“Thank you, Branwell,” says the first man amiably. “That will be all we require.”
The second shoots him a questioning look.
“We’ll be leaving now.”
“I’ll show you out,” I say, stepping down the stairs. My imagination begins firing possibilities at me again, all of them ending in my blood being shed.
“That won’t be necessary. I can remember the way we came. I have an excellent memory.”
I want to press the matter; I want to escort them to the door and bolt it shut behind them but I can’t do that without seeming suspicious. Or paranoid. I say, “Well if you’re sure,” and I bid them goodbye.
I plan to follow them but the smaller man glances behind himself and almost catches a glimpse of me, so I’m forced to return to my room and ponder their visit.
22:06. 19.09.1878. London.
I wait an hour before I give into the all-consuming need to rush out to the mausoleum and check that my father’s inventions are still there.
The door isn’t as rusted as the last time I was here; some of it has been chipped off. Or maybe the pouring rain is altering my perception. Maybe I did it myself when I was here. I honestly can’t remember; the entire day is a blur of dark coats, tall hats, and people being sorry for my loss. Perhaps burying the chest of inventions was a dream that never truly happened.
Inside the mausoleum, the rain chattering on the roof, I kneel on the dirt floor. There are marks in the dirt, impressions of fingers clawing through the floor. My breathing stumbles. Next to the marks is an empty hollow. Was this where I dropped my father’s devices? I try to imagine the smartly dressed men from earlier on their hands and knees, scrambling about in the dirt. I can’t visualise it.
Maybe I really did dream I buried those things. But then why the hole, the pile of dirt? I blink my blurring eyes. The attic will tell me, one way or another, whether it was real.
When reach the staircase, my limbs feel like liquid instead of a solid mass. I can’t go up there. I’m not brave enough. I sink onto the bottom step and sit there with my head in my hands. There’s dirt in the lines of my palm. I stare at it as minutes pass, until a wall of dizziness slams into me. I don’t know if I’ve eaten anything since breakfast. My head is going around and around, my vision with it, and I slump against the wall.
“Here.” I look up to see Bennet holding out a bread roll. I take it without speaking and rip it apart, stuffing it in my mouth.
“Thank you,” I say when it’s gone. Normally I would try to smile but I don’t have the energy.
Bennet’s arms are around herself, as if she feels like she’s falling apart like I do, as I she can hold herself together with the sheer force of her will. Serious eyes on me, she asks, “What are we going to do now?”
I think about it for a long moment, waiting for the world to stitch itself back together. For my body to feel like flesh and bone again. “We’re going to learn how to live by ourselves.”
“We could go to Aunt Ava’s house for the winter,” she suggests.
That’s the last thing I want—being forced into clothes I hate, socialising with people I hate, false friendliness, stuffy dinners, being paraded around by my aunt. “I don’t want to leave home.”
She nods. She’s silent for long minutes before she turns, without a word, and walks stiffly down the corridor. I know she’s crying, and I want to run after her and hug her, but I don’t move. I have to go up, into the attic. I have to.
I take several minutes to pull myself together and trudge up the stairs. It’s dark up here; I almost trip on a couple of stairs. Out of breath, I stumble onto the flat landing at the top and fumble around in relative darkness for the light cord. I tug it hard and a white light floods the area. I’ve never been gladder for the electricity system my father had installed up here.
I stare at the familiar space, inhaling its dust and metal smell. Wooden floorboards, a mess of books and metal parts piled in the corners, a bookshelf against the far wall full of my father’s books on science and innovations, the smashed glass case that used to sit beside it, broken and ravaged. How did I not hear this happen?
My boots crush glass as I stagger closer, a few stray tears dropping amongst the glass. How could I have let this happen? Worse—I remember that I couldn’t distinguish what was real and a dream. Did I do this?
***
Honour
03:34. 20.09.2040. Forgotten London, Shepherd’s Bush Zone.
I’m awoken in the middle of the night by a sound like a dying animal. My thoughts go straight to Horatia but she’s beside me, sat upright in bed. I reach out to her but she slips away, crossing the room.
And then I think of Thalia. My face still stings from her nails—her nails cut so deep that I might be left with a scar or two. The keening gets louder, and I’m out of bed before I realise it.
“She might hurt you,” Tia whispers.
“She might need help.”
She hovers in the doorway. “Honour, she’s dying. Nothing can help.”
Something inside me just snaps. “Why are you being a heartless bitch? What’s happened to you, Tia?”
“You want to know what’s happened to me?” She matches my anger but her voice cracks. I step back a little at the wildness in her eyes. “You sneaking out at night is what’s happened to me. You getting through that damned fence is what’s happened to me. You going into the diseased lands is what’s happened to me. If you’re wondering what’s wrong with Thalia, and Wes, and what happened to John—it’s you. You’re killing everyone.”
The room kind of tilts around me as the words sink in. I shut my eyes as if it’ll hold off any more words. She’s right. I don’t remember telling her about the border and the diseased lands but she’s right. I did this.
I went into the diseased lands. John died the same day. Thalia’s caught a Strain now, and Wes will probably die of it too. It’s my fault. It’s been my fault all along. No military or conspiracy or cover-up. It’s just me.
I don’t know how I get there but I end up on the floor, hand pressed hard to the aching in my chest. Thalia’s keening in the background dulls until all I can hear is my heart beating way too fast.
After a silent minute my sister comes back, her tall, thin frame looming above me.
Her voice is livid. It cuts through me like the sharp edge of a knife.
“You killed her.”
13:03. 20.09.2040. Forgotten London, Shepherd’s Bush Zone.
For the third time in a too-small period, there are Officials at our house. I’m starting to get used to their presence.
I have to pull the door hard to get it open. It fell off its hinges yesterday—just another casualty of the Officials’ house check—and last night before I went to bed I had to wedge it in the frame to block out the cold
“Honour Frie?” the Official in charge asks. It sounds less like a question than a statement. He already knows who I am. I’d be surprised if there’s anyone in Forgotten London who doesn’t know who I am. I’ve become famous for something I did accidentally. The boy who killed his family.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I say. “Can I help you?”
“We’re here to collect the body of a …” He consults a clipboard, all professional. He has a Forgotten London accent; I hope it’s worth it—turning into the enemy, all for fifty extra credits per week. His uniform is embroidered with First Lieutenant in gold thread, his collar and lapel crooked. I don’t think he’ll last long. Local Officials never seem to. “Thalia Norton,” he finishes.
I must have misheard him. “What?”
“She was a resident here, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah. Yes. But … how did you know she died?”
“It was reported to an Official an hour ago.”
Something grips my throat. Suffocates me. Horatia must have told them. How could she hand Thalia over to them so soon? I know she’s ashamed of me, I know it’s my fault all this is happening, but I didn’t think sh
e’d do this to Thalia.
“Oh,” I make myself say. I step back to let them enter. There’s nothing I can do if I don’t want an arm blown off. “She’s in the first room on the right.”
The Official looks at me curiously like he’s trying to work me out, but his face snaps back into an expressionless mask as he marches into Thalia and Wes’s room. Two other Officials wander in after him, one of them with a rolled up plastic bag. To put Thalia in. I feel sick. Instead of watching them, I sit in the living room.
“They’ve come for Thalia’s b—” I start to say but there’s no one here. John would usually be around, slouched in his armchair with a book or knelt at the coffee table playing cards. Thalia would be snapping at us to help her with something or other. Wes would get up to help, acting all grumpy about it, and he and Thalia would argue playfully. My house would be full of family, life, and laughter. Instead it is full of Officials.
I don’t belong here anymore.
***
Branwell
14:05. 20.09.1878. London.
I regain consciousness on the floor of my father’s attic, covered in cuts and blood. I groan and roll into a sitting position. The glass from the cabinet has cut into my face, my arms, my hands, and into my back if the stinging sensation is any indication. Pulsating pain covers my whole body. Wincing as I stand, I brush the remnants of glass off my body and survey the catastrophe.
The attic is completely devastated.
I pull a shard of glass from my cheek; it makes a tinkling sound when it hits the polished wood floor. I want suddenly to tidy the space.
I start by taking a broom from the corner of the room—placed specifically for disasters in my father’s inventing. I feel better once the floor is clear of glass. After that, I, pile the messy piles of books into neater columns, putting as many back on the shelves as I can. But that’s only neatened one corner of the room. The rest is a scattered cacophony of papers, books, and invention sketches. The drawers in the desk are on the floor; their contents discarded. I stare for a long moment. Until now, I assumed I’d lost my mind, that I was responsible for this, but I wouldn’t ransack my father’s drawers.
The previous day replays in my mind—the funeral, Florence saying my father’s friends funded his service, me burying the inventions in the mausoleum, the men from my father’s work appearing in our home. I have no doubt those men did this after they ‘saw themselves out’ and that they were looking for my father’s work.
When they found nothing inside the house, they must have ventured outside and found everything in the mausoleum. I was stupid to hide them there. I should have taken a carriage and hidden them somewhere far away.
Everything is gone. And I am to blame.
My eyes burn as I stare at the chaos surrounding me. After a while the swimming shades and colours come back together and form actual shapes and concrete images. There is paper around my father’s desk.
I kneel, blinking repeatedly, and gather the papers into a stack. I set them on the desk but I notice with irritation that I’ve missed a small slip of paper. When I bend down, I find that it’s not paper at all but a ray of light coming from under the floorboards.
My fingers dart out of their own accord and pull at the board. As I suspected, the wood comes up in my hand. There, nestled safely, is a dark wooden box lit by a tiny electric light on the underside of the floorboard. I inhale sharply, a tremor moving through my hands. On the top of the box inlaid in silver is a triangle, and in gold, running through the heart of the triangle, is a key with a long neck and two sets of maze-like teeth; one on each side. I frown at it before I wrench the box open.
Inside are a number of brown leather journals and a single black one, and a small gold filigree-embossed box. It’s the box I pick first, snapping open the clasp, eager and bewildered and nervous. Inside, on a plush velvet platform, sit two golden bangles. On the outside of the bracelets are a number of carved symbols that I don’t recognise and the key glyph from the wooden box. On the inner side of the bracelet, I see as I lift one, is my sister’s name engraved in a neat script. I snatch up the other one and find that it has my name inset in gold. My heart races to leave the confines of my chest. Fear and excitement.
I’m about to slip the thing onto my wrist when the inside of the golden box catches my attention. On a folded piece of paper, written in capitals and underlined, are the words: DO NOT PUT ON THE BRACELETS! I drop the bangle and take the paper from the gilt case with trembling fingers. It’s in my father’s handwriting.
As I unfold the warning, I find a letter. I no longer know how to breathe.
Bran, for I know it will be you that finds this—your inquisitiveness has always been greater than your sister’s.
I am dead, I assume. The poison has finally caught up to me and claimed my life. I’m sorry. I never intended to leave you so soon.
I have hidden everything you need to know in this box. Read the black journal first, it will explain most of what you deserve to know. Once you understand the events inside that journal, move backward in time through the brown journals until you have the bigger picture.
The bracelets inside this box have the power to take you wherever and whenever you need to go. They do not have the luxury of taking you wherever you want to go, but I have found that they are effective nonetheless. Sometime in the future, be it near or distant, you will need these bracelets, and here they will wait for you. Do not place them upon your wrists until that time. You will know it when it occurs.
I hope you find these things useful. And I hope you will not let the Lux stay in unworthy hands. I’m certain it will be taken, be it by accident or by force, but I’m also certain that you will reclaim it before the time is too late.
Promise me this, Branwell: do not let yourself be overcome with vengeance or anger. Do not let the contents of this box harden your heart. And for the love of all that exists, protect your sister, and allow her to protect you.
Your father.
***
Bennet
11:02. 21.09.1878. London.
Earlier this morning I wrote to our cousin Carolina. I don’t know how to manage a household in the place of my father, and Branwell won’t do it. He’s been absent since last night. I know he’s in the depths of his basement but I have no way of knowing if he’s alright because he has bolted the door. So I contacted Carolina. She always knows what to do.
Sometime after eleven a carriage rolls across the gravel courtyard. I rush to the front door as Carolina is making her way up the grey stone steps. She looks older than she did when I saw her last—she must be twenty three now—but her hair is the same dark blonde it always was, and it’s arranged in loose curls around her shoulders. A purple plumed hat sits on her head, matching the elaborate dress she’s wearing, and her family necklace rests around her neck as it did when I saw her last—at her and Jeremy’s wedding ceremony.
“Goodness,” Carolina says, casting a look around herself. “This place is positively lifeless. Where are all your servants?”
“They’re giving us space.”
“They’re leaving you to your own devices at a time like this?”
“They’re being kind.”
“Some servants,” she scoffs.
“Carolina.”
She ignores me and squares her delicate shoulders, tossing her hair. “We’ll soon fix that. Where’s that eccentric brother of yours?”
“I’m not exactly sure. In his basement, I think.”
“You think? No wonder you wrote to me.”
“I hoped you’d fix everything,” I venture hopefully. She takes me by the elbow and leads me inside the house with a small smile. “You’re lucky I’m feeling so obliging. Go into the sitting room and I’ll see if I can coax your brother out”
I give her a doubting look. “I don’t think it’ll be that easy.”
“O’ ye of little faith. Didn’t I tell you to go to the sitting room?”
I hesitate for a mome
nt too long. Carolina claps her hands twice and sends me scuttling away.
14:36. 21.09.1878. London.
“He won’t come out,” I tell Carolina, just about holding back my I told you so as she pushes at the unmoving statue that is the door to my brother’s room.
“We’ll see about that,” she says with a determined glint in her eye. “Branwell William Ravel, this is your cousin Carolina. I’m ordering you to leave this room immediately or there will be severe repercussions.”
She holds her breath, but there’s no answer.
“Ignorance is rude and unbecoming, Branwell!” She pushes the door again. “Very well. I will arrange for someone to come and remove it.”
She steps away from the door as if expecting it to open. I know better than that. Threats don’t work with Bran when he’s in this state.
“Nothing?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Fine. Come along, Bennet, we’ll leave your brother to die in peace.”
I flinch hard. “I just lost my father and you think it’s appropriate to joke about my brother dying?” My voice is rising, along with the fanged beast of panic in my chest. “I asked you here because I thought you could help, but if you think my father’s death is something to be laughed over, then—”
“She didn’t mean it that way,” Bran says wearily. Carolina and I jump in shock. Neither of us noticed the door to Branwell’s room slide open.
“I’m sorry, Bennet,” Carolina mumbles but I barely hear her. Branwell pulls me close to him, murmuring things I can’t really hear but none of that matters because he’s alright.
“I’m not leaving my room,” he declares once I’ve finally calmed.
“What?”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Carolina says with a wry smile, “but you are no longer inside your room.”
He ignores her and talks to me instead. “I’m not sulking and I’m not starving myself, but there’s a real reason that I need to stay down here.”
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