. Our driver had been instructed to take a less frequented street to avoid the traffic on Tottenham Court.
“What I told Alexander was largely a bluff,” I said. “I want the Fetches to be afraid of me. As for the shaking Temple—I don’t understand that entirely. But I think we are being drawn toward some ending, for better or worse.”
Black fog crept alongside our carriage, and lamplighters were busy along the streets. One would have thought it was midnight instead of four o’clock in the afternoon.
CHAPTER 27
I did not need to search for Vidocq. Vidocq, in fact, found me. Pascal went off to La Dometa to see if Maddy had returned, and I was left to meditate in my father’s conservatory among the exotic plant life. The foundation beneath the greenhouse had crumbled, and the floor of the room was cracked and tilted. Several large panes of glass had fallen from their leaded frames, allowing the Heath’s cool damp air to fill the room. I didn’t mind this state of disrepair. Sitting in the greenhouse made me believe nature would one day consume Stoke Morrow entirely, and I would no longer be forced to suffer the house’s shadows.
I tried to work out some solution to what had occurred when the old man had grabbed me in the tavern. I’d clearly manifested a vision of the Empyrean due to anxiety, as I’d done with Nathan, so perhaps Ariston Day was correct. If provoked forcefully enough, I could open a gateway to that other place, but what then?
I was so deep in my meditation that I barely heard Miss Anne knocking timidly on the doorframe. Her knock at first seemed yet another obscure sound rising from the objects around me. At her persistence, I opened my eyes and found her looking skittish, as if she’d caught me in the
midst of a Satanic ritual. “What is it then?” I asked.
“You have a visitor, Miss Jane. The Inspector Vidocq is here asking to see you.”
“Admit him,” I said, adjusting my dress and wondering why he wanted to see me. Likely not to bring good news.
“You’ll see him in the Clock Parlor?” Miss Anne asked.
“I’ll see him here,” I said. “The sun has a calming effect today.”
“You do look vexed, miss. What’s happened—something to do with Mr. Ashe?”
“It’s not of your concern, Anne. See the inspector in.”
“Jane,” Miss Anne said in a serious tone. I turned to look at her. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry for what?” I asked, but Miss Anne had already disappeared.
She returned briefly to install Vidocq in the rattan chair across from mine, cane resting between his long legs, both large hands propped on its handle. Miss Anne only glanced at me briefly as she left the room, and once again, I saw an expression of remorse—or was it pity? Vidocq himself was calm and focused. I was glad he did not decide to smoke one of his black cigarettes because it would likely harm the fragile plant life. “Please excuse the interruption, Miss Silverlake.”
“It’s no interruption,” I said. “I need to speak with you.”