Magic Dark and Strange

by Kelly Powell

  His eyes opened, and she snatched her hand back.

  The boy jolted upright, breathing hard and fast. “What is this?” His voice was shrill. “Where am I?” He looked down at himself, at his threadbare suit. He choked on his next inhale, even as he staggered out and away from the coffin. Alive as he was, his face shone deathly pale in the moonlight. He pressed back against the dirt wall behind him. “Stay back,” he told them. “You keep right back from me.”

  Catherine straightened, held up her hands, even as her heart pounded in her chest.

  “My name is Catherine Daly,” she said. “May I ask yours?”

  The boy stared at her, wild-eyed. He was breathing in gasps, air sawing in and out of his lungs.

  Catherine glanced back at Guy. The two of them looked a nightmarish pair in the darkness of the cemetery, sweaty and filthy as they were. She imagined they weren’t a sight that would ease anyone’s mind upon waking from the grave. Guy’s expression almost mirrored the boy’s, both of them looking dazed and vaguely ill.

  Catherine turned back around as the boy let out a nervous laugh. “I’m dreaming, surely,” he said. “This is just… I don’t—”

  “You’re not dreaming,” Guy told him. His voice came out surprisingly steady despite his countenance. “You were dead.”

  The boy snapped, “If I were dead, I think I’d know it.”

  “It’s fair to say you didn’t,” Guy replied.

  Hesitantly, Catherine said, “Can you tell us your name?”

  The boy frowned, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t… I can’t recall.” He went still, his eyes widening. “I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”

  “That’s all right,” Catherine told him. “It might take a while to come back.”

  She hadn’t the faintest if this was true or not, but she was willing to say whatever was necessary to keep him from panicking any further.

  “What can you remember?” Guy asked.

  Regarding him, the boy said, “Am I still in Invercarn?”

  “Yes,” replied Catherine. “We’re in Invercarn.”

  The boy swallowed hard. He studiously avoided looking at the empty coffin as he pressed one hand to the dirt wall nearest him. His cravat hung crooked, his hair fell into his eyes, but there was no indication he’d slip from life anytime soon.

  In a quiet, uneven voice, he said, “I’d like to get out of here now.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  CATHERINE SCRAMBLED out of the grave with her lantern in hand. Guy came up after her, and together they helped the nameless boy onto the grass. He stood on the threshold of the pit, looking down. He seemed very much a part of the graveyard, in his dusty, worn-out suit, his features obscured in the dark.

  Shaking his head, he murmured, “This can’t be real.” Yet the tremor in his voice betrayed him.

  Catherine knew it must be a difficult thing to come to terms with. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, unsure of how to proceed. All magic centered on the basis of give-and-take. It was the reason why her life was shortened to give even a semblance of life to another.

  And that raised a question begging to be answered.

  Just what had been given to grant this boy new life?

  When a gust of wind swept past, the boy shuddered in his thin suit. Guy held out his coat, but the boy stared as though Guy were offering him a used handkerchief. Suspicion glittered in his dark eyes as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Who are you, then?” he demanded. “What do you want from me?”

  At this, Catherine noticed Guy trying to catch her eye. She ignored him. “We were looking for something,” she said. “It was meant to be buried with you.”

  His brow furrowed. He contemplated the gravesite once more and drew his lower lip between his teeth. “If I died…,” he began. “If I was… buried here… where is my headstone?”

  Catherine swallowed. Quietly, she said, “Your grave was unmarked.”

  “Why would I…?” The boy’s chest heaved as he gaped at her. “That can’t be right. None of this is right.”

  “I’m sure things will make more sense once your memories return.”

  Her words only seemed to agitate him. “How so?” he asked. “What do you expect me to remember?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing terribly grim,” Guy noted. He pulled on his coat, fetching up his hat from the grave’s edge. “You built coffins, I’m told. An apprentice, perhaps, at your age. If you had no family, you simply might not have been able to afford proper burial.”

  The boy’s breath caught. He said, “Family.”

  Catherine heard the hope in those few syllables. She had to tamp it down before it solidified into something that could be crushed. “You’ve been in the ground a long time,” she said. “If you did have a family, they may not—that is, they may no longer be living.”

  Fear dawned on his face, plain even in the low light. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “How long a time?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to say exactly, but by the state we found you in…” Catherine paused. “I’d wager twenty years or so.”

  The boy took a step back, tripped, and sat down rather abruptly. He was shaking, his face white as paper. Guy crouched beside him. “You’ll need a name,” he said gently. “Until you recall your own.” And when the boy said nothing in return, Guy added, “I’m partial to Owen. How about that?”

  The boy hunched his shoulders, looking elsewhere. “It’s a fine name, I suppose.”

  “It’s settled, then.” Guy held out his hand. “Guy Nolan is mine.”

  The boy—Owen—hesitated a brief moment, before clasping Guy’s hand in his. As Guy helped him to his feet, Catherine said, “If you’ll excuse us, Owen. Mr. Nolan and I need a moment alone.”

  Guy caught her gaze and nodded. “Of course, Miss Daly.”

  Catherine put down her lantern, not wanting to leave the boy in the pitch dark.

  She and Guy set off into the night, picking their way around exposed tree roots and flat stone markers. They came to a stop far enough away to be out of earshot but close enough to keep an eye on the boy standing inside the glow of Catherine’s light.

  Tipping her chin up, she studied Guy’s face. He placed his hat back on his head, shadowing his eyes. “My father won’t notice if I bring him back to the shop,” he said. “He’ll be safe there.”

  “That’s gracious of you, Mr. Nolan, but it still doesn’t solve the matter at hand.”

  “You mean the timepiece.”

  “I do mean the timepiece.”

  She could think of no other reason why this coffin maker was alive once more. If the device was not buried with him, it must be somewhere in this cemetery for it to have worked its magic as it did. Even after hearing the rumors, she hadn’t put much thought into its existence, its capabilities. Such a thing would be prized beyond measure; it was little wonder why Ainsworth wanted it.

  “I don’t see how we’ll find it in the dark, Miss Daly.”

  Catherine nodded. Yet her heart knocked against her ribs at the notion of returning to the print shop empty-handed.

  Guy put his hands in his coat pockets, lowering his voice as he continued. “Perhaps, given time, he might remember something of it. I know someone with connections at the university. They may have information there about this timepiece.”

  “Who? A student?”

  “Ah, no, not a student.” Guy cast his eyes down. “He—he digs up bodies for the medical department.”

  Catherine’s insides twisted. “A resurrectionist, then.”

  Most people considered the practice horrific. At least Catherine and her sort left the bodies in their coffins. At least they provided a comfort to grieving families. Resurrectionists unearthed cadavers and sold them off to anatomists in need of bodies to dissect.

  “He could help,” Guy said.

  Catherine looked back toward the pinpoint of her lantern light. What she saw there—or rather, what she didn’t—froze the bl
ood in her veins. She grabbed Guy by the sleeve.

  “The boy,” she said. “Where’s the boy?”

  Guy snapped his head around.

  “Oh,” he said.

  In the space between piles of grave dirt and Catherine’s lantern, where Owen had stood waiting, there was only empty air.

  The boy was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CATHERINE NEVER SHOULD’VE let him out of her sight.

  She made a dash for the grave, snatched her lantern, and held it high over her head. It was as good as casting light down a well—the darkness around them was unyielding, near tangible, and Owen could be anywhere among the trees and stone monuments.

  “He can’t have gone far,” said Guy, coming up next to her. He surveyed the empty grave before turning his attention toward the front gates. In the gloom, the sharp-tipped finials were set in relief by the lamps lining the street. Catherine clutched her lantern tighter. She started down the path, peering between the rows of headstones.

  Guy Nolan followed after her. “Poor fellow. He’s likely scared out of his wits.”

  “Yes, I imagine so.”

  She headed for the cemetery’s entrance, drawing closer to the rattling of carriages, the muffled calls and laughter from the doorways of gin palaces.

  Owen, as Guy surmised, hadn’t gone far at all. As they neared the front gates, Catherine found him standing to one side of the fence. His hands were curled around it, his forehead pressed to the iron. Guy moved forward and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The touch seemed to undo him in some way—he let out a shuddered breath, as if he might burst into tears. His voice was little more than a whisper as he said, “What am I supposed to do?” He turned, facing the two of them, yet he seemed to be looking elsewhere, his eyes far away. “Where am I to go?”

  “I have somewhere you can stay,” Guy told him.

  Catherine gestured back with her lantern. “We need to fill in the grave,” she said quietly. “Before sunrise.”

  Owen’s knuckles whitened where he still held the fence. “Do not ask that of me.”

  “Mr. Nolan and I are more than capable. And the sooner we do, the sooner we can get out of this cold.” Catherine looked to Guy. “Shall we?”

  Shoveling the dirt back in wasn’t as arduous as the initial dig. As such, her attention wandered from the grave to the boy it once contained. Owen stood watching them, shivering, his arms curled about himself.

  “Oh, gracious,” said Guy. He put aside his spade to remove his coat and hat, pushing them onto Owen. “You’ll catch your death the very night you woke from it.”

  This time Owen took the items offered. The coat was a looser fit on him—Guy was taller by a couple of inches, his shoulders broader—and Owen dug his hands into the pockets, tucked his chin into the coat’s collar, making himself appear even smaller.

  “I truly died, then,” he said, voice wavering. “I really… I was really dead.”

  “But now you’re alive,” Catherine told him. “Isn’t it a wonder?”

  “Not a wonder.” Owen sniffed. “Magic.”

  “Not magic of our doing. It’s a powerful sort that brought you back as you are.”

  Guy heaved another pile of dirt into the slowly filling pit. He said, “Miss Daly, you did make an attempt.”

  All she’d done was set down her piece of type. Guy turned to her, his spade balanced in his hands. He went on. “Perhaps your magic worked as a spark.”

  She looked away. God only knew what Ainsworth might do if he found out. She certainly couldn’t tell him. The timepiece wasn’t where he thought, and its magic had brought the coffin maker back to life.

  Over the stone monuments, the first flush of dawn lit the sky. Catherine hadn’t slept at all this night, and little the night before; she felt the heavy pull of exhaustion at her eyelids, her head clouded, that dizzy, unsteady feeling. She looked to Guy in the blue-black of the coming morning. He wiped at his eyes, offering her a tired smile.

  “Come along,” he said once they’d finished. “We’ll head back to mine.”

  They left their spades behind the cemetery fence. Making their way to the watchmaker’s shop, they passed by dustmen and lamplighters with their ladders and poles, extinguishing the streetlights. Guy stopped outside the shop and pulled a key from his trouser pocket.

  Owen gazed into the darkened window. “You’re a watchmaker?”

  “Yes.” Guy’s tone was crisp, the pride in it quite plain. “My family has worked here for three generations.”

  Owen looked silently at the shadowed clockwork beyond the glass.

  “Do you recall it?” Guy asked, unlocking the door.

  After a pause, Owen shook his head. “Perhaps not.”

  Catherine ducked inside behind them. The interior of the shop was dark, the still audible ticking of the clocks made eerie in the dimness. It seemed a different place at night, somewhere strange and unfamiliar.

  “There’s a spare room upstairs,” Guy told Owen. “You may stay there for the night.” He took his coat and hat from him, setting them on the rack near the door. “What’s left of it, rather.”

  “Thank you,” said Owen. He glanced over at Catherine.

  Even in the shadows, she made out the curiosity in his eyes. She spoke before it resolved into a question. “My place is at the Invercarn Chronicle. It’s a few blocks from here.” She turned to Guy. “If I may, I’ll call on you tomorrow.”

  “Of course, Miss Daly.”

  She wanted to say something else. Something like Thank you or My apologies. She’d paid him to inspect a timepiece they hadn’t been able to find. Now they were in this quandary, with this boy who hadn’t any memory of his previous life, let alone the timepiece. But she said only: “Good night, then.”

  With her lantern in hand, she stepped back out into the darkness of the street. Tired as she was, the light seemed to flare and oscillate, spots dancing in her vision. She reached the print shop, the door opening with a groan under her hand. The presses were still, dark shapes across the floor, the sheets on the drying racks ghostly silhouettes above her head. She started upstairs and eased open the door to her room. Bridget was asleep, curled up facing the wall. Catherine placed her feet just so to avoid the creaks in the floorboards, not wanting to wake her. She set her lantern on the desk and changed into her nightclothes.

  She needed just a few hours’ rest, just a moment to close her eyes.

  And as she got into bed, she considered once more what had occurred in the cemetery. Until sleep pulled her down into the dark.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CATHERINE SORTED THROUGH the type case in front of her, picking out another letter to place in the line forming on her composing stick. Her hands barely shook as she did so—a minor feat. Any moment, Jonathan Ainsworth would stride into the shop and find her lacking what he’d sent her to collect. The thought of it was like a fist around her heart, squeezing tighter with every beat.

  She fixed her eyes on the type in her composing stick. Her thumb held the line in place, the nicks in the metal facing up. The written obituary informed her that the woman—Elizabeth Cleary, aged twenty-six years—was taken by consumption in the late-night hours. Catherine transferred the type from her composing stick to the chase. There was so much death in this city, printed in every paper. Lives snuffed out like candles, bodies put in the ground, to remain there so long as no robbers came to dig them back up—or, conversely, no magic restored them to life.

  The public cemetery was now short of another corpse.

  At the soft chime of the bell above of the shop door, Catherine stiffened. Ainsworth was early this morning—she ought to have anticipated that. She set down her composing stick, stomach churning.

  His brow creased as she met his gaze. He said, “My office, please, Miss Daly,” and Catherine did her best to clamp down on her nerves as she followed him up the stairs.

  She walked into the office behind him, closed the door, and watched as he settled into
his chair. He looked at her, and she decided to have out with it. “The timepiece wasn’t there, sir,” she said. “I dug up the grave, but there was no timepiece to be had. The coffin was empty.”

  Ainsworth’s silver-gray eyes narrowed. He leaned back, considering her. “I thought my instructions were quite clear.”

  “Mr. Ainsworth, I had no trouble locating the coffin. It was simply—”

  “Empty? What of the body?”

  Catherine bit her lip. In her mind’s eye, she saw Owen—how he’d stood in the cemetery, staring down at his grave, the fear etched across his countenance.

  “There was no body, sir. As I said, there was naught to be found.” And when he made no reply, she continued. “Perhaps the information you received—”

  “Miss Daly,” he cut in. “You would do well to give me the timepiece. If not, you may look for other employment.”

  It took a moment for the words to register. Catherine couldn’t quite believe them. She stepped forward, knotting her hands together. “Sir, I don’t have it. I did just as you asked, but… truly, I don’t know where it might be.”

  Ainsworth was no longer looking at her. Raising a hand in dismissal, he said, “You have until day’s end to turn it in. Otherwise…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Catherine could fill in the gaps.

  She’d be out of a situation, out on the streets.

  Though if Ainsworth really thought she had the timepiece, he might very well have her arrested. All it would take was a message to the police, and with his word against hers, Catherine hadn’t a prayer.

  “Sir,” she said, and paused to rally herself. “Mr. Ainsworth, have I not done right by you these past two years? Send me elsewhere to search for this timepiece, but I cannot give you what I do not have.”

  His expression changed only slightly, only for a moment. He met her gaze, and Catherine saw Ainsworth as she knew him to be. Decisive, unyielding, hard of heart in an instant, like a cold snap blowing in.

  “Be on your way, Miss Daly.”