Her Dark Curiosity

by Megan Shepherd

  His eyes shifted to mine. They were a blue so light they were almost as white as the hair at his temples. It was all I could do to keep breathing beneath the mask. “There you are, Lucy. Your mother’s been looking all over for you.”

  “Sorry, Papa,” Lucy stuttered. “Juliet had a bit of a hairpin emergency.”

  He stood stiffly at the top of the stairs, still eyeing me.

  “Is that you beneath that mask, Miss Moreau? Still causing trouble, are you?” His voice was light and teasing, but he didn’t smile. He offered us each one hand. “If I may. My daughter and our guest of honor shouldn’t enter a ball without an escort.”

  I dared a glance at Lucy. We had no choice but to obey.

  I slid my arm around his, and Lucy did the same, and arm in arm with a monster we joined the masquerade.

  NINETEEN

  THE MASQUERADE WAS IN full swing as Mr. Radcliffe led us down the sprawling spiral staircase. The music swelled to meet us, bringing with it delicate notes of laughter and the smell of cinnamon and fir boughs. I stepped carefully, squinting through my mask’s small eyeholes, trying not to step on my hem. Lucy was more practiced in these things and seemed to glide on air. No one would ever know she’d just learned that the young man she loved was a murderer, and that her father kept brains tucked away in hatboxes.

  By the time we were halfway down the staircase, the full view of the ballroom swept out like a colorful sea. Masked couples in glittering gowns danced to the string quartet’s waltz beside tiny glowing candles on the Christmas tree. The swarm of partygoers was so dense that my head spun.

  My fist tightened on the handrail instinctively, as the joints in my hand stiffened. The vertigo, the joint pain… my illness was coming, induced by stress. I nervously bit the inside of my cheek, trying to overcome the symptoms through willpower, until I tasted blood. A sudden high note from the violin made me gasp.

  Mr. Radcliffe turned to me, his unmasked eyes like two microscopes on my thoughts. I cleared my throat and let him finish leading us down the stairs. At the base he kissed Lucy on her masked cheek and gave me a gentlemanly nod. The moment I could take my fingers away from his, I grabbed Lucy’s hand and dragged her into the chaos.

  “Juliet, what will we do?” she whispered.

  “Promise me you’ll stay close to Inspector Newcastle,” I whispered, searching the crowd for him. “I know you don’t care for him, but he’s an officer. You’ll be safe with him. Don’t leave his side for a moment, and then tomorrow come over to the professor’s house. We’ll figure out what to do when we can speak privately.”

  She nodded, and we plunged into the deep of the party­goers. Couples swept together in their waltzes, separating us. I tried to ignore the vertigo creeping into my head and spun, looking for Lucy, but all I saw were masks. My too-tight shoes slipped on the polished floor, and I had to catch myself against a window.

  A beautiful masked girl stared directly at me.

  I started—it was a mirror, not a window. The girl was me.

  In the red silk dress and mask, I hadn’t recognized myself. The girl in the mirror looked like a happier person, who belonged in this crowd. Her mask—my mask—was split down the middle, white on one side, a deep red to match my dress on the other. That was how I felt—half a person. The other half I’d left behind on the island. That was the stronger half, who knew how to move silently through jungle underbrush, who had fought a beast with six-inch-long claws, who had stood up to my father.

  The other half would know what to do.

  Behind the mask my lips were trembling. It was too much. I pushed into the crowd, my breath moist and hot beneath the papier-mâché mask. The flour paste and newsprint tasted thick in my mouth. Newsprint… headlines… my mask might be made out of reports of Edward’s murders. I was suffocating. The lace around the edges of my mask irritated my skin and made me want to rip it off and fill my lungs with fresh air.

  Where was Lucy? Was the crowd growing, or was it just in my head?

  From the corner of the eyehole I saw the glass-paned balcony door and stumbled toward it. The handle was slick in my sweating palm. I twisted it and went out into the cold night and the solitude of the empty balcony. I caught myself against the railing and tore at my mask’s ribbon until I could rip the thing off, gulping fresh air, making a mess of my hair.

  The stars were out.

  It was rare to see the stars in London, where the soot from coal chimneys and factory lights polluted the sky. I rubbed my shoulders for warmth. Snow covered the hedges and empty flowerbeds of the garden below. Lucy and I used to play hide-and-seek in those hedges, a lifetime ago.

  I turned the mask over to look at it. The red paint had bled a little, and a few of the sequins had fallen off when I’d ripped the ribbon from my hair.

  Is this how Edward feels too—half a person, split in two?

  I heard the door open and footsteps behind me. I turned to find a tall man in a golden mask and instinctively stepped back, afraid my thoughts had manifested Edward into reality.

  “Hello, Miss Moreau.” The man removed his mask to reveal a familiar sweep of chestnut hair and white teeth. John Newcastle. Two weeks ago seeing a police officer would have terrified me; now I had far greater worries than an inspector besotted with my best friend.

  “Inspector,” I said.

  He motioned to the party. “Needed some fresh air, did you? You’re not the only one.” He offered me his glass of champagne, but I shook my head. Intoxication meant lowering my guard, which I didn’t dare do, especially now that he and I, the two people best suited to protect Lucy, weren’t by her side.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “Shouldn’t you be with Lucy? I think she was looking for you earlier.”

  “Truly?” He had been looking up at the stars but at my words faced me with surprise. “I thought she never cared to see me again. She told you about the proposal, no doubt.”

  I nodded. “You shouldn’t lose hope,” I said, looking for a glimpse of her green silk dress through the glass door. “Perhaps a proposal was too strong. Don’t press so hard this early.”

  He leaned casually against the brick balustrades with the champagne flute in hand. “I must say, Miss Moreau, I had the distinct impression you didn’t care for me. That makes your advice all the more surprising, but I’m grateful.” He tipped the glass back and downed his drink in one swallow, then set it on the balustrade next to him. “Perhaps you’ve also changed your mind about helping to solve your father’s case? I realize this isn’t the proper place for such a conversation; you must forgive me… .”

  I folded my arms tightly, suddenly very aware of the cold. “I’m afraid I haven’t. Some things are best left in the past.”

  “It isn’t wise to let something like this go unresolved. Until the case is closed, your father will be in your mind—and in the mind of the public. His death has never been more than a rumor. A dead cat was found in Cheshire six months ago, vivisected. A distasteful prank, we believe. But rumors could start so easily. Who’s to say Henri Moreau isn’t back in England, picking up where he left off—”

  “He’s dead,” I said bluntly, unable to hear more. The thought of that cat, prank or not, filled me with malaise. I raised my hand to my aching head but it grazed the champagne flute, which slipped and fell to the ground below with a shattering of glass.

  Inspector Newcastle didn’t flinch. “How do you know that? Have you had contact with him? Am I to believe—”

  “Believe what you like,” I interrupted, angry with myself for the slip. I shouldn’t have let a mere mention of Father get under my skin. I put my mask back on and headed for the door. “I assure you he’s dead. You can close your case and stop asking me about it.”

  Perhaps I was too harsh, but I threw open the door into the warm ballroom and left him just the same. As I pushed through the thick crowd, something brushed by my head, nearly pulling my hair, and I stepped on a woman’s trailing blue satin dress and mumbled an apology. I mov
ed near the wall, away from the thick crowd.

  With luck, Inspector Newcastle would ignore what I’d said about Father and react to my words about Lucy instead. He’d stay with her for the rest of the night, keeping her safe from Edward. From Radcliffe, too, I thought darkly, thinking of the brain. But as I headed for an empty chair, a woman dressed as a masked bandit grabbed my arm. I jerked away until she pulled her mask off and gave me a crooked smile. Elizabeth.

  “I’ve been wondering where you’ve been all night,” she said. “I thought I’d find you with Lucy.”

  I rested a hand against the tight bodice of my dress. “I stepped out onto the balcony for a breath of air.”

  She reached up to remove something caught in my hair, the same place where one of the partygoers had bumped into me.

  A little white flower.

  The room, with all its whirling commotion, stopped as though captured in a photograph.

  “What a beautiful flower,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t recognize this one. Wherever did you get it?”

  A gift from a monster.

  I took the delicate flower, thinking of the matching one at home pressed between the pages of my journal. When I turned it over, this one too was tinged with blood. I crumpled it in my fist before Elizabeth could see.

  Whose blood was it?

  My throat went dry with the memory of the Beast’s transformation.

  “Lucy gave it to me,” I lied, while my eyes darted among the crowd and my heart pounded harder. The flower meant the Beast was here, yet every face was covered in a mask. For a monster with his skills, this ball was a playground for his killing.

  “I should find her.” I balled my fist harder. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  I stepped away, but Elizabeth held my arm. “Don’t think I don’t know what this is about,” she whispered. I froze until a smile slowly worked across her face. She nodded across the ballroom. “That man in the black mask has been staring at you throughout our entire conversation. He’s smitten, the poor fellow. You didn’t tell me you’d an admirer.”

  I halfheartedly searched the crowd of faces. What use was an admirer, when a monster was in our midst? The masked partygoers swirled together in a gossiping tide, that made it impossible to single out just one face for long.

  Except for one.

  Amid the crowd one masked man stood still, eyes turned in my direction. He wasn’t just looking at me. His every sense was trained on me in a way that made my heart race. This wasn’t an admirer. This was a predator stalking his prey.

  “Yes, that’s the one,” Elizabeth said, teasing me. “Who is he?”

  His mask was black, covering his whole face, with two points like ears—or horns—and a sinister painted grin. It reminded me of an animal. A wolf. A jackal.

  “He’s no one. If you’ll excuse me…” I stumbled away from Elizabeth, toward the twinkling Christmas tree filled with tiny wrapped presents and gold bows, and leaned against the wall. Apparently it didn’t matter that I had hidden my face behind a mask.

  The Beast was here, and he’d recognized me.

  TWENTY

  INSTINCTIVELY, I SCANNED FOR exits. There were only two—the grand spiral staircase and the balcony door to the gardens. Should I run? Or would it be safer in a crowd? Not even the Beast would attack a person amid all these witnesses. Then again, at some point the ball must end. The crowd would leave. I would have to leave too, with only Elizabeth to escort me into the dark streets.

  A woman near us let out a laugh so shrill it sounded like a scream. The music was loud. The chatter louder. People were dancing out of order, tipsy from wine. The Beast stood so calmly among them, not taking his eyes off me.

  I could ask Elizabeth for help, but she would think me mad. Inspector Newcastle was here with a dozen officers, but I didn’t dare tell him that the very murderer he was hunting was here, just so Edward could fall into the hands of those who might cut him apart, snip snip snip, to learn my father’s science.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Elizabeth asked, the teasing gone from her voice.

  “I might have had too much champagne.” I fanned my face, wanting her away from me, since close by was the most dangerous place for her to be. “I’m just going to rest here a moment, then I’ll dance. Go on, really.”

  Her face relaxed. “You’d better,” she said. “Or I’ll make you dance with old Mr. Willowby, and he’s all left feet.”

  The moment she left my side, the masked man started toward me. A dagger of fear twisted my insides. I had only the window behind me, no place to run. He moved so gracefully through the dancers, as if they parted to make way for him. In a few moments he’d be here, and what would he say? Would he threaten me? Attack me?

  Or would he tell me, once more, that he loved me?

  The mask choked me with the smell of newsprint. I tore it off and hurried toward the balcony door. Nothing mattered but luring him away from these warm, tempting bodies.

  He’d come for me, after all, not them.

  The man in the wolf mask cocked his head, dark eyes watching as I hurried across the dance floor. He paused for just a beat before changing his direction and following me. The doors to the balcony were still cracked from before, making the white drapes flutter. Men and women stood near the door talking, red glows to their cheeks, wineglasses in hand. I pushed my way into their midst and through the door.

  The cold wrapped around my arms. I glanced back through the glass door at the candlelit ballroom, where a girl in a swan mask glided and laughed. Overhead, the stars and the moon shone as brightly as before, and I cursed them. Darkness was what I needed now. A place to hide.

  The door opened again. The man in the wolf mask stepped onto the balcony. We might as well have been the only two at the party, alone outside under the stars, only a few feet of flagstone separating us.

  I wouldn’t let it end like this.

  I ran down the staircase into the garden, knowing that the dark boughs of the hedges were the perfect place for a murder, but also my only chance of drawing him away from the crowd and escaping. At the end of the garden was a gate that led into the back alley, and from there I could lose him in the streets.

  The man in the mask started down the stairs after me.

  The garden hedges behind Lucy’s house were as familiar to me as the basement hallways of King’s College. So many memories here: Lucy and I exploring every inch of this garden, chasing fairies, playing Catch the Huntsman. That was my one advantage—I knew the maze of hedges, and the Beast did not.

  I darted behind the closest hedge wall. It had thinned with age, and I could peek between the branches to see the man approaching. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked back to make sure no one had followed us outside, then moved toward the hedges. I darted to the next row as snow soaked into my satin shoes. They’d be ruined. It hardly mattered. I just had to reach the back gate and pray I could climb over.

  I froze and listened. The hedges were fuller here and blocked my view. He could be anywhere.

  I took a deep breath and darted around the hedge wall, past another row until I reached the brick wall. The black gate loomed ahead. Just a few more paces…

  A hand came out of the shadows and grabbed my wrist. I started to scream, but the man’s other hand was over my mouth in a flash. I felt his chest against my back, all rigid muscle. I looked up at the lights shining onto the balcony, only a few dozen paces away from us, but it might as well have been another world.

  “Shh,” the man in the wolf mask whispered. “They’ll hear you. They’ll think this is a secret tryst and come to investigate.”

  I nearly choked with shock. That voice, so tender and yet so deep. It wasn’t the Beast’s.

  It wasn’t Edward’s, either.

  My wrist went slack in his hand.

  “Montgomery,” I breathed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE MAN REACHED UP and pulled off his mask, blond hair falling over his broad shoulders, but I already kn
ew what face I’d find. There was no mistaking the voice that belonged to a young man I’d known forever, a voice that brought back memories of our hands intertwined, his lips on mine, my fingers tangled in his blond hair.

  My head wouldn’t let me believe it. Reason told me that he was just another hallucination, and yet my heart knew Montgomery was real.

  The mask slipped from my hand into the snow.

  His face had lost its sun-bronzed color, replaced by a few fading cuts. The angles of his features were sharper. He’d always been strong, but now he held himself differently: tenser, hardened. Seeing him again stirred those painful memories of that last night on the island, waiting in the dinghy as the compound burned in the distance. I still remember seeing the rope fall from his hands, the jolt from his boot as he shoved the dinghy away with no warning.

  But I need you, I had yelled across the waves.

  The island needs me more, he’d called back.

  With those words, Montgomery had shipwrecked my heart.

  The memory made my knees buckle, but he came forward and caught me in his arms before I fell into the snow. Still so quick. Still so strong.

  Our eyes met.

  Still so handsome.

  He was close enough that I could feel the beating of his heart through our clothing. “Christ, I missed you,” he said, his voice just a whisper as it grazed my lips. His tender words shook me from the sense that this was all a dream. All the pain of his betrayal rushed back like a reopened wound. I shoved hard against his shirt, stumbling away from him before he could kiss me.

  If he thought I would forgive him so easily, he was wrong.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You said you weren’t ever coming back. You left me.”

  “I am sorry for that,” he said, warm breath clouding the air between us. He stepped forward slowly as if I was a spooked horse. “I didn’t want to leave you. I had no choice.”

  “You might have told me, instead of shoving me away in a dinghy with your boot!”