The Half Killed

by Quenby Olson

  I look round at him, but he doesn't release me. "I need to leave."

  "Why?" he asks, like a curious child.

  "Because I want you to live."

  He blinks.

  "Julian, I'll destroy you."

  And with that, I've told him everything. He must know now, how it is all my fault, all of the deaths, the drought, even the fire burning through the city as we stand here… It is because of me, because I have failed to stop this monster that is drawing its circle more tightly around me.

  But my words have not the slightest effect on him. Instead of releasing me, he reaches down for my other hand, his fingers brushing across the scars on my wrists.

  "How terrible is it? What you hear?"

  "I wouldn't wish it on another person. No matter their sins."

  "And you would really seek death, as an escape?"

  I pull my right hand away from him, but my left... He pushes my sleeve upwards, exposing the pale welts that criss-cross my skin.

  "I am afraid of death," I confess, and the sigh that follows rattles out from between a jaw that trembles. "The wrists... It's one of the worst ways to do it. And I didn't cut deep enough. Because as abhorrent as my life truly is, as much pain as I endure in every moment, it may be worse, after."

  A strange thing. I have never before expressed such a belief in words, but the moment the various syllables have found their way into the air, they ring with so much familiarity that I could be led to believe this statement has been a replacement for my morning and evening prayers, recited from memory.

  "Please, Julian. Please let me go."

  He is prepared to stand against me. There is a tension in him, and I know that he is entertaining the notion of dragging me back to the bed and forcing me to rest. But before he can raise another argument, there is a knock at the front door, loud and insistent. Chissick blows out a breath and steps away from me.

  "Give me a moment," he says. I see it, something in Chissick's eyes. There is a darkness, and I wonder if I have already spent too much time in his presence, that the shadows have completed their journey from the recesses of the room and latched on to their next victim. But a turn of his head, and it is swept away so thoroughly that I'm able to convince myself that the darkness was never there in the first place.

  I'm alone again, my limbs now restless with the need to be gone from this room. I have been here for too long, and now it feels as if the walls are closing in around me. I attempt to pace the length of the room, but my strength is still not what it should be, and so I rest against the edge of the bed while I listen to the noises that come up from downstairs.

  I hear the front door open, followed by voices. Chissick’s first, and another. A woman’s voice, but I’m not close enough to hear what is being said. I raise my hand to my face and wipe away the fresh layer of sweat that has accumulated across my forehead. My balance wavers, and as I put out a hand with which to steady myself, a sudden jolt of pain stabs through my skull. The pain is so intense that when I open my mouth to cry out, there is no sound, only a terrible retching sound from the back of my throat as I reel forward. Somewhere, behind the pain, I still hear the voices from below, Chissick’s louder now, and the woman…

  I land hard onto my knees, and my hands are on the floor, my fingernails scratching at the dusty floorboards. The wall that had been so carefully constructed inside my head, the one that had kept everything hidden from me, that had been placed there by a power not my own, begins to crumble. It is a slow destruction at first, but the bricks start to fall faster, exploding into dust as everything I was not supposed to know floods into my mind, all at once.

  My forehead is pressed against the floor. There is moisture there, either sick or my own tears, I cannot tell. My eyes are squeezed shut as I listen to the tread on the stairs, lighter than Chissick’s heavy footfalls. And then someone is in the room with me, bending towards me, before the pain rises to its highest pitch and I disappear.

  ***

  Lady Francesca is seated on a chair, one leg pushed out from beyond the hem of her skirt, as if that one limb has taken to search for an escape from the warmth that is trapped beneath the heavy fabric. In her plain, grey dress, her dark hair pulled back into a severe bun, I could almost mistake her for a stranger. But the eyes are the same, still veined with red. And the voice… Any doubt as to her Yorkshire ancestry is firmly erased with the first few words to leave her mouth.

  "I wondered when you’d stir back to life. Matters are pressing, and here I've been left to wait for over two hours."

  Not quite a greeting, but it's enough to turn the conversation over to me. And I do take my time with it. Unsurprising, as I'm still prostrate on the floor, my laboured breath stirring a small ball of dust a few inches from my face.

  "I tried to call on you at that old bat Selwyn’s," she continues, unperturbed by the contrast in our positions. "But she said you hadn’t been there for days."

  "No." My voice is stronger than I expected it to be. Or perhaps it is because I feel the vibration of it in the floorboards beneath my cheek. "I’ve not been home much of late." A tremor in my voice betrays my weakness, and so I press my weight into my hands, and slowly—so slowly—push myself up until I’m able to pull my legs beneath me and shift into something resembling an upright pose. "Why are you here? Why aren’t you…?" Gone, is the unspoken word, and yet it hangs between us as if I had shouted it out to her at the highest volume.

  "Marta," she replies. And when that one word is not enough to enlighten me, she soldiers forward. "She kept me here, said I had a contract to fulfill. But I’ve fulfilled it, and now she can run all the way to Leeds for all I care."

  "Marta left? She left London?"

  "This morning," Francesca informs me, and crosses her arms over her chest with some vehemence, as if she’s prepared to defend the truth of her statement.

  "Finally," I say, and I allow myself to breathe.

  For several moments, neither of us speaks. The room is close, and there is an odour that emanates not only from the sweat-soaked mattress behind me, but also from a few unwashed undergarments that rest in a tangled pile on the floor. Francesca turns her gaze towards the window, the muted daylight striking the lower half of her face. And as if spurred on by the illumination, her chin twitches, a movement that her lips soon pick up until the motion is joined by her voice.

  "But that is not why I’m here."

  I nod. Of course it isn’t. I sense her duplicity, coming off her person in waves, and with each wave, another throb of pain assaults me.

  "But you already know that, don’t you, Miss Hawes?"

  I close my eyes. I will need to move soon, but I think another minute must pass until I can trust that I’ve acquired enough strength. "Where is she?" And when she doesn’t immediately reply, I lean forward, my weight now rolling onto my knees as I grab for the edge of the mattress and pull myself up until I'm standing. "Where is my aunt? Because that is why you are here, is it not? To fetch me to her, like some pathetic little messenger boy."

  A slight raise of the eyebrows is the only reaction I receive for my brief outburst. "I don’t know what it is they all see in you. Marta never stopped crowing about your accomplishments, and Mrs. E…" A snort or a huff, I’m not entirely sure how to label the sound that comes out of her nostrils. "It was like the sun rose and set on you."

  Mrs. E. Better known to me as my aunt, Mrs. Ann Everett.

  The wall is gone, and I can see everything now. Aunt Ann, dressed all in black, always seated at the table with us when my mother hosted one of her demonstrations, of which I was always such a reluctant participant. And there was the handwriting, the looping scrawl that graced the backs of the photographs, the shape of every letter so familiar. But of course I had recognised it. Hadn’t I seen it a hundred times in my youth, decorating the various notes and invitations that passed between my mother and her dearest sister?

  "At the sitting, at Mrs. Damant’s…" I pause, long enough to take seve
ral breaths before I find I can speak again. "I felt something." I look at her, sitting so coolly in the chair that had been Chissick’s seat while he waited at my bedside. I try to think of Chissick, to send up a thought as to his current whereabouts, but between the ache in my head and the confusion of pieces clicking together in my mind, I cannot spare a moment’s pondering for him. "My aunt was behind that, as well?"

  "She wanted to test you, to see how much control you could exert over the spirit."

  "And she was willing to risk your life—you were willing to risk your life—for a mere test?"

  Her hands clench and unclench in her lap, but the rest of her remains still. "I was being punished. I had defied her, foolishly. And she needed to assure me how wrong I had been to doubt my trust in her." She closes her eyes, and for a moment, I hear her string of apologies spoken into my shoulder, her voice clogged with tears as she begs forgiveness from someone I can’t see.

  The bed is beside me, the edge of the mattress pressing deep into my thigh. But I will not allow myself to sit, especially not while Lady Francesca is still in the room with me. "She should not even be alive. She was there, the night…" I remember it. The darkness that invaded the room, taking my mother first while she still clung to me, before it sent out its tendrils to the other people seated around the table. "I saw her die."

  But Lady Francesca is already shaking her head. "She is very strong."

  "Stronger than death?"

  A sharply inhaled breath, and I see her shoulders push back against the confines of her plain dress. "Perhaps."

  I let go of the bed. My balance threatens to desert me, but I remain standing. "But why am I not dead?"

  The question is not intended for my visitor. In fact, I very much doubt she would be able to provide me with any sort of satisfactory answer. But it is the same question that has plagued me since I was a child, since I watched my parents die at the hand of the shadowed creature I have always felt responsible for admitting to this world.

  "Mrs. E wishes to see you." She stands, her chin lifting to better look down at me.

  "Why didn’t she come here? Why send you?"

  A small shrug. All of her movements seem so delicate, so subtle now that the guise of Lady Francesca is put away. "She wants you to come to her of your own volition. I think she wants you to have a choice."

  I allow my chin to dip towards my chest, my expression tightening as another wave of pain thuds through my head. "How generous of her."

  She turns, and I understand that our interview must have already come to an end. But before she reaches the door, she pauses, and I notice her hesitation, her desire to be gone from this place and yet to linger for another moment warring within herself.

  "Tell me, Miss Hawes. Do you dream?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Dreams, you know. In your sleep." She spends another moment studying the grime that mars the hem of her dress before her gaze switches to my face. The strain that was previously lacking in her appearance is there now, the vestiges of sleeplessness, drawing deep lines into her face. And there, in her eyes, I see the veins of red that creep ever closer to the dark brown of her irises, so soon to be overtaken. "I don't have them anymore."

  And for a moment, I'm lost. Foundering, even. But her attention returns to the small square of floor in front of her, and then she's speaking once more, her voice adopting the tone of someone conversing only with themselves.

  "Ever since that night, I close my eyes to sleep, and all I see is darkness until morning. I used to dream every night, vivid things, but..."

  Again, she looks at me. For what, I'm not sure.

  "Do you dream, Miss Hawes?" The same question as before, and this time, I know that I must give her an answer.

  "No, I am afraid I do not have that pleasure."

  This must be enough to satisfy her, for she returns to her examination of her skirt and the floor around her. "It's so warm in here," she says after a minute slips away, as she presses the back of her hand to her forehead.

  "I am sorry I can't offer you anything." I spread my hands apart, a gesture meant to convey that there is nothing, not even a drop of water in the room that I can give to her.

  "Mrs. E tells me I will have a new life," Francesca says, skipping from subject to subject with such quickness that I struggle to follow her. "I am to be quite prosperous, you know. Never wanting for anything, rubbing elbows with royalty and all of that." She folds her arms across her chest, her hands gripping her elbows with some strength. "Your Marta is a fool. To her, it’s nothing but tricks and sleight of hand. But Mrs. E has shown me how much more there is, if one can learn to master it."

  I shut my eyes, even before she's finished speaking. "You're mistaken." It is all I can think to say. My weariness is too great to even consider forming a stronger argument.

  "And I'm sure that Marta doesn't care she’s lost me," she continues, growing more petulant with every pass her hands make across her upper arms. "She'll always have the memories of you to fall back on, her little favourite."

  I give her no sign that I'm attending to her words. Let her talk. It's what she wants, to hear her own voice, the voice of Francine Butterman, a girl so long buried beneath the trappings of Lady Francesca that she's afraid she might have already disappeared.

  "You don't know how difficult it is," she says. "How trying, always being held up in comparison to someone else, and always falling short." A flicker in her eye, and I know she is speaking of more than Marta.

  "I am sorry," I tell her, but she waves it off, reaches up to adjust a pin in her hair.

  "I’ll have my success." This, spoken as she plants her hands on her hips. "I spent too many years, taking my chances at being accused of fraud, but I wasn't about to be dragged up in front of the magistrate because some old biddy wanted to knock about with a table, thinking she was having a chat with her dead husband."

  She presses her hand to her throat, and I notice the tension in those fingers, ragged nails poised to scratch at her own skin. I expect her to look at me, but now she averts her eyes, and I see the shade of memory pass over her face, and I know that she and I are both recalling that same evening, when the shadows almost took her from this world.

  "I didn't think it was real, before I met Mrs. E." She flinches at her own words, and still she won't acknowledge my presence. "I remember reading about it in the papers, how so many of you were uncovered as fakes, nothing more than common thieves, fooling the gullible into believing anything you wished them to, really. But then she came along, and she taught me how much more there is to the world, how terribly small we are in comparison."

  She takes a step backwards, away from me, and I think she would take another, but the wall puts a rapid end to her progress. One hand behind her now, against the sooty plaster, and the other reaches out to me, or rather, it keeps me at a distance, two fingers crooked, a visible sheen of sweat on her palm.

  "What..." she begins, only to stop and run her tongue across her bottom lip. Her teeth appear, biting down on that same bit of flesh her tongue moistened. "If you don't dream, what is it that you see?"

  Oh, such a question to ask. Such a question to be asked. I could tell her that I see all sorts of things. Sometimes a terrible amount of light, and colours. And I see faces, people I've never met, things I cannot always bring myself to believe are real. And yet I know the truth. I know when I see one man strangling another, and I feel the pressure of his hands, and more than that, the darkness inside of him.

  "Same as you," I say, without blinking. "Nothing at all."

  "But it doesn't frighten you?"

  I blink. "Yes, it does."

  It's an easy confession to make, but one that seems to do little towards reassuring her.

  Her head tilts towards me, her mouth working in silence over the question before sending it into the air. "So you've never known anything different than this?"

  "No, I haven’t." The remark, minor as it is, nearly undoes me. I find I can n
o longer look her in the eye, and so I settle for studying a ghastly streak of ash that still stains the far wall.

  "But what happened?" she persists. And I wait, allow the silence to return, a stultifying cloud that rests on my shoulders, pressing me further down, until I think the floor may collapse beneath the burden of it all.

  It takes some time, I think, for Francesca to understand that she will have no more response from me. And so she takes it upon herself to speak, to carry along the thread of conversation I so abruptly abandoned.

  "When I was in the cabinet," she says, and nods along with her words, as if verifying the truth of them. "I heard such screaming in my head, and I thought I would never hear the end of it. But the strangest thing, it was as if there was some part of it, something that..." There is a small sound of frustration as she searches for the right word. "Something that tempted me, made me want nothing more than to give myself over to it." She looks over at me suddenly. "Do you know what that feels like? I asked Mrs. E, but she wouldn’t say. But do you know?"

  "Yes."

  She closes her mouth. Her hands find their way back to her hips, and with a slight shift to her posture, some of her bitterness returns, brick by brick, a wall built up between us. And I pull myself away, allowing her the luxury of this mental distance.

  "Well," she says, and there's that same lift to her chin, a bit of Lady Francesca returning for an encore performance. "I'm sure I shouldn’t take up any more of your time. Mrs. E is waiting for you, and she wouldn’t like it if she found out I’d been the cause of some delay." She nods, once. "I’m perfectly able to show myself out."

  "Wait." It is spoken in a whisper, but it is enough to halt her progress through the door. "Where is she? Where am I to meet her?"

  "The last place you saw her." Lady Francesca almost smiles. "She is there, even now."

  After this, there are no standard farewells, no words spoken on a false note of promise, to call on one another the next time we’re in one another’s neighbourhood. Neither of us would believe a syllable of it. But when I'm alone in the room again, there is a niggling premonition, a touch as light as the bead of perspiration that slips across my skin, that this is not the last time my path will cross with hers.