If Sally were still with me, she would say, “Enough exposition!”

She is not, but I will take her advice all the same. On with the story.

What I have not portrayed, which I will attempt to do now, is the ever-increasing input of my others. I rarely had a moment alone. Jo, Effie, and Mary Martha became quite vocal during this time. Perhaps it was the lack of exterior stimuli born of flight. Perhaps it was just that I now knew of their existence within my mind. Whatever the reason, their thoughts and opinions came through. Sally did what she could to keep them quiet.

The life, the activity, the vibrant nuance of the new world was supposed to baffle us, delay our rescue of Dawn. It did the opposite.

When we landed, the harbor master informed us that the ship had been quarantined due to an unknown illness and would remain at sea, at a safe distance until all crew and passengers were well. The way he said well also told me that once they died, they might also be cleared to land. After the dead were disposed of, of course.

New England was the common name of this place and it seemed fitting. Perhaps it could be my new home. Ed advised that we should wait for the men to arrive before beginning our mission. The Victorian in me knew he was right but the warrior rebelled. I did not need protection now that I wielded the weapon. No Incola could hold me for long; soon they would fall ill. After discussing with Ed, we realized that now that we were here, there was no option to wait. I needed to infect as many Carriers as possible before word of the illness spread and I became persona non grata. They would soon avoid me like the plague I brought.

I refused to cover my legs. All of my dresses and gowns were altered so that I could run while also maintaining the silhouette of the time. Corseting I kept, as it was all I knew and it bothered me not. But my legs needed to be free to run. In my time in the skyship, running became my daydream of choice and now that we were on land again, I found I could not live without it.

And so I abandoned decency in exchange for freedom. Jo was all for it. Indeed she adopted a similar fashion in our mind’s field. Effie thought I should do as I thought best but was less than comfortable with exposed legs. Well, you may be able to guess Mary Martha’s reaction. The look was unbecoming for a mother, in her eyes. Quite scandalous was the opinion that continued to penetrate our thoughts.

A modest but suitable home was located and rented near the edge of a massive island of green in the middle of New York City named Central Park. Jo and I found this park to be a lovely place to run. On my first evening in my home, I ignored Ed’s misgivings and set off by myself to explore the Sheep Meadow, the largest open area of Central Park.

As usual, Ed was proven correct when a group of young men attempted to detain me in a wooded area just off the meadow. They mistook my exposed, though stocking covered, legs as an advertisement that what lay between them was for sale. When they would not let me pass unmolested, I was gentle in beating them. They were, after all, mere men and nowhere near my level of strength. Careful to leave them unable to follow but not permanently damaged, I turned to go.

One of the men shouted after me using a word I care not to repeat. I sighed, my shoulders slouching a bit. Were men as hopeless as this? Beaten and still defiant? No, I decided. The others had learned a lesson but this one needed tutoring. He did not cower when I turned back and his spittle, laced with blood from the broken nose I’d given him, stained my dress as he hurled insults.

Gripping his jaw in my right hand, I held him still as I taught. I spoke slowly, as his reduced intelligence called for. Then he screamed as I squeezed until I felt his mandible crack. He fell silent, unconscious from the pain, and I continued my run.

Passing a herd of sheep, I decided to take a detour across the actual meadow. It was ever so freeing to run in an open space like that. On exiting the meadow area, I passed the Ladies Refreshment Salon and considered stopping in for a gin and tonic but decided against it as it was getting late.

Cutting between the people on the sidewalk, I ran right up the stairs, through the door and into the foyer. The butler, who’d been rented along with the house, waited there, looking flushed. I interrupted, “I know and I apologize for being late. Allow me to freshen up and I will be right down for dinner.”

He explained, “My lady, this house is yours and I serve dinner when you say it is time. It is only that we have received ever so many unannounced guests since your departure.”

As if to punctuate his statement, the doorbell rang. The butler waited to answer it until I’d dismissed him. He brought back an envelope. Inside was a handwritten card where expert golden calligraphy requested my presence for dinner the following night.

“An invitation.” I chuckled. One so soon after my arrival in this country meant Incola knew of my location. “Are they all petitions for my attendance?” I asked.

The butler’s puffed cheeks and raised eyebrows told me what he thought even before his words. “I am certain I do not know what they contain.” He pointed to a small stack of envelopes in the coffer on the entry table. “I would never presume to read an employer’s correspondence.”

I immediately apologized for any implied insult to his manners or work ethic and warned him that I often spoke without thinking, sometimes aloud but to myself. “Please have dinner ready in one hour. I will be down by then.” I grabbed the other letters and started upstairs. “Oh, and please send a gin and tonic up to my room first.” Passing Ed on the stairs, I fanned the letters out and showed him, stating, “It has begun!”

 

I responded to all invitations received in a positive fashion. I was indeed available to meet or dine or dance with them. Playing the ever-pliable widow, I attended every gathering, however large or small. Being sure to cozy up to the highest ranking Incola available, I ensured that every major family became infected with what I came to think of by the name of pestis. Paetus called me Lady Pestis and the name made sense to me. Much like Typhoid Mary, I should be known not for who I was but for what I spread.

Dances and dinners could be described, but what would be the point? All the New York Incola families were neutralized by my tactics.

 

A series of bank failures made it possible for me to purchase one quarter of the US railroads. All routes in thirteen states were ours mere days after arriving in the new world. That was over ten thousand miles of rail line.

Ed thought we ought to wait for the men to move on to wilder parts of the new nation. I detest waiting and Sally could not bear it. We took the rail to the end of the line. Then I bought the next line. We stopped in each major city along the Eastern coastal states and then the Southern ones. At each we stopped long enough to call upon each of the Incola families we could find. To each I said the same as I had in New York to ensure they all came together, exposing the whole of Carrier society.

After a few weeks we found ourselves in New Orleans, Louisiana. Now that was an interesting city. The influx of boat and train meant that it was truly a melting pot of tradition and yet a birthplace of something entirely American. I found I had much more in common with the freed black man than the poor racist whites.

In the daylight hours, Ed, the others, and I followed leads and attempted to locate my daughter without riding Dawn while we waited on the men. Without the mews, which the men would bring when they came, it just wasn’t safe. Not for me and certainly not for anyone nearby when I attempted to control my murderous urges that always seem brought on by the loss of Sally. The men had been cleared to land in New York a fortnight after we left there. I halted all trains save theirs and cleared a path for them to travel directly, or as near a direct route as I could finagle together. Stops would only be made for refueling and restocking.

I have never been much of a music fan but I fell in love with the dancing that accompanied the new music. Our rented home seemed the center of vivacious life. In the evening, I danced on the street corner to a musician who called the location his own. I gained a small following, many calling me indecent as my stockinged legs sauntered, exposed to the world.

Surprisingly, no Incola families had taken hold in this glorious city filled with life. I considered making it my home after finding Dawn. Ed reminded me that as Europe and Asia lay more than the illness’s incubation period, I could not settle here until the whole world was infected. I acquiesced and put a pin in the conversation. We all knew I would do exactly as I wished when the time came.

I met Robbie, a Negro who, though he knew nothing of my daughter, gave me a short list of men to speak to, white men that would have paid careful attention to a mixed-race man escorting a white teenaged female. Robbie was a quiet yet intense man who supported black emigration back to Africa. He read a lot and collected weapons. I saw myself in him. We spent our nights on the porch drinking iced tea, both of which were new experiences for me. In England tea was served warm in the afternoon with a variety of sweets, biscuits, and pastries. Here, tea steeped early so that it might be chilled prior to serving, sweetened over ice.

Summer descended on New Orleans and I was grateful for the tradition of iced instead of hot tea of the area. The days grew unbearably warm and the nights, though cooler, remained muggy. The cobblestone streets steamed. It didn’t seem ominous like the London fog but was filled with life. Everything in that place grew and thrived and I got the sincere feeling that the wild would take over the city if men were to disappear suddenly.

I discovered another favorite drink during this time. Gin was already my preferred spirit so when Robbie suggested I try a New Orleans fizz, I jumped at the chance. The sweetened citrus combined with egg white, cream, and soda was perfect though I missed the gin of my homeland. I doubted any distiller could best the one I’d hired to work at the taproom of my previous butler, Darville.

Robbie and I sat on the porch of my rented house drinking fizz one night discussing, as we were oft wont to do, freedom and equality. Though his people had been free for more than three decades, many still felt the weight of ghost chains. The sting of knowing they would never find and hold their loved ones who were sold and traded again was every bit as sharp as the whip. His narrative concerning freed black men mirrored that of my newly freed Carriers. What was their purpose and place in this world? Should they remain where their slave-owners brought them or should they return to their homeland?

To say I was bad at love was an understatement. Two out of two of my husbands had died by my own hand. I wanted the man before me. Even though I was a, maybe the, black widow, it never occurred that Robbie might die as a result of my preference.

I stood to juba, a dance he taught me previously, to a particularly intoxicating tresillo rhythm being played across the street. Then, suddenly I lost control of my left side. Luckily it locked rather than languished and I managed to stay upright. Robbie jumped up and came to me out of concern. All I could do was watch as my ungloved left hand rose and rested itself on his cheek.

His eyes widened. This was our first physical contact. His pupils dilated. My gift of touch.

Palming the back of my neck, his quiet intensity grew and his next bold move shocked. He kissed me.

A black man kissed a white woman.

In public.

For a few seconds I didn’t care of the scandal. I returned his kiss and the further flesh on flesh contact escalated the situation. His aggression increased; I felt the disingenuousness of it as my gift of touch took hold. I wanted Robbie but not because he couldn’t resist an otherworldly power I had. I wanted him to want me but in that moment I knew it would never be. I would never know if any other than Leon desired me naturally. Leon’s own gift of touch negated mine and I knew the times we were together were genuine.

Attempting to extricate myself from Robbie’s embrace, I failed. My left side simply would not comply. I successfully used my right to push his torso away from mine, breaking our kiss. “Don’t touch me,” I said, hoping he would pull from me. Instead, he gripped my waist. “No,” I shouted. “Don’t touch me!”

Robbie was torn from my grasp at that. He fell in a jumbled pile with one of the men who gathered there to listen to Robbie’s ideas. That man might actually have actually saved Robbie’s life by attacking him, if not for what happened next.

Hobbled as I was with one arm completely unresponsive to my wishes, in the time it took me to locate my gloves made from Julian’s calming skin, Robbie grew enraged. He rolled on the porch with the other man, knocking over chairs and the small table with our drinks on it. The glasses shattered in a brilliant burst of sound and shards. Getting the upper hand, Robbie pummeled the man below him.

Regulating my inhuman strength as best I could, I pulled Robbie from the now unconscious opponent. He evaded my attempt to soothe him using my deceased husband’s gift of touch, ranting about inequality being so great that nothing short of revolution would end it. The crowd that had gathered began to look a bit like a mob.

Police arrived and the situation escalated. They attempted to arrest Robbie and he pulled out his Colt Dragoon revolver. I know its model name because he had shown it and a number of other weapons to me. From where on his body he pulled it, I do not know, as men of color were not permitted to carry weapons. Robbie, not of sound mind, drunk on my touch, stepped forward, straightened his right arm and fired just as the first police stepped up onto the porch. The round hit the lawman in the chest but I only saw that a few seconds later as the massive black powder cloud obscured everything in front of Robbie.

The crowd scattered. Two police fell to the ground. The second had been a step down behind the first. The .44 round traveled through the leader’s chest and then through the follower’s neck. The first was dead but the second gurgled as blood flowed down his throat.

Robbie stood staring at the men and then at his own hand. He couldn’t believe what he’d done. “Run,” I told him. “Take your guns and get as far as you can.”

One of the men who was always with him, shook him by the shoulders. “She’s right. You’ll be lynched if you stay,” he said as I went down to the drowning man.

I soothed the man’s brow using my right gloved hand. I could not prevent his passing but I could ease it. My left arm hung, limp at my side. It had feeling but did not respond to my commands. I caused this. These men’s deaths were on me. Looking at Robbie, I knew his life was over as well. He was no longer safe in the city he called home.

I felt a familiar twinge in my heart and then darkness. I fell to the place where I was safe from pain when Sally took over. Only this time, I wasn’t alone.

 

How dare she intrude here! This place was my gift from Sally. We resided in my mind. I shoved at the other.

We fell up through the darkness, past the soil and then grass of the meadow. Only then did I see that my hands gripped the neck of Effie. I do not know who I expected but it was not her. I released the inquisitive blossoming young me immediately, apologizing.

Mary Martha pounced. “How did you do that?” she demanded. “You have to tell me! How did you get out?”

Effie stammered, unable to communicate what happened. Mary Martha raised a hand to hit her.

“No,” was all I said but that single word halted Mary Martha mid-strike. A mere thought by me and she found herself unable to speak as well. When Jo floated over, I sat all four of us at a table of my conjuring.

Jo asked, “What was it like, outside?”

“Strange,” Effie replied. “I could see but I had no control over anything. I desired the man I saw and I wanted to touch him. Then I watched as my arm reached out and touched his cheek. I felt him. Like nothing I’d felt in this place was solid. Like this life is a dream and his skin woke me.”

So it had been Effie moving my arm, whether she knew it or not. Clearly she had no idea what brought her to the surface. The experience of sharing my body was new to me. Yes, I shared it with Sally but never at the same time. She and I switched places, sharing our body as children with a toy taking turns, not playing with it together. We advanced, clearing milestones.

The horizon shifted and Sally came down from the sky and landed in a seat at the table. All four of us fired questions at her. With a wave of her hand, the others flew away in different directions, still bound to their chairs, but well out of earshot.

“How did this happen?” I asked my Sally. “I thought you kept them here.”

As soon as I said it, I regretted my words. Sally had controlled and contained these others their whole lives. I had lived in a dream world, free from the knowledge of them and the responsibility of their keeping. Yet another gift Sally provided.

“We were here. And then the mountains opened and hooked Effie, dragging her out. I knew she was up top, at the helm, but then you did not return. You were still with her. I didn’t know how it was possible.” She stopped a moment to think. “I was only able to displace you both when I felt it. Pain.”

I remember what she said to me when first I became aware of her consciousness. Hurt is where I live. Sally knew what she was, where she existed, long before I knew of her at all. I am still discovering what I am, still unsure where I belong. The great injustice of her life is that she is most real, most alive, in my pain.

Neither denying nor agreeing with my assessment, Sally said, “That is the only time I can take control.”

I shook my head no. That wasn’t completely true. Sally took over whenever I felt pain, yes, but she also stepped in whenever I needed her. Had I needed Effie? Had I needed her for some reason and unknowingly brought her to the surface? She said she had desired the man before her but it had been I who wanted Robbie. Had I brought her forward to do what I could not? Whatever had happened I knew the blame lay at my feet, not Effie’s.

I knew Sally heard my thoughts or at least felt my emotions. I stopped her before she could placate me. I grew exhausted of discovering I was the monster in each horror. Without ascending completely, I sent my senses out. My inner ear told me we were moving. Sally had put us in a carriage, perhaps, considering the curtained darkness, confined space, and clip-clop of shod horse feet.

As always she answered my unspoken questions. “Our Carriers arrived shortly after Robbie escaped. They,” she paused a split second, “took care of the situation.”

I saw in a flash of her memory that more police appeared after the first two died and, as I literally had blood on my hands, they believed I was the killer. Andrew and Auley arrived as uniformed men attempted to arrest me. Sally operated on automatic, preventing the men from doing their duty, struggling to extricate ourself without killing any of the delicate humans. She couldn’t allow us to be taken into custody; Dawn had to be found. My Carriers removed me from their hands. I would never be welcome in the great city of New Orleans again after the carnage.