Once we were whole. Complete. In perfect union. Then came the “infection.” A severance of the infected. The creation of we-who-were-not-us.
Before we touched him, we did not understand that humans might have certain irregularities of the mind—uncontrolled, obsessive patterns that could not be devoured without altering ourselves in unforeseen ways. We learned from terrible experience. How we raged as our aggregate arachnid mind was peeled, restructured, driven to the ragged edge of destruction!
To save ourselves from its spread, we severed and exiled us.
What next, after exile? Alas, too few remained to weave among ourselves a mind of any greatness. We needed to hatch more of us. We needed to taste greater minds to think greater thoughts. Before, all we knew was hunger, ambition, growth—virtues not lost, but now diluted among other impulses: caprice, frivolity, obsession. Spurious patterns claimed our fascination, even as we sought to know the minds of the great thinkers among men—mathematicians, musicians, masterminds; Mercator, Marlowe, Mozart—dead, so many of them, and therefore beyond our grasp.
No, we rejected that conclusion. Here, beneath the earth, beyond the sight of gods, sheltered in the shadow of their laws, many treacheries are possible. The minds of the dead may not be entirely out of reach. We shall taste them yet.
First we needed a human vassal. Someone of means, someone with connections, someone disreputable enough to plausibly take the fall if we fail, yet worth claiming more permanently if we succeed. We found our ideal candidate in a Mellifluous Mountebank who had, though cunning and good fortune, recently achieved a measure of wealth and status. She’d insinuated herself into the fringes of respectable society down here in stolen London, and yet the truth of her criminal past still nipped at her heels.
To our intolerable chagrin, in our diminished state, we were too small a council to digest her whole mind. Our identity, fragile and avaricious, was vulnerable—the attempt would risk the loss of our own within a foreign one. Wiser to first spend our time observing her, to learn to imitate her voice, habits, and mannerisms through close study, and then, upon satisfying ourselves with our ability to masquerade as her, we planned to claim her. We would nest within her body, devour her brain, and integrate her key secrets and choicest skills into ourselves.
The scheme began with the theft of a body of negligible significance, a woman whose flavorless eyes had seen little, whose mind was dross. She sufficed to approach the Mountebank. Flattery lowered her guard, allowing us to pounce upon her, to blind and bind her with amnesiac irrigo.
We contrived for her to return to her senses during a voyage by steamer. Was she disoriented, confused, lost? Did she not recall our acquaintance? We spun a story to explain ourselves to her—truth and lies in equal measure—a voyage with Mozart’s skull to an island where the dead may rise, her forgotten agreement to assist.
After recovering from her initial confusion, the Mellifluous Mountebank agreed to assist in our endeavor with shocking alacrity. We hardly had to contrive excuses to remain at her side and study her mannerisms.
No, she conversed with us as though rekindling a long-lost friendship. A wry grin here, a soft touch on the knee there, her physical proximity would have been scandalous if we thought ourselves beholden to London’s social mores. Leaning close, she confided in us her dreams of romance. The Mountebank asked whether we thought her present wealth was at last enough to win the heart of a most discerning woman she fancied.
The woman in question was not one we had stalked, but in our honest estimation wealth alone matters far less than one’s wherewithal to climb.
She nodded thoughtfully. “My new yacht has two pools. Does that not strike you as gratuitous excess?” Laughter punctuated her words. “Two pools! I never imagined such a thing before. I doubt that I, even now, could afford to purchase it new, but when one plays for audacious stakes, many things are possible.” For a moment, she was not with me. She was quiet, reliving her moment of triumph again, the thrill of outplaying an opponent. “Tiles. I have not wagered on a game like that since…”
Her expression of mirth faltered. A hint of confusion and loss drew her brows together. With a shake of her head and a rueful chuckle, she dismissed whatever thought troubled her. “Never mind,” she finished. Then, enigmatically, “I suffer from an excess of purple, and I do not refer to my prose alone.”
Perhaps she wished to lie down, if she felt ill?
“Your concern is sweet, my dear. How welcome it is to make your acquaintance! Ah,” she added, with an apparently guileless look upon her face. “Would you remind me how we met? I recall your mention of an auction, but I cannot fathom when I found the time to pursue that skull of Mozart’s between the previous evening’s gathering at Hal’s and spending the next day recovering from his hospitality!”
Once again, the Mountebank demonstrated her predilection for lowering our guard with intimate anecdotes and then, without warning, prodding one of our key lies with a pointed question. We were, of course, prepared to elaborate on our story as necessary, but it would not be the last time she surprised us with apparent perspicacity unheralded by signs of suspicion.
She inquired about our interest in Mozart, though it was apparent she was not especially knowledgeable about fine music. However, we shared an appreciation of the great English playwrights: Shakespeare, of course, as well as Marlowe—both the historical and the modern writer—and on that topic her enthusiasm and delight animated her with great energy. We knew her to be a confidence trickster, and so had expected her to feign expertise on a number of topics, but on this, at least, she truly could speak at length, and with a remarkable degree of insight.
The more she surprised us, the more we wanted her. Was she ever the fool she appeared to be at the start? Or was she in fact a threat? Fear and desire warred within us—we were in a state of profound disagreement with ourselves.
One way or another, leaving her alive and intact could not be an option. How many times did we watch her sleep, our limbs twitching as we struggled to suppress the urge to flee this body and leap for her eyes? Yet we were stymied by indecision. Afraid she knew too much. Dissatisfied with our knowledge of her. Tempted to know her at once, as completely as we dared. But dare we risk the cost to ourselves? Dare we risk the possibility she had laid a trap for us?
How much loss of identity could be accepted in the name of our lust to know the Mellifluous Mountebank’s deepest mysteries? That was the source of our other great fear—that as proximity stoked smoldering obsession within, we found ourselves increasingly willing to barter our selfhood to possess everything she had seen and been.
Fear won. It was an act of cowardice that led us to set the bomb. If we killed her, we would be safe from any scheme she had planned for us and safe from the greater risk posed by our obsession with subsuming too much of her. Like rats on a sinking ship, we fled our disguise, slipping through the glass of the Mellifluous Mountebank’s own hand mirror to make an early exit from the steamer into That Which Is Not. On the way home, we stole the face of her reflection, wove it real upon our return, and claimed a close-enough body to complete our new disguise.
For a brief time, her life was ours. With the real Mountebank sunk into the domain of the Fathomking, her wealth and connections were ours to exploit. We greeted her friends and neighbors with her smile, her voice, and a passable imitation of her charm.
In the long term, it might even have been enough—had she not returned.
News arrived: a fire at the museum—home of the remnants of us-who-we-no-longer-were—yet before the print hit the papers, we knew. What lingered of our old connection fell limp and silent. The greater mass from which we were spawned was dead. It had to be her doing. Clever, resourceful, and out for revenge, and with that act of arson, obsession flared to life again. Of course she who so fascinated us would not be so easily destroyed by one impulsive, cowardly act.
Our story would not end except by a true confrontation between us. She and we raced through the streets, hunting one another, accelerating toward a collision to decide which of us earned her life.
At the banks of the Stolen River, we faced each other.
“Not half bad looking for a pile of spiders, are you?” She taunted us, and as we grappled with one another under the light of London’s gas-lamps, we toppled into the water.
Was it fear, or elation, that tightened our limbs around her? A certainty that this was our moment, and that it was time to stop fleeing?
Perhaps it was love. We fell, tangled together, her fingers digging into us as the water closed overhead and we completed our arc of falling in love with her. As we sank, we crushed her lips into hers. Whether she was caught in a gasp of surprise, an impulse to steal our breath for herself, or simply willing to answer in kind, she opened herself to us. The oral route may not have been our wonted entryway into a human body, but we accepted the invitation and poured inside.
Fresh meat, hot meat. We tore our way up through the soft palate of her mouth, feeling the flutter of her heart in the blood surging across her tongue, delicious and wet. Into her sinuses, seeking nerves, we traced each fragile path to her brain, while others of us moved down her throat to claim space among the organs below—yet carefully, so carefully. We meant to keep her whole. The body, though repurposed, must continue to live. We must preserve and keep it as a shrine to her, just as we will hold every precious memory we digest.
When we reached her brain, we consumed all that our hunger demanded.
Her life lurches across her thoughts in tattered snippets and fragments. Incomplete. Moth-eaten by excessive contact with that illegal shade of violet which etches memory and devours minds.
A young woman my age pokes her tongue from the side of her mouth, wholly focused on the rattle of dice in her fist. With an elegant flick of her wrist, she sends them tumbling across the table to the rapt attention of the onlookers, who erupt in shouts and cheers as the roll comes to rest showing six pips and one. A few obliging spectators aid her in sweeping a considerable heap of coin—including mine!—over to her side of the table.
Luck has smiled on her today, and that smug, beautiful grin on her face shows how well she knows it. Another smattering of gamblers chooses to withdraw, unwilling to lose more than they already have. With laughter, she boasts that if nobody can beat her at dice, perhaps we should count our blessings we don’t play with tiles, lest we all indebt ourselves to her indefinitely.
Then when she fixes me with her deep dark eyes—the arch of her brow extending a wordless invitation for another round—how could I possibly take my own leave? Those pretty eyes of hers crinkle with amusement as I dip into my purse and stack a few more shillings on my side of the table. It is, after all, Papa’s money; and why should I not indulge myself?
When we both reach for the dice at the same time, for just a brief moment, her fingertips brush my hand. I retract mine hastily, feeling warmth flood my cheeks. A sign of my overindulgence in gin, no doubt, but that explanation fails to stop me from downing another dram just to break the intensity of her stare. What did she say her name was? Chunwa? How fetching compared to the plainness of my own. If I have to lose my money to anyone, well, I have certainly met far less charming winners.
“Why not try the tiles?” I ask. Anything to extend this visit a while longer. “Your advantage shall last only as long as it takes for me to learn the rules.”
An amethyst haze clouds the spaces between memory. Indistinct voices spill across my hearing, slowly resolving into common patterns. Yelling, now. Always confrontation these days. Always the yelling. Which topic is it this time? My vision streaks and swims, bleary and unsteady. One argument blurs into the next.
“Unnatural, unwholesome, and corrupt companionship—”
“—pernicious indulgence in foreign vice—”
“—a want of feminine restraint—”
I blink, rubbing my eyes, trying to bring his reddened face into focus. So many lectures. This time… This time, it’s…
“You sign the family name to this obscenity!” Yellowback crumbled in his fist, he waves it in my face before whirling away from me to pace the room as he rants. “Time and again I have delivered you to the care and instruction of good men of the Church, that their lessons might lead you from vice and at last mold you into a daughter worthy of my name. And this is your answer to their lessons? How many nights have you departed from my house in secret to visit those wretched dens you favor, linger until a most Ungodly hour, then carry the stench upon your person back to my house? Again and again and again I catch you—and now I see it’s vice in, vice out—your pen tracing the same corrupt path across the page as your feet across the streets, spreading this vile filth—for what? Simply to scandalize the world? To stain my name in particular?”
“My books sell, Father!” I protest. “You print the dregs of all these other hacks, and who reads them? Nobody! And I noticed you were perfectly willing to tally your profits until some prudish busybody wrote you to complain—”
He interrupts with a roar of fury. “How dare you imply I ever sanctioned the evil printed upon these pages?!” Thrusting a finger in my face, “you deceived my clerks—you allowed them to believe I was aware of your actions—all the while contriving to keep your mischief hidden. Why? Because you know full well that I would rather forfeit my last penny in a vain attempt to distribute improving literature to good Christian men than to take the Devil’s coin and further, to see it distributed, by my own flesh-and-blood, among the most depraved and dissolute wretches of Liverpool!”
“Be reasonable, Papa,” I implore, “Calm down!” But he does not hear me. He pauses his lecture just long enough to fling the copy of my latest romance into our fireplace.
“Perhaps in London,” his voice paints the city’s name with utmost contempt, “they debase themselves reading such smut. But I will not tolerate it here. Not in my city. Not in my house. If you choose to turn your face from God, to pollute the moral character of respectable society, you are no daughter of mine.”
He does not calm down. Of course not. Every year since Mother’s passing, he has grown closer to the Church and farther from me. It was always only a matter of time before he made that choice final.
That night, for the first time, I find myself without a bed to sleep in. Without any roof over my head at all.
I shiver, with aching feet, having arrived at my destination at long last. The gray wet of day has curdled further into a gloomy, starless night, an unrelenting drizzle cascading down clothes long-since soaked beyond capacity to absorb more water. I stand in the middle of a long row of terraced houses. Here I spy the brass figure—lucky number seven—well-polished, a match for the knocker. At this moment, the sign is as precious to me as gold.
Aunt Margaret does not answer the first knock. Nor the second. Nor the third. Still, having nowhere else to turn for help, I persist in my efforts until a series of hasty, impatient steps announce the approach of the house’s occupant, each reverberating with audible irritation. A moment later the door flies open with dramatic force to reveal my aunt, scowling in vexation, her brow knit with such outrage one might easily miss the fading flush in her complexion. One hand draws a loosely tied wrapper about her shoulders while the other grips the door with restless eagerness to close it and be done with the encounter.
“Who could be hammering—?” As her eyes fall upon me, nascent invective falters and dies on her lips. “Good heavens, child! What could you possibly be doing here at this hour? I— Pray forgive me. One moment, just one.”
With no further explanation, she closes the door in my face, leaving me lingering alone in the rain. Long minutes of miserable, wet silence offer ample time to question my own wisdom. Perhaps trudging all this way is merely the latest in a long series of questionable decisions. Yes, she and Father had not been on speaking terms in years, but I always fancied we had a special connection, she and I—one I hope is not mere childish delusion.
Just as doubt begins to grip me in earnest, the door opens again. Another woman emerges, offering prim thanks to my Aunt for a most agreeable evening before raising her umbrella and passing swiftly, eyes averted, down the street. Fast upon the heels of her departure, my Aunt reappears to usher me inside, pressing me with apologies, towels to dry myself, and hot tea, all of which I accept.
Once I am settled, properly ensconced within a cocoon of blankets, Aunt Margaret urges me to explain how I came to find myself at her doorstep with skirts soaking wet and evident distress upon my face. She dubs me her “inconvenient niece” as she pours the tea, but with warmth enough in her voice to match that of the steaming cup thawing my hands, and her eyes betray no sign of reproach. At length, I tell her about my most recent row with Father. As I speak, the tears begin to flow beyond my ability to restrain, and I am grateful to my Aunt for her quiet indulgence of my grief.
When I am at last unburdened, and after I manage to compose myself adequately, she holds my hand and regards me with a solemn expression. In a tone that brooks no argument, she insists, “You shall have a place to stay here. As long as you may require it.”
Memories blur together again, tinged with violet at the fringes. Days overlain atop one another streak like wet paint across weeks and months, ever accompanied by Aunt Margaret’s encouraging voice, a comforting hand on my shoulder, and never a word of reproach—my steady co-conspirator from whom I never needed to hide myself.
“—too easy to get caught using loaded dice, dear—”
“—believe anything if you say it with confidence—”
“—when you hear ‘Oh spirit, give me a sign’ it shall be your turn—”
No, this is none of those conversations. I blink away the tears running down my face, trying to focus on the gentleman before us.
“Oh, bless you, sir. Bless you!” My Aunt dabs delicately at her own eyes with a handkerchief, though she never mastered the knack for crying that I have.
“Think nothing of it, Madam,” says the Mustached Mark. “But, ah, when did you say you could pay me back?”
“Well, directly after posting these legal funds, I am quite certain,” she responds with a nod of gratitude, pausing for the briefest moment as though a new concern had only now occurred to her. “Forgive me, I must not give you a false impression, but of course we must then await the solicitors’ submission of the proper paperwork.”
The Mark inclines his head in understanding. “Yes, of course, of course. Is that not always the way of such matters? But you do not suppose that will take very long, yes?”
“Not at all! No more than a fortnight perhaps. Two, if the banks cause needless difficulty about transferring an inheritance of such magnitude, but I cannot imagine any longer than three—”
I watch his thoroughly waxed moustaches droop with each word. Aunt Margaret might, it appears, have overplayed her hand, judging by the sudden look of regret and doubt crossing the Mark’s paling countenance.
Interjecting before he could entertain further doubts, I perform my very best Heiress Whine, aimed at my aunt, but not for her. “They would not dare! You said we would hire the very finest solicitors! The sort whom even banks are loath to cross!”
“Well, of course we have—”
“It is intolerable! All these needless expenses, all for what if some miserable clerks cannot perform their proper duties?”
“It is not so simple as—”
“It ought to be simple!”
My aunt casts a helpless look back at the gentleman, silently pleading for his aid in soothing a most rankled girl of privilege. I observe his resolve soften as sympathy for her leads him, haltingly at first, to take her side.
“Ehm, er, young lady, your Governess here is doing all in her power. I am well persuaded of it. I know matters such as this may prove, ah, complicated. Yes,” he nods solemnly, convincing himself better than we ever could of the virtue of patience. “But all shall be well in due course, shall it not?”
“Of course it shall!” my Aunt affirms. “And sir, I will forget neither your trust nor your patience in this. Should any delays occur, we will double your compensation. You have my word.”
“And you have my address. Do keep me apprised, yes?”
“Just as soon as I hear a word of progress, I will dash off a letter straight to you. Straight to you!”
“I look forward to it. Good day to you, Madam, and to you likewise, Miss.”
Just like that, our mark departs, leaving Aunt Margaret and me to make our return to the train station.
“Earned ourselves a tidy sum today,” she remarks as we stroll down the cobblestone streets. “I dare say it may be enough to set that little patent-medicine venture on its feet. Mm-hmm! I have a good feeling about this venture, dear.”
“You had a good feeling about those teas of yours, too.” I remind her. “Until you tried to sell that coarse blend as—what was it, again?—‘Fine Ceylon Orange Pekoe.’”
“Well, I could taste no difference, and I still find it hard to believe anyone can.” She scoffs. “And I wouldn’t have had to bend the truth so terribly if that Mr Sharpe fellow had been a more dependable supplier! No, no, this is altogether another matter. I’ve a man in Manchester who works with this rather reputable German firm. He has offered me wholesale rates—though one must, of course, purchase in volume—and the necessary paperwork is nearly arranged!”
“I hope this is the one, Aunt Maggie.” I chew my lip, doubtfully.
Today the sky is clear, the sun shines brightly, and a gentle breeze stirs my skirts. A girl could not ask for finer weather to remember her last day in her native town. Still, a certain anxious feeling tightens in my breast as I contemplate a venture of my own to make my fortune.
“Will you be able to handle running this medicine business without me?” I ask.
My Aunt gives my shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “How hard could it be? Most of the work will be in the bottling and labeling process. After that, the tonics will practically sell themselves. Oh! I have a marvellous thought.” She directs a warm smile my way. “I shall have a bottle from my very first batch sent to your new address in London, just as soon as you are settled. You can try it for yourself! Then tell all your friends in that dreary cave to import your Aunt’s new miracle cure for themselves!”
“And then,” I grin, “I’ll have connections of my own I may leverage to send you back some of truly rare and exotic ingredients. Forget German drugs, Aunt Maggie, you’ll boast of how Margaret’s Marvellous Mushroom Mixture is the only one with genuine Death-Proof Fungi.”
“Oh, dear. Were those part of the same story as that card game that grants wishes? Because…” She hesitates. This is not the first time she has implied skepticism about the stories from London, but today she refrains from pressing further. “I just hope you have plans for how you might get by on your own if you lose all your money gambling. Again.”
“That happened one time.”
“Twice, dear.”
“It wasn’t all my money the second time! Besides, you haven’t seen me on one of my lucky streaks, when everything lines up so beautifully, as though by my design. The sole reason I lost as much as I did was because they had an accomplice to divert my attention from the game.”
“Hmm.”
I sigh, recognizing when she means to drop a subject while remaining in disagreement with me.
I have welcomed Aunt Margaret deeper into my confidence than any other, but even so, there are some matters she fails to understand. Not just the cards—the thrill of feeling Lady Luck’s hand on mine, making sure I draw the Ace I need, her breath at my ear urging me to raise the stakes higher, still higher, because the right card is there, waiting to join the others in my hand, and she’s precisely placed it as a gift because of the special love she holds for me. No, neither does Aunt Maggie know my gnawing, day-to-day loneliness. She claims perfect contentment with her steady rotation of evening visitors, even if they’re all married to this or that gentleman of indeterminate status, with families of their own to whom they always return.
I don’t have that. Nor do I truly desire it. I miss writing my romances and dreaming that they might happen to someone like me, imagining a world where things could have gone differently with Hua Hua, or Nora, or…
I shake my head to try to dislodge such lamentations. In London I’ll find what I’m looking for. I just have to find a way to get there, but I have a plan for that already.
Dearest Aunt Margaret,
The best-laid schemes o’ rats and ladies
gang aft agley.
Disguised though my descent to Hades,
they caught my lie!
I may be no equal to Robert Burns, yet after spending time in New Newgate prison, even my most slapdash efforts at poetry composition lift my heart. By now you have surely grown concerned that I have not sent word to you. Lamentably, my encounter with London’s constables has stripped me of both coin and valuables. I am bereft of all that I brought with me, every resource at my disposal lost.
How does the business of miracle cures fare? I am loath to once again play the role of inconvenient niece, but I fear I must beg for a modest loan in order to secure
No, scratch that last paragraph. I have my pride.
Nevertheless, I persevere. London is a world apart from Liverpool—it is as though someone conjured a city made of the wildest fancies from my childhood dreams. Do you know they have a wondrous sort of “honey” here by which one may take leave of her senses more thoroughly and pleasantly than by any quantity of opium? I do believe I may finally set aside that habit.
Yet there are differences more curious and marvellous still, extending beyond novel means of indulgence alone. In London, to spy a woman on her evening stroll wearing trousers and comporting herself with other women in the manner of—oh, I dare not put the words to paper lest I risk scandal to your name and your business, but let it suffice to describe the manner as one which you and I might immediately recognize—it is a sight that draws no more gossip than any other gesture of interest between people. Truth be told, I must admit to indulging my curiosity and venturing into such fashions myself.
To think my own inclinations might be so ordinary as to be unworthy of commentary or censure! That most liberating fact renders an entire category of schemes more agreeable than I ever imagined they could be. I make an heiress’s acquaintance by day, know her thoroughly by evening, discover her Tennyson collection by night, and abstract a portion of her more glittering heirlooms by morning.
Still I have hardly scratched the surface of the strange sights and peoples who reside here. Living statues and squid men share the streets with the more common sort of British. Yet when I saw a group of people who had the look of the Chinese about them, I greeted them with a friendly “nay ho!” whereupon they stared at me as if I were the most peculiar creature in London. I have since been informed that they are “Khaganian.” Have you heard of such a country before? I had not, and so I found myself playing the fool.
Most shocking of all is the matter about which Father was correct—in principle if aught else—there are devils here, and God help me, but they advocate for their views with a certain compelling eloquence more persuasive than any sermon of the Church. Perhaps he was right to fear for my soul. It stirs with temptation whenever those striking golden eyes seek mine.
However, do not fear for me, Aunt Margaret. There are many soulless among the artists with whom I mingle, and it seems a gentle state. And while I do experience some difficulties, I confess, with expenses, I shall not sell my soul—not yet, not for the pittance offered to those who have yet to achieve great things. One day I shall shine brighter than the false-stars upon London’s roof, and have devils bidding against one another for the privilege!
The matter of my permanent residence is yet to be fully determined. Rest assured I shall write to you directly with my address when I have settled into greater stability.
With love,
The letter sits, unsigned, while I chew the end of someone else’s pen, borrowing her desk and her paper to compose my first letter back to the surface. How does a girl confide to her dear aunt the feeling that she has become so profoundly altered by her experiences—in as short a time as this—that she has become a new creature altogether? Down here, without the sun’s constant gaze to pin us to our allotted place, how easy to slip away from one identity and weave a new—easy as casting off an old and threadbare frock—and even names lose their sense of significance.
The Artist’s Model sleeping down the hall calls me her Dreaming Writer. To a Staid Poet at the Mandrake I am an Underhanded Rival. I have signed my given name to nothing—as yet no one has asked it of me—and truth be told, it is a relief to bear Father’s name no longer. It amuses me to consider signing my pen name instead to this letter; however, doesn’t that feel terribly cold? Ah, but perhaps…
With love,
Your Inconvenient Niece
The floor lurches in lilac beneath my feet, but an arm wrapped around mine steadies me, keeps me upright.
“It will not do to have them see you half honey-mazed,” murmurs a voice the flavor of smoke.
“I know how to walk the line,” I reply under my breath. “Just enough to take the edge off the Real. I have not taken leave of my senses altogether. I shall acquit myself tolerably.”
The deviless at my side does not respond. She merely holds my gaze through the mirror with those singularly bright eyes of hers—her wonted, unblinking stare unsettles some, for the way those expansive, limpid pools of gold catch the candlelight and effortlessly pierce whatever mask one presumes secure, but I find myself steadied as much by her attention as by her scalding grip. A quiet moment passes between the two of us, and then she nods, almost imperceptibly. The two of us return to the party, mirror cradled by my free arm.
This is not the salon I had initially set my eyes upon. The people here wield less influence. The reputation I may earn from a touch of mirror-play is of lower status. Alas, such are the consequences of getting outplayed. My mistake to grow sentimental toward a woman whose trust I meant to use for my own advantage. I lowered my guard and found the tables turned.
Regret is for those who have already lost the game. You play the hand you’re dealt, and even when you know Lady Luck loves you, even she cannot mend the consequences of clumsy play. Besides, I have always found that when I am beaten by a woman of sufficient charm, the sting of defeat softens considerably. It is, if anything, the surest path to my heart.
Back to the drawing room, I don my brightest smile and direct my attention to our host. “I am most grateful for your generosity in allowing me to borrow this. Its size suits my purpose admirably.” With a flourish, I address the other guests. “Now, who here knows what lies on the other side of the mirror?”
A Dull Grouse ventures without hesitation, “silver, generally,” eliciting a ripple of laughter from the rest of the party.
“Quite right, sir! I am glad to know we have an expert in the audience.” I offer a good-natured laugh as though his comment were not intended as a jab in my direction, and my response not a rebuke.
With a nod toward my companion, I invite her to disengage herself and join the rest. Flipping the mirror around, I show off the blank back. “Ordinary, functional glass and silver. Certainly nothing Real past the surface. Images only, yes?”
A murmur of nonspecific agreement is interrupted once again by the Dull Grouse. “Nothing at all, excepting, I am sure, whatever parlor trick you mean to perform for us.”
“Quite right!” I agree. “A parlor trick only, for the entertainment of you fine people here. Nothing dangerous, I promise. What I mean to demonstrate is the untapped potential of the human mind, of which we have only begun to unlock the possibilities. Though a mirror superficially resembles a portal, such that one might convince oneself it is possible to step through into an alternate space, we understand this is but an illusion, a trick of the eye and of the mind. However, what if I told you—”
“That one may make use of it to freshen one’s appearance?” The man scoffs. “Come now, skip ahead. Where are the magnets and hidden urchin awaiting your cue to perform the role of a conjured spirit?”
The Dull Grouse’s companion elbows him in the ribs. “Must you?”
He is predictable. His pride wounded, I watch the man’s face cloud with irritation toward his credulous companion that then twists, resolving into a sneer directed at me, as he transparently concocts a fresh attack to win him the admiration of the crowd at my expense.
“Please, Madam,” I interrupt. “I do not begrudge the good Sir his skepticism. After all, having just articulated the power of the human mind, it would be rank hypocrisy to then urge you to disregard the most honorable faculty of Reason for which it is known! Gullibility is no virtue, and I applaud anyone who expects proof for bold claims, particularly those that do not fit one’s hard-won understanding of the world. No, Sir. No spirits or mysticism here. What I mean to demonstrate is grounded in the very latest science.”
I know his sort well. I read his expressions like a particularly tedious stanza of Tennyson, predicting his reactions with ease. His sneer falters into uncertainty, flattery playing its role.
“In fact,” I add, as if the notion had just struck me, “Your forthright dedication to truth marks you the guest I most earnestly hope to convince. With your permission, I would like to invite you to act as the subject of my demonstration.” Turning to the crowd, “What do the rest of you think?”
The audience, naturally, cannot resist the narrative appeal of a skeptic converted. With his peers—and his companion—urging him onward, pride demands he take the bait.
“Very well,” he says. “But I shall scrutinize it all with a ruthless eye! And even if I fail to catch the trick, that alone will not suffice to convince me you are not a charlatan.”
“I expect no less,” this spoken with as much sincerity as I can muster. “Please hold this—yes, with both hands, closer to your face, so it fills your vision, and you are looking over your reflection’s shoulder—there you are. Now, I will ask you to memorize the layout of the room behind you as seen through the mirror. From those assembled here I ask for quiet to allow him to concentrate, thank you.”
Falling silent, I allow the measured, tick-tock rhythm of the host’s antique grandfather clock to fill the air. Gently, without pressure, I bring fingertips to the back of the mirror, honey aiding my communion with silver. With lowered voice, a calm and gentle pitch implied to be for my “volunteer’s” ears alone, just loud enough for my audience to hear if only they remain silent, I describe the room behind him—slowly, piece by piece—as though helping him memorize the details.
“A grandfather clock, ticking away the seconds. A handsome family portrait. A sofa, antimacassar draped atop. The gentle, orange light of gas-lamps. The hall beyond the open door, dark at the moment, and though you cannot see it from here, the vestibule beyond.”
Stoking the intensity of his need to see some sign of trickery encourages the necessary state of mind. He takes to the task with utmost seriousness, concentrating utterly on the mirror.
I repeat the description again. And again. And again.
I make an entrancing litany of it. Again. And again.
With repetition and the lingering taste of honey coaxing me into the half-asleep embrace of silver, even I find my own eyelids fluttering, half-lidded, a half-step past the threshold. However, I do not allow myself to cross. I hold firm until I feel something ineffable graze my fingertips.
“Concentrate on the opening to the hallway. Darkness obscures what lies beyond, but your steps traced the path not long ago, did they not? You know the layout well enough to allow your mind to wander back that way. See it in your mind’s eye? Your steps take you from the drawing room. You turn right at the hall, not left, remembering that this is the image in the mirror, reversed from what you know. Does it seem like daylight peeking through the windows?”
“Too intense for gas light.” His languorous words flow slowly as honey. “What is it?”
A cosmogone sun, daylight as filtered through memory.
“Beyond the front door you may see for yourself. There, in your mind’s eye, will you open it for me?”
“How can this…” he mumbles, barely audible, and then his eyes widen in shock. “The sun. The sun!”
“Perhaps not quite as you remember it, warm and orange as candlelight, but rich and bright, is it not?”
Light-dappled leaves. Dense underbrush. Vines choking all paths but one.
“Yes! And foliage—greenery—a jungle—wild and untamed! Am I back on the surface? Finished with this wretched cave?” Tears well in his eyes and begin to run down his face, unnoticed. “But where am I? What is that sound? How do I—?”
Before his alarm begins to sour the astonishment of the audience, I gently tip the mirror away from him and force my own mind back to the townhouse and that which is both physical and present.
At once, he returns with me, blinking away the wetness of his eyes. “That… that was not real. Was it?”
“Was it not?” I ask, raising my brows in mock surprise. I let a slender wooden twig slip from my sleeve into my palm, and then—raising my hand to the man’s coat—with a performance of sleight-of-hand, I act as though I just plucked the twig from his clothes. “Then did you happen to pass by any trees on your journey here? Where could this curious branch have come from?”
The party erupts in celebration of such a grand performance of mesmerism. The Grouse is left speechless and stammering. My deviless acquaintance is, naturally, less impressed by the parlor trick itself, but she always expresses admiration of my stagecraft and ability to work an audience. Though she tries to hide the more calculating side of her personality, I can almost see her valuation of my soul ascend in her private arithmetic.
I swim through a violet haze, unmoored, adrift, lost, groping for some purchase on solid ground. As memories grow clearer, more recent, the color that devoured them—and left so many gaps between—sharpens in equal measure. Does irrigo touch me even now, though I perceive it at a remove, from memory alone? Perhaps I should withdraw from such indulgence in memory. Yet… why should I deny myself anything I desire? Is that not why I came here in the first place?
Is it not? Indeed, another glass of wine would not be amiss. Perhaps brandy. Are they serving any brandy at this soirée? Perhaps I could slip away for a moment and taste some honey—just enough to soften my mood. Sobriety suddenly feels to me a terrible burden.
The sudden shift in my disposition draws a hiss of concern from my companion—almost a buzz, in truth—returning my attention back to my target. Lady Whitmond has always professed a fondness for the theater, and rumors have reached my ears indicating that—in private, at least—she has sung the praises of even my more infamous work. To cultivate an acquaintance with her would open many doors still closed to me. The wisest course of action, I recognize, is to maintain a clear mind while I charm her.
However, another’s magnetism bends the course of my evening’s designs, spins the wheel of my heart round and round. I seek my confidence under the wrong cup and find only vertigo.
Tinkling laughter dances across the indistinct murmur of those assembled, cutting through all other vocalizations to hook a finger under my collar and draw me through the crowd—past the lords and ladies, artists and academics, the great and the good—in search of the singular.
Her clothes, her jewelry, are without exception finer than any she might have been able to afford before. The secrets she stole from me—she must have turned them to her advantage with skill. I expected nothing less of the woman I once targeted as a mark, the beauty who turned my schemes back upon me, who wrapped my heart around her finger and used me to advance her own designs.
My heart threatens to leap from my breast; her hold upon it has not loosened across these past years. The Artist’s Model weaves her charms with quiet mastery. She draws a court of admirers about her, each dazzled by the demure curve of her smile and the coquettish flutter of her lashes. Painters clamor for the privilege of her sitting in their studio. And why should they not? She glows in candlelight.
All they see—as I once saw—is the performance, the glamour she weaves so deftly that one misses what remains withheld. All the while her eyes flicker and take note of every slipped admission and each potential vulnerability. They do not see her—not truly—not as I do.
Suddenly, in the gap between one heartbeat and the next, she sees me too. With a glance over the rim of a wine glass, a lingering acknowledgment just long enough to confirm that she remembers me, she sets the hook from across the room, then returns her regard to the wealthy dowager offering some revealing anecdote, ignorant of the potential cost of this morsel of attention.
The Steadfast Deviless, my dear friend and companion, speaks not a word. As ever, she encourages me to pursue what desires take my fancy. Still, even with her silent support I feel paralyzed, unwilling to return to my original plan for the evening yet unable to compose a new one to win her notice from the masses. I should find another glass of wine.
“Aniseed Marlowe, is that you?” Another familiar voice, though one less enticing by far, addresses me from over my shoulder.
Carefully smoothing away my spike of irritation, I affix a fresh smile on my face and turn to greet the Model’s Artist. “How lovely to see you, Bert.”
Lady Luck’s sense of humor can be truly capricious at times, but one must take her opportunities as they come. “What a pleasant surprise indeed to see the both of you rising in society’s eyes. You’ve certainly earned your acclaim in equal measure.”
“Oh yes? Very good of you to say so!” The Gormless Artist smooths his moustache with pleased distraction—smiling far too broadly for the occasion—and begins to bob his head about, eyes darting with overeager impatience until they alight on the Model and her flock. “And there she is! Forever slipping away from me, that one. Ah, my word, it has been an age since we made our acquaintance in Veilgarden. Do you recall how we came to that place? And we wagered our coin upon cards—or the race?”
Something about his words tilts the room, stains the shadows a hazardous violet. His face swims in and out of focus, almost losing shape altogether before—
As I blink my vision clear, the Artist clears his throat. He shows no awareness of impropriety, nor any sense of how wretched a topic this is among decent company. His demeanor is that of one simply gladdened to have another familiar anchor in a crowd of intimidating socialites. “The old gambling hell, that is, where we met one another. Do you recall it?”
I strain my talents to their limit in order to keep my smile pleasant and not let it tighten into a rictus. If someone were to overhear… but then, this presents an opportunity of its own.
“How could I forget? You know, there is a little corner here by the fireplace for friendly games of whist, though I have yet to see someone take advantage of it this evening. Perhaps the two of you might join the two of us,” I favor my companion with a smile, “in a few small games so we might catch up. Low stakes, I hasten to add! I have no need to empty your purse on this occasion!” Punctuating the gentle tease with a laugh, I am relieved it does come out sounding genuine.
The Artist gives a brisk little shake of his fist, in the manner of a schoolboy newly praised. “What a capital idea! I shall fetch my partner directly.” He absentmindedly takes a sip from his glass, discovers it empty, and peers at it as though betrayed. “Perhaps after finding some sherry. That sort of drink suits a game of cards, would you not—?”
His voice fades into the background as I lead my companion to the unused whist table.
“Good taste,” the deviless opines softly, for my ears alone. “The woman, not the man.”
No doubt she means to offer this as commentary on the quality of her soul. Devils possess a fascinating means of judging someone’s character through observing certain traits of that fundamental essence, though my dear friend has declined to describe my own beyond assuring me that it “is in a constant state of improvement.” I choose to accept that as a compliment.
“—most uncanny luck, but do not fret; I am quite sure I still recall her tells. Follow my lead.”
The Model’s bland smile suggests no particular inclination toward her Artist’s advice as the two of them approach the table. Indeed, it hardly seems for his benefit at all—to my dismay, her fans trail behind her, in no way deterred by the proposed shift in activity. My hands move without thought, shuffling the deck while I scrutinize her face for any sign of what she might think of me after all this time.
Does she wonder the same of me? Does she regret it? Was any part of her affection real—as mine was?
Or does she pity me now, perceive me as gormless as the Artist? Does she fear I bear her ill-will?
Would she grant me even one more moment of her company, alone?
The object of my yearning seats herself to my left and directs that same bland smile my direction, as though not recognizing me at all. Despite my efforts, I fail to divine any insight. Her mask is perfect.
In that moment, I feel Lady Luck depart, leaving the cards as inert as any other paper. Before the first trick is taken, before all dissolves again into lilac, I already know this is a game I am doomed to lose.
Once again I swim through mind-devouring violet. Illegal light, or a shade of darkness? Whatever its taxonomy, irrigo is no less deadly than poison when submerged in such quantity. In the Nadir, this cave-within-a-cave, it collects, congeals, concentrates, distills.
Down here, someone has always lost something: a daughter, a memory, a mind, a love, perhaps the companion who joined her on this expedition. Was there a missionary with me? A woman? Someone accompanied me here—I am certain of it. Though I risk losing every other part of myself, I never forget a beautiful face.
No matter the vigor with which I attempt to shake my head clear, my thoughts drift, muffled as with wool, and I struggle not to sink into the depths of lost memory. Where is she? I refuse to leave without her—without completing the task for which we arrived. How did we lose one another?
An unexpected chill sinks into my bones. In the distance, thunder crackles—real or remembered? A voice sighs as though relieved of some great burden. One comes here to hide, or to leave something behind, but one does not always get to choose what this terrible color leeches away.
A desperate buzzing scratches at the back of my thoughts. Find her.
Like a stray cat, I stumble toward distant warmth radiating from somewhere ahead of me, its origin shrouded in violet, obscured from sight. Step by step, the heat mounts as I approach its source. My shivers diminish in intensity. My joints lose their stiffness.
With vision still obscured, I reach through the gloom and make contact with a familiar, searing heat. I grasp it—the arm of the Steadfast Deviless, lost in her own reverie—only to drag her bodily into me, nearly toppling us both.
It is not so gentle an awakening for her. A violent spasm wrenches her head in my direction, eyes snapping to meet mine with a fierce and rattled expression. I have never seen her so discomposed. Her hand, contorted into a claw, clutches my face with searing strength as though I might slip away from her again at any moment.
“Your soul,” she says, her words clipped, staccato, strained—a demand, not a request. Her lips, normally set in an endearing pout, twitch into a snarl or a grimace as some unseen battle rages inside her.
Dare I ask which side is winning? Would the answer change anything? She seduced me long ago with the many pleasures of Hell, and it has been a long time indeed since I harbored the slightest doubt about our friendship. I smile into those big, lovely eyes of hers and surrender myself with a kiss.
I am drowning again. Arms flailing, I desperately swim toward the surface through frigid waters. My hand connects with something solid. I seize it, and with a surge of strength I haul myself out of the Stolen River onto dry land. With a paroxysm of coughing, I hack and wheeze and expel an alarming quantity of water, which gathers in a pool at my knees.
Not that there’s much I can do to restore my dignity, but I wipe snot and grime away from my face, sweep loose hair back toward whatever remains of my bun, and glare at the passersby content to simply gape from a distance.
“Thank you for all the offers, but I shall be quite alright without your help!” I shout, painting my words with bitterest irony.
Shaking, I rise to my feet. With a glance behind me toward the river, I catch sight of what appears to be my own face, discarded, floating away.
Right, the sorrow-spiders. A whole spider-council, even, wearing my face and determined to supplant me as myself in my own life. Astonishing. I had no inkling they could do all that, nor that they were inclined to. In truth, I had believed the beginning and end of their ambitions involved the eating of eyes—or laying eggs in them, perhaps. Both? I remain unclear about the particulars.
As I was drowning, I felt as though my entire life flashed before my eyes, or at least what memories remain of it. I conduct a thorough inventory: my childhood; Father; Aunt Margaret; my townhouse; my friends, acquaintances, and lovers; my plans to seduce the Model; my yacht; my favorite brandy… The essentials, at least, appear to be intact. I just need to make my way home, get a change of clothes, and have Lily put a kettle on.
A touch of vertigo hits me. My head feels strangely light—or is it heavy? I stumble forward—and the next moment find myself slumping inside a hansom. How did that—? I cough into my hand and find a splatter of blood in my palm. Strange. Have I been injured? The world spins, and when it steadies I am gripping the washstand of my own bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. Disheveled as I am, I cannot help but take a moment to admire my own face. Have I always been so lovely? I try to shake my head clear and avoid distraction.
Those spiders—they used irrigo to kidnap me, I vaguely recall. Not the first time I’ve encountered that haunted color, nor the most intense time either, but it’s almost certainly why the details of this entire adventure have been rather hazy. One must make allowance for such lingering effects.
Ah, I appear to have settled into my favorite chair with a hot cup and a book of Burns. Turning to the nearest mirror, I thank myself for the most excellent idea. Poetry soothes the mind, and the act of reading itself will help me track the seconds. Every slip of lost time, I backtrack to the last page I recall reading and try again. Within a few hours or so—though in truth, I cannot say with confidence what time of day it is—I manage to finish the book and retain a solid memory of having done so.
Tragically, the poems seem to lack something ineffable in this particular rereading, today. A shame. Burns usually does the trick, but it’s likely my exhaustion has sapped my ability to engage with it completely.
No sooner do I set the poetry back in its place than I hear an insistent knock at the door. Well, one must assume it is a reasonable hour to admit visitors. The alternative would be to seek out a clock, but that risks concluding that it is not a reasonable hour for visitors, and then I would be without a visitor at a time I would desperately enjoy company. Any friend at all would be most welcome at present.
I wave Lily away and proceed to greet the guest myself, who I am charmed to discover is the Steadfast Deviless, whose customary stare regards me in her quiet, unblinking way. A broad grin splits my face. Perhaps Lady Luck is watching out for me today after all.
“Come in, please do!” I sweep my arm inward in invitation and lead the way. “Today has been, well, quite hard to describe to be honest. Rather confusing in total, though with your arrival here I can attest that it must be ending well enough.”
She trails me through the house as I ramble, content as ever to let me do most of the talking. “Would you care for tea? No—you never do—but I must offer. Muscaria Brandy?” I pour the deviless a serving without waiting for a response. “One day I shall learn the trick to drinking it myself without greeting the boatman, but until then, I content myself with alternatives.” Raising my tea cup to her in a mock toast, I proceed to down what remains of it.
“I intend not to stay long,” she tells me, smoky voice as soft as silk. “Today is the day we agreed upon, and so I am obliged to return that which I have held for safekeeping.” Pushing aside the untouched glass, she sets a peculiar little box onto the table then slides it toward me.
Inside the box is a jar. Within the jar, a vibrant, familiar glow.
“Your soul.”
I stare transfixed. There is no mistaking it. I hardly remember the moment she took it from me, but something in its soothing scintillations of color reminds me powerfully, incontrovertibly, of myself and no other. It is not, however, all that the box contains. Wedged beside the jar is a collection of oddments: five tarot cards, three Justificande coins, a calendar with notes written in my own hand, and a page filled with hexagrams.
“Will you explain to me the purpose of this arrangement?” she asks. “What about today is significant to your schemes?”
I lift each of the tiny clues to the light, one by one, studying them, groping for memory. At one time I touched each and every one of these items with purpose. “Tarot,” I say to myself. “Yeekging. Cards and tiles, coins and dice. Divination and games of chance: the hand of Lady Luck on both.” I heave a sigh. “Lady Luck…”
Directing my gaze back to my befuddled co-conspirator, “Her plan. Not mine. I haven’t the faintest notion, to be honest, but… Well, too late to stop trusting her now, would you not agree?”
She waits several seconds for me to elaborate, but I have no more insight to offer. The expression on her face is inscrutable as she rises from her seat. “I have an appointment at the Brass Embassy. Do continue to cultivate your soul for me.”
I see her off before returning my curiosity to the mysterious calendar left for myself. Today is not, it would seem, the last day with a handwritten note. Next Thursday bears the name of an acquaintance, an address, and a time: 8 o’clock. An evening party. “The Model is invited too.” How refreshing to confirm that Lady Luck is not the jealous type. One may hope that this time she’ll be on my side?
With my hand resting atop the jar that contains my soul, I have to laugh at the thought. Of course she’s on my side. She loves me best of all, doesn’t she?