The Herald appears to have missed the irony that it has included in its paper today. On the page opposite the text I have included is another hasty sketch of an infernal-looking Denbury, with an upside-down pentagram, which I learned from Mrs. Northe is oft used as a Satanist symbol, though right-side up the pentagram is a symbol of luck and prosperity and remains a fine talisman.
The irony occurs to me in regards to the symbol and the place. A five-pointed star. The Five Points.
The Devil is full of homage.
But here is his damage, from the New York Herald:
June 18, 1880
Five Points Demon Slays Again
The reign of terror continues. The tortured body of Laura May was found in a squalid room at 13 Orange Street late last night, her head at an odd angle and burn marks all over her body. It’s said the method of the burns has not been determined. And once again, witnesses tell of seeing a well-dressed gentleman before the attack.
Though police have extensively questioned area residents, officers have no leads on any suspect and will not confirm whether they believe this is the same killer who struck at Cross Street. It seems the Five Points is the very Devil’s playground, and he abuses his own home with impunity. Perhaps we can hope that the district may simply cannibalize itself and thus eat its way out of existence and the city will breathe a sigh of relief.
The opinions at the end anger me. The Five Points and the people living there aren’t to blame for this; they could have hardly asked for such terrors to be theirs. I recall my father’s friends speaking out on the behalf of the ward—that people there needed to be taken seriously, not treated with derision. My heart goes out to Laura and all those who live in such fear as to be silent, their lives bought and sold for a price.
But really, if newspapers are only going to mock rather than seek justice, why talk to a reporter at all and try to fight for the truth? Poor Laura. Saint Laura. Would that I had known her and could have saved her, as I hoped I’d been sent to save Cecilia…but in turn, her life was traded for another.
“Saint Laura.”
You see, I put her homage in quotes because I’m forcing myself to say things. I can whisper in this world better than I can speak. Last night I went to sleep murmuring the dread phrase over and over again, the Latin, the spell, hoping a ghost of a voice will be voice enough when it comes time to use it.
I am shocked I did not dream last night. But then again, the mind is not always predictable. Still, I would have liked to be warned of Laura. Or would I? It isn’t like I could have found her. Being wrapped up in this madness has given me such a sense of responsibility for what occurs.
What if we can’t determine the last piece of the word puzzle?
I pray it’s a small enough omission that will not render the entire magic useless.
Any spare moment that I’m not watched, I practice the alphabet quietly and aloud. As if I were a child learning a skill I’d long since sworn off. And while my speech hardly sounds as effortless as my words did when I was within the portrait, I think about things that are just and good. I think of angels. I pray. I muse on Mother. I think about Jonathon, and my heart swells. At this, speaking comes easier.
I knew I had to go to him during the day, and thankfully Father said he’d be in meetings but if I wanted to come and sketch, I was welcome to it. And so I did, making one sketch in case Father asked what I’d done, and then I made my way to where I was needed most.
Later, at my home
(Ignoring dinner again–oh, but how could I eat? My stomach is all in knots.)
I gritted my teeth on seeing the painting. It was like a punch to my stomach. Jonathon looked gray and sunken, with nearly all the gorgeous vitality sucked out of him. Another scar, this time upon the opposite cheek. Not only would more innocents die if we could not reverse this curse, but Jonathon would wither away into nothingness. I’d give anything to see his perfection once more.
I stood before him for a moment, took a deep breath, and then stepped through.
“Oh, Natalie, you’re safe,” he said as I fell into his arms. “When we didn’t meet in dreams—I didn’t know…” He stroked my hair and clutched me tighter, his relief making him bold. And I let him. In fact, I clutched him in turn. I held him to me. He moaned in pleasure, a delicious sound.
“But you were there with me. I felt your hand on my shoulder. My angel.”
“Did you?” He lit with pride. “I wanted to be with you so much.”
Then he drew away, racked by a violent cough. He was a ghost of himself, pale and sickly. The cuff of his sleeve was bloody—likely the carved wounds on his arm had been reopened during the murder. I moved to caress his cheek, and as I did, a crease on his face eased again into the smooth picture of youth I so admired. I had an effect upon him, and it was for the better.
“Do I look as terrible as I feel?” he asked with a worried laugh.
“Yes,” I replied. It was the truth. I had no kerchief, but I ripped at the lace of my sleeve to dab at his wound. We both winced. I led Jonathon to the window. Even if it was false sunlight, we would let it warm us as it would.
“What happened? All I saw out there were swirling madness, smoke, and laughter, a mad jumble. I heard more screams…”
“Do you want to know? I warn you it isn’t pleasant.”
He nodded, wincing again, not from pain, but in bracing himself for the news.
“It was the same as the first. He did strike. I managed to save a Cecilia, but he found another unfortunate woman.”
Denbury turned away, seething, his fists clenched. “Take that beast down! If it means killing me, so be it! Kill my body, then. I can’t let this—”
I grabbed him and turned him to face me. “No! It doesn’t have to come to that. We have information now! Mrs. Northe and I believe we have figured out the structure of the counter-curse. We hope. Save for the one word that doesn’t quite translate. But we hope that one word won’t render the whole phrase useless. We have a plan.”
His pained expression filled with anxious hope.
I spoke evenly and described the mission. “The phrase he used on you will be used against him by someone he would not expect, someone ‘accidentally’ in his path, someone he would see as an easy target, an offering from the gods, as it were.”
Jonathon’s eyes widened as he watched my face. I was sure to keep it defiant and proud to hide my fear. “You?” he breathed.
When I nodded, his face clouded. “It’s too dangerous. There has to be some other way.”
I spoke to reassure him, more confident than I felt. I had to be strong for him. “I can speak here with you. Somehow you gave me that gift. I must believe that I can speak beyond this place. But not until I’ve made him believe otherwise. I need you to answer me something—”
“Natalie, it’s insane for you to be in his presence—”
“If we delay, more girls will die and there will be nothing left of you to save!” He opened his mouth to protest, but I continued. “I will need your help—”
“Anything, tell me.”
I gestured for him to sit at his desk, and I perched on the side.
“I need you to recall exactly what was said to banish you here. As it stands, the spell is incomplete. When the beast struck you with that phrase, did he attach a name to it? This creature is driven by names. The power of the name is the oldest magic of all. He’s collecting something he’s attached meaning to, targeting victims with the names of saints.”
Jonathon clenched his fists. “That’s why he liked to call me John, all that forty martyrs of England nonsense! There was something else. After the Latin phrase he added, ‘John the Doctor,’ but my mind was fixed upon what I thought were ‘soul’ and ‘door.’”
“You see, this is a door,” I explained, gesturing to the window portal that was the picture frame by which I’d come and gone. “A door he created to separate your soul from your body. Mrs. Northe had the good sense to pry beneath the nameplate outside on your frame. Below the nameplate was written the word ‘ba.’”
I snatched a pen whose slender length struggled against me, this physical world wanting to rebel, and wrote the word upon the blotter.
“Ba?”
“It’s Egyptian. Mrs. Northe sorted it out. Otherwise I’d have been lost. That pendant of yours is an Egyptian cartouche. The pendant names you as a vessel. The ancient Egyptians believed there were seven parts of the soul, all of them small words like ‘ka’ and ‘ab’—each has a different name. “Ba” is the part of the soul that flies in and out of the tomb, sometimes as a bird—”
Something struck Jonathon. “Small words, you say? What are the others called?”
I thought about Mrs. Northe’s note where she wrote them all out. I had been so intrigued by the words that they had lingered in my mind, but I didn’t recall them precisely. “They’re all brief, one-syllable words, like those I mentioned—”
“Ren? Is one of them ‘ren’? If the devil entwines his spells among so many traditions, perhaps the part that confused me, the Latin animusren is actually ‘soul,’ animus, and ren as separate words—”
“Yes!” I cried. “Yes, ren is one of them—that must be it! I wonder which of the seven soul parts that refers to. Mrs. Northe will know. Oh, Jonathon, you’re a genius. That’s it!”
He flushed. “You’re the genius here.”
But it was like he was a whole new man, having empowered himself with knowledge, with deduction. He’d seized the bars of his prison and rattled the cage. He looked almost entirely himself again. I couldn’t stop smiling.
“What a team we’ve made, you and me and Mrs. Northe!” I exclaimed, and he grinned with me. “Mrs. Northe will help us make sure every word will have power we can use! And ‘Doctor’—that’s yet another piece. Naming as power is starting to make sense.”
“How so?”
“He called you ‘Doctor’ because it’s what defines you. It is something important to your soul, your essence, your conscience, and that’s what he banished here. He needed to separate you, your higher being, from raw materials.”
Jonathon took in a sharp breath as if he’d seen something wonderful, but he was looking around me, not at me.
“What?” I asked warily.
He took me by the arms, leading me into the center of the room where things seemed most sharply in focus.
“Colors, Natalie, when you speak of the counter-curse! A flurry of green and purple light, like a garden full of life. Freedom. If the red, sulfuric fires of Hell crackle around the demon as he speaks, and the opposite happens when you talk of curses, it must mean you’re right, and the magic is telling me so.”
This gave us both immeasurable hope. We could feel it as if it were a humming vibration in the air. Our hands reached for one another. But there was still one missing piece in the way. With so many little pieces to keep track of…my head spun as they danced just behind my eyes.
“But what name do I reverse upon him?” I said, turning to pace around him, thinking. “He deliberately left it out…”
The words “left” and “out” clicked for me, and my eyes widened. I stopped in my tracks. “Oh!”
The final piece.
“The poem!” I cried, turning to him. “The fiend wrote a poem, carved in runes, on the back of your portrait frame! A poem by Baudelaire—”
“I hate Baudelaire.”
“All the better for your captor,” I muttered. “The poem is ‘The Possessed’—fitting, don’t you think? And as it was carved, a word was deliberately left out. A word that in the original French is ‘Belzébuth—’”
“Well, Beelzebub! The Devil. If he had a name, he’d aspire to call himself Beelzebub!”
“Yes! Surely, in homage. That creature would like to think he is Beelzebub the Devil, though I wouldn’t give him as much credit as all that—”
“I agree,” Jonathon said, nodding. “The Devil can’t only be one entity. Too many terrible things happen in separate places.” He shuddered suddenly. “The beast has frequently mentioned a society, a new day and new world order, that the likes of him have already taken hold. I’d hate to think the Devil has an institution.”
“Indeed, but that is a problem for another day. First, we need to reverse your spell.”
“Now that we have the whole of it, it actually seems possible by evoking those Latin and Egyptian words and then naming him in turn.” A great weight was lifting from Jonathon’s shoulders. He would not waste away here, trapped in a canvas. “And look, I see your light again, telling me we’re correct! The mystery solved!” He picked me up and swung me around. “You are absolutely, unequivocally, incredibly brilliant, my beautiful, exquisite Miss Stewart!” he cried, and lowered me again.
In that moment, time slowed. The way his head was tilted, and mine…and then his lips met mine.
How can I begin to describe…explain…rhapsodize about this single most glorious moment of all my life? I am not being overdramatic. For once.
He tasted of a hint of bergamot, residue of his favorite Earl Grey tea upon his lips. This scent would compel me, surely, for the rest of my days. His lips, soft and full, gently shifted to cover mine, to leave no part of my mouth untouched. He was reverent and gentle, and the press of his lips was followed by the press of his hands, slowly closing over my shoulders and anchoring me to him. He tasted my tongue with his, and his fingertips danced across my collarbone, shifting the lace ruffles of my dress as his hands quested, perhaps still hoping for confirmation that I was real.
We breathed and gasped in unison. My body trembled in his hold, and I didn’t bother to hide it. I didn’t want to deny how much he affected me. I wanted him to know and to rejoice in his power over me. We sank to the ground, our kiss deepening and then migrating to travel over cheeks and brows, all with soft cries of wondrous abandon. I’d always dreamed of finding such passion as I’d read about in books. He breathed against my neck, kissing it gently, trailing his tongue along my earlobe, and whispering, “There is magic in your kiss indeed, Natalie Stewart.”
“Jonathon…” I breathed, blushing and tucking my face against his neck. I’d had no other kiss to compare to, and I couldn’t guess the level of his experience, but nothing was more amazing in all the world and nothing else mattered in that moment.
It was magical indeed, but…perhaps not magical enough. “If this were a true fairy tale, my kiss would release you from this prison.”
He shifted, cupping my cheeks in his hands, his eyes holding the power to stop my heart, to cleave my heart, or to make it race. “But if I can’t have you, this…” He brushed his lips over mine. “Then I don’t ever want to leave.”
I drew back, his words striking a chord. “That’s a dangerous thing to say. The demon would wish you to say so. You’ll leave this prison,” I insisted. “We have the counter-curse, and I will free you. We cannot live like this—”
He sat back, his brow furrowing. “Of course…I…”
I grasped his hands, desperately trying to maintain focus. The pleasure I felt destroyed my sense of time. I was moved to confess: “I was lost to you the moment I saw your portrait.” I touched his lips with my fingertips. “And now…I cannot imagine not having you with me. But this place has its dangers, and we’re so close to freedom. Mrs. Northe demanded I tend your spirit.
“Speak of something other than death and spell casting, Jonathon. We need ironclad souls for what’s to come. You’ve seen what’s in my nightmares. Give me something else to dream of. Tell me of England, reclaim life beyond this prison.” I moved toward the bookshelf, to that place hidden from the frame’s view.
“Where are you going?” He called from the center of the room. “Stay, sit with me.” His murmur was like a purr. “I can think of many more pleasant things than talking.”
“From here, I can’t be seen. It’s safer, should someone notice the painting changed.” I took a seat against the shelf and gazed up at him. He maintained his position but shifted so that he could see me. “Stay there and tell me of England. I’ve always wanted to visit!”
“Only if you’ll tell me all about your great city that awaits us beyond this frame,” he countered, offering a look that thrilled me head to toe. “So we two may dream of it.”
“Of course!”
Jonathon spoke of his country estate in Greenwich (the pale imitation of which we were currently inhabiting). I told him of Greenwich Village downtown and what I found lovely there. We compared the bustling streets of London to those of New York, what new inventions were where, how many of our streets were lit by gas lamp and how much of the riversides were industrialized. I regaled him with the glory of Central Park and he did the same about Regents and the gardens in Chelsea. I confessed how many New York neighborhoods had borrowed British names, and he joked that Americans were child imitators.
We laughed and shared, dreaming up schemes and planning a future together. It was thrilling. A world existed outside this peculiar circumstance, and the more we talked about it, the more real it became. It was only a matter of time. Warmth fought his devilish contagion; every laugh and joke brightened him; and he complemented my wit at every turn, his just as sharp and engaging. Our limited world was aglow with appreciation.
And all I wanted to do was kiss him more. Of the same mind, he moved to stand over me.
“You say you can’t be seen here?” he asked, his voice low.
I looked up. “No.”
And suddenly he dove upon me with a flurry of action, kneeling over me, scooping me up to himself with a rain of kisses, and seizing caresses roving across my body. I gasped, arching myself to him and acquiescing to his exploratory touches, unable to help myself. The sensations were heaven.
“If it’s our spirits here, Natalie, beyond our coil,” he gasped, “what could be more glorious than the coupling of two spirits? The joining of our hearts and souls by the spirit of our bodies—”
“Coupling? Do you mean—”
“I want you so terribly,” he said, shifting to look at me, his eyes wide and his hands trembling on the buttons of my blouse. “It’s all I can think of.” He breathed me in deeply, dragging his nose and lips up my cheek. “You’re the only thing that’s real in this hell.” He’d managed to undo a few buttons of my high-collared blouse, and his lips were instantly at my throat as he moaned, “Good God, you’ve given me my senses again. I’m starving to feel alive…”
He tore at my blouse, and I couldn’t say that seductive abandon wasn’t appealing. I could still claim chastity. These weren’t actually our bodies, though we felt every sensation as fully as if they were; these were our souls. How beautiful was that? Here the laws of propriety were only as we made them. But still…I felt flush with furious desire, but my mind reeled with apprehension. “Lord Denbury, I don’t wish to deny you, but…is this truly the place for such liberties to be taken?”
“Jonathon,” he insisted. “You must call me Jonathon, and I’d never ask more of you than you wanted to give, Natalie.” He cupped my cheek in his hand. The apprehension on my face stilled him as if it were a slap or a douse of cold water. He drew back. “I am too bold, surely—”
“It isn’t that,” I breathed, touching his cheeks gently and knowing mine were similarly hot. “I want to be everything you need…But not like this, under mad circumstances.” I struggled to regain my sense, my focus, my power; the dangerous mission that was mine alone lay yet ahead of me. I straightened myself against the bookshelf and tended to my buttons.
The truth was that I hesitated because he hadn’t yet said he loved me.
And a girl could give herself only in love. Mutual love. Otherwise she’d ruin herself for nothing. A girl’s body was a prize. It had to be more than asked for. It had to be earned, worshipped, and avowed. Generally, rings and other oaths were a part of the bargain. Supernatural circumstances being what they were and with my life potentially on the line, I certainly felt I deserved a vow. A ring would be nice too.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, discomfort overtaking him. He jumped up. “I must seem the animal. Surely you’ve seen too much of that. Perhaps you think me too much like my other half.”
“No, you mustn’t think that,” I scolded, straightening my dress as I moved away from our private corner. “There’s been so much upheaval in my life in so short a time…I just can’t give everything so soon—”
I noticed movement across the frame, signaling our time was at an end.
I rose and moved toward the image of my body beyond, turning to offer him this: “Before I met you within this portal, your other half accosted me at the Art Association. While I admit he was too bold, he did say one thing that’s true: that we’d be beautiful together.”
I didn’t wait for his response. Tumbling back into my body, I startled a poor maid who must have begun to think I was an uncanny statue added to the exhibit room.
“Are you all right, miss?” the matronly woman said, steadying my dizzy form while I was reeling to regain my balance from the cross between worlds I alone could feel.
I nodded, blushing, and moved to pick up the pad of paper I’d left on the wooden bench at the side wall. She continued her cursory cleaning, looking at me warily as I sat to sketch as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Alternately she’d turn to gaze at the painting. Jonathon’s magnetism affected everyone, it was true. He didn’t look nearly as bad as when I’d found him. He looked refreshed, even vibrant now, and the fact gave me strength and courage.
As did his kisses.
Nothing could ever take away that exquisite bliss. I keep reliving it.
• • •
We dined early that night at Mrs. Northe’s home. She’d had the good sense to invite a man with whom to entertain Father, a British colonel who had more stories from around the globe than Scheherazade had in her Arabian nights. Plenty to keep my father entertained, and Mrs. Northe and I, as usual, took to our tea while Father and the colonel took to the den.
I asked about Maggie, and Mrs. Northe said her niece had been pouting lately so she simply didn’t have the patience to extend an invitation. I pledged that once this madness was settled I’d make great efforts to regain our friendship.
Mrs. Northe then relayed that at some point in the morning, guards had called on a local mental alienist to “assist”—or rather, escort—Crenfall out of the Metropolitan, where the man had been distressing others as he shambled along—limping, she was proud to note, proving he’d been in her home the night of the break-in to receive her bullet.
He was seen muttering to himself from one wing of the museum to the other. He’s currently being examined at a local institution. I doubt he’ll be released. I wonder. If we are successful, will the dark hold over that wretch cease, or will his last shred of sanity snap? What lured him to such a fate in the first place? Will we ever know?
But no more distractions. The exciting thing (aside from kisses), the important thing was that we had the answers!
To share my discovery, I again tried speaking in halting words. My face burned at the discomfort of it, but I fought for each syllable. Mrs. Northe signed to me that it was all right, that I didn’t have to tax my voice if I didn’t want to. Frustrated tears rolled down my face. I did want to speak. But I still hated how I sounded and wondered when that burden of shame would go away. There were many more inelegant pauses in my speech at the time than I’ve written here.
“I…need to practice,” I said aloud. That simple phrase seemed to take ages to utter. My mind was a thousand times faster than my tongue. It was unbearable. But while I may lure the possessor with my disability, I would not trap him unless I overcame it and spat back at him the evil he’d dealt.
“Of course, dear, and I’m honored that you do so around me.”
I reminded myself that magic was flowing through my veins, magic that allowed me alone to share in Jonathon’s secret prison. Perhaps it was not magic but a miracle that allowed me to help restore him. Faith. I just needed to have faith, something that had been serving me well of late.
I told her of the spell phrase, animus ren, of how they must be separate words, Latin to Egyptian, and she jumped up to consult her book. Her eyes widened.
“Soul Name. Ren is the Soul Name. How fitting, of course! Good work, Lord Denbury! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I’m glad Jonathon did. It was like he was a whole new person. Here we have been trying to solve a mystery for a man. Men seem to like to figure things out for themselves.”
Mrs. Northe laughed. “You are frightfully insightful, Natalie. Oh, and he’s Jonathon now?”
I blushed. I went on to tell her about how the demon had called Denbury “John” and how surely the title “Beelzebub” would fit the bill for the counter-curse.
“Oh, Natalie, that’s it!” she cried. “Of course. Answers are always in the space between. Well done, you two!” Then her tone became more serious. “And now, Natalie, it will be up to you to deliver the final strike.”
I nodded gravely, accepting the task. Accepting my fate. And then we began to formulate our plan.
I’ll detail the plan of course, but for now I need to set these pages aside.
I’d like to sit and take a cup of tea with Father. I’ve neglected him of late, amid this obsession. And if something should happen…I want him to feel loved and appreciated, for nothing would have been possible without him. My life has meaning because he allowed me to be who I am. I’ve lived in safety because he did not cast me off. I owe him time and affection before I go and put myself in danger. I shall write “I love you” upon a little note card and hand it to him before I leave him. There could be no better parting words.