I hold up two fingers.
“All right, make that two extra scones.”
Kelly gives a good-humored snort and leaves.
Shrugging off my cloak, I hide my drawstring reticule in the garment’s inner pocket. Kelly is inside his office, talking to another doctor about a recently discovered body. Female. Believed to be a suicide.
His voice isn’t the only one I hear. The hospital is a loud place, conversations booming everywhere, but I tune them out. One person, however, cannot be ignored. The words are muffled, like they’re traveling through deep water to get to me—nearly unintelligible, but so persistent. I stand and swing my cane out ahead of my feet, moving toward the sound. I detect a strong spoiled-joint-of-beef odor.
Turning right, I run my hand along the wall and find a wide, wooden door. I twist the knob and push the door inward with my knee. The spoiled meat smell is far more potent in this room than it was in the hallway. The whispering is still muted but more emphatic than before.
Why can’t I understand the words when I’m this close?
It’s all right, I say with telepathy. I’m here. You’re not alone anymore.
As I follow the voice, I bump into an obstruction. My kid gloves are lined with fur and are a barrier to skin on skin contact. I lean my cane against the wall, remove the gloves and stuff them into my coat pocket. Nerves make my mouth dry. I lick my lips, but they feel sticky afterwards. Go on, Hester. A ghost can’t hurt you.
I reach forward and touch the obstruction. Spacious, flat surface. Cool metal. An exam table? It’s covered with a cloth. I pull the cloth away and hear it fall to the floor with a swish. The body on the table no longer whispers but chants inside my head. Other cadavers may presently be stored in this room, but this is the only one calling to me. I concentrate on the words and realize the ghost is a female.
Afraid-lost-help-me-help-me-forgive-please-forgive-help-me-lost-lost-lost…
She’s wrapped in toweling. I walk along side the body, fingers searching for a gap in the fabric, until I come upon a human thumb sticking out from under it. I push the toweling away and grasp the entire hand. It almost flops out of my grip, long past rigor mortis. My skull tightens and my body trembles. Eyes hot and wet, I cannot ignore the piteous voice or release my contact with the corpse.
Mercurial. Perilous. The vision overwhelms me, and I travel to that realm beyond earth where past, present and future merge and the dead speak to the living. I sink toward the bottom of a murky pond. What am I doing underwater? My lungs burn, and I pump my legs, pushing myself upwards. The water seems to extend above me for miles. My eyesight sparks with electric pulses, and I am dizzy when my face breaks the surface. Retching, I thrash through the water like a fish on a line, somehow keeping myself afloat. I’m nearly to the grassy banks of the pond when I see a woman standing in the shallows under a willow.
She weeps silently, not bothering to wipe away the tears as they glide down her face. A large stone rests in her arms, the weight of it causing them to shake. Both the stone and the woman are bound together with a rope. Fragile-looking—thin and middle-aged—her face has an aura of faded prettiness about it. Like a watercolor painting left too long in the sun, the subtle tones of beauty are now bleached and drab.
Her forehead creases with pain. “Stop, please stop,” the woman begs, stumbling further into the pond. “You’re right. I deserve to die.”
Maybe it’s that I nearly drowned a moment ago. Or because I feel such pity for this tragic figure. Whatever the reason, she’s going to listen. “Not another step!” I yell.
The woman looks up in astonishment. I’m surprised, too. Not so much over my ability to yell in this realm but by the fact we can communicate. Most people in my visions are oblivious to everything but their own pain. They don’t listen to me. Have my powers begun to evolve as Mary Arden said they would?
Making my way through the water to the suicidal lady, I move awkwardly in a saturated dress, pond mud sucking at my feet.
“Who are you?” she asks.
I rub the stitch in my side, breathing hard. I really must exert myself more. “H-Hester. What’s your name?”
“Marie-Louise Lennox.”
“And today’s date?”
The woman puzzles over the answer. “November. November fifth, I think.”
Two days ago. She’s probably the suicide Kelly discussed with his coworker. I move closer, until I am at arm’s length. “Why are you taking your own life?”
Looking fearful, Marie-Louise steps back and shrugs.
I reach for the rope around her waist, but she evades me. “Don’t do it. Please don’t.”
Then I cover my big mouth. Why did I say that? The woman’s already dead. And what if she changes her mind and doesn’t kill herself? I doubt the immortals would look kindly on my altering the past. Marie-Louise isn’t paying attention to my foible, however.
Head cocked, she’s listening to something else, eyes filling with new tears. “You can’t change my fate, Hester. I must pay the price.”
Her slim body bows as though she’s been struck. “Oh, how my head hurts! He’s so angry. He can’t forgive me.”
“Who?” I ask. “Who can’t forgive you?”
Fresh agony strikes her. “I won’t tell,” she whimpers. “No more. I beg of you.”
The woman turns, walks a few feet and enters deep water, throwing herself beneath the surface of the pond. I hurry toward the place where Marie-Louise went under but an unnatural current forms and pushes me back. Bloody hell. What trickery goes on here? Fighting the tide, I thrash-swim for several minutes, but I am swept out of the vision the same way I entered it. Sinking to the bottom of the pond, I pass a lifeless body tied to a stone, floating gently to and fro.
Marie-Louise.
Desperate for air, I writhe as darkness engulfs me. The psychic realm fades away and I return to myself, back at the hospital morgue, holding a cold hand. I release it quickly and step away. Patting my bodice and skirt, I find them completely dry. I am as I was before the vision. Well-dressed. Blind. Mute.
O di immortales. Take a moment and breathe, Hester.
I sink to the floor, onto the cloth that had covered Marie-Louise. Forcing myself to be calm, I cross my arms over my abdomen and exhale. The vision’s done. She isn’t your responsibility—it was a suicide, not a murder.
Although I feel for Marie-Louise, she can’t assume ghost form and follow me from this place or haunt me like Freckles the Cornishwoman does. Those who end their own lives fall outside my supernatural job description. But why then did I hear Marie-Louise call? What does she wish me to learn from her death?
The voice is still speaking from the body on the table, calling out for relief that is beyond my power. I stand up and drape the cloth over the dead woman. Memory teases a corner of my mind. I’m missing something important about her. What is it? Flashes of color and motion appear. Mountains, early spring sunshine, a male voice. The scene repeats several times at high speed, so fast it barely registers… Now slower. Slower. It’s of Freckles being murdered, just before she was thrown off the cliff. Then my exchange with Marie-Louise overlaps the Cornishwoman’s death, like a dress pattern covering a piece of cloth. They must be connected somehow. Not at face value, of course, but truth vibrates through my bones at the thought of a common thread.
Comparing the superimposed visions, I find a link—Mr. Murder and Marie-Louise both seemed to converse with an invisible person. And they experienced pain. Almost like a punishment for disobedience.
What was it Mary Arden said? That our enemy uses others to accomplish his work? Weak, impressionable souls who lack the will to resist. She told me I’d hear it in their voices if I listened hard enough.
Inhaling slowly, I feel my skin go cold. The killer and the suicide were weak and impressionable. I heard it, smelled it on them. Mary Arden could be right about Archimendax’s heir. He may be at work in Stonehenge.
I’m drawn out of my thoughts by sounds fro
m within Kelly’s office. Papers crinkle, a drawer closes. After grabbing my cane, I retrace my steps from the morgue to the chair in the hall. I sit down, weak with relief, and Kelly opens his door.
“What say you to three scones, Hester?” he asks. “You’re a slight bit of goods, but you might be able to polish them off.”
10
Amantes sunt amentes.
Lovers are lunatics.
We follow the waiter to our table in the hotel tearoom. I take my seat and listen, enrapt, as a harpist plays softly in the background. A beer garden does brisk business outside the windows of the tearoom. Between the two establishments, I smell lemon wedges, fresh cream, and Darjeeling, as well as pickled eggs and an overfull spittoon.
Stonehenge in a nutshell.
As always, I hear the townsfolk on the fringes. “Sapphire earbobs? Why would Lenore waste them on her?”… “Thank goodness for the glasses! Terrifying without them, you know… ” Others are discussing Kelly. “Devilish handsome and a doctor, too. Rumor has it he’s single.”
How foolish of me to think I could do this. More foolish yet for them to think at all.
Kelly reads aloud from the menu and describes the variety of teas available to us. I barely pay attention as I listen to a group of debutantes at another table plotting to ensnare him. Still oblivious to the managing females, he makes suggestions from the trays of sandwiches and cakes, and I lift my hand when something sounds good, like a culinary auction.
Though I don’t select many items. No scones, as it turns out. They’re too crumbly. My entire side of the table would be a mess. Instead, I choose sandwiches—cucumber with dill—fruit and cheese, and my usual Earl Grey. My face feels hot as I eat in public. Do I look ridiculous? Is there something stuck in my teeth? I can’t imagine ever wishing for the Cornishwoman’s companionship, but wouldn’t ghost-sight come in handy now?
I take small bites and chew slowly as Kelly tells funny stories about his daughter Alice. He’s good company, and I begin to relax. Due to the late night meetings with Tom, I haven’t spent much time practicing my table manners. Still, the sandwiches are dainty, crustless squares and not too difficult to consume. When a bit of cucumber drops onto my lap, I brush it off, hoping Kelly doesn’t notice. I’ve just finished a slice of pear and hard Chesire cheese when Kelly offers me a petit four. The doctor shoves the little pastry into my mouth before I can decline.
“Bit of chocolate on your chin,” he says, laughing. “Under your bottom lip.”
Horrid man! The whole room must have seen.
My napkin is just large enough to hide behind as I wipe the melted frosting away.
“There’s that expressive face,” he says, once I’ve cleaned up. “I’m getting quite used to it.”
Kelly leans closer and sighs. His breath smells of herbs and honey. “We’ll have to do this again, Hester.”
No, we will not. The townspeople are agog as it is.
“I want you to say to yourself, ‘Noah, I’ve had a wonderful time. We must sup together anon.’ That exact wording, mind you.”
Apparently, the people around us are so caught up in this exchange that they’ve stopped gossiping. The room is quiet except for the clatter of silverware on china. I imagine what they see, and entertain the image of the doctor and I together at our table by the window, heads nearly touching. This might seem like a romantic engagement to those who don’t know better.
“Say, ‘Noah, you are a prince among men. High tea will never be the same without you.’”
Oh, for the love of heaven…
He takes something out of his jacket pocket. A rabbit, maybe? I hear a shuffling sound and feel a packet of paper sliding between my fingers. He turns my hand and kisses my knuckles before I pull away.
“You’re welcome.”
A resounding gasp echoes across the tearoom, as though someone has inhaled with shock after witnessing such forward behavior between the new doctor and the town deficient. The man coughs several times and several more after that.
My escort’s tone is so smug that I am naturally curious to know what it is I’m holding, what he thinks requires my gratitude. I examine his gift. Stiff cards with cutouts in the middle.
“Stencils,” Kelly announces proudly. “I had them made up at the stationers.”
Ah, of course. Stencils. How lovely. Never heard of the blasted things.
But I pretend to know all about them for the doctor’s sake and nod wisely as he explains. It’s impossible to concentrate, however. The man on the other side of the room has increased the volume of his cough. Actually, it’s become more of a distressed gurgle. A waiter is hurrying this way, straight toward Kelly.
“You’ll learn your alphabet and eventually write—” the doctor stops speaking a moment before the waiter arrives and rises to his feet. “Hold on, that fellow’s choking.”
Kelly and the waiter rush the man out of the lobby, presumably to avoid distressing the other diners, and knock someone over in the process. Amid this confusion, I realize that I am in trouble. Big trouble. Well over six feet of angry Scottish trouble. O di immortales! I want to cross myself even though I’m not Catholic.
Are you coming out, love? Or shall I come in?
Let’s talk later. When you’ve had a chance to get your temper in hand.
That may take years, Hettie. Go out the side door behind your chair. There’s an alley on the right.
Standing slowly, I hug my cane for moral support. It’s not as it appears, Tom.
I know what I saw through the window.
You won’t understand.
Try me.
Following Tom’s directions, I leave through the side door, but cowardice wins over valor. I swivel back toward the hotel before a hand grabs my arm and yanks me into the alley. Tom removes my spectacles before I can stop him.
Explain.
He knows how I hate having my glasses taken away and his blatant disregard of my wishes makes me seethe. I put my hands on my hips and thrust out my chin. There’s nothing to tell! Dr. Kelly asked me to tea, as a friend, and I accepted. Is that a crime?
Tom crowds me a little. Just for the record, which part was the most enjoyable, love? His feeding you the pastry or the knuckle kiss?
Kelly just likes to be outrageous sometimes. That’s all.
Oh please. He was looking for an excuse to touch you. And I didn’t see any objection on your part.
This sparks my temper to new heights. I shove Tom’s chest with my palms, but he doesn’t budge. Marry me then. I’m sick of waiting.
All right, let’s wed. We’ll elope.
Having asked Tom to run away with me every year since I was eleven, I am filled with joy at this prospect, until I realize he’s just being spiteful. I raise my hand to slap him, but Tom catches it and links his fingers with mine.
“What’ll we do, once we’re hitched? Live with my parents?” He whispers this against my ear, his brogue especially pronounced and husky. “Ma and Pa have the bedroom downstairs while the rest of us sleep in the loft. Splintery wood under our blankets, but never you worry, lass. We’ll be right happy tucked in together. You won’t mind the smell of the pigs outside the window, will you?”
I struggle against him, but he holds me fast. “Shall we honeymoon in the barn or the woods?”
Tears form at the corners of my eyes. Don’t treat me like this. You know I love you—
“Aye, I do. The feeling’s mutual, remember? You think I don’t want you as my wife? That I don’t dream of it?”
Then why are you being so mean?
Tom sighs and leans his forehead against mine, turning telepathic. I can’t afford to be a romantic, Hettie. Not about us. I care too much to see you brought low.
Amor vincit omnia. Love conquers all.
He traces the side of my cheek with his finger, the touch devastatingly soft. You say that now, but poverty can crush the strongest union. I won’t bind you to me until I can provide a decent home for you. I won’t have my
children growing up as I’ve done.
Cordelia once read Thomas More’s Utopia to me and I remember marveling that gold meant nothing to the people within the book, so little that they made chamberpots out of it. Stonehenge is the absolute opposite of Utopia. It has a definite aristocracy, and it doesn’t come from blue blood. It’s entirely based on money. And wealth is just as important to Tom as it is to my father. The ironic thing is that Father was just like him once—before the gold rush.
I hold Tom close, wishing I’d never come to town. Things are just things. They don’t matter.
Because you’ve always had them, love.
Tom allows me a glimpse of what’s in his heart. Sorrow, aggravation, fear. These feelings are soon replaced by a different passion, and Tom sinks into me with a searing openmouthed kiss. I cling to him and weather out the storm of emotion, returning each caress.
Then he disappears from my arms.
Bodies roll across the cobblestones, fists strike muscle and debris crashes about in the alley. I switch down my hearing before my head explodes.
“You need lessons on how to treat a lady,” Kelly mutters.
Tom laughs bitterly. “I was treating her quite well until you arrived.”
The doctor grunts, as though he’s been tackled and driven into the wall. He takes a good pounding before knocking Tom off his feet. The violence goes on for some time. They are gasping for air but still swinging.
No more, Tom. Please.
Tell that to your boyfriend—he fights dirty.
“I won’t allow Hester to be taken advantage of,” Kelly sputters, as though his throat is being squeezed.
“I’ll kill anyone who tries it,” Tom replies with a snarl.
After hitting the cobblestones, Kelly springs to his feet, the sound fluid as a cat. More punching follows. The moment there is a lull, I move between them and put a hand on Tom’s chest.
Kelly steps back, and I sense him studying us. “You’re friends with this man, Hester?” he asks, voice cool.
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