by Katie M John
When the music stopped, the woman froze mid move, like a statue. Her eyes fixed onto the eyes of the boy and he felt the certainty of the world give way; heard the splintering crack of his heart. Never had he felt such pain.
The music struck up again and bewitched, Nemo made his way to her through the sea of spontaneously erupting, jigging, swirling bodies. She was still, her hand reaching out to his, he mirrored her. But just as if a pane of glass were between them, they both let their hand fall before they could touch. She tilted her head to one side and looked at his face as if she were drinking him in.
“I knew you would come, Oren.” She smiled.
Nemo tripped over the name she offered out to him, “Mother?”
“Here, take this.” She reached into the long tresses of her hair, recovering a silver handled dagger, “There will come a time you will need it. Carry it always.”
Nemo reached out his hand, grasping a tight palm around the handle. It was as cold as ice and burnt his flesh. All at once, the music changed key and as if she had been dowsed in acid, she started to scream. Within moments, several orderlies burst through the crowds and seized her brutally by the arms, causing her to fall to the ground before being dragged off. The disturbance set a ripple effect through the party and like a set of falling dominoes, each lunatic released his madness.
Nemo ran, fearful that amongst the confusion, he would be mistaken for a patient and locked up. He did not look back. As he fled from the chaos of Bedlam, he bumped into Edward; He was stood as if he had been waiting for him.
When Nemo shape-shifted for the first time, changing from his human form to his familiar, Edward was there; reassuring him, caring for him. He was like the father he’d never had. It was amazing how the shifting from one form to another so quickly become a natural part of him; there was no pain or discomfort, no struggle, just a wonderfully freeing movement, a lightness that came with his moth self. At first, the changes were a little unstable and there were practical issues that needed to be considered. It wouldn’t do in polite Victorian society to just suddenly emerge naked.
Edward organised lodgings and a trunk of clothes for Nemo; then the paternal relationship turned into a business partnership, which to Edward, it had been all along. The defining moment came when Edward offered to have Nemo’s mother freed and placed in a cottage in the country where she could live out her natural existence. All Nemo had to do in return, was to become Edward’s private assassin. An easy exchange in light of the nightmares Nemo suffered since the incident at Bedlam.
The first killing had been much easier than he’d feared, and although he experienced no relish for it, it strangely didn’t repulse him either. Nemo reasoned the life of one girl was a small price to pay for his mother’s freedom and the patronage of Edward. But of course, it was never really a one girl deal and so when six months later, his patron returned, he knew he was trapped in a terrible snare and his only chance was to try and negotiate his way out of it.
In the end, Edward took it surprisingly well and agreed the killing of Francis would be the dramatic finale to their relationship. He had Edward’s word for it. But things were playing out strangely. Never before had Edward encouraged Nemo to get close to the victim before the allocated time and these new patterns led Nemo to understand somehow the rules of the game were changing but it had been felt unnecessary to inform him as to how.
Thoughts of Francis plagued him. Ever since his moth-shape had visited her room to watch her sleeping, he’d been unable to shake thoughts of her away. Edward had attended Francis through her illness, taking her out in an attempt to ‘improve her health and make her merry.’ When Edward returned, he would take great delight in telling Nemo all about how they’d been to the opera, or strolled in the park – how she had reached out her hand for his and so on. Each time Nemo was forced to listen to the list of intimate interactions, he found his heart twinge with a tight pang. He’d taken to tracking his patron and Francis in their activities, watching them in secret, disguised by his moth form, as they sat in the park or walked by the Thames. Each time he did this, he found himself feeling wearier of the coming events.
She was like a drug; every time he saw her smile or blush, he found himself mirroring her actions. He loved the way she constantly fiddled with her corset laces as if she longed to break free, or how, when she thought she was unobserved, she would lift her skirts and splash in the puddles with childlike mischievousness. He worried she looked paler, thinner somehow, slightly frailer each time he saw her and he wondered what it was that should ail her so.
*
Francis sat on the edge of her bed, unpinning her hair and thinking on the day. Her papa had taken refuge his library and her mother played efficient matron, placing her under the constant supervision of one of her sisters and flapping around the house like a mother hen. In the space of six weeks, things had unravelled beyond recognition.
Francis’ episodes were becoming ever more frequent, and her outbursts increasingly feared. She knew she wasn’t mad but she understood why the others might think she was. She’d overheard her mother talking to papa about calling in the local priest; she believed her daughter to have been possessed by some form of spirit. Papa, more gravely thought that his favourite daughter was rapidly going insane, and it seemed the burden of this was greater than if he thought she were dying.
The only person to reassure her against an escalating insanity was Edward. Each morning, to her mother’s greatly overbearing gratitude; he called for her to walk her around the park or to take a stroll by the river. Francis looked forward to these visits with a great sense of relief for they were the only time she felt safe from the creatures which now riddled her imagination.
The goblins were increasingly with her. At first, they were fleeting shadows moving behind her reflection in the mirror, or the silverware when she poured the tea. After she went around the house, covering all the mirrors with dust sheets and hiding all the silverware in the boathouse, they became increasingly bold. Now without reflections to hide in, they ran about the house like rapscallion children; the sound of their scampering footsteps and coarse laughter rang continually. They were vile creatures which left a trail of dampness and a smell like death. Francis could not fathom why others in the house failed to see these invaders, but in the end she gave up trying to point them out; they always hid before other eyes could catch them.
Then Francis had stopped eating, claiming goblins were trying to poison her. It was at this point that her mother finally accepted things were unlikely to ever return to normal. Her daughter was lost.
For Francis, the only calm in the whole storm was Edward, and over the course of the long and exhausting summer, she put aside her thoughts of the cathedral youth and tentatively allowed herself to fall in love with him. Far from the showy cad and bounder she’d once thought him, she now saw him as her only hope of salvation.
What Francis didn’t know was how Edward was conspiring with her ailing father to have her placed in an asylum; a place, he assured her mother, where Francis was bound to recover. So with pledges of guardianship and promises of a future marriage, Edward persuaded Francis’s father to sign over power of attorney to her loving fiancé.
Things moved quicker than any of them could have imagined. Within an hour of the papers being signed, a terrible noise of breaking china and glass filled the house. Only a group of goblins or a lunatic could create such destruction. It was clear to all of them which it was. Francis’ screams filled the room as she found herself fighting against the arms of the man she had grown to love. But far from waking up from her three day drug induced sleep in a nightmare institutions, she found herself waking to the luxury of a country house.
She got up and dressed before wandering around the rambling house. Eventually she found Edward smoking in his library. When she walked in, he offered out his hand and she took it. Away from the spying eyes of the chaperone, he gently pulled her onto his knee. Sitting there in his
arms, he informed her that she was to be nursed in the comfort of his own home by a physician and nurse he’d appointed privately. Here she would be safe from the demons which haunted her. Francis turned to him and planted a kiss on Edward’s cheek; she knew her love to be true.
*
Nemo was unaware of these matters, for Francis’s madness only occurred within the walls of her home. To the outside world, she appeared, although a little fatigued, perfectly normal.
Nemo began to hope Edward’s plans were now changed, that perhaps a miracle had happened and she was to be spared. But then, returning home from the bookstore to a gloomy house, the familiar smell of Egyptian cigarette filled his senses and he knew the time had come.
“Evening, Nemo.”
“Sir, how goes it?”
“Well, thank you: Very well indeed.”
Nemo’s heart felt terribly heavy and the rare urge to cry suddenly stole on him. These minor shifts were not missed by Edward, and Nemo felt Edward’s eyes meet his with a hungry curiosity.
“So, it is time?” Nemo asked. His voice wavered.
“Yes, my carriage is waiting. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes – I am ready.”
The ride to Edward’s estate was unbearably long and even though the horses travelled at an unbelievable speed through the woodlands framing the city, it felt like they were travelling all through the night. The tension inside the carriage was palpable. Edward’s eyes barely left Nemo’s face and, acutely aware of this, Nemo exhausted every displacement activity available. In the space of an hour he successfully frayed both of his velvet cuffs and managed to unstring two of his jacket buttons, now he reached the flesh under his thumb nail and tasted the coppery metals of blood filling his mouth.
At last, when he could bare it no more, when he thought something might snap Nemo spoke out into the darkness, “I don’t think I can do this, Sir.”
Edward seemed as surprised by the words as Nemo, “My dear boy, why on earth not?”
Why not? Nemo, reeling from the shock of having spoken the taboo aloud, could not piece together his thoughts enough to answer.
*
Francis heard the wheels of the carriage crunch the gravel and felt the wave of familiar relief which Edward brought with him; her protector, her saviour. He had become her talisman against the evil of the goblins and eclipsed the lunacy she felt every time the image of the boy in the cathedral haunted her thoughts. It was for this she loved him.
The footman jump down and open the door for his master. He was followed by another man, slightly shorter, thinner, and much younger. Her heart jumped, the room swam. The boy!
Francis banged on the glass causing Edward to look up and offer a wave. She signalled violently to him, but he didn’t understand what could be causing her such distress. He turned, looking beyond the carriage and garden, and nodded his head at her. By the time he got to her room, the sheets from the bed covered the mirror and she was cramming the silverware in the cupboard.
“Francis, darling, what in God’s name are you doing?”
“They’re here! They’ve found me!”
“Shh, stuff and nonsense.”
“But I saw him – the goblin boy! I saw him! He followed you here.”
“What boy?”
Francis collapsed on the side of the bed sobbing, “I thought I was getting better. I so thought I was getting better but I’m not, am I?”
Edward went to the decanter and poured a large glass of port for himself and a smaller for her, into which without her seeing, he slipped a blue liquid. He returned to her, handing her the glass, “Drink up, you’ll feel so much better in the morning.”
Within minutes she was half between sleep and consciousness, a place where the light from the candle flickered as if it were sunlight on the surface of water, and where, for the first time in her memory she felt free of bonds, bones and laces. She stood face to face with the boy, his eyes flamed emerald, shinning out against his crystalline face. Above her, the spring leaves rustled against each other, trembling in the slipstream of time. Never before had she been aware of such beauty or so full of a hunger and desire. Never had she felt so afraid.
*
Nemo stood at the side of Francis’s bed. Her eyes were open but she was somewhere else – lost. He bent low, his eyes levelling with hers, swimming in the grey swirling waters. A faint blush lay in her cheeks, her lips were moist and full like ripe, soft fruit. Edward stood at his side; a heavy presence.
“Glorious isn’t she?” Edward’s velveteen voice came out soft and thick.
“Yes.”
“Almost breaks your heart, doesn’t it, Nemo?”
Like a falling house of cards, everything substantial turned to air. A wail rang in his head, the sound reminded him of a finger circling the top of a crystal glass; it was the sound of a cutting clarity. Nemo now understood he had been meant to fall in love with her; his heart like a hunted animal, caught in the wire trap of love.
Francis moaned luxuriously and Nemo faltered. He was aware that every second was a moment closer to his own death. He wondered if Edward was aware that Nemo had understood it all.
“Yes, it would break your heart if you owned one.” Nemo forced his words out hard and bold, desperately attempting to create an illusion of innocence.
Edward laughed, “Aye if I owned one – but I soon will. Does it pain you to do the things I ask of you? Does it twist your insides to think of Francis’s heart plucked from her body like a full red rose, beating tremulously in the palm of my hand; her face, still as stone, dressed with the mask of fear?”
The air shifted. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Edward’s terrible transformation into goblin. Even if he hadn’t seen it, the awful guttural command of Edward’s voice would have been enough to tell Nemo he was now in the presence of a monster.
“DO IT NOW!”
Nemo raised his hand; his fingers were clawed and ready to strike. Pain and fear tortured his soul. Whichever way this went, he knew was likely to die. His arm surged with energy, coming towards Francis’ sighing breast and then onwards so that his elbow came to be a sharp and fast travelling weapon impacting on soft, leathery flesh. Edward growled through shock and reeled backwards, giving time for Nemo to turn and face his enemy.
Edward clutched his side, laughing, “So you guessed whose heart it was I wanted, after all!”
Half crouching, bracing himself for a running attack, Nemo fixed Edward hard in the eye, “My heart’s not for you, Monster.”
They charged at the same time, colliding and falling into a scraping heap on the floor. Locked together they rolled. Nemo desperately tried to avoid Edward’s deadly, blade like talons which were designed for the ripping flesh and for the removal of hearts.
After several minutes of fierce snarling and wrestling, they split, each getting to their feet and preparing for another clash. Edward didn’t see Nemo reach back into the waistband of his pocket and retrieve the magical dagger. As they charged, it was too late for Edward to swerve and the magical dagger sped towards his eye.
The blade channelled into the soft gelatinous substance of his eye and spread a burning sensation out from the metal epicentre, until at last, the whole of Edward’s body was a ball of flames, whirling around the room in agony, setting light to the curtains and fabrics.
The Goblin King’s screams stirred Francis from her dreams. She woke to find the fire flames dancing across her room and licking the soft furnishings with an almost impossible speed. Nemo was desperately tearing at the locked door, but it held fast; they were going to die!
Hearing her screams, Nemo half ran, half stumbled to the bed, taking the terrified Francis in his arms.
“It’s you – the boy in my dreams.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
Her eyes caught his and despite the slaughtering heat of the room, she felt the cool calm of spring air shiver over her skin. Her wild panic driven heart beat calmed and a
ll at once she felt at peace.
“We’re not getting out of here are we?”
Nemo reached out his hand to her cheek and where it touched her tears, they froze, lacing her face with diamonds.
“Yes we are! YES. WE. ARE!” he said with determination. “Kiss me,” he whispered.
“Kiss you? At a …”
Nemo stopped her protests with his lips, kissing her softly with a touch as light as angel feathers. His lips persuaded her to yield, and she did. Their kisses became deeper; breath poured from each of them into the other, until Francis found herself slipping through into another world.
*
Oren took her hand in his and they danced amongst the wildflowers of the meadow under a starlit night. As they danced they heard the silent song of the moths; a song that only the soul can hear; its rhythm created by the fluttering of wings against moonlight.
As Francis danced she saw that she knew this place; she recognised the cluster of trees and the stone fairy-ring. It was the forbidden place, the meadow beyond the garden gate with its rusty hinges. It was the place where the fairies danced and the goblins played.
She knew she was home.