“Thalia? You okay?”
Her voice is strained. “Fine. Just feel a bit dizzy. I’ve been on my feet too much.”
“Have you eaten anything? Maybe you haven’t had enough—“
Thalia drops to the floor. I don’t have time to catch her.
I freak out. I look around the kitchen for something to help, and my panic escalates because there’s nothing. Of course there’s nothing—we don’t have anything. I end up half-carrying, half-dragging her to her bedroom and laying her across the bed.
I stand above her and try not to think about what I should be doing.
Dizziness. Fainting. Both symptoms of the Strains. I can’t remember which ones. It doesn’t really matter.
I pull the cover on the bed tighter around Thalia.
I should be running to get an aid worker or an Official right now. But I don’t know what they’d do to Thalia. I’ve known her for too long to give her up to them, and despite what they say, what they preach, I don’t believe that they help or comfort Strains patients. That’s just a load of crap to get people to hand over their families.
They’re not having Thalia.
I stand in the doorway of Thalia and Wes’s room and watch her sleep or pass out or whatever she’s doing. She’s still breathing, her heart’s beating normally, and her skin is its normal colour, so I don’t think it’s too bad. Maybe she’s just dizzy like she said. Maybe she hasn’t had enough food. Maybe she’s pregnant. There are a million different explanations. There’s no need to assume she’s dying.
***
Branwell
09:00. 19.09.1878. London.
My father’s funeral service is unexpectedly short, and the burial is even shorter. I should be glad it’s over but I’m only angry that they’re rushing this goodbye. I should be permitted to grieve and remember my father at my own pace, but I can understand why Bennet would want the funeral to be today—she wants to put father to rest as soon as possible. She doesn’t like the thought of him lying in an undertaker’s back room for days. I suppose, for that reason, it’s good the burial is over.
When we return home, everyone is silent. Benny doesn’t utter a single word; she runs straight for her room and bolts the door. I stand in the anteroom and stare at the patchwork of tiles that make up the floor. Our friends and family are stood in a line against the back wall. Nobody is sure what to do now my father is gone, not even me. Nancy, our housekeeper, is the first to speak.
“Let’s get you inside and warmed up, Sir. It must be cold outside.”
“Don’t,” I say. It comes out in a hoarse whisper. “Don’t call me Sir. Just call me Bran, like always.”
Nancy nods and I manage a faint smile. Nancy has been with my family since long before Bennet and I were born. She’s been here through my mother’s death, my baby brother’s, through everything. One of my first memories is of her teaching me how to spell my name. She shouldn’t be calling me Sir, not under any circumstances.
“Come on, then,” says Nancy soothingly. She takes me by the arm to the sitting room. The rest of our staff exchange worried looks for a moment and then they hurry away to whatever jobs need doing. Florence follows us, worrying her apron.
Nancy deposits me on a sofa and leaves to get Phoebe to prepare something to eat. Florence stands by the door and watches the fire flicker. I’ve almost forgotten she’s there when she speaks.
“I’m sorry. About your father. I wish he hadn’t gone like that.”
“So do I,” I mumble.
Florence perches on the arm of a chair, flattening her frizzy dark hair. “Was the funeral horrible?”
“No. Not horrible. It was just … fast.”
“Is that not a good thing? Now that it is over, you can mourn him at your own pace.”
“It felt like we couldn’t wait to be rid of him.”
“But that’s not true.”
I chew my lip. “No.”
“Maybe you’re overthinking it.”
“Maybe.” I stare at the fire flickering opposite us. “I just wish Bennet hadn’t picked today for the funeral. I needed more time. To get used to the idea of my father being gone.”
“But she didn’t,” Florence says, touching my arm. “Some friends of your father organised the whole thing. Very generous, they were. You didn’t have to pay for any of the expenses, or arrange the service. Your father had very kind friends.”
“My father didn’t have friends,” I snap. Too harsh, too angry. When Florence’s face falls I rush to apologise but she waves it off.
I hate this, moments when Florence—and the rest of our household—becomes less friend and more servant, when I do or say something stupid that reminds her of the social distance between us. It’s puzzled many people in the past, our family’s relationship with those who are assumed to be below our standing. To me, we’re nothing out of the ordinary, but I know that our lives, relationships, and standing in the community are all unheard of. We are the black sheep of the Ravel family after all, and though our staff may not share that name, to us they’re every bit a family to us as those stern stranger’s faces we only see at events and official family outings.
But I see in the eyes of our chosen family that they feel unequal to us. I see it in Florence brushing away my apology, in the way she hastens to cover up a mistake that was mine, not hers.
“Maybe they were colleagues of his, not friends—people from the office he visited from time to time.”
“The government office? But he told us that the people there despised him.”
“It’s surprising how people will change once someone dies.” Her gaze is everywhere but on me.
“I suppose it is.”
Florence stands and casts a sympathetic look over me. Something wavers when she looks at me and she becomes less of the housemaid and more of my friend. “You should change. That suit is too large for you and the shirt is too small. Do you want me to fetch Joel to help you?”
“No. Thank you, Florence, but … I want to be alone for a while.”
She smiles and flutters her hand over her hair, ensuring all the dark strands are rolled into their bun. She straightens her apron and gives me a meaningful look. “Don’t you forget to eat something, Branwell Ravel.”
“I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”
She leaves me, to thoughts concerning the motives of my father’s colleagues. I go over it all nine times, hunting for a valid reason for them to manage and fund the service, before I give up. I’m missing some information. It strikes me that I knew very little about my father and the things he did. I list the things I do know in order to ease the lump in my throat and the panic seizing my chest.
His name was William Henry Ravel.
He was thirty four years old.
He had no siblings.
He married my mother at a young age.
He had three children—two alive, one dead.
He was a genius, and an inventor.
He was reclusive.
When he smiled, his forehead wrinkled.
He had a way of seeing things that other people couldn’t grasp, of taking things apart and reassembling them so that they were unrecognisable and vastly improved.
He invented the Lux, a device that could provide unlimited electricity to the entire world if used correctly.
He told me to hide it.
He told me to hide everything.
Why did I think that would help? The lump in my throat has given way to sobs and my whole body shakes as I try to contain them. I collapse upon the sofa and fold my body as small as I can.
16:07. 19.09.1878. London.
I assume everyone has left me alone to cope with my grief when I wake up hours later, the house practically empty. When I venture out of the sitting room I come across nobody. No Benny, but I have a feeling she’d rather be alone so I let her be. Instead, my legs take me in the opposite direction and up the worn stairs into the attic.
Everything is as I left it. I
imagine for a moment that my father has simply gone to dinner and he’ll be back soon. I can almost see him rushing up the stairs, eager to get back to work, but nobody climbs the staircase and especially not my father.
My heart crushed, I approach the display case of his inventions. My fingers run over the glass surface and snap open the clasp holding it shut. I was never permitted to access these but nobody is here to stop me now.
I fight back emotion as I pick up a syringe-like device the size of my palm. It’s made of brass and steel and has to be sterilised after every use. Instead of a plunger, it has a trigger—the kind you find on a gun—and instead of inserting something into the body, it removes it. I stare at it, eyes blurred. My father named it The Cure. We created it together.
It took months of experiments and testing to perfect it. The Cure can remove any disease from the body at any stage of infection but it’s useless with poisons. I tried so many times to use it to save my father. Useless, like every other thing I’ve done with my life.
I set The Cure back in its place and trail my fingertips over the other devices. There are twenty in total, some more important than others, some more fanciful, and others entirely pointless. But regardless of their purpose, my father wanted me to hide them all.
Is there any point trying to find logic in his wishes? After so long just staring, I decide to stop questioning and just honour my father’s wishes. I take every one of his inventions, place them in a wooden trunk buried under a pile of rubbish. I can’t put The Cure in with the rest; it holds too many memories.
My arm muscles straining, I haul the trunk down to my room without passing anyone. I make a God awful racket though. I’m surprised someone doesn’t come running. There’s an external door at the back of my room. It’s in an alcove occupied by a huge bookcase but I wrench the shelf away, using all of my body strength—adequate thanks to hauling equipment and tools up and down the attic stairs—until I have full access to the door. I almost have the bookcase out of the way when topples towards me. Fast, I scurry out of its path, my chest hollow as I stare at the sorry state of my books. There are hundreds, all unsettled and ruffled and suffocated by the huge oak structure.
Standing here, emotions starts to creep back, so I haul the trunk into my arms and pick my way to the door.
It’s bitingly cold outside, and I shiver against the air as I drag the trunk across our grounds. I’m careful to check that no one is watching me, but most of the windows are dark and our neighbours are too far away to see me.
I pause, panting for breath, in front of the old mausoleum on our grounds. The circular handle is rusted and ancient but stays intact as I wrench the door open. It seems morbid to put the inventions with the dead, but I can’t think of anywhere else. And it’s fitting—they’ll never be put to use again, their purpose dead with my father.
***
Honour
18:21. 19.09.2040. Forgotten London, Shepherd’s Bush Zone.
Horatia got home a few minutes ago. I asked her why she was late but she shrugged me off. She’s sat with Thalia now, holding her hand and whispering comforting words that I’m not meant to hear. There’s a film of tears over her eyes. Wes is stood silently beside me, his eyes watching the women with a shattered expression.
“This isn’t right,” he says to me.
“I know.”
Wes slumps against the wall, his big chest shuddering with his next breath.
Inside the bedroom, Thalia wakes, as if highly tuned to David’s cries. She lurches in the bed, retching. Horatia gets a bin under her head just as the contents of Thalia’s stomach hit the bottom of it. When she’s finished, Thalia falls back against the bed, breathing heavily.
Loud breathing turns to muttering, and after a while the muttering turns to screams. Wes slides down the wall. I take a step but I don’t know what to do. My chest is tight with panic, every breath I take struggling to inflate my lungs.
“This is really bad,” I say to Horatia, stumbling to the side of the bed.
Thalia registers my voice and her eyes fix on me. They widen and fill with fear as I scrounge up my courage and properly look at her. When our eyes meet, Thalia lashes out with sharp nails and rakes them across my face from my ear to my chin. As I stumble back, gasping in shock, my face throbbing, she begins to wail.
“It’s alright,” Tia says, gentle. “You’re alright, Thalia.”
But nothing will soothe Thalia now. I yank my sister out of the way as Thalia reaches her hands out to strangle her. Tia’s tense and stiff where I’m weak and trembling.
“Get away from me, you demons!” Thalia screeches. “I can see you. You can’t hide from me.”
“Oh God,” Tia chokes.
“Damned creatures!”
My chest so tight, I push Tia out of the door, drag Wes with us, and slam the door. I have nothing to put against it to block Thalia if she wants to come at us. I can only hope she doesn’t.
There’s nothing we can do for her now.
Horatia is paralysed with fear, Wes is frozen, silent, and I’m shivering, chilled to my core.
Thalia has Strain Twelve.
***
Branwell
19:58. 19.09.1878. London.
There is someone hammering at our door. I’m not awake enough yet to wonder why nobody has answered it. I turn over, block out the racket, and go back to sleep—but my sleep is short lived. Bennet’s shoes tap down the stairs; she shakes my shoulder.
“Bran. There are people here. They want to take some of father’s work for a tribute.”
I sit up quickly. “What did they say? Exactly.”
“That they’re here to collect our father’s best work for display in a tribute.”
My stomach rolls, uneasy. Is this why I had to conceal everything? “I’ll deal with it,” I say and Benny sighs with relief.
“They’re in the anteroom. Try to be respectful, Bran. They look very serious.”
I promise her I will. Walking as casually as I can down the hall upstairs, I tell myself to remain calm. When I enter the anteroom, one of the men is examining a jade vase my aunt brought us from her travels in Asia.
“Can I help you?” I try to sound as calm and confident as possible. I consider how my father would speak to men like these, but he’d just rant about his latest work and bore them to death. It takes a genius brain to understand genius rambles.
The second man fixes his attention on me, scrutinising me. I can tell by the look on his fact that he dismisses me instantly. I stand straighter. Who is this man to look down on me, and in my own home?
“Are you Branwell. W. Ravel?”
“I am.”
“Good.” The first man shifts away from the vase and comes towards me. He, like his companion—friend or associate or brother or assistant?—is dressed in a dark suit, polished shoes, and a tall hat. The other man rests upon a silver-headed cane. “We’re friends of your late father’s,” the stranger continues. “We worked with him on a number of projects and advancements.”
I nod. Anything I say will sound scathing or suspicious, so I remain silent.
“We’re here on behalf of the British Government,” the second man informs me. “Our employer means to install a tribute to William, you see, in the British Museum.”
“Really?” My father was mocked and ridiculed for his ideas. He wasn’t the sort of inventor a tribute would be created for. Slow, I recall that these men are most likely liars, trying to fool me into handing over father’s work. What they want it for, I have no idea, but I won’t disrespect my father’s last request.
“Yes, really.” The man with the cane hands me a scroll of paper which I read slowly, memorising the information. It’s a letter from my father’s employer confirming everything these strangers have told me. An emblem is inked at the bottom of the letter; I don’t particularly recognise it but it’s very aesthetically pleasing. A great lion strides towards me in ink and on its back rides a hawk, or an eagle; I’m not entirel
y sure. The bird’s wings are spread on either side of it. Underneath are the words ‘Olympiae: For the betterment and progression of humanity.’
“What do you require?” I ask, still staring at the emblem.
“A small number of your father’s inventions. No more than three.”
“Oh.” I glance up at them, carefully schooling my features. “But we had all of his work cremated in remembrance. It was our way of saying goodbye.” I don’t know if they’ll believe this but it’s the best I can concoct under pressure.
The two men share a look.
“Didn’t you think that was a waste?” the first man asks.
“He would have wanted us to move on.” It’s not difficult to push grief and hurt into my words. “I’m sorry I can’t be any help.”
They confer between themselves, and then the smaller man says, “If you wouldn’t mind, we’d still like to observe his workstation, the place where so many great developments came to life.”
“I … yes, of course.” I can’t think of an excuse to keep them out. “I’ll show you there now.”
Nerves sloshing about my stomach, I lead them into the hallway beyond. I half expect one of them to hit me over the head and drag my body somewhere, but we make it to the attic without such problems. I’m sure it’s just my overactive imagination.
The men walk around and look at everything greedily. I stay in the corner and watch them, my shoulders hunched. They ‘observe’ everything, but I’d be more inclined to call it ransacking than observing.
“Is this where they were?” one of them enquires, tapping the empty glass case. I confirm that it was. “Such a pity they were all destroyed. Your father’s creations could have done great things.”
And terrible things, I’m sure. That’s the trouble with powerful machines—they can be turned to good or evil depending on the hands that hold them.
“Where did you burn them?”
“In the grounds. Behind the house.” I tense, expecting them to ask to see the burned site, but the question never arises.
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