“I’m sorry,” he says. “We are doing our best to persuade him to come with us.”
Mangan increases the volume of his protestations.
“It seems your best is not sufficient.”
“I’m afraid he is a little the worse for wear,” says the young man.
“You are pointing out the obvious. Better you and your friends had not thought to come here with him in such a state.”
At this the man appears to bridle a little, though I cannot imagine anyone in the habit of using what Mr. Chow Li provides is in a position to defend extreme behavior, his own or anyone else’s. He is prevented from responding by being summoned by the red-haired woman, who demands his assistance in grappling with the artist as he staggers about. With a great deal of struggle and more noisy complaint from the drunkard, the party lurch and sway up the narrow alley. I watch them go, wondering, not for the first time, how apparently well-spoken and educated people come to find themselves prepared to stoop to such a condition. I also make a note to speak with this errant witch, discreetly, next time we meet in the coven. Such behavior is unacceptable.
Stepping forward I knock smartly on the red door, which is quickly opened by a diminutive Chinese woman who, to my knowledge, has never uttered a word of English. I understand her to be a relative of the proprietor, rather than his wife. As soon as Withers follows me over the threshold the door is bolted behind us. Once again I stand in the darkness, but this time the stairs in front of me climb steeply upward, and are of worn and splintered wood. Mr. Chow Li’s property had, in an earlier incarnation, been used to store and distribute grain. All that remains of such industry is the thick coating of dust which clings to everything, including the stale air in the stairwell. The ground floor seems abandoned, and the first, from what I can discern, contains the living quarters for the owner and what family he has. Visitors are compelled to climb to the second floor, where the stairs open into a long, low-ceilinged room which spans the length and breadth of the building. A powerful fug of smoke, a singular smell, sweet and sickly, and the odor of warm bodies assails me as I enter the fetid space. On either side, the room is lined with low beds against the wall, some with curtains drawn about them, others open to view, exposing the slumbering occupants. There is little light, save for two lanterns hanging in the center of the room. Beneath these sits Mr. Chow Li, cross-legged, his walnut face scrunched in concentration as he prepares another pipe. He is sitting amid the paraphernalia of his trade—small dishes and pans, a little stove, and a selection of plain pipes set about him. His assistant, another Chinese woman of indeterminate age, wordlessly hands him this package and that spoon, seeming to know exactly what it is the old man requires at the precise moment he needs it. Becoming aware of the presence of his visitors, he looks up from his work and his features are transformed by a grin of convincing sincerity.
“Ah! Lovely Lady!” He springs lightly to his brocade-slippered feet and hurries forward to greet us. “Pleasure always to have Lovely Lady come Chow Li’s home,” he gushes. I hear a gruff snort of derision behind me from Withers, who does nothing to conceal his contempt for the opium master.
“I received your message.” I have no desire to enter into pleasantries or small talk with the man, today of all days. “Please take me to my brother.”
“Ah, Mr. Freddie not good this night. I told him ‘Too much wine! Too much wine!’ But he say, ‘Oh, no matter, Mr. Chow Li,’ and he say he bury his father today. ‘Be kind to me,’ he say. Ah! Very sad. So Mr. Chow Li give him what he want.”
“And your ‘kindness’ has made him ill,” I say curtly. A kindness that can be bought easily enough for the right amount of money.
Impervious to my anger, the old man scuttles ahead, beckoning, leading us to the far end of the room. I do my best to ignore the recumbent figures I pass. I feel as if to breathe here is almost an intimate act, as if I were sharing something forbidden and low with these unknown men and women. The large windows on the river side of the building are open, but the night is so close, so steamy, that there is no fresh air to relieve the thickness of the atmosphere in the den. I have been forced to retrieve my brother from one of these very beds on numerous occasions, and each time I have left the property feeling sick and lethargic, my mind dulled and my will sapped. What must it be like to smoke one of Mr. Chow Li’s pipes? How can I hope to pull my brother back from the clutches of something so tenacious and overwhelming?
Freddie is sprawled on his back on a low couch in the corner of the room. The sight of him so stricken makes my heart lurch. Each time I witness him in such a state my reaction is the same. It is as if I am seeing him dead. I lean over and grip his shoulder, shaking him gently.
“Freddie. Freddie, it’s me, Lilith. Can you hear me?”
His response is a low groan. I feel his brow and am shocked to find him running with sweat. I take the lamp from Withers and hold it over the grubby cot. Even in the unnatural light I can see that Freddie’s skin is almost green, his lips blue-tinged, and his pulse, throbbing in his forehead, dangerously slow.
“How long has he been like this?” I demand of Mr. Chow Li.
“Mr. Chow Li send message. Very busy here today…”
“How long?”
A stiff shrug is all the answer he gives.
“Quickly, Withers, help me raise him.”
Together we haul Freddie up off the bed. As always, I am thankful for my butler’s strength. I know he hates having to come to such a place, but he is fiercely loyal, and he adored Freddie as a small boy, teaching him card tricks when Nanny was not looking, and even letting him slide down the laundry shoot on occasion. I know it pains him to see that same playful boy grown into such a lost young man. We will take him home, making certain Mama does not see him in so disturbing a state, and I will summon the gentlest healing spirits to come and help me ease his suffering as the hateful poppy loosens its grip upon him. I will mop his brow, and murmur soothing spells and soft words, and watch as he suffers once again. And I will be there, steadfast and calm, in the difficult days when he returns properly to reality.
Mr. Chow Li hastens to clear a path for us as we navigate the room. The stairs are too narrow for me to be able to help Withers, so that he is compelled to lift Freddie and carry him, like a babe in arms, with painful care and slow progress, down the dusty staircase. At the door, I round on the bobbing Chinaman.
“It seems to me,” I say, “that you have no shortage of custom. Is it too much to ask that the next time my brother appears on your doorstep you turn him away?”
“Ah, Lovely Lady. If Mr. Chow Li say no, Freddie go some other place. Maybe someplace bad.”
The irony of this reasoning leaves me open-mouthed. I want to shout at the odious man, to make him admit the harm in which he is complicit. But, the sad truth is, I know him to be right. At least if Freddie comes here I know where to find him. I pray to the spirits that I do not come one day to recover only his body.
Once we are safely returned home, and Freddie is sleeping soundly on the daybed Mrs. Jessop has prepared for him, I return to my room. Violet has waited up for me, but I send her to bed. There is little of the night left and I am too disturbed in my mind to sleep. Instead I sit on the padded window seat, leaning my head against the cool glass and gazing out across the slumbering square. The first indications of dawn are beginning to lighten the horizon, but the streetlights of the city still glow brightly against the gloomy background. The trees in the garden of the square are still nothing more than a tangle of darkness behind the iron railings.
Iago, sensitive as ever to my mood, springs onto my lap, where he curls up, closes his eyes, and settles to purring softly. His presence is indeed a comfort, for just now I feel I have a mountain to climb, and despite Father’s assurances that I will have help from him and from the coven, I know in truth I must scale it alone. Freddie seems utterly beyond my reach at times. I believe I am all that anchors him to what is safe and good in our lives. Am I sufficient?
He, too, must live beneath the burden of a secret, and he is so ill equipped to cope with what knowledge he has of the coven. I know Father worried that he would speak to the wrong people, when he was not in control of his mind or his tongue. That he would say things that, once said, could not be taken back, and that might threaten the secrecy that protects the Lazarus witches and the duties we are charged with. What would my father have done to control him had he become a danger to us? I wonder. How far would he have gone to silence his own son? It was always made clear to me that I was a witch first, and a daughter, sister, or even wife, only after that. The coven must come first. Always. No matter the personal sacrifice. Will it fall to me, one day, to sacrifice Freddie for the good of the coven? Could I?
Both Father and Druscilla spent many hours explaining to me the importance of what it is we do in the coven. Druscilla, in particular, strove to make me understand what was at stake.
“I know about the dangers of summonings going wrong,” I told her one day, while we sat in the darkened chamber, “and I can see that there are risks that something might escape the Darkness, but, well, aside from that, I don’t see how what we do is dangerous. I mean, we gain insight from the spirits we talk to. And they tell us of things that are going to happen, or warn us about people who might do us harm. How can that hurt anyone? And why should not others want to talk to the spirits, too?”
Druscilla sighed. I could not see her shake her head, but was becoming accustomed to conversing with her without being able to watch her. My other senses were heightened, so that I not only heard the minute movement, but sensed it, too, in a way that I could not have done a few months before. And I sensed her slight disappointment in me, too. Disappointment at the fact that I had not yet grasped such important points. It was all there, in that tiny, hidden gesture. When she spoke, however, there was no note of frustration in her voice, rather a sincere wish to help me understand.
“While the Lazarus Coven practice Elemental Necromancy,” she explained once again for me, “which wakens only the souls of the dead, there are those who choose the dark path of Infernal Necromancy. These people are followers of the First Sentinel, a disbanded and discredited coven who, centuries ago, regularly reanimated corpses and caused the dead to walk. Such practices have long been outlawed, and their followers disgraced and banned from either joining or forming a new coven. But ambition is a fearsome thing, and all witches have heard tales of the Sentinels, a mysterious clan who wait and watch and long for the moment when they might pry the Great Secret from the Lazarus Coven and return to their gruesome and amoral work.”
“Gruesome and amoral? What could they wish to do that is so terrible?” I asked.
“Child, can you not imagine how wrongly such skills could be used? Leaving aside, for the moment, the repugnance of wantonly raising the dead, whether they wished it or no, using them cruelly, holding them hostage to the need to be sustained as revenant beings without, perhaps, revealing to them the means for doing this … Apart from that, there is the question of how other covens, or other necromancers who are not witches, how they might use the Great Secret.”
“But, Druscilla … even you do not know what it is.”
“I do not. That is information only the Head Witch has. This is precisely to protect it from the likes of the Sentinels. I do not need to know all the information to know that such power in the wrong hands would be ill-used. I trust the spirits. I trust the teachings of the coven. I trust the Head Witch. And all of these tell me that with the Great Secret comes an even greater responsibility, and that should the wicked have it in their hold, tremendous suffering could be caused.”
She waited for me to respond to this, and when I said nothing—for what could I say?—she added, “You need to acquire an understanding of faith, Lilith. Faith is not built on knowledge. Faith requires no proof. No evidence. No explanation. Faith is entirely a matter of trust and belief. We cannot know, we can only believe.”
I believe. I trust. I have faith, and I will keep it in silence. Whatever that requires of me. Yet even as I form these crucial points in my head I find I am distracted by another thought. Something altogether unexpected. Or rather, someone. After all the turmoil of the night, following as it did from such a testing day, through all the conflicting concerns that now occupy my mind, comes the faint but clear image of a strong, lithe figure, a strikingly good-looking face, and a pair of dark, dark eyes. I shake the picture from my head, tutting at my own foolishness for recalling a stranger, so briefly met, who I am unlikely to ever encounter again.
* * *
Bram stands in the center of the shabby space that is his new home and takes a long, reviving breath. The forty-eight hours since his arrival at the Mangan home have passed in a dizzying blur of domestic drama, unfamiliar faces, and noisy children. Mercifully, Jane Mangan does not allow any of her offspring up to his attic rooms. He briefly thought this was a sign of some respect for his privacy, or to let him work in peace. He liked that notion; that his art was sufficiently valued by others in the house that they thought he should not be disturbed. It didn’t take him long to realize, however, that the real reason the children are forbidden to venture beyond the second floor is the perilous state of the stairs. They are old and wooden and worm-ridden, and suffering greatly from neglect, as is most of the house, so that to tread them without caution is to risk serious injury. Only the previous evening he was hurrying to reach his garret before the spluttering candle in his hand burned out and had stepped onto a stair that simply was no longer there. His foot disappeared through the hole, and his leg up to the thigh. He had to struggle in deep darkness for some time before he was able to free himself. His shin is still sharply painful. At least he has managed to beg two oil lamps from Perry, who agreed that candles were not sufficient. The house has not been fitted with electricity, and there is no money to pay for gas, so, as Perry put it, “It’s every man for himself when it comes to light. Or heat. Or food, for that matter.” Which doesn’t seem to Bram to be the spirit of communal living he had expected.
What surpasses his expectations, however, is the accommodation he has been allocated. So long as one navigates the stairs with care, the rooms at the top of the climb reward the effort. The floorboards here are rotten in two places, and he has already positioned furniture above them to prevent disaster. For the most part, though, the floor is sound. The room runs the width of the house and has windows at both front and back. These are dormers, set into the sloping rafters, and not particularly generous, but the fact that there are many of them allows ample light in the day, perfect for painting by. Gaps in the tiles admit further pools of sunshine, as well as welcome air. Indeed, were there not so many openings, the room in the roof would be unbearably hot and stuffy in the heat wave.
Something shall have to be done about them before winter, he thinks, else I shall freeze.
He has moved the dusty bed to the far wall and unpacked his few clothes and personal belongings into the tallboy to one side of it. There is a low trestle table, which will serve very well for his artist’s materials, two scruffy armchairs, a full-length mirror, a washstand with jug and bowl, a chamber pot, a tin cupboard with mesh door (in which he is able to store food safe from mice), and a hat stand. Being so sparsely furnished makes the attic singularly suitable for his purposes. It will make a better studio than it will living quarters, but he prefers it that way. It feels workmanlike. Professional. Gives a clear indication of where his priorities lie. He sets up his easel so that the north light will fall upon the canvas it holds and whatever he is painting, and stands back to admire his new domain. It is not hard to imagine what his parents would make of his chosen home. He knows his mother would be appalled at the lack of hygiene, the dangerous stairs, and the general dilapidation of the place. His father, on the other hand, would be aghast at the rowdiness of the children, Gudrun’s manner of dress, and what he would no doubt deem the corrupting morals of the Mangans themselves.
Looking at the pris
tine blank canvas in front of him, Bram is overwhelmed by the urge to begin, to actually paint. He has been so taken up by the mundane business of settling in, and so distracted by those he now shares a house with, his attempts to start work have been frustrated.
But what to paint? I have no sitter, no subject. Except perhaps …
He hurries over to his stock of paper and pulls out the sketches he made in the graveyard. It pains him to see how inadequate they are, but they are all he has. Looking at them now he can clearly recall the mood of the scene, the sharp shadows, the glare of the sun, the angle of the girl’s jaw as she turned her head away.
And those eyes. The second time fate placed her before me, when she stood outside that shabby house in Bluegate Fields, those eyes shone with such an intensity of color, her skin appeared so pale …
He finds a pin and secures the sketches to the wall behind his easel. Next he takes up tubes of oil paints and selects a limited palette—burned umber, raw sienna, lamp black, chalk white, cadmium yellow—colors he knows will assist him in finding the drama of what he saw.
If only I knew who she was, oh how much better to be able to have her sit for me! Surely the funeral will be among the notices reported somewhere? I could search for her. But why would she agree to so much as speak to me? She found me at an opium den, with a raving drunkard. I fear if she remembers me at all it will not be with high regard.
When he saw the woman outside Mr. Chow Li’s house he recognized her at once as the same woman he had seen standing at the graveside in the cemetery that morning. The woman he had felt so compelled to draw. She had taken off her hat and veil and replaced them with a cape and hood, but there was no mistaking her. Bram was shocked to think of her frequenting such an establishment. Could such an elegant, apparently wealthy, well-spoken woman, a woman of unmistakable presence and poise, could she really lie among the dead-eyed clientele he had seen at the place? It made no sense to him.
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