On the ride back to Kensington, Simon said, “My driver returned to tell me what happened. He knew the general direction where you had run. Abbie … ” His voice trailed off as he shook his head in disapproval. “I advised you to be extraordinarily careful.”
In the darkness of the carriage, I turned away from his disapproving gaze. Then I felt his fingers lightly on my chin as he gently turned me back toward him, forcing me to face him.
“I couldn’t ignore the vision,” I said quietly.
Then I told Simon about what Abberline had told me—about the symbol appearing in the cemeteries. “We have proof now that the graveyard murders are likely connected to Max. And Max attacked Abberline. He was luring me into that alley, knowing that I would protect Abberline.”
Simon remained silent, his face pale and handsome in the carriage darkness.
“Did you talk to William?” I asked.
“I did.” Simon’s look, as always, penetrated into me. I thought, in that moment as I had so many other times, how much he looked like the archangel Michael in an illustration in Grandmother’s Bible. Beautiful, angelic, too ethereal to exist.
“William is far too indisposed to work safely at the hospital. I am requiring that he take some time off. What happened the other night—those murders—was awful, but it could have turned out much worse.” His voice was stony, and I knew that he had very little respect for William. I suspected that he wasn’t even surprised by William’s current behavior.
William … what was happening to him? He had seemed like a different person when I saw him that night. And yet his behavior only fortified the wall I had built up around my heart, the wall protecting myself from him.
Fifteen
Seraphina burst into her house, feeling even more invigorated than she had after consuming the French boy twenty years before. She took up her easel and began to paint. Her strokes were fast, furious. She felt her beast form melting away as she became human. Her skin became soft, pliable, again. Her fangs receded.
As with the other portraits, she knew she would not finish this one, but it was more complete than many of her others. She was painting Julian Bartlett. She had not seen him in years, and yet he had been like a father figure to her. He and Robert Buck had been so kind—they were the only physicians who had ever helped her, at least before Robert’s experiment had gone horribly wrong.
But she didn’t think about that part. She felt strong enough now to face her other old memories. To recall Julian’s face.
His trim beard.
His eyes.
Gradually, her pounding heart subsided. She thought again of her keeper’s absence. If he was still angry about her outburst in November, perhaps his long absence was a lesson to her.
After her attack on the fishermen, she knew she would sleep well. There was a calmness in her blood, a bit of an ease from her restlessness. Immediately after the killings, she had swum about the island, then decided in the foggy twilight to fall asleep on her craggy perch. And her sleep had spun such peaceful dreams. No nightmares. Only the roar of waves.
She felt appeased, satisfied. Although she knew it was only momentary contentedness—her hunger was only held at bay.
“Per’aps we should turn around,” one boy said to another.
“Nay, not at all,” the other one replied. They had skipped out of school to fish. At thirteen years old, they wanted to do nothing else but fish on that day. And the day had indeed seemed so perfect for fishing. The sky burned white-bright upon their boat, and the calm sea emitted only a small, salt-tinged breeze.
“Don’t tell me ye’re scared, Timothy, after those mudders, those attacks the other night.”
“Nay,” the first boy said, shrugging. But Timothy was more timid than his companion, Rowan, and certainly the smarter of the two. This was the first time, in fact, that he had ever skipped out of school.
Rowan looked hard at Timothy, leveling his gaze. “The inspectors are saying it is a wild wolf. Perhaps a loosed bear. Nothin’ more.”
“Per’aps,” Timothy said, willing himself to believe it. But now, as he looked toward the land, toward the shore of Bromwell—only a tiny, green, rock-strewn sliver on the horizon—and as he felt the flimsiness of their small dory on these waves, he felt uneasiness creep upon his flesh. He wished they had stayed on land. Or at least closer to land.
Then the boat jolted violently, as if a whale had hit the bottom.
“What was that?” Timothy asked, almost dropping his fishing pole in the waters.
“Dunno.” Rowan said. His right eyebrow lifted a bit in mockery. “Scar’d?”
Something slammed even harder into the boat’s underside. Water sloshed into the dory. Rowan looked frightened now—in fact, terrified. Both boys pulled their poles up.
“We should go back,” Timothy said quickly, taking up the oars. He wasn’t one to break the rules, and he had had a bad feeling about skipping school all day.
Something splashed in the water behind them.
“A whale perhaps,” Rowan said, his voice only a small croak.
Timothy wished it were a whale. It was difficult to see as the noon sun glinted hard off the waves. But from the corner of his eyes, Timothy thought he saw the flash of a webbed hand—lizard-like, with talons. Horror overwhelmed the boy and his throat went dry, parched. Neither he nor Rowan could speak as an eerie calm set upon them and the waters.
They sat silently, breathing hard, staring at each other, frozen, their oars suspended just over the water, afraid to move.
Then the boat tipped, dumping both of them into the sea.
It had been three weeks since the night Inspector Abberline was attacked, and I had only been able to see Simon a few times. But my hours at New Hospital were long, and even now, on Sunday morning, my muscles ached. I spent each and every day at New Hospital, helping Dr. Carmichael and occasionally working alongside Dr. Anderson; then, in the evenings, rather than resting or sleeping, I often stayed up until midnight or even later, studying Dr. Anderson’s anatomy books. Although I did not wish it, thoughts of William seeped into my mind. Sometimes, particularly when I felt weary and vulnerable after those late nights of studying, as I drifted into sleep, I would think of him, my weary mind finding the happily-ever-after ending that my more rational mind could not. In my dreams we would reconcile, forget the past. But I would always wake up, dawn breaking through my curtains, and my concerns about what he had done, and also about what he had become lately—inebriated, irresponsible—arose again. I would force myself to get up, dress, and become lost in the needs of the day.
Easter passed, and April and spring arrived in full force. But my memories of William lingered upon me. Unbidden, but beautiful and sharp all at the same time.
Then, one Sunday in church, as I found myself trying to stay awake while the priest droned on and on with the prayer liturgies, I felt someone slip into the pew and kneel beside me. I opened my right eye enough to see that it was Simon. Unlike me, he appeared to be lost in prayer, or at least in meditation. I would have given anything to read his thoughts, for I knew that he believed in humanity more than he believed in God. Also, I was surprised to see him beside me because he usually attended church in the deceased Reverend Perkins’s old parish in Whitechapel. There must be a reason for his appearance now.
The liturgies faded in my ears as I studied his profile. Colored prisms of light from the stained glass windows shone on his face. His lashes remained light, almost as ash-blond as his hair. Particularly in this meditative pose, he looked, even more than usual, like a figure in a William Blake painting.
Saintly.
Inspiring.
I blushed and tried to turn my attention back to the liturgy.
Immediately after the service, Simon offered to escort me home. Grandmother lingered near Lady Catherine and Lady Violet to chat with our new priest. “Young. N
ot yet twenty-eight,” she had said about him at breakfast.
As we walked, Simon and I discussed Grandmother’s behavior lightheartedly for a few blocks until we reached our neighborhood. The afternoon seemed almost normal—ladies walked small dogs, young children in their Sunday clothes walked primly beside their tight-lipped governesses.
Then Simon’s face turned grave. We were very near his house, only a few blocks from my own.
“What is it, Simon?” I asked, alarmed.
“Can you step inside to talk with me in my study for a few moments?” he asked, looking not at me but ahead, at his front door.
“Certainly.” I followed him inside. Although I heard his servants preparing Sunday dinner in the dining room, although I smell roasted pork and potatoes, I felt enveloped in Simon’s intensity and I wanted, desperately, to hear what he had to say. As we ascended his family’s ornate staircase, he told me that his mother had been home this past week but that she’d recently left, once again, for their seaside house, where she seemed to be spending most of her time.
Simon’s upstairs study was exactly how I would have imagined it. The room was so unlike the rest of the house. It was simple. Functional. No gilded portraits. It was furnished with unadorned yet expensive sconces, all displaying beeswax candles. As I seated myself in a chair in front of his enormous oak desk, I surveyed Simon’s many books. On the shelf nearest to me, a very small carved-ivory elephant, only the size of my hand, was the lone art piece.
I gingerly picked up the sculpture, feeling its cuts and angles with my fingertips; it was beautiful. Cool to the touch. Lovely.
“Where did you get this?” I asked as Simon shut the study door. “It’s exquisite.”
His eyes veiled, and I picked up on a brief pause before he spoke. “Africa.”
“You were in Africa?”
As I stared up at him, it seemed as if his mind was soaring to another place.
“Were you there for travel or work?” I asked.
Simon was still far away from me. But after two seconds, he snapped out of his reverie and swiftly removed the small sculpture from my hands, returning it to its place upon the shelf.
“I was in the Congo, once. And to answer your question, I was there for work and study purposes.”
“Extraordinary. You never told me about that.”
“That is because”—Simon’s voice was tinged acidic—“I do not wish to talk about it.”
I felt startled. Although withdrawn and unreadable on many occasions, Simon had never spoken so sharply to me. I felt hurt. But then his gentle demeanor instantly resumed, and he sat at a chair behind his desk. He sighed, seemingly aware of the impatience he had just demonstrated.
“I think someone might be following me,” he said quietly. “That is the reason I brought you here.”
“Max?” I whispered.
“No. That is the odd part. My follower is blond, older. Just beyond forty years old, perhaps. His face looks reddish, almost sunburned.”
The man I saw in Highgate Cemetery, the morning after the murders!
I told him about the man I’d seen. Of course, it might not have been the same one, but there weren’t many sunburned individuals in London.
Simon paused. “Your description certainly does sound like the same man.”
“For how long have you seen him?” I asked, my heart pounding. Each day, everything seemed to become more confusing.
“I’m not precisely certain. I’ve only noticed him twice. Last week, when coming home from Whitechapel at a late hour, I heard footsteps behind me; I turned and saw him in the distance. But I was not certain that he was following me so I thought little of it. Then, last night, after working here at my desk until midnight, I turned to draw the curtains in the window.” Simon gestured to the large window behind his desk. “And I saw him, standing in the shadows across the street. He tried to appear casual, as if just waiting for someone, but it seemed too much of a coincidence that I would see him twice in two different sections of London.”
“It is odd,” I said, perplexed.
“Have you seen him since that day in Highgate?”
“No, but I’m usually walking about during the day, when the streets are particularly crowded. I wouldn’t know if anyone was following me. What about William? Has he been followed, too?”
Simon sighed loudly, and I saw exasperation in his face. He paused, looking hard at me, and I felt my heartbeat quicken. “I have not seen William since the night of the attack upon Abberline three weeks ago. William needed to know about Max, that the situation was serious, so I returned to his house immediately after taking you home to warn him and to require him to take some time off.” Simon sighed. He hated William, but he knew that this was all difficult for me to hear. “He didn’t seem to care when I warned him that Max has returned, when I told him of what Max had just done to Abberline. William seems to have entered a breakdown, a collapse of some sort. He hasn’t even entered into the hospital since that night. As I said, that was three weeks ago.”
I felt bewilderment. Grief. I hardly knew what else to say, particularly to my friend, to someone who had once rivaled William for my heart. So I said nothing.
I drummed my fingers on the chair beside me a bit, deep in thought—confused by these occurrences, saddened by all that had happened between William and myself.
A clock on one of the bookcases chimed. I knew Grandmother would be returning to our house soon.
I still heard the clank of silverware downstairs, and thought that, most likely, one of Simon’s sisters was coming to visit. But, selfishly, I wanted him to myself that afternoon. Blinking back tears and controlling my voice, I said,“Take dinner with us. Please. Grandmother would like it.”
There was no argument. “Of course.”
Sixteen
As she surveyed the food supplies for the menagerie, Seraphina saw that her bags and frozen meats were running low. She suppressed feelings of panic, knowing that she could hunt for food for the animals; nevertheless, attaining grains and birdseed would be more difficult. Yet she had enough for now, and that was all she could think about. After feeding the animals, she ascended the cold wet steps of her home and dived off of a rock, slicing out into the waters to hunt for herself.
The sun, just breaking out, cast its light wild and pearlish through the seawater around her, and as she swam, alternating between higher and deeper depths, she felt her anxieties subside. In fact, once she had swum far out into the sea, she felt almost calm. The rest of the world might have forgotten her, but she still had her mind, her brains, her beastly nature, and her body, which made her a predator of all. Even the rare large sharks passing through these waters never threatened her. Humans might eschew her, think her disgusting and monstrous, but they would inevitably become her prey.
The huge shadow of a sperm whale passed over her, far above. Its shadow lingered brilliant in the bright light of that day’s sun. She considered who she was, in that moment in the depths of the water. Even the humans from her old life, before the experiment, had faded from her memories—her fiancé, her father. Her heart seized upon itself as she wondered if what she had experienced with either of them could be considered love. But her thoughts about this were scattered, foggy, caught in those recesses of her mind that belonged to another being entirely. Now a pang pierced her insides, and she knew she would give anything to be part of that world again, that human world. But as a cold current whipped at her body, she knew she would never think or be as she was before—anxious to marry, curious but uneducated and ignorant. Now, she knew that immortality existed; she wanted to latch on to the strengths and accomplishments of the Conclave. She wanted to contribute to the group—her best dream was to live and travel with them, to be their scholar.
But in the watery depths, as she considered her scales, her talons, she knew that unless Robert Buck finally found the
cure, this could never happen. She considered her keeper. She remembered how he had nearly strangled her on his last visit, and once again wondered if his long absence was a means of disciplining her.
From her depths, she watched a jellyfish pulse by her, translucent and graceful. A sadness washed over her. Besides Petey and her other animals, Max had always been her single constant. He had always been hers. But why had she expected their relationship to remain the same? He followed no rules except the Conclave’s rules; he was their perfect assassin and enforcer because he had no moral boundaries, no limits. She shivered as she thought of this. But if he had not thought her worthwhile, he would never have convinced the Conclave to let her live. He had always tolerated her over the years, even become fond of her … at least she had thought that he had been fond of her. Seraphina, with her beastly intemperate love, always hoped that one day—if she was ever cured—she might cut out into the world with Max.
But now, she believed in her heart that a cure was further away than ever. Once again she thought of how being part beast gave her an exclusive connection to Max, that they had been bonded as he could not be bonded to anyone else. She remembered the first time she saw him—she had been in such an awful state. She had done the unforgivable, and yet Max had not judged her.
Now he had someone else, someone who shared his psychic abilities—a bond with this girl, Caroline’s daughter, Arabella. She would be the Conclave’s immortal companion, and Seraphina would be forever banished to her island.
What would they do with her?
She swam upwards, her scaly arms slicing through the waters as she propelled herself toward the sunlight.
Would they destroy her?
No.
They couldn’t afford to. The Conclave needed her to guard their treasury and their animals.
She spent the entire day in the waters, swimming, eating fish; she had not fed on human blood since attacking the two boys. If she killed too many humans, it would become risky for her. She had seen the search boats early that morning, near the shore. She had heard the baying of the hounds along the beach as they followed her scent. The search parties had been on land mostly, looking for wild wolves or bears. But since she had killed those boys on the waters, they now feared the presence of some sort of water beast, something exotic, perhaps a large crocodile—a beast not native to these parts, but nonetheless released or lost in the sea. She couldn’t have them searching too close to her island home.
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