The Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale

by Christine Bell

  Once they’d all been gathered up, I held a hand out for the ones in her possession. The girl boldly met my eyes with hers and I finally, really looked at her. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Her frame was thin, too thin. Dark shadows under her eyes gave her the look of someone far older than her years. She lifted her pointy little chin haughtily as I stared. Her navy-blue eyes snapped with pride, daring me to judge her. She handed me the drawings without a word and, with the bearing of a miniature queen, turned to go. Something made me reach out for her scrawny little arm, but I stopped as she flinched.

  “It’s all right, child. I just wanted to give you a coin for your help.”

  “You aren’t much more than a child yerself, are you, Master? But I’d be ’appy to take yer coin,” she responded blithely.

  The two children behind her, a small red-haired boy and another towheaded lad, moved forward then, hands out. I looked at them, noting how pale they were, and that all three were trembling.

  “You tremble. Are you afraid of me, then, children?” I asked them gently.

  The girl snorted and replied, “No, sir. Mayhap you didn’t notice, but it’s bloody cold out ’ere.”

  I realized then that none of them had coats or gloves and suddenly my world tipped. The scenery came to life and the background became the foreground. I dropped the sketches onto the street and stripped off my coat, tossing it over the girl’s shoulders. She swam in it, and it could have wrapped her three times around, but she closed her eyes and buried her face in the neck. I stripped off my scarf and waistcoat, wrapping up the little redheaded boy next, and gave the yellow-haired child my gloves and hat. I pulled the purse from my belt and handed it over.

  “Get something hot for dinner, will you?” I said and picked up my drawings to leave. Turning back, I called over my shoulder, freezing myself now, “I’ll be back later in the week!”

  “Sure you will, sir. We thank you fer the clothes and coin, though,” she said, her face filled with acceptance and an understanding that humbled me. Then they scampered off with the small sack of coins, chattering with excitement.

  I kept my word. In fact, I went back once every week, dropping off food each time—mincemeat pies, loaves of bread and even coins when I could. The three soon became a dozen, and I would sketch them and tell them stories. During this time, I became especially attached to the little girl I’d met that first day, Molly. She was full of piss and vinegar, and I admired her greatly. Although she remained wary and a bit reserved, every time I came when I promised I would, she seemed to trust me a little more. There was something special in her. Something that both humbled and surprised me. I was in awe of the way she took the younger children under her wing. The way she was so willing to share when she had so little. I found myself wishing I was as strong as she was, as good as she was. I spent a fair amount of time thinking how unfair it was that she never really had a chance in this world. In truth, I spent even more time hoping that someday I would be able to give her that chance.

  As the weeks passed, I got to know all of the children to some degree, learned their names and their favorite foods so I could smuggle the most wanted items from Cook if I had the chance.

  This went on for a few months until my father got wind of it from his solicitor who had seen me with the children. I was forbidden to go any longer. I had turned seventeen that April and was practically a man by any standard, but as I had no income of my own, I was bound to my parents tightly. His edict didn’t stop me, but I had to be tricky and limit my visits to a couple times a month.

  On a warm June evening, not knowing the visit would be my last, I’d gone to bring the young rabble on Fenchurch Street some berry tarts I had secured from the kitchens. As I approached the corner of Fenchurch by way of Upper Thames Street, I heard a voice I recognized down the alleyway. Little Molly. Thinking to alert her of my visit, I headed toward the alley to call to her when another voice, a deep male voice rang out.

  “You will have things you never dreamed of, sweets. And I would never hurt you or the boy.”

  I peered around the corner, shielding my body behind a large shrubbery, and saw Molly and the little ginger-haired boy, Peter, standing with a well-dressed older man.

  Molly’s face was scrunched up in thought, and the man spoke again.

  “If we are to go, the time is now,” he said urgently.

  She looked up at him, grabbed Peter’s tiny hand in hers and gave one brisk nod. “All right, sir.”

  I wanted to run out and yell. What possible reason could this man want to lure these young ones into a deserted alley? Why would he want to take them somewhere else with him? My brain supplied possible answers, none of them good. I couldn’t believe Molly would go with him. Surely she knew better. But maybe his offer was more than she could refuse. Terrified for the children but unsure what to do, I backed away a bit to conceal my face from view. Wherever they were going, they would be coming back my way leaving the alley, and I could remain undetected, then jump out and intercede when they got closer. It could be that the man would just let them alone when he realized there was someone watching.

  I was sure I could convince Molly that this was not prudent if I just had a moment to speak with her. And worst-case scenario, if it came down to a fight, the man was large and fit but getting on in years. With the element of surprise maybe I had a chance.

  I ducked low behind the bush, waiting. But a minute later, they still had not passed. I took another furtive peek around the corner and stared in disbelief. They stood in the same spot, but the man had donned a pair of strange goggles, with multiple lenses in varying sizes. In his hand he held a timepiece. It was big, with elaborate gears, and he turned a dial on it with care. Linking his arms with the children, he stood remaining very still.

  “Close your eyes,” he counseled.

  They did. I had no idea what to expect at that moment. Would he dash them in the head with his strange, giant pocket watch? Would he push them to the ground and beat them? Would he laugh at their naïveté and walk away? Whatever my brain had conceived could not compare to what actually happened next.

  The air behind them crackled, then wavered, almost like water rippling. A small pinpoint of bright light appeared and flickered. And as I stood frozen, stood doing nothing to stop them, I watched Molly and little Peter, hand in hand with the devil, vanish in a blinding flash.

  Gone.

  The words blurred and my eyes burned. Fat tears plopped onto the yellowing pages as, for the third time in the last thirteen years—and the second time that day—I cried for real. My heart was breaking into a million pieces.

  Devlin, the Loony Duke of Leister, had gone to Bethlehem Hospital because of me. Bedlam, they call it. The most infamous sanitarium in history. And I had put him there. I had quite literally ruined his life. How lonely he must have felt, how scary it must have been, how abandoned he was. A bolt of fury toward his parents shot through me. Parents who don’t stand by their children are lower than slugs in my book.

  Tears still flowing, I turned the page and found a whole section of drawings of me, of Gilly, of Bacon, of the TTM and goggles. They were all painstakingly detailed and fairly accurate, with the exception of Gilly. His eyes looked somehow cruel, indicating that Devlin had a skewed view of him based on his interpretation of the events of that day.

  At least an hour passed as I continued leafing through the rest of the journal. There were no more entries from Bethlehem Hospital. The next written entry was dated February 1824, and it was apparent that Devlin had just been released, writing from home. He seemed relieved to some degree, but still very troubled by our disappearance.

  Entries were sporadic from then on, sometimes with several months between them. Many of them chronicled his interviews of the other street children regarding our possible whereabouts and the strange man who had taken us, and his theories over what had happened. One entry mentioned his nickname (although at that time it was “the Loony Lord of Leister”), which
bothered him more out of guilt for the burden on his family than anything.

  Things took a turn when he entered university and started taking a serious interest in science and engineering, even dabbling in alchemy. He began to put it all together then, and through his studies, realized that it was no magic or devilry, but science that he had witnessed. This gave him some relief because it allowed him to hold out hope that we were alive and well.

  By his early twenties, Devlin was numb to any judgments of him and had lost patience with his parents’ preoccupation with society and their reputations. By the time they were both killed in a carriage accident when he was twenty-five, their relationship had been strained to say the least. He dutifully mourned their passing, but if their relationship had been one of affection, by the time of their passing it had dulled to one of obligatory respect. He moved on with his life quickly.

  After their deaths, he traveled, studying science wherever he went, still on a quest to unlock the mystery of our disappearance. It was around 1832 that he’d become convinced that what he had witnessed was time travel, and all his efforts and entries surrounded that topic. I was glad to see that they indicated his determination to solve the mystery as well as passion and interest in time travel rather than just guilt and despair over Bacon and me.

  The very last entry was the day after his card game with Bacon. Apparently, Devlin had no clue that this was the boy he’d been looking for all those years. Bacon had only been six at the time we disappeared. As a man, he looked nothing like the dirty little ragamuffin of Devlin’s memories, aside from maybe the hair, but even that had mellowed to a strawberry blond over the years. All Devlin was hip to at that point was that the TTM looked exactly like the device he had seen in his dreams for the past thirteen years, and that he needed to possess it. Once he had won it, he did try to get some information on the devices’ origins, but Bacon, in a rare display of common sense, told him that he had won it himself only a few nights before.

  I closed the book after reading the final page and stood for a moment, still reeling. In all real terms, nothing had changed. I’d promised Gilly that I would never divulge our secret. This was the one thing, the only thing, he had ever asked of me, and I wouldn’t let him down. Telling anyone, even someone as worthy as Devlin, was out of the question.

  So now what? Suck it up and keep it moving, Stormy, that’s what. I tried not to think about Dev at all as I did a thorough check of the room, making sure I didn’t leave anything important behind. I checked my bag one more time to make sure I had everything and left the workspace.

  As I tiptoed up the stairs and approached the chamber where Devlin slept, I was at once relieved and heartsick to hear him snoring still, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. I wished I could have just woken him up, for even one minute. But I wouldn’t lie to him anymore. And I couldn’t tell him the truth. So there was absolutely nothing to say.

  Jesus, what kind of person am I? After all he went through for me. Could I dare to hope that he would just be satisfied to know that we were alive? That he would be able to move on and find happiness now? Maybe even a wife who would love him for his dogged determination and innate kindness. Or the way he smelled, all warm and manlike. Or the way his dimple flashed and his eyes lit up when he laughed. The tears that seemed to be my constant companion of late returned in a rush and I bit my hand to stifle a pitiful sob. Get on with it, you twit.

  I pulled the key from my bag and stuck it in the lock but didn’t turn it, leaving it sticking from the keyhole. Then I reached into the carpetbag one more time and pulled out the sketch of Gilly, tearing off a corner of the sheet and putting the drawing back in my bag. Grabbing a pencil from a nearby desk drawer, I wrote:

  Devlin,

  For the first time in thirteen years, I truly wish things were different. But they’re not. And still, I can’t leave without letting you know that Bacon and I have lived a wonderful life, with a gentle, loving man who treated us as his own. And you don’t have to worry about us anymore.

  Forever,

  Stormy

  I folded the note gently and laid it on the floor in front of the door, knowing that once Devlin woke up, he would find the key in the lock and use his ingenuity to free himself. He would find my letter, but not before I had a chance to get away.

  Then I grabbed my bag and walked out of the house, leaving Devlin behind.

  Again.

  Chapter Six

  I had purposefully gotten a room close to Leister’s estate so that if a break-in and getaway was necessary, Bacon would be close by and we could make tracks fast. But as I walked the two miles back to the inn, I discovered that covering the relatively short distance still left me way too much time to think.

  I stopped and almost turned back at least a dozen times, only to continue walking because there was no point in going back. It would only delay the inevitable.

  I cared about Devlin a lot. That much was true. And to be honest, even that much was tough for me to swallow because I can count on two fingers how many people I’ve allowed myself to get close to in the last twenty years. Sure, he was gorgeous and funny and sexy and smart and great in bed. But more than that, he was a good man with a shiny, pure soul. If I could find a man like that in the twenty-first century, I’d chain him to my bed. But I couldn’t tell him about the TTM and I couldn’t tell him about time travel, or anything else for that matter. So he couldn’t come with me, and I couldn’t stay in 1800s. Not just because of air-conditioning and tartar-control toothpaste, but also because I needed to take care of Bacon. We made a pact a long time ago that we would never go back to stay, and I could never leave him, so that was that. Not that Bacon was the problem, really. Even if there was no Bacon, and I could stay, Devlin wasn’t the type of guy to let it go.

  “Hey Dev, listen, about all that stuff? The stuff that landed you in the loony bin for six months and ruined your life forever and destroyed your family? Just forget it. I am going to stay here with you and just plead the fifth about what went down that day, where I’ve been and what that machine is. You cool with that?”

  I almost cracked a smile, thinking about what his reaction would be to that. The urge was fleeting as I reminded myself that I would never see his reaction to that or anything else, ever again. My stomach pitched at that, and I would have given anything to click my heels and be home a moment later where I could sleep until the pain of it all passed.

  Despite my waffling, I made pretty good time. I arrived back at the inn about a half an hour later, freezing my ass off—since I had no drawers on.

  I looked like a disheveled gypsy mess. There was no way the proprietress would recognize me as the same lady who had checked in. To avoid any hassles, I sneaked around to the side door, maximum stealth engaged, and sidled through the hallway to our room. I unlocked the door and slipped into the room. Bacon was standing in the corner near the window.

  I shut the door behind me and rounded on him, the despair a living, writhing thing inside me. It was determined to manifest itself in some horrible way and found a suitable target in my brother.

  “Well, Bacon,” I began in a voice dripping with acid, “I just want to thank you again for setting this hideous mess into motion with your careless—ooof!” The air was forced from my lungs in a rush as he threw his arms around me, lifting me off my feet and squeezing so hard I thought was going to end up a human bobblehead doll.

  “Dammit, Storm, you scared the ever-loving shit out of me. I thought you were dead or something. One hour, one more hour and I was leaving for Leister’s to get you. What the hell happened? I was so afraid for you,” he said softly, voice breaking, dopey green eyes swimming with unshed tears.

  Aww jeez. My mouth was still open in preparation for verbal castration, but I closed it with a snap. And for my next act, ladies and gentlemen, seal pup clubbing.

  Dammit. I wasn’t even allowed to throw a decent hissy fit. With a sigh, I holstered my word pistols, packed away my puppy-kicking boots and pa
sted on a reassuring smile.

  “I’m okay, I’m fine.” Breaking away from his iron grip, I held out my arms and executed a turn so he could see that I was in one piece, at least on the outside. “But we have to go. Right now.” I brushed by him and started gathering the few things we had brought with us, shoving them into my bag.

  I briefly debated changing into my proper lady garb again to make the walk through town toward the beach in the event that Devlin asked after us and described me, but didn’t want to waste another minute. Even if he woke shortly after I left, it would take him some time to escape. Odds were that we would be long gone by the time he was out and about asking questions. Even so, he was wicked smart and my instincts were telling me that above all else, we needed to get out of town as quickly as possible. Plus we still had to get out to the beach, assemble my TTM and locate the wormhole. We needed as much of a head start as we could get.