“… But she didn’t say for how long, so I can’t really say when to expect—”
“Ozias,” Tom said firmly, holding up his hands and shutting his eyes hard. “Now, what were you saying?”
“Sir, Miss Bishop has left.”
“Where to?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. Perhaps Charlotte knows. She was last with Miss Bishop before she left about an hour ago.”
Shaking his head and chasing his flighty thoughts, trying to collect them all back, Tom went to the sitting room where he found Charlotte, sitting with her sewing in her lap, simply staring off in a solemn daze.
“Charlotte?” Tom said, walking to her side.
“I thought it was all behind her,” Charlotte replied, never turning her gaze from the floor. “I thought it only right to tell her who killed Eli. I didn’t think she felt so bitterly about it. I’m sorry Mr. Walsh, I pleaded with her, but she said she had to leave. She said you would understand.” Setting the dress aside, Charlotte put her hands in her lap and turned to look out the window next the sofa. “I told her, revenge is a fool’s comfort. I’m sorry Mr. Walsh, I’m sorry. I thought it was all behind her—a…”
“Charlotte, listen to me,” Tom interrupted, trying to calm her. “Where did she go?”
“I truly don’t know. The rest of the men who had a hand in Eli’s death could be dead themselves for all we know! She wouldn’t listen.” Wiping dry her eyes, Charlotte tossed her hands up in defeat.
“Charlotte,” he tried again, sitting next to her, “It’s all right. I’ll find her.”
Charlotte nodded and quieted her sobs.
“I told her the name of one of the young men responsible, thinking it would console her to know at least one of them was served justice, but…”
“What was his name? Who killed Eli Wilks?” he asked, speaking softly and motioning for Ozias to prepare her some tea.
Thanking Ozias, Charlotte took the cup and blew away the steam.
“I promise, I’ll find her and reason with her,” Tom repeated. “What’s the man’s name?”
Breathing slowly and calming down, Charlotte handed the cup back to Ozias. “The boy’s name was Thomas Crowe.”
A feeling of ice seized Tom’s heart. His breath left him, and he felt lightheaded. Without saying another word, he left the room. Charlotte called after him, confused. Still dizzy, he ran up the stairs and to Molly’s bedroom, throwing open the door and running all about the room in a panic. Many of Molly’s things were gone. One of her bags was missing. None of the notebooks were to be found. He turned to run back to the door and stopped as something caught his eye. All alone, atop the dresser lay the little gold ring—the one with the woman’s face cut into the gemstone. There was no light coming from it.
It was with much hesitance that Thomas Crowe, many years ago, related the following memory to me:
“Thomas! Go! Now!” The dying Vincent Henrikson had screamed.
“Not yet! Bloody hell, Vincent, where's your arm?” Tom yelled over the roar of flames. The starboard side of the deck had collapsed inward and fires from the powder store were leaping up from the wound like liberated souls of limbo.
“Get off this damned ship, Thomas! You'll sink with it and me if you don't ... Go!” Vincent shouted, shoving Tom backward and refusing his help.
“Who did this?” Tom persisted, his eyes wide in horror.
“Thomas! Go!”
“Who?” Tom shook uncontrollably. Henrikson, one of his only trustworthy friends lay face-up on the deck, bleeding to death and smoldering from burns.
“He'll kill you if he finds you too, boy! You're no different than anyone of us! Get back on that ship and run away to shore as soon as Captain’s not lookin’! Go! He's coming, boy!” Vincent thrashed about, swatting at the flames on his trousers with his only remaining arm, his long stringy blonde hair pinned under a cannon wheel.
A crazed young man stumbled into sight. He held a sword in one hand—dripping a thick red liquid. “Brother?” He called to the air, spinning around, frightened. His gaze fell on a dead gentleman, sprawled out on the deck of the ship. “Brother?” Tripping over himself, he ran to the man’s side, tears falling from his sweating face onto the body. Torrid flames illuminated his figure, painting long black shadows under his eyes and nose.
Tom stumbled back against the railing, watching the young man with hate. Frederick Wilks stood again, shoulders raised and drawn back, his grip on the sword leaching the color from his knuckles. Tom’s eyes moved from his armless friend to Wilks. Frederick cast his burning gaze on Tom. The two men were nearly of equivalent age, and each had just lost a close comrade at the hands of the other.
“You! You did this! Murderer!” Frederick condemned Tom, banging the flat of his sword against the deck and storming toward him.
“I've never murdered a man in my life!” Tom shot back, his body beginning to react to the curse. Smoke wafted across the space between them. Vincent rolled over on his stomach. Tom looked down at him and up again at Frederick.
“That was my brother!” Frederick wailed, “My only brother, you damned murderer!” Again he banged the sword against the deck. The terrible, discordant racket rang loud in Tom’s ears and put him on edge.
“Perhaps your dear brother would matter more to me if my own life didn’t depend on pilfering meager scraps from privileged prats like you,” Tom blasted him with a cold smirk. What scared him more than having killed a man was not having a personal reason to do so. Thus his young mind yielded to the coerced twisting of his heart, and he let darkness advocate for his actions. The silver collar round his neck stung like the tears in his eyes. Acidic anger ran down his cheek more and more as he lost control over the curse.
“It does not matter! You're all the same, you bloody thieves!” raved Frederick, turning to march toward Vincent. “Wolves! Dogs! Here you will all die! I’ll give my life if it means the lot of you will never harm the innocent again!” Faster than Tom could intervene, Frederick jammed his sword into the middle of Vincent’s back.
Tom flinched at the sound of the blade, unable to scream or breathe as a cloud of smoke gagged him. Blind and suffocating, mind dizzied and heart frozen, revenge guided Thomas Crowe’s right hand to the pistol at his hip. When he next blinked, he was kneeling over Frederick Wilks, with one knee buried in the man’s stomach. His right hand pressed the barrel of the gun into Frederick’s left cheek. If Frederick had uttered any last words, they were lost in blood and thunder.
Tom was engulfed in a flash of fire as the deck of the Wilks’s ship bowed inward. One long groan rolled over the moment, then a sharp crack. He fell forward, missing the solid part of the deck and landing with a splash in the cold brine. Spitting out the salt water that filled his mouth, he splashed around in the dim void for something to cling to. Captain Lapuente walked the deck above, making a quick inventory of the dead and left without thinking of Tom once.
With Luna Mater peeking through his lashes, Tom awoke on shore outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Authorities found him within the half hour, sitting in the sand and holding an iron lockbox with the initials E.L.W. pressed into the lid.
Geoffrey Mylus,
June 30, 1833
****
Tom’s thoughts were full of that night long ago as he walked into Bormouss & Ruth’s gin-shop at eight o’clock. A tall man dressed in an unusual, impressive white suit kept one eye tagged to Thomas. The man’s long brown hair was tied neatly and close to his head—dark eyes and Roman face turning to inspect his surroundings routinely. He had just arrived in London and had been looking for nightly accommodations on Elder Street—a normally tame neighborhood—and was quite surprised when a werewolf came walking into Bormouss & Ruth’s. Even more interesting was the strange familiarity he felt when he saw Tom’s face, though only briefly. The man pulled his long sleeves down as far as he could, hiding the markings on his arms.
Tom had gone to one corner of the shop, sat, and hadn’t stood
to do anything but stare down into the bottom of a full mug of ale for an hour. When a young woman approached the table to find out what was wrong with the ale, Tom looked up crossly and waved her away.
As he left the house earlier, bidding Ozias and Charlotte goodbye, Tom hadn’t considered where he should go or for how long. He couldn’t behave in a way that suggested he wasn’t going to search for Molly, and he couldn’t go looking for someone who wanted anything in the world but to be found by her fiancé’s killer. It drove him absolutely insane. He felt that nowhere in the world could he be alone with the dread and sense of finality that filled his head. He felt that he had neither the privacy in which to collect the loose ends of his frayed heart, nor the hope that he would find any solace if he never saw Molly again. Not until she was gone did he appreciate what she had meant when she was close by. Whether she was doting on him or scolding him mercilessly, her love had meant order and momentary release from all the things in this world that spared him no ounce of strife and agony.
Now, in the dark corner of Bormouss & Ruth’s, his old habits were the only ones keeping him tied to reason, whatever kind of reason it is that one finds at the bottom of a pint of ale. Tom could only think about something that someone or other had once told him: “One’s past is like a thread.” Just then, in the gin-shop, did he realize the cost of living life at a full run, carelessly circling ground, backtracking and dodging the straightaways—his thread had been pulled into dark little knots and the entangled mess had jerked him to a premature halt.
Adding to his unrest and general misery, he felt incessantly disturbed by phantom voices that had plagued him ever since Oi’alli gouged him with her staff. He’d hardly been able to walk straight on his way to the gin-shop. Anyone who saw him must have thought he’d escaped asylum, the way he’d staggered around in the street, jumping at ghostly whispers and shouting at shadows that watched him from the alleyways.
“I said no!” Tom burst, standing up and knocking over his chair. Everyone in the gin-shop stopped what they were doing and stared. The man in the white suit turned on his stool but didn’t get up. Looking away from Tom, he straightened his tall collar and stretched his shoulders. Tom sat back down, unable to remember what had evoked his outburst. Something had been speaking to him. His mark? No, absolutely not, he thought. Whatever Oi’alli had done to him was causing this insanity. What had she said? A great curse? A power?
A multitude of whispers filled Tom’s head suddenly, and he stood without commanding his legs to move. The man in the white suit turned to watch him. With his head bobbing around loosely, Tom staggered across the gin-shop and out into the street. His thoughts became angry and volatile. Why was the tall man looking at him like that? If he so much as speaks to me, Tom felt in his head, I’ll kill him. But the thoughts weren’t Tom’s. They belonged to someone ... something else. Ambling toward home, his legs guided him away from his normal route, through tight alleys and into unfamiliar parishes. Unseen forces coerced him this way and that, walking for him, speaking for him, steering him like a puppet.
The man in the white suit followed close behind. As soon as Tom had stepped out of the gin-shop, he had paid for his drink and left quickly. He had allowed Tom to turn the corner of Elder and Candlebury before tracking him. Softly muttering spells in Scriptic, he was able to hide himself from sight.
Losing sight of Tom, the man slowed his pace. Rolling up his right sleeve, he held out his heavily tattooed arm and spoke quietly, this time in Gresh, “Ta, ets ethu mon.” A low white light expelled the darkness ahead of him. Tom was nowhere to be found. Breaking into a jog, the man headed through the alley, taking only quick glances down side streets and walkways, up stairs and in windows. Nothing. The light coming from his hand weakened, but it was not his doing. A hazy fog filled the alley at his feet. The air grew cold. An overwhelming sense of panic nearly brought the man to the ground. Quickly clinging to the rosary wrapped round his left wrist, he took a deep breath and resisted the invasive force. “Ets ethu mar!” he commanded. A new light burst from his hand, pushing back the haze. Through the fog he saw Tom’s shadow turn the corner ahead and run out of sight. Little whispers filled the air and vanished as his footsteps grew faint. The icy chill seemed to follow the whispers, and the alley grew warm again. Disappointed, the man in the suit gave up his chase. The prospect of bagging the werewolf was enticing, but he had not come prepared to handle a demon, too. Calmly, he unrolled his sleeve and put out the light, straightening his collar and tugging at the end of his suit jacket.
Returning to the gin-shop, the man in the suit approached the shop owner, who was busily tidying up for the night.
“Pardon, do you know the name of the man who was in here not long ago? He sat in the corner over there,” he said, pointing to where Tom had been.
“You’re not local, are you?” the owner replied, noticing the way the man covered up the Italian intonation in his speech.
“No,” the man replied abruptly.
“I believe,” the owner said, “that man is Charles Walsh. Wealthy fellow what lives on the other side of the city.”
“Walsh?” the man repeated with a puzzled look on his otherwise stony face.
“I’m almost certain,” the owner assured him, looking up from his work. The shop was empty.
Feeling defeated and lost, Tom sat down. His own thoughts once more filled his head and his body was free from whatever had hijacked it earlier. Looking around, he discovered he’d returned home, only, he was on the roof. He had no memory of being followed or ever even leaving the gin-shop. Had Ozias or Charlotte seen him arrive? He couldn’t remember. Other, more pressing issues concerned him. Where had Molly gone? When had she left? Most importantly, would he ever see her again? How much did this Eli mean to her? Eli…the name infuriated him. Black acidity ran through his veins and oh, he thought, what I wouldn’t give to kill the spoiled upstart and his pampered brother again. For the love of Molly, he would have pressed that barrel into Frederick’s head again without a second thought. Immediately, he choked, and fear drove tears from his eyes. What in the name of sanity was he thinking? Eli was a stranger. Tom knew nothing about him and Molly would not have married a man who deserved to be murdered like a homeless, pitiless mongrel…like Tom. Surely, he thought to himself, she was merely upset and left out of confusion. The idea of Molly being gone forever was unacceptable, and, likely as it seemed, if he accepted it as truth, he may well accept his early death. She would come back, he reassured himself. He loved her. She had to come back.
The stars over London were the only company the night-wandering souls of the city had that night. Luna Mater was away, and so all the world was hushed. On such nights, the past comes back to those who are alone. It settles on their minds like dew on grass. While all other souls gave in to sleep eventually, Tom’s did not. His memories were not dew, rather a cold, deep river—the banks of which he could not find that night. The one thing that had kept those waters from rising over his head was missing, and so he sunk beneath and did not shut his eyes until the first light of sun touched his face.
In the middle of the morning, Molly arrived in Norwood, outside of London. She took her one bag from the back of the coach, paid the driver and watched as he disappeared around the bend. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she walked the pathway up to the front door of Arthur Fairman’s home.
The residence was kempt and had been expanded since her last visit. Two large stables lay beyond the home and dozens of healthy, green pastures beyond that. Molly climbed up the stairs to the door and knocked softly. Fixing her hair as well as she could while she waited, she hoped she looked presentable.
An older man answered the door, squinting at Molly expectantly with weak eyes. His blond hair was nearly all worn away, but what was left of it was tidy. Wearing a clean, deep blue jacket and trousers, he looked quite proud. “Mrs. Anderson? I expected you tomorrow. Has William decided against purchasing the mares?” he asked Molly, mistaking her for someone el
se.
“Pardon me, sir,” Molly bowed her head apologetically. “My name is Molly Bishop. I believe you knew my uncle, Samuel.”
The gentleman plucked a pair of spectacles from his jacket pocket and put them on. He looked at her again. “Bless my soul! It's Molly! Please, come in.” He opened the door for her politely and ushered her inside. “I visited your father’s home frequently when you were young. Eli was my nephew, you remember?” he told her as she set down her bag, helping himself to remember more than Molly.
“Yes, I remember. It's a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Fairman,” Molly replied, clearing her throat.
“Been years, hasn't it? Haven't seen you since you first left for …” he began. “You've been well, yes?” he asked, veering from his previous train of thought.
“Fine, thank you.” Molly studied the furniture and décor of the home. Nothing had changed. Not one bit.
“Well, there must be a reason for your showing up so unexpectedly. Is everything all right?” Mr. Fairman hung up his jacket and took a cane from the doorway, steadying himself on it as he walked past Molly.
“I was wondering if you still breed horses, and if you are in business. If so, I’d like to offer my help, tending to the animals and so forth,” she explained.
Mr. Fairman gazed at her curiously. “Where are you living now, Molly? I remember Samuel went to the city long ago. Have you married?”
Molly shook her head. “No, I might’ve, but things are all amiss. I left the city and decided to return to the country. I helped my uncle with his animals as a girl, and I think perhaps it’s the life I’ll find happiness with.” Unable to look the man in the eyes, Molly pretended to fix her dress. She wasn’t convinced with her speech, but she had nowhere else to go until she could find a way out of England. Maybe then she could go to Spain and see her father. Still, there was no guarantee she could stay there, either.
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