“How long what?” he replies, carefully, but I know he knows what I’m referring to: how long before he leaves me.
“Don’t waste time being polite.”
“I never do. I just...” He runs his fingers through his hair again. He has lost his mask somewhere. “I just don’t know how to say everything that should be said.”
“You’re trying to figure out how much I know, you mean.” A bit of bitterness creeps into my voice, unbidden.
He appears taken aback at my honesty. “Yes,” he murmurs. “I suppose you could say that.”
“What is your name? Don’t lie to me, please, Sam. I can’t bear that.” I also can’t bear having kissed a married man, but one unbearable thing at a time, if you please.
“What is a name? It doesn’t matter.” We had paused in the darkness of a willow tree, but now he moves on again, restless.
“It does matter. It does matter if your name is Luke Dawes!” I catch up and grasp at his elbow. I stare into his beautiful face, his dark, disloyal face. “How could you? How could you?” He won’t look at me though, and I find my legs giving out. I sink to the cold ground. “How could you?” I repeat, but it’s little more than a whisper.
For a long moment, no one says anything, and just when I think he is going to walk away from me, he folds up his long legs and sits down. Close, but not too close. I think he knows I wouldn’t stand for it. “Rose is gone,” he says, carefully.
“No, she isn’t.”
“She is.” His tone is firm. “She’s been gone for some time. I don’t think she’s coming back. The girl I loved is,” his voice cracks, “gone. I’ve tried everything I can. Eventually, I’m going to travel. We’ve been here over a year, and it’s been months since I’ve seen her. She doesn’t know me anymore. What am I to do? I can’t find her.”
“I’m not sure you’ve tried hard enough.” The bitterness is back. I don’t look at him; instead, I wind blades of grass through my fingertips and sift dirt. My lovely gown is getting mussed and dirty. I will never wear it again, so it hardly matters. I may even burn it after tonight.
“You’ll never know how hard I’ve tried,” he answers, harshly. “It isn’t as though I want to move on without her; she’s my wife. God! She’s my wife.”
“You do still love her then?” Now my voice is small, like a tiny child’s. What do I want him to say? That he does? That he doesn’t? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, and either one leaves me behind.
“I always will. But, Lizzie,” Sam—Luke—reaches for my hand. I sternly tell my body to thwart him, to pull away, but it doesn’t obey, and my traitorous hand holds his desperately.
“Don’t say it.”
“Why? It’s true. I love you.”
I do pull away then. “Don’t say that! Just don’t. You can’t,” I answer, flatly. “Not if you still love her.”
“I would have said the same thing just a few weeks ago, but something’s changed. This wasn’t part of my plan.”
“What exactly was your plan? Playing bridge and driving cars—” I stop, horrified. “That car is stolen, isn’t it?”
“That’s the top of your worries right now?” Sam looks amused. I can’t think of him as Luke; he’ll always be Sam to me. “I’ll give it back if you like. I’d like to do something right to please you in all of this.”
“Forget the car. I haven’t forgotten what Rose spoke about with you. You’re a murderer. You met her in Bedlam, and then you helped terrorize her family. How can that be you?” I can’t reconcile what I feel for Sam with what I know of Luke. This is ridiculous. Why ever did I allow myself to fall for him, much less come wandering out into the night with him with no protection? Am I the dullest girl in all of history? This man has rubbed shoulders with Jack the Ripper. He has spent time locked up in a mental institution. He steals cars when he’s bored. Even Marianne would be out of her element and run away, screaming. Then why am I not moving?
“You can’t believe everything Rose says.”
“Can’t I? I assumed so when I didn’t believe the Lost were real. Now I don’t know what to believe. I know you’re a liar.”
“Yes.” This is said slowly. He is proceeding with caution. “But if I’ve lied to you, it’s been to protect you. You’ve become intertwined with Rose’s life. She won’t let you go now.”
The thought is somewhat horrifying, but also not surprising. “Wonderful. You go traveling off to some magical island, and I’ll just stay behind and fend off your violent wife. I feel like Jane Eyre. You should have locked her in the attic.”
“An attic wouldn’t hold her.” I can’t believe we’re joking about this, but a smile curls his mouth. “And you wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a decent Grace Poole these days. But I have been thinking about an idea.”
“What?” I still don’t think I should be sitting out here in the dark with him, but my feet are loath to move. How is possible to be so comfortable with a possible murderer? There must be something wrong with me. Is this what love does? Makes you blind and stupid? I was better off without it.
“Nora.”
I’m confused, though that’s becoming my normal state of mind. “Nora? In Bedlam? What of her? She doesn’t know anything. Whatever she does know is locked away inside her mind.”
“But if we can get her to remember just enough, just enough to help me travel where I need to go…” he trails off. And looks at me expectantly, as though what he said just made any sense at all.
“Where do you need to go? I don’t understand.” I shake my head.
“I think,” he proceeds carefully. “I think if I can bring back Sonnet and Noah, they could help Rose.”
I’m appalled. “For one thing, if you think they’d help, you’re as batty as Rose.”
“You don’t know Sonnet like I do.”
“Whatever. She’d be a fool to come anywhere near her sister after she what she did to her.” I remember the entry about the locked house, not to mention the murder of her best friend. Not things easily forgivable. “Besides, you couldn’t find her. She could be anywhere.”
“I know where she is.”
I sit up straight and gape at him. “What? How? You didn’t tell Rose?”
“No. She was losing all touch with reality. I knew all along where they would end up after 1888, but I didn’t think it would help anyone to say. When we, Rose and I, found them the first time, when we found Noah’s arrest record, I found something else: an article about a hospital in Africa that named Israel Rhode as a founder and a photo that said, Not pictured: Noah Gray, Sonnet Gray.”
“I can’t believe you kept that from her all this time. When? Where and when?”
“1889. They hadn’t traveled eras yet, just continents. Like we suspected, actually. After Emme’s funeral, they just ran. Probably followed Dr. Smythe’s footsteps: they were living with him at the time. I don’t know how long they stay there, but I know they were there in October of 1889. I know the village even. I think this could work.”
”If you can convince them to come back here with you and Nora. And if we can get Nora to remember how to manipulate traveling. She’s been here for a long time, hasn’t she? Years and years, and she hasn’t woken up anywhere new!” I’m skeptical of such a wild idea, and I’m also not convinced he won’t travel away and leave me with his wife.
“But if it works, if we come back, I could possibly get Rose back. The sight of Sonnet, of Rose’s obsession, could be what brings her back. Something tells me you won’t be with me when there’s still a chance of finding and helping Rose. And if it doesn’t work,” he falters. “Then I have to move on.”
What an insane mess I’ve gotten into. I long suddenly for boredom, for changing bedpans, for sewing circles with Mina. My heart is heavy, and my head aches. I want him to kiss me, and yet I regret the ones we already shared. They are filled with poison.
“There’s nothing in it for me either way,” I reply, bitterly. “I’m in l
ove with a married man, and not just a married man, but one who will disappear forever at any moment. I should go away and never come back. That’s what I should do.”
“Please don’t.” He has to know I won’t, but he still looks worried. I’d smooth his anxious brow if I didn’t still want to slap him silly. “You made a vow to help those who needed your help.”
“That’s a cheap shot.” I almost choke on the bitterness. “And it’s not fair.”
“I know. She needs help, Lizzie. You’re the only one who can help me. I don’t have much time. If I travel without her, I’m gone forever. I can’t get back the way she can. And she won’t look for me because she doesn’t know me any longer.”
I’m silent for what feels like ages, while I quietly will myself to be somewhere else, anywhere else. If I could travel through time, I’d go anywhere right now and never come back.
“All right,” I say, at last. “What do you want me to do?”
********************
Stay where he could find me again, he’d said. Stay awake. Don’t be alone. Don’t go home. Stay where there are plenty of people: Bedlam. He’d pay Miss Helmes, he said, so she wouldn’t give me any trouble. He’d look for me in Nora’s room when he got back.
Which is where we are now, convincing an old woman that she holds special powers.
It’s not going well.
“I imagine Carolina was a beautiful baby,” Sam is saying conversationally. He is holding her paper thin hands and helping her eat a biscuit, as though it was any other unremarkable tête-à-tête. We’ve been here for three hours. I want to jump out of my skin. “And remember when she married Noah? He is a nice man.”
“He drinks too much,” Nora says, then.
I do jump at that, and even Sam allows his eyebrows to shoot up. “You remember?”
“I remember something,” she replies, slowly. “Some things I remember now. How do you know my baby? Carolina?”
“I’ve never met her, Nora, but you’re my grandmother.” Sam leans forward and I can tell he wants to embrace her out of excitement, but he doesn’t. Good call on his part: the insane don’t appreciate random acts of affection. Of course, being married to Rose, he probably knows that better than anyone. “Carolina had a little girl, two little girls actually: Rose and Sonnet. I’m Rose’s husband, and I need to find Sonnet. If I tell you where and when she is, can you take me there? Bring us back here?”
“Through time, you mean?” Nora looks appalled. “I don’t do that anymore. I had forgotten. It’s been so long, hasn’t it? Look at my hands. Am I very old?” The spider veins and wrinkles and age spots are like a novel written on her hands.
Neither Sam nor I want to answer. Finally, Sam nods. “It’s been a long time. But you can help us now. It’s very important that I get to Sonnet and bring her here. Will you help? Do you think you can do it?”
It took another hour. Another hour of biting my nails, my stomach churning, Sam being ever patient. For a thieving murderer, as Rose called him, he was long-suffering and calm. I kept jumping at the slightest sounds, which, when you’re at Bedlam, is a silly thing to do. The sounds here are endless. Once, Miss Helmes walked by. She saw me sitting there, by the side of Nora’s bed, but she didn’t say anything. It was a new day, the day after the ball, and she looked a bit worse for wear. So do I, after being up all night. My ball gown feels heavy and cumbersome. I lost my mask. I lost the diary. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, though soon it may be the only link to Sam I’ll ever have. Small comfort. Here I am, helping the man I love fight for the sanity of his wife. It doesn’t get any stranger. I should have my head examined. I wonder if Dr. Ford has any openings later in the week.
Once Nora was convinced and agreed to try, Sam produced a bottle of Nightfall pills from his jacket. He had her swallow three of them with her water. I watched her throat move as they went down. He swallowed four of them himself. Too wired up to sleep, he told me.
What about me? I wanted to say. But I was useless. I could only sit there and watch as Sam tucked Nora back into her bed. She watched me under hooded eyes until they closed.
“How long?” I ask him. He has lain down next to her. It should seem strange to see a young man next to an old lady, holding her hand, but somehow it doesn’t. Of course everything in my life is strange lately, so perhaps it’s just in comparison.
“Not long.” He begins to talk to her of 1889. The sights, the smells, the feel of Africa. He speaks of Sonnet and of Noah. He talks about things like the plains, and sick children, the heat, the desert. He repeats 1889 over and over again, until I personally want to scream. Eventually, he stops murmuring and I know he’s asleep.
And all I can do is watch and wait, and hope that Rose isn’t nearby, doing the same.
28
If I hadn’t seen it, I never would have believed it. I have seen it, and I don’t know that I believe it. One moment they were there, curled up in the hospital bed with one thin blanket between them, Sam’s feet sticking out the bottom side, and the next, the bed was empty. I don’t know what I was expecting, a flash of light, a puff of smoke, but what happened was hardly noisy or theatrical. They were just gone. An indentation in the bed, and that was all to prove they were ever there to begin with. I whimpered like a kitten and found myself clawing at the blanket. The pillow was still warm. I lay on it for a moment, pressing it to my face, trying to smell him. I didn’t even really get to say goodbye.
My life is a train wreck. This is insanity. What am I doing? They had neatly escaped Rose’s clutches and left me to fend for myself. I had no promise that they would or even could come back. And if they did? What then? Use Sonnet to lure Rose back, that’s what. If we were all lucky, it would bring back Rose’s memory, and if we were luckier still it’d only bring back the good parts. If there were any. I’d read her diary; I wasn’t feeling hopeful. Rose was as sociopathic as they came. I didn’t think she had any good feelings to fall back on. If we weren’t lucky, Rose would finish off her sister for good, and she and Sam would retire to their island getaway and leave me to find a good physiologist and maybe a Holy Father to confess my sins to.
There was no happy ending for me. I had to face it. I couldn’t travel with Sam, and he couldn’t stop himself. Even if Rose was out of the picture, it would do nothing for me. I was going to be alone, and I may as well face it. Maybe I could dedicate my life to finding a cure for the Lost. Wouldn’t that be wonderfully ironic?
I smooth my hair with my fingers and braid it the way I used to. Something should feel normal around here. I go down to the laundry and get myself out of my ball gown and into a uniform. I leave the gown crumpled in a corner, and then I change my mind and toss it in the potato bin. I never want to see it again. I make my way down to the kitchen to beg for some tea. I’m still jumpy, and it doesn’t help that I’ve been up all night, but I don’t see how I’ll ever go to sleep again. If I do, my dreams will be filled with horrible nightmares; I’m sure of it. My cheeks are wet with tears, and I rub them away harshly with my fists. I haven’t seen Mina yet, or Mack, but I do see what looks like Dr. Ford’s immense frame from a long way away, down one of the long hallways. I have no idea anymore if I’m scheduled to work today, but I figure no one else knows or cares either. I can blend in well enough, though if I don’t look busy and scrub something, Miss Helmes will have my head.
The tea is weak and bitter, the way Bedlam’s tea always is, and the only food I can find is someone’s leftover tray from breakfast. I hope it wasn’t full of crushed up medication, because I devour every bite quickly. If I feel dizzy or sleepy, I only have myself to blame. Though, lately, I swear, dizzy is the norm for me. I imagine dizziness and feelings of anxiety are common side effects of too many fantastic, improbable goings-on.
I hadn’t even asked when to expect them back, if they came back at all, that is. Would it be immediately? A week? A month? Could Nora steer them through time so effectively that only moments would hav
e passed for me here? I hope so. I hope Sam is back in Nora’s room right now.
I know for them it could take time to locate Sonnet and Noah—even if Sam is correct and knows exactly where and when they are—and a lot more time to convince them to come back. It could take weeks maybe, in their time. They know him as Luke—Luke, the violent sidekick to Rose and her delusions. Israel Rhode didn’t seem a pushover; how would they convince him? Even Rose was nervous around him, and Luke’s history with him was anything but friendly. I’d say they hate one another’s guts really.
No, the odds are not in our favor. If I were Sonnet I’d run him out of town. I wouldn’t want anything to do with Rose Gray. Then I consider an angle I hadn’t thought of before: if Nora and Rose are the only ones who manipulate time, then Sonnet might have use of them after all. Would it be possible to go back and right the wrongs? Would Sonnet wonder the same thing? I’m not well versed on the thought process of changing history, but if anyone could do it, it’d be the Lost. What if Sonnet could go back and catch Carolina before she fell? What if she could save Emme that night in Victorian London, save her from Jack? If I were Sonnet, wouldn’t I try?
I hear a creaking sound and nearly jump out of my skin before my mind registers the fact that I know this particular creak. It’s Mr. Limpet’s wheelchair, and sure enough, he rounds the corner and stops at my feet. He is still under heavy medication, I can tell, though he is no longer being completely sedated. His eyes are heavy and hooded and red rimmed, and he has the ever present bit of spittle at his mouth. He looks up at me in alarm.
“Hello, Mr. Limpet. Lovely day for a stroll, isn’t it?” I pat his head like I would a puppy.
Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 Page 22