Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling

by Michael Boccacino

  “Boys, it’s time to go. Help me up.” I put my arms around Henry’s shoulders and fastened a piece of cloth around my side to lessen the bleeding.

  “You’re simply leaving, just like that?” spat Mr. Whatley at his guests as they stood waiting for Death to return. “What do you think Ashby and Cornelius will do when they find out what’s happened?”

  “I don’t suppose I’ll be inclined to care by that point,” said Mr. Samson. “There needn’t be a war at all. We could simply die.”

  Whatley tried to escape from Olivia’s grasp, but she held herself tight against him until he reached down with both hands and released her fingers from his arm, then pushed through the crowd as Henry, the children, and I left the ballroom, a thin trail of blood marking our path.

  “Markham!” he bellowed after us.

  James looked up in fear. “Where are we going?”

  “Quickly, to the library!” I said. We turned down a corridor, but I stopped in shock. Before us was one of the blurry figures that had been standing over me in the ballroom, made all the more clear as I continued to hemorrhage. It was my mother, wrapped in bedclothes, with dried, bloodied mucus crusted beneath her chin.

  “Mother?”

  “It’s time to rest, my darling.” She smiled and held her arms apart to embrace me. But I don’t believe that anyone else saw her, for Henry half carried me away as the boys led us into the library.

  “Stay with us, Charlotte!” he cried. We threw ourselves into the room and bolted the door shut. I wanted to go back to my mother, but I was becoming more and more confused. I tried to focus on the task at hand—I had to save the Darrows. I had to save myself.

  “The end is nigh, my peppercorn.” I saw my father in the green leather armchair that had been Lily’s favorite. He had his pipe in his hand and a halo of smoke encircling his head. I wanted to run to him, to drop into his lap, to cry into his shoulder, to have him kiss away the pain in my chest, but instead Henry drove us onward.

  “Up the stairs, into the study!” I could barely speak, focusing all my energy on each step as I leaned against Paul and Henry. The pain in my side throbbed with each beat of my heart. I wondered briefly what would happen when I had no more blood to spill.

  As we rounded the third floor of the library, Mr. Whatley banged roughly on the door, then ripped it off its hinges.

  “More games? How delightful! Shall I come after you then?” His body shuddered and strained against his suit, shredding it and the façade of human skin beneath it as his voluminous tendrils and appendages released themselves from the confines of human clothing. He stretched and threw himself against the wall, using his many limbs to climb each bookshelf as if it were a step.

  I urged the Darrows to quicken their pace. “Hurry, we’re almost there!”

  As we reached the door to Whatley’s study, I extracted the silver skeleton key Lily had given to us and inserted it into the keyhole. It clicked as I turned it, and the door opened just as Whatley reached the footbridge. The Darrows and I entered the room and slammed the door shut before Mr. Whatley could reach us.

  The room was the same as ever, quiet and gloomy, like a mausoleum. We lurched past Mr. Whatley’s emotions and to his collection of faintly glowing glass paintings. I directed the boys to the glass prominently displaying the smoking remains of Everton and kissed them both on the cheek.

  “Be strong for me,” I said to them. James touched the glass with his hand and passed through the other side as if he’d fallen over a short wall. Paul followed after him.

  “After you,” said Henry.

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “Someone has to stay behind to destroy the painting.”

  Henry’s eyes went wide, and he ran his hands through his blond hair. “I can’t allow it, Charlotte. I’ve already lost Lily.”

  “Your children need you, Henry.”

  “And I need you!”

  “But you can’t have me.” I moved my hand away from my chest. The bleeding had stopped, and I no longer felt as weak as I had before.

  “I can’t do this again, Charlotte.”

  “You can and you will.”

  “We can have a life together!”

  “If there’s a way for me to come back, I will,” I promised.

  Whatley broke through the door. “Markham!”

  “Good-bye, Henry.” I pushed him hard, and he fell backward through the painting. I could see the children pick him up on the other side as he stood, bewildered and heartbroken, crying. I tore the thing from the wall and smashed it into hundreds of glittering pieces, severing the connection between Everton and The Ending.

  “I could always create another painting to Blackfield, you know.” Mr. Whatley observed me from the other side of the room. He had reverted to his human form, but his clothing hung in tatters over his muscular body.

  “But you won’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m the one that you want.”

  “You’ve done well.” His hair was as wild and untamed as ever, but in his eyes I could see that there was something subdued in him as he walked toward me.

  “Stay where you are.”

  He stopped. “And what will you do if I refuse?”

  “You’ve seen what I can do,” I spat.

  “You changed the outcome of the story.”

  “It’s not finished yet.”

  “True, but there are pieces missing. Or have you put them together? Even as a little girl, you were very clever.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I know everything about you. I’ve watched you for years. You’ve sensed it, I know you have.” I thought back to the figure who stood over the bodies of everyone I had ever lost.

  “The man in black . . .”

  “It became dangerous for me to travel between the worlds myself, and so eventually I had to begin sending Roland. But the deaths of humans were my favorite things to collect. Mortals cling to their endings without even realizing it. They are simple to see, and even easier to predict. Your mother was one of many, but you were the first who tried to attack me, and after I met you I realized that I could not see your death. You are an enigma, Mrs. Markham.”

  “Do not attempt to justify your failure.”

  “This is not a justification, it’s an explanation. I feel that I owe one to you.”

  “Do you admit to killing them then?”

  “Your mother, no. It was a twist of fate that we should meet, but once I had found you I couldn’t let you be. I will take responsibility for the deaths of the others. I needed you in the right place for a new game . . . my final game. You and I are more similar than you know. How many of our actions are the results of the things people expect of us rather than the things we want?”

  “Murderer!” I tore another picture away from the wall and threw it against the floor as hard as I could. It cracked in half, and Mr. Whatley doubled over in pain.

  “I’m practical,” he continued after he had composed himself. “You had to engage with me over the fate of Lily Darrow so that, when you defeated me, no one would doubt that I got what I deserved.”

  I was about to destroy another of the paintings but froze when he said this. “Why should you want to lose?”

  “There’s a war coming. It’s already started, but the two sides are filled with fanatics. One side wants to live forever and subjugate all the worlds, while the other wants to bring about the end of all things. I tried to placate them for as long as I could, but I refuse to commit myself to causes that have no center. I mean to provide a third alternative to Ashby and Speck, but I could never do so publicly. When they both began to suspect my intentions, something had to be done to remove me from the board. It’s much easier to start an underground movemen
t when everyone assumes that you’re as good as dead.”

  “My father and husband, Nanny Prum and Mrs. Norman . . . Did you kill Lily as well?”

  “I might have helped her illness along, yes.”

  “Over politics?”

  “This is not simply politics. The existence of the universe hangs in the balance. If either party should win this war, it would mean the end of your world in addition to ours. What are a few people when the alternative is so grave?”

  “And now you expect me to simply help you disappear.”

  “You have no choice.”

  “There is always a choice!”

  “There is now. So much of your life was decided for you, but the game is ending; you will be free after this one last thing.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then they will come for me, lock me away, and everything that’s happened will have been for nothing.”

  I screamed in anger and ran into the gallery, using my emotions and the accompanying burst of adrenaline to tear the paintings away from the walls one by one with bloody hands, dropping them to the floor so they shattered against him, cutting into him as he withered and shrank with each act of destruction. I tightened my fingers into fists and realized that they felt different than they had before my brush with Death. They were cold, harder somehow. The pain that had racked my body continued to abate as I settled into this new state of living death.

  Whatley cowered on the floor, clutching his face in pain. The human features it had once contained were starting to fade. His hand uncoiled into a grouping of tentacles.

  “Yes, just like that.” He cackled through his agony. “What is a collector without his collection?”

  I was torn. I wanted to inflict on him as much anguish as possible, but at the same time that was exactly what he was begging of me. “Every day, every feeling, each bit of joy or sadness or fear I’ve ever felt, none of them are anything compared to the hatred I hold for you, that I will wield against you. You may not choose to die today, but someday I will come for you, and I will make you suffer as you made us suffer.”

  “Give me the time to overthrow Ashby and Speck, and I will willingly put myself before you.”

  “The Darrows are never to be bothered again.”

  “You have my word.”

  “Is that worth anything?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never given it before.” He smiled at me with his crooked smirk.

  I could not bear to look at him. I destroyed more of his collection, raining down fragments of colored glass and shards of alabaster until the floor was covered in the stuff and a cloud of destruction hung in the air. Mr. Whatley disappeared piece by piece until he was a shrunken stump of a thing cowering on the floor.

  I wondered what to do about the remainder of his collection. There were still the lifeless, doll-like figures trapped in the compartment behind his bedroom. I lurched down to the private alcove where he slept and found the panel he had pressed to open the secret room. All of them were where they had been before, save for Lily. I picked up the one closest to the floor, a young man with ivy instead of hair, and set him on his feet. He immediately came to life and looked at me with confusion. “Where is Mr. Whatley?”

  “He’s indisposed. You’re free,” I told him.

  The boy became suddenly anxious but then saw my wound and proceeded to help me extricate his brothers and sisters from their perches against the wall. The more dolls we freed, the quicker the process became, until all of them were milling about in Mr. Whatley’s room trying to understand what had happened to them and what they would do next. I slipped out in the confusion, averting my eyes from the pathetic state Mr. Whatley found himself in, a wriggling thing on the floor amid shards of alabaster and glass. He looked up at me, his black, reptilian eyes suddenly desperate.

  “I am sorry for what I’ve wrought upon you,” he said in a small voice. “People like us, we are stronger. We must do the things that others cannot.”

  “No matter the cost?”

  “In spite of it.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Whatley.”

  “You can’t leave me here. There is work to be done! Markham!”

  I left him alone in his study with the former pieces of his collection and made my way slowly and steadily through the house. The wedding guests that had not been taken by Death were still milling about in the ballroom. They had apparently decided to hold the reception regardless of the presence of the bride or the groom. Dabney’s wheelchair lay empty in the corner. The pain in my chest began to throb again, and I steadied myself against a wall, nearly toppling over when someone put an arm beneath me and carefully lifted me into the air.

  I blacked out from exhaustion, and when I came to I found myself stretched on a metal chair, back in the room with the turning veils. Duncan stood nearby, fussing with a tray of tools on the wheeled table. I cried out in anguish, my wound still smarting. He turned to me, and rather than putting a finger to his lips, he opened his mouth and spoke.

  “You’re awake.” His voice was soft and musical.

  “You can talk?”

  “A recent development. The servants of Darkling grow into the needs of the house. With Whatley in decline, someone must speak for the estate. My brother was much the same, or so I’m told. I think you knew him.”

  “Roland.”

  “I believe he caused you great sorrow, though he was only following Mr. Whatley’s instructions. I cannot make right what has already passed, but I can at least give you something for the pain.”

  “That would be worth more than you know.”

  He nodded and held a smoking cup to my lips. “Drink this. It will help.” It tasted of citrus, and as it passed through my body, it brought with it a cool, soothing sensation.

  “I need one more thing. I won’t be but a moment.” He left me in the room, the veils spinning gently across the walls, hypnotic and serene. I had nearly slipped off to sleep when I felt the presence of someone else in the room. I sat up as best I could, and a man stepped forward.

  “Charlotte?” His voice was familiar, but the room was so dimly lit I could not make him out until his face was close to my own.

  “Jonathan?” His body was still blackened from the fire.

  “I’m afraid you’ve seen better days, my love.”

  I touched his cheek and felt his blistered skin. “How are you here? You’re dead.”

  “What do you think you are?” he asked.

  “Nothing can die in The Ending unless it wants to.”

  “You can’t live as you are.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Do you want me to be dead?”

  “I want you to be comfortable.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Duncan had returned, a small velvet jewelry box in his hand.

  “My husband is here,” I said, looking from one to the other.

  “I’ve been under the impression that he was deceased.” Duncan did not or could not see Jonathan, who shrugged his shoulders.

  “That doesn’t seem to be stopping him.”

  “You do not look well.” Duncan peered at the gash in my chest and placed his hand over it. “We must tend to your wound immediately.”

  “Where will that leave me?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Will I be alive or dead?”

  “I do not know. I suppose that it cannot be good for you as long as you can see your late husband.”

  Jonathan brought his ears close to my lips. “You must let him, Charlotte. It’s not your time. Not yet.”

  “I miss you so much.”

  “I’m always with you. Can’t you feel me?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “We will meet again, at the end.”

&nb
sp; “You’ll be waiting for me?”

  “Forever and always.”

  “This will feel peculiar,” said Duncan, interrupting my good-bye. He opened the jewelry box and extracted a small hooked needle attached to a golden spool of thread. He placed the needle into my wound and backed away, the thing moving of its own accord, tugging at the severed strands of muscle and artery in my torso, stopping the tepid flow of blood and leaving me with a mildly sore sensation where there had once been excruciating pain. When it was done he plucked the needle from my skin and set it back on the table.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like the living dead.”

  “At least you are living.”

  I looked around the room. Jonathan was gone, but I felt the loss of him less than I would have in a dream, for he had truly been with me and I had chosen to make him go away. The pain of it was softer because of this.

  “That was quite a wedding,” said Duncan. “Or at least it would have been.”

  “I’m afraid that Mr. Whatley may be indisposed for some time.”

  “It wouldn’t be wise for you to stay here,” he said.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Back to Everton, of course.”

  “But how? It seems as though you’ve destroyed every way back, and Mr. Whatley is in no position to help you.”

  “Perhaps someone in the underground will know the way.”

  “You should be careful. You’ve brought Death to The Ending. Ashby will come for you.” Duncan pulled a fresh cloak and a plain dress similar to the kind I had seen worn by the servants of Darkling from beneath the table. He helped me change into them.

  “What will happen here?” I asked.

  “Mr. Whatley will gather his strength for the time being. After that, I do not know. Are you able to walk?” He helped me out of the chair. It was much easier to stand than before. He led me out of the chamber to the back of the house, where the orchard stood waiting, now empty of the carriages and wedding guests.

  “I wish you the best of luck, Mrs. Markham.”