The Dickens Mirror

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “I’m not scared. Just waiting on the right girl, is all.” Bode, shut your sauce box.

  “Really? From all your ruckus, I’d’ve thought she’s the one. What made you take on Kramer like that?”

  Damfino. He knew Elizabeth, sure. (How long? He couldn’t recall.) They talked; she was nice when she wasn’t raving. (Actually, she was a sight better than most even when she was.) He wasn’t exactly sweet on her.

  In truth … he thought the urge to protect her came from the dream: that damnable nightmare.

  2

  SNAPPING AWAKE THAT morning, eyes bugging, sweat pouring. Never had anything like that happen in his life. So much was a muddle, but God, he could still feel it, see it, taste it: the fierce determination in his blood, a bloom of orange light, a wicked blast. Faces of the friends he knew, Tony and Rima, jumbled with others, including a little girl who he actually thought might have been a much younger Elizabeth and … Meme? Yes, but weirder still, whenever he’d seen Meme’s face in the dream, his mind kept whispering, Emma. Made no sense.

  But what scared him most: he had died. In the nightmare. He’d felt it happen in that blast of heat he barely registered before his body simply … went away.

  There was even more: explosions and blood and broken bodies. A war waged in steamy heat and a dense jungle. An older man, someone he trusted. (And so very much like the inspector that when Battle appeared on the ward, Bode nearly cried out, Christ, Sarge, I thought you were dead! He’d caught himself just in time. What was that all about?) There were also tunnels in this other nightmare world, where something black waited.

  But he was awake now, and helping Elizabeth was something he must do. It sounded mad, considering he’d known her … how long? A week? Two? Ten? He wasn’t sure—blame the Peculiar—but deep in his bones he was certain he was supposed to get her out of this place. That saving her was the reason he was here in this accursed asylum.

  Which was enough to make a stuffed bird laugh, it was that ridiculous.

  3

  “DOING HER DON’T have to be nuffin’ fancy.” Weber’s lips parted in a wide grin that was more gap than tooth. “If you need instruction, I can always do with a dog’s rig. You could watch. Take notes.”

  He was this close. Weber was bigger and heavier, but he was a touch taller. He could pull it off. Let Weber have it with a quick snap of his elbow behind the ear, in the throat, the jaw. It didn’t matter. Anything to put the cove down.

  So, thank God, the surgeon picked that moment to return with the starched and disapproving Graves and Kramer in tow. Thank God for Graves, who turned that one gimlet eye and suggested he had work to do. Thank God for Kramer, who only stared daggers. Thank God. If he never again saw that gob Weber, that would be too soon.

  DOYLE

  Strange Ink

  IF BATTLE’S POCKET watch was to be believed, Kramer had kept them safely off the ward and out of the way for more than two hours. (The doctor was all apologies: Elizabeth to look after, a new admission to assess, yet another patient who required his immediate attention, and blah, blah.) Now, having cleaned away dried blood with a carbolic acid wash, Kramer ran a thumb over Black Dog’s slavering maw. “What strange ink,” the doctor said. “The color of the eyes is astounding. So red. These eyes are coals. Exquisite workmanship. Did you specifically request a Ghost Dog?”

  “Ghost Dog?” Doyle had no idea what that was, and he was distracted. The acid had made his raw flesh sing with new pain. “Not that I recall. What is it?”

  “Devil Dog,” Battle answered. “Bearer of Death. Or Hellhound, a guardian of the Underworld, depending. Cerberus was of the same ilk, and there’s, of course, the Barghest of Yorkshire.” He ticked it all off with the boredom of a teacher who’s taught the same lesson more times than he can count. “It’s a very common image and superstition.”

  “Oh.” Doyle shifted uncomfortably on Kramer’s examination table, which occupied a corner of the doctor’s boxy office. When Kramer had finally deigned to appear and asked him to shuck his uniform coat, he’d done it by halves, shrugging out of the right arm, worried about his decidedly nonregulation sgian-dubh in its black leather sheath. His shirt was the next hurdle, but Doyle had gotten by with simply rolling up his sleeve to expose both a fleshy four-inch rip and Black Dog, who had so captured Kramer’s interest. He was sweating again, although a chill draft feathered through a gap in the office door, which sagged on its hinges. A rank of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining three walls had gone off-true and made Doyle a little ill if he looked too long.

  “I just wanted something”—he floundered for the word he wanted—“unusual.”

  “Well, this qualifies.” Running a magnifying glass over the tattoo, Kramer angled Doyle’s arm closer to the sputtering flame of an oil lamp. “You know, he even initialed it and inked in a date? Here, along the tail.” Kramer squinted. “F. I think that’s an S or perhaps a J. Hard to tell. And an M, I believe, or N, followed by a 7 and 4.”

  The initials didn’t ring a bell, but he recognized the year. “Yes, six years ago. Joined the whaler when I was fourteen.”

  “Really?” Battle said. “How many years?”

  “On board?” Something in Battle’s tone Doyle couldn’t decipher. “Six.”

  “And then you came south, to London?” the inspector asked.

  “Yes, sir, I …” He stopped at a light knock. A moment later, the door opened, and the girl, Meme, came in with a small tea cart.

  “By my desk, Meme, if you please.” Clapping a linen over Doyle’s still-oozing wound, the doctor said, “Keep pressure on this, Constable, if you will. Inspector?”

  All right, so he obviously wasn’t invited to take tea. Pressing the linen cloth to his cut, he watched Kramer shuck his soiled vest and hang it on a coat tree. And the bottle … Ah. Doyle’s eyes zeroed in on a bulge in the right front pocket. How to get it?

  “So.” Clearly impatient to get on with it, Battle perched on a red leather wingback. “You were going to explain.”

  “Do let’s not spoil our tea, Inspector. We’ve so few pleasures these days,” Kramer said as Meme poured from a squat pot into cups arrayed on a silver tray. An aroma of black tea laced with bergamot bloomed. Beneath a napkin, a miracle: a lemon, impossibly yellow in the gloom. Doyle hadn’t seen something that beautiful in … well, ever so long.

  “Oh.” Meme’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “I am sorry. I forgot a knife. Let me fetch …”

  “Nonsense.” Kramer looked over at Doyle. “Constable, might I trouble you for that knife of yours?”

  “Sir?” Shite. He managed to look confused. “I’m afraid I’ve no fruit or penknife on me.”

  “Oh, come now, Doyle.” Kramer twitched a forefinger. “That nasty business on your left hip. I saw the hilt when you unbuttoned your uniform coat.”

  Blast. This was just so his luck. Conscious of the questioning look Battle tossed him, he let go of his bleeding arm, reached beneath the folds of his coat, and pulled the knife free of its tooled leather sheath. Turning the steel blade, he pinched the business end between two fingers and extended the knife so Kramer could grasp its stag-horn hilt.

  “Ah.” Kramer arched his one functional eyebrow. “Scottish, isn’t it? A sgian-dubh? Isn’t a black knife meant to be worn in a boot or long stocking?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said through clenched teeth. “But that’s only good if you’re wearing a kilt. Not much use to me if I’ve got to fumble.”

  “And the hip is better?” Battle said.

  Doyle couldn’t tell from the inspector’s tone what he thought. Knives were against regulations. So was his Webley, for that matter. “Not the way the uniform’s designed, no sir.” He chewed over how best to say this, then just came out with it. “I modified the coat. Picked the stitching of the pocket.”

  “Ah. Transformed it into a slit then.” Battle cocked his head. “So you could reach your blade without having to unbutton your coat.”

  “That’s righ
t, sir.” He’d done the same with the right, too, the better to get at his truncheon in its long trouser pocket. In his opinion, whoever’d designed this uniform ought to be hung. Too many buttons, and except for his bull’s-eye—his policeman’s brass lantern which sported one huge lens that focused light to a tight beam and which could be strapped to a belt—he was forced to cart his cuffs, rattle, keys, and snips in pockets. By the time he might pull his truncheon or rattle, any self-respecting criminal would be long gone.

  “Very resourceful, Constable.” Kramer showed a sliver of a smile that revealed the man’s blue grub of a tongue. “Black dog, black knife … your young man’s full of surprises, Battle. Scalloped filework here is first-rate. Wicked sharp. Something your father bequeathed, Doyle?”

  Yeah, you could say that. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, quite the useful tool.” Handing the knife to Meme, Kramer tweezed chunks of sugar with silver tongs. “One or two?” he asked Battle.

  “None for me. You’ve kept us waiting for hours. One might even suspect this was deliberate … yes, yes.” Battle held up a hand. “You’ve your duty. I’ve mine as well, and it does not include taking tea.” With a pointed glance to the girl, who was readying a cup for Doyle: “That extends to my constable.”

  Speak for yourself. The scent of that fruit had made the spit pool under his tongue. Hell with the tea or a biscuit; he’d settle for a juicy slice or two. “No, sir,” he said, with a tight rictus more at home on a corpse. “Of course not.”

  “Sorry,” the girl murmured as she returned his knife. Her skin smelled of lemons, and so did his black blade. Her eyes brushed his face. “I did not mean to cause you any trouble.”

  “You didn’t.” Her concern touched him. “Thank you for …”

  “Meme,” Kramer called. “That will do. Come stand by me.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The girl backed away, but not without shooting Doyle a look of apology.

  “We’re going to talk about this in front of your servant?” Battle said as Meme came to stand behind Kramer’s left shoulder.

  “As I’ve made clear, she is my apprentice,” Kramer said.

  “Highly irregular.” Battle favored Meme with a long look. “And a little indecent, if you ask me. She’s a girl.”

  And you’re an arse. Doyle dodged his eyes away, embarrassed for her and furious with Battle. If you weren’t in charge, if this was any other place and time …

  Yes, Black Dog simpered. You keep telling yourself what the gallant you could be.

  “Why, you know”—Kramer twisted round to give Meme a look of exaggerated astonishment—“Battle, I believe you’re correct. She is a girl. How astonishing. No wonder you’re an inspector.” Kramer dropped a lump of sugar into his tea with a small plik. “Now, shall we get on with this, or do you wish to chide me further on my choice of assistants or how I run my asylum?”

  “Very well.” Battle’s expression went stony. “Perhaps you would care to explain what happened to your patient.”

  Kramer took an experimental sip of his tea. “It was an abreaction.”

  “An abreaction.” If Battle knew he was being baited, it didn’t show in his face or tone. “And that is? Pretend I am a student and you, the master mesmerist.”

  “Think of an abreaction as a catharsis,” Kramer said, the tail of the word rattling in a snaky ssss. As he settled into his wingback, the chair let out an ominous creak, and Doyle saw that one of the arms had split from its rails. “It’s the mind’s way of releasing unwanted emotions.”

  “But why attack you when you’re trying so very hard to be helpful? Unless she sees you as the enemy. You did, after all, fail her parents.”

  A faint purple blotch stained the underside of Kramer’s jaw. “An intractable patient is not a failure, Inspector. It is a tragedy. The mother’s melancholia was unremitting, and she persisted in the delusional belief that her daughter had died. The father was driven to despair by his wife’s condition, and the lot of them descended into this”—Kramer made a vague gesture—“contagious insanity. Psychotics can be quite charismatic. You saw the effect Elizabeth had on that young attendant, Bode? He may mean well, but he’s suggestible.”

  “Really,” Battle very nearly drawled. “And here I thought the boy might like the girl and want to help. How does that apply to Elizabeth McDermott now? She is ill, after all.”

  “Because she’s no different from, say, Meme here.” Kramer tossed an airy wave in the girl’s direction. “Meme is an orphan, no family, no friends. No one cares for her, so to whom should Meme turn for guidance? Why, to me, of course.”

  God, Doyle marveled, you are a bastard. He’d seen her flinch and the color climbing her cheeks. She kept her eyes down, but her fingers knotted. He could swear something glimmered at the corner of an eye. She’s not a damn dog.

  “What’s your point, Kramer?” Battle asked.

  “Only this.” Kramer put a finger to his lips. There was the tiniest tick as his nail struck tin. “If you grew up on a remote island with only your parents for company and no other influences—no friends or teachers or companions, nothing to read but what your father allows and half that his own wild writings—is it so hard to imagine that you would fall victim to the same unshakable beliefs?” Warming to his subject, Kramer laced his fingers together as if forming a web. “That is the McDermott family: a father, mother, daughter knit together by a singular, elaborate, and bizarre delusional system. Travel between Nows; the idea that every moment in time exists as a separate Now forever, that there are multiple versions of us all in an infinite array of possibilities. That only a select few could access relics from an unknown and far more advanced civilization, quite possibly beyond Earth. And the notion that there’s an energy source from which one may craft characters and fictions that might come to life? Yet McDermott could be so persuasive. His writings, even the fragments”—Kramer’s face grew intense, and he sat forward as if to better make his point—“quite compelling. You could feel how you might easily slip inside and become lost in those stories. Of course, he was mad.”

  “Stories. You mean, the novel McDermott was working on when he escaped?”

  “Indeed.” Kramer busied himself with tearing a lemon slice into quarters. “The title was absurd. An imaginary novelist with imaginary works in possession of a magical mirror and assorted other fantastical devices—glass pendants, all-seeing spectacles?” Snorting, Kramer slid juicy bits into that fissure of a mouth. “Ridiculous.”

  Spectacles. Doyle felt a tiny start of recognition. His eyes jumped to Kramer’s breast pocket. Those purple glasses. And hadn’t the doctor confiscated Elizabeth’s glass bauble, that pendant on its queer chain? If it’s all so absurd, then why?

  “And yet McDermott was absolutely convinced that this novelist actually existed. He always said the name as if we should all know it. But I ask you, Inspector, really,” Kramer said, around lemon, “who the bloody hell was Charles Dickens?”

  EMMA

  Monster of My Mind

  EMMA CAME TO consciousness with a glassy smash, as if brought to life on a surge of electricity like Frankenstein’s monster.

  And that’s what you are. You’re a monster of my mind. Why can’t you die DIE—

  What? That wasn’t her thought, not even her voice. She wanted to ask, out loud, Who are you? But she was afraid to talk to it, worried that would mean the voice was real, and it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t.

  Yes, but I remember the valley, pushing into the Dark Passages, and then landing in … Her throat worked. Beneath her still tightly shut lids, her eyes burned hot. Landing in an asylum. God, maybe she was insane. Was that what everything had been about? Her madness? Eric and everything else only a hallucination? The valley had never happened and neither had her life: Jasper, Madeline Island, Sal, Holten Prep … all of it?

  No. It’s all been so real. So … a dream, maybe? Like A Nightmare on Elm Street or something?

  Nightmare. The voice was back, and now
it paused, as if rolling an unfamiliar word around its mouth, tasting it with a tongue. Dream?

  Oh, she was so not answering, no matter how clearly the words reverberated in her skull. Where was she, anyway? Eyes still closed, she turned her head ever so slightly, her senses quivering like a bat’s. Her ears pricked to a crackly rustle beneath her belly. Paper? Or perhaps that was cellophane. From a distance came a different sound: hollow and irregular and more formless than a moan or cry. More like a lot of … noise. Clamor? Voices? Other people?

  Yes. A hiss. Thanks to you, they’ve put me with the rest of the nutters.

  Nutters. She knew that word. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that.

  Rocket scientist? What are you babbling about?

  She didn’t know this voice, didn’t understand why it was there. Screw you. She gave the voice a mental shove. I’m going to wake up. She would open her eyes—

  Don’t ignore me! The voice was an angry red clot. I’m speaking to you!

  and there’d be her roommate, Marianne, sleeping it off in a tangle of sheets—

  Who?

  across the room. It would be noon and Christmas break and—

  Answer me! A kick to her skull, and then an explosive ker-POW as the voice boomed, I WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

  “Uh!” Emma’s head rocked back. Her teeth clashed together with an audible click, snagging her right cheek. Bright orange spangles burst over her vision. Her spit was coppery, and she could feel a slow trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.

  YOU THINK YOU CAN BANISH ME WITH A THOUGHT? YOU THINK IT’S THAT EASY?

  “Jesus, would you shut the hell up?” Her voice came as a low, animal croak, and the effort cost her. A knifing pain scraped her ribs. Hurt. She thought she was sick, too. When she swallowed, her throat convulsed around a clog of what felt like broken glass. Yet she still heard the difference: that lighter tone that was a touch more musical—and that accent.