“What has this to do with Stygian?”
“I was called to his office, and quite innocently saw a paper with the sausage company’s letterhead.”
“Conjecture, at best.” But that didn’t stop the tingle on my scalp.
“I am aware. Stygian has made at least two trips to the plant that I am aware of.” She shivers, biting her lip. “The inventory list contained orders for 375 pounds of potash and 50 pounds of arsenic.”
My mind searches the chemistry. “I’m sorry. I’m not following. Perhaps I should…”
She grimaces. “My memory fails me. I suspect those two ingredients could dissolve bone, Henry.”
Revelation presses heavy on my chest. “You think he’s boiling evidence in the sausage vats? You think he was involved with the first party’s disappearance somehow?”
“Possibly. I need more proof. And I need to confirm my assumption. I’m not going to bloody get it here. But I didn’t dare turn down this assignment.”
“Does father know any of this?”
“No, and he must not. Henry, he would never allow me in such danger.”
The all-consuming fear returns making my mouth dry. “And I should, Bella?”
“Henry… I cannot be with you.”
Pain like a sucker-punch contracts my gut, followed by a flare of anger. “Who said I wanted you to?”
Her voice is caustic. “Yes, I know you have a veritable stable of choices. So why choose me, Henry?”
My teeth grind together. I should be reasonable, I should not speak. Everything about her makes me lose my reserve. Decorum commits suicide within five feet of her.
“I—I don’t want a stable. I don’t know whether to throttle you or hold you down till you kiss me again. I won’t tell him Bella. You have my word.”
My insides ache. Like withdrawal from an addiction.
A picture of Holmes in one of his cocaine-ravaged periods pops to my mind. My mind draws perfect recall of the leather case where he kept the syringe, ‘in a seven percent solution’ father used to say, with a face full of disapproval.
What did Arabella do as a child, when his mind went on holiday?
I see the girl from my childhood, in her room, dogs all over her bed. Alone.
A lump rises in my throat along with my father’s voice in my head, “She doesn’t know how to love properly.”
Fine, then I shall teach her.
I turn to look at her. Her stare is cold, but there’s a vulnerable quiver in her lips.
We’ve reached the embankment. Below, the docked steamer awaits.
“Henry! Come quickly!” Father bellows.
Father is on the shore, arms waving madly above his head. Shipmen swarm the riverbanks, their torches bobbing like a congregation of fireflies. Disembodied shouts ring through the morning mist.
“What’s happening?” Bella whispers breathlessly.
“Coming!” I scream toward the shore. Then turn to her, “Hurry, Arabella.”
A streak of sunlight cuts through the mist—and then I see it.
The Hudson—is red. A large circle is growing and growing, ten feet from shore. Not precisely red, but most definitely not the Hudson’s murky brown.
“Don’t even mention the word Nile.”
I shake my head, too stunned for debate.
We arrive, and instantly dismount.
“What’s happened?” we both ask father in unison.
“One of the crewman claims he saw a body.” Father’s eyes narrow and scan the water.
A passing sailor halts, interrupting, “Begging your pardon, Dr. Watson, but I’s known Tivaldi since we was lads. He’s no excitable fellow. If he says he saw a body. He saw a body.”
The man drags his hand across his lined face and plunges back into the fray of moving bodies.
Stygian and Montgomery bark commands to search the surrounding woods for signs of foul play.
Arabella moves toward the water and I follow.
I call into the crowd. “Fishing nets, do you have any?”
“Aye, sir.” A young, fresh-faced boy scurries up the decks and returns within a minute with a long, thick net.
Father, Arabella, and I need no words. I pick up one end, father at the other, Bella in the middle.
I open my mouth to ask her to stay on shore, and shut it. She’s going in, no matter how I plead.
My heart throbs. My preoccupation is distracting me again.
The water is cold against my thighs as we wade into the shallows. In moments, we’ve reached the circle. The crimson is as thick as the dread filling my mouth.
I glance quickly at Arabella and shudder. Her white shirt is saturated with bright red blotches. She looks as if she’s the murderer. Her eyes are serious, but unafraid.
A few more steps and the water is licking our necks.
“There’s a drop-off, do not step any further,” Father warns.
Stygian and Montgomery are on shore, watching carefully. “Nothing, Dr. Watson?” Montgomery calls. He’s pacing.
“Not yet.”
Father inhales in preparation to dive.
“Don’t. Father—I know you’re a soldier, but I have twenty years on you.”
I plunge beneath, not waiting for his argument. The river is black and murky and I am essentially blind. I breaststroke through the water in large, exaggerated movements—my hands searching for anything resembling a body.
My head shoots up and out of the surface, and I search up and down the river. No ship.
“Anything?” she asks.
“Not yet. Throw me the net.”
Father quickly casts, and I catch the end. I swim toward them, the net dragging the water between us. Arabella looks over my shoulder, biting her lip. “Hurry, Henry.”
I reach her, and under the water she gives my arm a quick squeeze. Our eyes lock, and for the moment, all is forgotten.
We drag the net to shore, the water slowly inching down from my waist, my thighs. When it’s at my knees, Arabella gasps.
“What?”
“Hurry, pull it closer.” She abandons the middle of the net, sloshing around to the front.
We raise the net from beneath the shallows.
One dead-white hand. Red, ripped strings of flesh dangle down from it like jellyfish tentacles. Around its wrist, a leather strap.
And an arm, severed at the shoulder.
Bella stares at it. Others, I know, think her horrified. I know her to be thinking—our eyes lock and I recognize the Holmesian manic glint.
“The strap.”
That is all she needs say. My mind flashes to the photograph of the four lost antiquarians. Sully’s hair in the photo—tied back with a leather strap. And one extra around his wrist.
“It’s Sully,” I reply.
Father stiffens and walks forward, stooping to examine the body parts.
I hear Montgomery on the shore. “God help us all.”
Chapter Fifteen
Leave me no choice
The next day
Bella
My mind is whirling. The dead man, the red river. I glance over. My now-complicated relationship with my once-best-friend.
Henry is angry. His body is statue-rigid atop the mare. A muscle bulges from his angled jaw as he grinds his teeth.
He turns onto the road leading to the excavation farm without a glance in my direction.
I open my mouth and close it. What do I say?
I cannot love you? I’m not sure I can love anyone?
My stomach knots behind the saddle horn and I squeeze it till my knuckles whiten.
The scowl on Henry’s face is identical to John’s.
I flip through the pictures of my life.
The very same scowl on a younger John’s face. On one of my many summertime visits, I snuck down the staircase, eavesdropping on their conversations. They were so foreign to me as father and I never had small-talk. Foreign
, but lovely.
I always found emotions vexing. Any word for which there was no picture was difficult to define for my tender, young brain.
Love, for instance. What was it?
I learned about love from the Watson’s.
When I watched John’s face, the way he spoke to Mary, it was better than any word, thesaurus or an entire collection of dictionaries.
Love was illustrated in living, breathing color on John’s face; in the playful upturn of his lips as he laughed at her horrid jokes or the serious crinkle of his eyes when she spoke in hushed tones.
“John, did you see what Arabella did to the doll I gave her?”
John’s brow furrowed. “She…dissected it.”
“Yes. John, I know it was not done in malice.”
“Yes, she wants to know how everything works inside. Everything. Dolls included.”
Mary’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “It did not bother me, but one of the maids found it—”
“I know. My dear, Arabella is like Holmes in miniature. Parts of her mind are developed far beyond what you or I will ever reach. But others…”
“Are in scarce supply,” Mary finished his sentence. “She must be taught what is acceptable and not-almost a rulebook for behavior, if you will. We shall not always be there to protect her. And forgive me darling, but her father isn’t much help. He encourages her.”
“Yes, I am well aware. It will be a balancing act; to teach her to behave within the realms of society, yet to not suffocate those unique traits, which really, you and I may never comprehend.”
I realized then I was not cut from the same cloth as Mary. As a wife or mother. I was never mothered, or even parented.
Father treated me like a tiny adult from the time I could speak.
A ray of sun breaks through the gloom, warming my cheek. I turn my face up, allowing it to sink in.
The sun never ceases to produce déjà vu, reminding me of warm summer days and picnics and lemonade when John and his first wife Mary, would visit.
They are my most precious childhood memories—both showered me with attention. Mary would brush and arrange my hair and never once complained as I endlessly fidgeted beneath her hands.
And John would hug me to him, over and over. Perhaps because he was just happy to spoil a little girl, as he had two rowdy, mischievous sons. I saw the looks he shot at father, if he disagreed with my punishment or a scolding.
My time with the Watson’s was like summer holidays—too fast, too wonderful and never enough.
During the winter, there were long periods of Watson-less existence, which left me melancholy.
It affected father, too. As if John was his catalyst to connect with mankind. Father and I would attract and repel, wandering about the house like opposite-poled magnets, wanting to connect, but not quite knowing how.
We were too similar.
Returning to my daily life after summer break was like re-entering an austere classroom.
Ever interesting, but aloof and calculating. Father loved, but not in the same, all-encompassing way as the Watsons.
Holidays and boarding school breaks would roll around, just in time to save father and I from each other.
And Henry. When Henry came home, all was right with the world.
My face prickles with a different kind of heat, the intuitive kind. I open my eyes.
Am I truly able to endure another Henry-less existence? He is offering himself to me.
I think of his years away at boarding school. I was overly-driven, obsessed with obtaining my Mutter appointment. There was no balance.
Henry is the balance. My mind rebels, trying to deny it. Repulsed at the thought I may not be complete as I am. Alone.
Fear and self-loathing collect in my chest.
Henry has halted his horse, and is staring, his blue-green eyes fixated upon me.
We’re surrounded by a field of wildflowers, slowly withering and dying in the autumn air.
Like my heart, without Henry.
I grit my teeth, struggling to accept these realizations. “Henry?”
His lips falter, but he gives me a sad smile. “I’m sorry I kissed you. We’re working together… it would be more than difficult.”
A glut of contradiction sickens my heart.
I want you to kiss me. Don’t stop Henry. Make me love you. Leave me no choice.
My stomach cartwheels and heat flushes my face. Anger surges at these resurrected feelings; feelings I cannot control. Feelings that control me.
His presence ruins every plan I’ve ever made.
Love was never in the equation. Work, my obsessions. To control my own destiny.
His eyes skip over me, cataloging every minute expression. Henry knows people; and he’s reading me like one of his books.
“Bella. Could you please answer me? Don’t lie. You’re a horrid liar.”
“Henry.” I drop my eyes as they burn. The unfamiliar sting of tears prickle beneath my lids.
Best to be honest, not play the ridiculous games of those fan-wielding females.
“I—I cannot fashion myself into the woman you want. You’ll want a wife, children. I don’t know if I can be either of those. I cannot change what’s inside my head, inside me? Even if I tried, if I loved you—I’d end up hating you. And you, me. Because I’d be playing a role, pretending to be normal. I. Am. Not. Normal.”
He urges the horse closer. Our lower legs are touching. My heart hammers and the reins go slick in my palms.
You are to be thinking of skeletons. Of Nephilim. Of finding answers.
I search for the analytical side of my brain, which urges me to think, not feel; but it’s lost, drowning beneath the pressing flood of unfamiliar emotions.
“What if?” He leans closer. “What if, I needed none of those things? Well, except marriage. I could never make you a harlot. I’ve never much cared for normal.”
But my face is stone. I’ve never let anyone near my heart, let alone seize it, beating in my chest.
My heart flutters against its box, aching for release.
Terror spreads across my ribcage.
Henry’s eyes tick anxiously, watching for my reaction; in a blink he’s off his horse.
His hands slide me off the saddle. His arms are hard around my waist, and his eyes have a matching, steely glint. His mouth sets, as if preparing for verbal battle.
“Do you remember our one kiss? I was eighteen, I believe?”
I nod. My voice has vacated my throat.
“I’ve been to many places. Kissed many, many girls.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“But you. I’ve never been able to forget you. And believe me I’ve tried, Arabella. Please, just…consider it. Consider me. Who knows you better?”
No one, my traitorous heart whispers.
His head dips, our lips barely touching. A new, all-consuming bonfire scorches a trail to my core. I shove my lips against his, hard enough to hurt.
A low moan escapes his mouth. I shudder and push against him. My tongue darts out, tracing his thin lips.
My soul opens, incinerating my doubt in a pyre of want. My mind is full of him.
Lingering mental images float around, equations and flashes of the mystery enveloping us. I block them with a solid, black curtain.
We fall into the dying flowers, between the horses. My mare stands between us and the road, blocking the view. Not that I care.
Nothing else exists in this moment. Except him. And the way he makes me forget who I am.
His body slides onto the length of mine, his hands slip behind my neck.
He kisses my cheeks, my neck, my collarbone.
“Tell me.”
I find his lips and kiss him back, not answering. Not committing.
He pulls his face away. “No. Say the words.”
Every inch of his lithe body sears me. Hoof beats shatter this perfect bit of suspend
ed reality.
This will end.
I try to shift him off. He doesn’t budge.
“Don’t you hear them?”
“I don’t care. Tell me.”
He kisses me again—sending a surge of heat coursing through my veins. He abruptly breaks the kiss, leaving me breathless, panting.
Our eyes lock and my stomach contracts. “Fine. I’ll consider it. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Too late,” he whispers in my ear.
His body is up in a blink, hauling me to my feet, picking dead flowers out of my hair—all in what seems one movement to my lust-addled wits.
I smooth out my expression as I see Montgomery and Stygian approaching through the field.
“Is everything alright?” Montgomery asks and smirks. He knows. I want to leave a boot print on his cheek.
“Miss Holmes felt a little ill, so we were just waiting till it passed.”
Stygian scowls. “If Miss Holmes’s delicate constitution is restored, we should press on. Science is waiting.”
###
Henry
Stygian and Montgomery halt their horses, waiting at the cave’s mouth. “You have the Very pistol, Mr. Watson?”
“Yes. We will be sure to fire the flare if we run into trouble again. I will wait for Miss Holmes. We will report back at day’s end.”
What is keeping her?
Stygian nods and he and Montgomery canter across the field to the other suspected excavation site. I slide off and tether the horse to a tree. She whinnies, her ears flat against her head. I remember Bella’s comment about animals and danger and pull my father’s old service revolver.
I’m not taking chances this time.
My gaze shoots south toward the sound of crunching underbrush.
A muscled hulk of a man, with flaming auburn hair, is lumbering toward me, through the forest. He’s large. Large as the skeletons we search for.
I glance at the pistol. I’m not sure a shot would halt him. Maybe if I unloaded every shot—it would slow him.
He stops, ten feet away, black eyes scrutinizing me under bushy red eyebrows.
“You should not be here. These lands are sacred.”
“Says who?”
“Says many generations—older and wiser than you, boy. Who walked the earth before you were even a gleam in your father’s eye.”
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