The thought of burning my baby boy was too horrible to bear. He looked so peaceful laying in the half-sized coffin that I could not do it. Though I knew the consequences of not destroying his body, Ambrose, complete and uncut, dressed in his best, was laid to rest in consecrated ground near where my parents were buried.

I had never once visited their graves. Those hateful, perverted child molesters didn’t deserve to be mourned or known, so I had hired a mason to chisel out every bit of information on their stones. I would be free to visit my son’s plot without having to endure even the sight of their names.

Two days after his funeral, we went to see the completed headstone. We stepped out of the carriage and the fog washed over us. Thick, white fog amplified the daylight. Normally no sane person would venture out in a fog this bad, but I needed to see my baby’s marker and, since the air smelled sweet and it wasn’t the dreaded deadly yellow color, I took the chance. Neither I nor my household could die of disease or smog anyway.

Our family, rich and important, owned a fenced section of the cemetery, far from the noise and filth of the city. The summer heat was oppressive already, made nigh on unbearable by our mourning blacks. Dawn walked beside me, her back straight in her children’s stays, her head held high. Her face lacked any sign of remorse for what she’d done. Paetus walked behind her, a silent, approving shadow.

Extraordinary contraptions, meant to keep the dead in the ground, littered the graveyard. Each one emerged from the blinding fog as we approached and then disappeared behind us. This hysteria probably resulted from our poor medical understanding. The line between alive and dead blurred because they didn’t understand the body as a machine nor what made it tick. We didn’t embalm and only rarely performed autopsies. It was not uncommon for living people to be buried. Scratch marks discovered on the insides of their caskets gave rise to belief in the undead. Victorians were very superstitious, terrified their loved ones would rise from the dead and wreak havoc on the living. Such horrors did indeed exist for my kind, but most people had nothing to fear. Their deceased would remain so.

What happened with Ambrose was worse than even those irrational humans could have imagined.

I cannot portray the level of hope that filled me to hear the ringing of the tiny bell that the mortician had insisted be installed, its string threaded through a pipe and fed into an opening in my son’s casket. Don’t, Ramillia. Ambrose is dead. The thing ringing the bell is not him, Sally pleaded. Worse than hope was the despair that occupied the vacuum left by that momentary prospect. Moans and scrabbling sounds coming from inside enhanced the dread. I silently berated myself for not burning the body.

When the first shovel hit wood, the men scrambled out of the grave. One stood on the lid until the last moment, keeping it shut with his weight. Several men grabbed his arms and yanked him out in one swift motion. I held my breath as the coffin opened. I know not why, for there was no doubt that my Ambrose was deceased. The body that tried to climb from the hole was dead, of that much I am sure. The reanimated corpse was rotting, stinking, putrid. It hungered, but for what I doubt even it knew.

The thing that had been my son in life stared at us with clouded eyes. It reached for us with ruined hands, bloodied by its fight to escape the grave. Bone protruded from the end where flesh hung. Even so, I still longed to scoop him up, cuddle him as I had been prevented from doing in life. After all, it did have Ambrose’s face. I made a minor movement, a lifting of my own arms toward him, before Sally could stop me. His attention caught, he locked onto me as the source of what he hungered for, and his efforts to escape the dirt hole renewed in a frenzy. Frustrated sounds poured from him in a continuous stream, only interrupted by the snapping of his teeth.

I will never wipe that vision from my memory.

My guards moved to end that macabre dance and Dawn screamed at them. My daughter took the shovel from the yellowed grass where our man had dropped it, and, pressing it against the undead Ambrose’s neck, pushed the shovel blade through his throat. I looked away but that sickening sound alone, when the shovel head severed the spine, might have been worse than the sight. Paetus looked proud of her actions and she looked up with admiration at him. The head was placed below the feet and a lit oil lamp thrown in as added assurance that healing could not occur.

Ambrose was stripped of his soul, murdered by his sister, beheaded, and incinerated in his grave. My goal in life had been to keep them safe and healthy. Oh, how I had failed.

 

Memory is a peculiar thing. It is completely dependent on the mood through which an event is seen. Joy can give us rose-colored glasses while sorrow or dread may stain an otherwise beautiful experience. My son, Ambrose, was born on the twenty-third of June. I remember the day as sunny and bright but Sally is quite certain it was gray and drizzling when we pushed him from our body and into the world.

I once attended a presentation of human oddities. While the woman scarcely larger than a toddler and the man as hairy as a bear fascinated me, I felt an instant kinship with the conjoined twins. They, like Sally and I, shared their body and their lives though they were by no means the same person. One loved opera while the other couldn’t stand it. One was obsessed with trains but had to satisfy her craving through study and observation since riding a locomotive made the other violently ill.

And so it was with us: separate but bound together. Early on we decided there would be no struggle between us, no battle for control. I would never stop Sally from something she wanted and in return she would treat me in the same manner. I fear that throughout our extraordinarily long life, I enjoyed the lion’s share of time at the helm, but she never complained. Sally and I possess a common driving goal: to survive together. Secondary to that is our desire to protect our offspring from the childhood that we had and from the powerful male Incola who sought to rule and ruin their adulthood.

We were determined to never allow an Incola to ride us, or our children, ever again.

We abandoned Julian’s fine London home on Park Lane after his death and gave birth to Ambrose at my family’s country estate, Brooksberry Manor. At Dawn’s birth, we were thirteen, imprisoned by the state at West Freeman Asylum for Lunatics for the murder of our parents. Sally gave birth all alone in that filthy place of horrors while I slumbered, unknowing, in the darkness. This time, we did it together, determined to surround ourselves with beauty and nature. London was a grimy and unsanitary place in those days. Our enemies surrounded us. We did not want to be there in our weakened postpartum state, unable to protect our children.

I was conscious for Ambrose’s birth, unlike Dawn’s. Sally, ever stronger and more determined than I, did the pushing, but I felt every contraction and suffered every tear just as vividly as she. Our son was breach. Labor with him was more difficult, more painful, and lengthier than that with Dawn. I had no doubt we were dying at the time, so great was the pain, and suspect our heightened healing ability saved us. Sally did not believe we were ever in any real danger. Both of us agree the memory of that pain and struggle was dimmed and blurred by the joy of holding Ambrose for the first time.

A beautiful baby, as Dawn had been, he was brunet while she was fair-haired like us. I thought he looked much like my brother Thaddeus, while Sally said he favored Albert, the man we estimated was his father. His eyes were the blue all babies had but they focused on us immediately, with none of the fog most newborns have. Intelligence filled his eyes and he looked around, not restricted to the objects in a normal baby’s range. Ambrose never cried, not even when the doctor prodded him and slapped his bare rump. He simply coughed the liquid from his lungs and replaced it with air.

We loved him instantly and reveled in the fact that, as a child of ours, he would never die. Dawn, when allowed in the birthing room, skipped in, her golden curls bouncing, her gown flouncing, excited to meet her brother at last. She had hoped for a sister but seemed to take the news of a boy quite well. Her governess fussed that she should be calm and quiet but we said nothing. We liked her exuberance and, as we were neither frail nor fragile, we did not see the importance.

“This is your brother, Ambrose. What do you think, Dawn? Isn’t he beautiful?” I asked her.

Dawn bounded up the steps to our bed and crawled to where we held Ambrose. Her bright smile faded when she set eyes to his face. Ambrose seemed excited by her, cooing and reaching out to his sister. She sniffed the air and squinted at him. Sally sensed the danger before I did and reached our hand out to block Dawn’s dive. Her arms stretched out for him, her hands like claws scraping at the air.

Her governess pulled her from the room with difficulty, even with the help of a footman. Dawn’s strength was a portion of our own but still much more than a human adult possessed. Even with the door closed we could hear our daughter screaming, “I hate him. Hate him! Let me go, you old hag!”

 

We realize this must seem quite shocking. You might even wonder how we did not foresee the dreadful events that followed. Neither of us had any experience with Carrier children. We could not go to Paetus, who was the obvious choice for such inquiries, because to admit we had troubles with our daughter was to admit we had a daughter. As soon as Paetus knew of Dawn, he would claim her by right. He had long ago signed a contract with Julian for our firstborn daughter’s hand in marriage. Julian, though dead, was still head of our household as my husband and any agreements he had made, or legal arrangements, had to be honored.

We hid Dawn in our country home. She was not allowed outside and no one else knew she was alive. The closest she got to nature was the atrium I had built for her within the confines of the house. It was well-stocked with beautiful plants and trees that blossomed in the sunlight coming through the glass roof. Advances in glass and iron manufacturing brought on by the Industrial Revolution allowed this technological marvel. Little Dawn loved the space.

We walked a thin line between gilded cage and controlled, sculpted grandeur. It was our beautiful slice of the outside world. Fish and frogs populated the pond and delighted Ambrose. At one end, a variety of tiny, twittering birds filled a devoted aviary. In this area Dawn most often sought solitude from her brother, who couldn’t abide the squawking. My lady’s maid, who was just as taken with the tiny flyers as Dawn, could be found there regularly. She, Dawn, and I often played hide-and-seek and hopscotch there. It was odd that the very glass that allowed us to keep the canaries in a natural but contained environment was also their destruction. We often found them with their necks broken, presumably from flying toward freedom only to be thwarted by false hopes and the invisible boundary.

Our children’s relationship started roughly and didn’t improve much. Occasionally I saw that they bonded, like a ray of sunlight cutting through the clouds, but like that weather, it was always short-lived. Ambrose adored Dawn and followed her around. She, being confined to the house, had no escape from this toddling chase. Dawn had wild mood swings when it came to her dealings with her brother. One minute they played quietly together, the next she screamed at him for no apparent reason. She shied from her brother’s touch but even that was not considered abnormal for the time. Physical contact was a strictly monitored and socially mediated restriction. My mother rarely touched me or my brother, and I shuddered to think of the times the full weight of Papa’s attention had fallen on me. I was determined that Dawn’s childhood be better than mine had been, but I could not allow my skin to come into contact with hers. I was a Carrier blessed with the gift of touch. Mine was the power to excite. We did not know the full effect it would have on her, so even her mother’s appropriate affections were withheld from Dawn.

We thought we were so careful, thought Dawn’s existence was truly kept a secret, but in reality we did little more than unjustly imprison her for the duration of her childhood. Servants were barely seen as people. They came and went by the hundreds, some without permanent employment as a weak bribe for their silence. For instance, Ambrose’s birth employed a midwife, a local doctor, two nurses, and a wet nurse. We did nothing to hide her life from them. They were temporary employees, free to leave with that knowledge of incalculable value.

Being the lady of Brooksberry Manor, I was more than royalty to the people of the countryside. I was their royalty. I had grown up there and everyone from the merchants down to the bar maidens wanted to know every detail of my life, from what gown I wore to what books I read. The existence of an illegitimate child was, no doubt, the high spot of many a conversation. Her continued violent and unpredictable behavior fueled the gossip further.

It could not be denied, even by my blinded Victorian brain, that there was something very wrong with Dawn. We consulted what books there were, all vastly lacking in factual information. The medical and psychological fields improved too slowly for our use. They were still ruled by superstition and tradition, both steeped in sexist beliefs that the female mind and body were inferior to the male in every way.

We learned little more than we guessed on our own. Dawn survived her infancy and, if she had any, her physical congenital birth defects were not obvious. I worried that the need for violence, a trait both my father and I shared, lurked just beneath the surface. Developmental and behavioral problems are expected with a child born of an incestuous relationship. Dawn had no problems learning, though her years as a secret ward in a house of ill repute had retarded her development. Though not abused, she had been underfed. Without the proper nutrients, her brain had suffered. Neglect caused odd behaviors too, as if she wasn’t truly aware that other people could fully see and hear her. She was desperate for our attention, which we gave, but we thought she must have seen the new baby as a threat to her tenuous grasp on our affections. We consoled ourselves with the most reasonable explanations.

 

It came as quite a shock when not one, but three clergymen arrived on my doorstep one morning.

My parents didn’t receive visitors at our country estate, not in the thirteen summers of my childhood. Perhaps it was Julian’s doing. He had orchestrated my very birth and social placement. It was not such a stretch to think he controlled my day-to-day life even before I knew of his existence or involvement. I thought my parents had valued their privacy as much as we did.

Even now, few visited Brooksberry Manor.

I went outside with a few guards when my butler could not convince the religious men to leave. They each wanted to call upon me but their behavior had me on alert and I didn’t trust them inside my home. Of the three, I recognized only Father Taylor. The others were a Catholic priest and a man obviously from the Far East, his costume vaguely religious but foreign in both texture and design. Epicanthic eyelids folded over almond-shaped eyes. I greeted my parish vicar first, whose behavior was most shocking. He never visited. I said politely, “Father Taylor, how unexpected. What brings you and your friends to my doorstep this morning?”

The look on his face told me he did not consider the other men his friends. He made no move to introduce them to me. He gestured to the priest on his left, completely ignoring the Asian on his right. “I have been trying to convince him that you wouldn’t be interested in the services he’s here to offer, but he is quite stubborn. I’ve told him you would not be interested in allowing the Catholic Church such an active role in your life nor the lives or your children.”

I froze at the mention of my offspring in the plural then turned to the priest and said, “And what services might those be?”

He stepped toward me and my guards intercepted him. He stopped his advance and spoke softly. “The decision about the education of your son is one of the most important of your life and his. I propose that the Roman Catholic Church is the smartest choice for such an undertaking.”

Father Taylor spoke up, “If Lady Brooksberry were inclined to give her son a religious education, she certainly wouldn’t choose a stranger. She would use the Church of England and, since I am the vicar of her parish, that responsibility would fall to me.”

The priest spoke over his shoulder. “And why, pray tell, would she give the education of her children over to a man who, at best, overlooked or, at worst, ignored her own childhood abuse? I would think you would be the very last choice for the responsibility of educating the children who were the result of said abuse.”

I stood mortified as the priest laid my dirty laundry bare for the whole world to witness. Sally was livid. Before I could consider an appropriate response to such brashness, my better half let loose a tirade that would curl the hair of even the saltiest seaman. The shock on the clergymen’s faces said they were unaccustomed to such language and had not expected it from a lady like myself. A tug at my skirts caught my attention. Ambrose stood there, looking up at me with his overly intelligent eyes, enthralled by the use of rough language.

I took over the scolding. “I had never thought you were prone to gossip, Father. It would be unfathomable that you would share such information with a perfect stranger if I had not heard evidence of this betrayal of trust with my own ears. If I hear wind that you have been spreading rumors about me again, I will take your parish and give it over to the keeping of my stableman.”

He stood there, his mouth flapping like a fish out of water. I dismissed him and turned to the priest. “How dare you speak of such sensitive matters in public, especially as you and I are not acquainted in the slightest? That alone is enough to influence me away from any involvement with you.” I stepped toward him. “The vicar is quite right about one thing. My children, both current and future, will be secularly educated, clear of the judgment of Christian men.”

“It seems the perfect moment for my own proposal.” The Asian’s accent was as odd as his attire, even as he had mastered the Queen’s English. “I can offer you just that, a secular education. My ancestors were the first to write, the inventors of paper, printing, the compass, and gunpowder. Our mathematicians were the first to use negative numbers. China has a history of science applied to horology, metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, engineering, music theory, craftsmanship, naval architecture, and warfare. Who better to serve you and teach your children?”

“The Church perfected the art of learning and teaching,” the Catholic argued.

“It may be true that your organization has forced a monopoly on reading and writing for centuries past in this area and every one within the reach of your leader, but why would any sensible person free of superstition wish to perpetuate the teachings of a lying religious tyrant?”

The priest, inflamed by the verbal abuse of his Pope, struck the Chinese scholar with an open hand. The clergyman had rage on his side but the Asian seemed better trained in fighting. Both landed several solid blows before the foreigner swept the priest’s legs out from under him. He hit the ground hard, his head striking the first step. The pool of dark red blood grew around him like a grotesque halo.

Father Taylor rushed to his side. Excluding his inability to keep secrets, my vicar was a good man who cared about life, regardless of religious affiliation. He carefully lifted the injured man. “He is alive. Will you help me get him to the parish? I have medical supplies there and we can nurse him as he heals.”

With a hand on his shoulder, I stopped Ambrose, who crept toward the wounded man and his dark stain. I instructed my guards to escort the men. They could use one of my carriages. I watched as they left, promising to visit and check on our patient. Intrigued by what the Chinaman had said, I even considered his offer. Giving my children every advantage I could afford was a priority, even if it came from an unusual source.

 

Moira was still my lady’s maid, though society would not find her suitable, so unforgiving were they of her previous profession. She worked as a prostitute before her pimp had her lobotomized and her unborn aborted in the asylum where I had been imprisoned.

Moira kept herself tidy and assisted me into my more complicated dresses, but beyond that she helped little. The fact was, I enjoyed having her near. She was the first I had saved, the first instance I had used my great strength for good. Sally says that is not quite right. We used our strength to kill Papa when he threatened to root Dawn, his daughter by his daughter, out of our womb. That was the first, but since I hadn’t remembered that chain of events until much later, I continued to think of Moira as my first success.

That first day, when I pulled her from the lobotomy table and took her into my care, she emptied one of my dress trunks and made her home inside. She seemed happy with her odd choice, retreating there at night after completing her duties and anytime she was frightened or insecure. Small spaces soothed her; large open ones seemed to do the opposite. Maybe that was why she loved the atrium so much. Similar to being outside, it wasn’t as immense or fearsome as the actual outdoors.

Moira helped me get dressed for my trip to see the priest, as she always did. It was a much bigger job than one might imagine. In those days, every activity, every event, every occasion required a special costume. There were day dresses and evening gowns, suits for bicycle riding and archery, outfits for traveling by coach or train, dresses for dinner and ones only suited for breakfast, dressing gowns and night gowns. Our attire was not as simple as it is now, either. Every set involved dozens of pieces: some stitched on, not just fastened. Moira, with her diminished mental capacity, managed to make herself useful in her position.

The other servants felt indignant at her lofty position. As maid of the lady of the house, she ranked first among the female staff. Most did not believe she deserved such access. But she was my confidante. Because of her near inability to communicate, I could share everything with her, knowing full well my secrets were safe. Moira held strands of my hair while I arranged it in an elaborate up-do and discussed my thoughts on having the Chinaman teach my children. I left after accessorizing with the correct amount of jewelry.

With only a few guards in attendance, I went to check on our injured priest and speak with the foreigner. The parish chapel was familiar to me, though my family had never been very pious. We financed it and that satisfied the church. Father Taylor met me on the steps. Neither of the other two men accompanied him. The priest had woken and an argument ensued. The Chinaman had killed the Catholic. Father said the Asian had not denied it. He awaited his execution, a foreigner who did not warrant a trial. The man could have resisted arrest easily enough but he went peacefully as long as the jailers allowed him to retain a parcel. He had asked Father Taylor to tell me of his location and his desire to speak with me. When Father said that the foreigner claimed to be a Carrier of something that involved me, I realized he was more than a simple scholar. I went straight to see him.

The jail shared very little with the West Freeman Asylum for Lunatics, and yet going to see the foreigner made me uneasy. The sun never penetrated the cells, making them the same dark, moist places of hopelessness where I had lost so many years of my young life. I wanted to tear it down by hand but Sally steadied me. Either this Chinaman was a dangerous, bloodthirsty murderer and deserved to be here or he was a Carrier, fully capable of escaping by himself. I reminded her that the two were not mutually exclusive.

The foreigner sat in the center of the floor, eyes closed, his legs crossed and twisted in a most unusual way, his hands resting palm-side up on his knees.

I remembered the levels of filth that made us feel as if we would never be truly clean again. The dirt and mold crept from every surface, invading every pore until we were more dirt than flesh, were vivid in our mind. This man sat here a few hours at the most and already his beautiful tunic was completely soiled. Carrier or no, Sally and I had a connection with this prisoner.

He stood, introducing himself as Ning Shiru. I, ignorant of the fact that surnames came first in his culture, said, “Well, Mr. Shiru, I was actually considering you for the position of tutor to my child but…” I let him think that his actions precluded him from the position.

Bowing deeply from the waist, he said nothing in his defense, but slipped a bundle of parchment into my hand. Unfolding it, I was stunned to find the first few pages of a letter to the Pope from the now-dead priest. It described not only Dawn’s existence and appearance but also her conception. It depicted our day-to-day life and level of security, or lack thereof. The priest admitted that he intended to approach me about insinuating himself into our lives and if that didn’t go well, he advised that the Church take the “female” by force.

“I killed him to prevent this information from reaching Rome,” Ning Shiru said. “I gained you some time but how much, I do not know. This Incola is relentless and power-hungry. He will send more men to investigate. He wants a female.”

“And you?” Sally accused. “I suppose you did this out of the goodness of your heart and have no ulterior motives, no desire for a woman of your own.”

A jailer walked by at that moment to spy on us so he waited to answer me until our privacy was restored. “Our society should center around females, protecting them, helping them gain position and prestige, and aiding them in holding that power. Most of our kind in this part of the world have strayed from those values. It is not so in my homeland. Enlightenment is most difficult to attain. There are no limitations of how I can help my fellow sentient. I did not kill the priest; karma did. By destroying that evil, I have helped this family. I look forward to separation from the body and the following nirvana. I will be free from suffering and desire. I will be liberated from this physical imprisonment.”

“You will die,” I argued.

“Only my flesh will perish. I will separate myself from my body as I have done on many occasions.”

I envisioned the obvious outcome. “You will take possession of another.”

“My order, which I will call religious for lack of a better word, does exchange bodies as part of our ceremonies but it is purely for achieving greater levels of enlightenment. We experience the desires of all mankind, not just our own. I would never take over the life of another. I came here to aid a blossoming family that has the chance to change the world for the better, knowing that when my usefulness was spent, I would finish living.”

“What will happen to you? To your spirit?”

“It is not certain. I have only had a taste of what is to come during times of deep meditation. I will pass into a state of pure being.” He retrieved a bag from inside his robes and pushed it through the bars. “I can do one more thing for this family.”

Taking it from him, I found inside several more letters, a column of red wax, and the priest’s ring seal. The letters all appeared to be in the priest’s handwriting but their correspondence greatly varied in content from the first letter. The first one stated that he had met me and I was indeed a female Carrier but my firstborn child, a boy, had left me barren. It said there existed no female child and that he moved on to investigate the next rumor. I realized these had not been written by the priest at all. They were to misdirect the Pope.

“Forgery is a talent of mine. Send the first one right away and one every month after that. By the time they stop coming, the eyes of Rome will be far from your island and you can escape scrutiny. Be sure to use the seal.” He retook his seat on the floor.

I pulled an odd ivory-colored cylinder from the bottom of the bag after redepositing the espionage items. Rough and hard like stone, its lavishly carved exterior depicted an angry mob. The question must have been clear on my face as I lifted my eyes because Ning Shiru said, “That is a gift.”

“But what is it?”

“I do not know. Legend says only a female can wield it. Open it when you deem the time is right, for it can only be used once. It can save the world.” Then he closed his eyes and I knew he would speak to me no more.

 

I mailed the first of Mr. Shiru’s forgeries as soon as I reached home, giving it to the butler for delivery only after properly sealing it with melted wax and the dead priest’s ring.

Sitting alone in my dressing room that evening, I pulled the cylinder out to study it. The carvings were more detailed than I could see in the dark jail. Comparably bright gaslight revealed more than an angry mob. Their fury was directed at a beautiful woman who stood surrounded by a few apparently doting men. I believe they were courting the woman, but that was less a carved detail and more a general feeling that came over me when I looked at it.

Ning Shiru had said that only a female could wield it, leading me to think it was a weapon, but what sort of weapon could only be used once? I could see no opening nor trigger. Not wanting to activate it accidentally, I lay it on my desk to examine it further. As soon as it left my hands, waves of unease flowed from my chest to my arms, urging me to pick it up once again, and I realized it had not left my possession since I first held it. Forcing myself to leave it where it lay, I looked again. The carved figures stood in fierce contrast to the semi-transparent blue background. Upon closer inspection, I found the cylinder held a glass tube filled with liquid.

Ambrose burst through my door dressed in his bed clothes. Dawn followed solemnly behind with their nanny keeping watch from the door. With effort, I turned my back to the mysterious object. “My apologies,” the nanny said. “He was having difficulty and promises to go right to sleep after saying goodnight to you.”

“Of course,” I assured her. My son dashed toward me but stopped just out of arm’s length. How I wished things were different and I could smooth his hair, soothe whatever kept him awake, and kiss his cheeks. “Goodnight, my sweet boy.”

“G’night, Mama,” he replied with his baby lisp.

His eyes darted about and he gnawed his lips. I did not press him to speak his mind, wanting him to grow into a confident man, able to choose when to speak and when to be silent. I turned to Dawn to wish her the same good sleep and found her holding the cylinder. “I’ve seen one of these before.”

The feeling that came over me was similar to that rage I felt when coming in contact with a Carrier of a specific bloodline. Unreasonable and uncontrollable, it grew. I had owned the supposed weapon less than a day but felt possessive. Did Dawn know what it was? Did she intend to take it from me? She was a female. Perhaps she intended to wield it in my place. I could not allow that, would go to any lengths to have it back.

Saving me from my spiral into violence, Sally said, “You have?” Taking the cylinder from our daughter eased my rising rage. “When?” she asked. “Do you know what this is?”

The look in her eyes told me what I had feared was true. Dawn felt the same as I. The object had a draw on her as well. Tucking it into the pocket of my skirts broke whatever spell held her gaze. “A puzzle box?” Dawn guessed. “I had one a long time ago. You must find the right areas to push or way to turn it and it opens. There was a treat in mine.” She paused, her brow furrowed as she tried to recall. “I think there were flowers and birds on it. I remember working on it for a long time but not where I was. You had to press the bird and the bee at the same time while twisting.”

Emotions mixed into a dangerous cocktail as I realized it must have been during her stay at the house of ill repute. The prostitutes had raised her when I was ignorant of her existence and they had to find ways to occupy her attention while going about their illicit business. I was thankful her memories of this time had faded.

“That is no toy,” Ambrose said. The childlike quality of his voice stood in stark contrast to the seriousness of his tone. “I fear it.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

He said nothing. Shaking his head repeatedly, he backed from the room, never taking his eyes from my skirt and I knew two things. One: I must never leave him nor my daughter alone with the cylinder. Two: his visit to me would not ease his difficulty going to sleep.

 

We did not attend the execution of Ning Shiru. The sharp pang of guilt was too much to bear. The sight of the gallows reminded me of my brother Thaddeus, whose sacrifice to Julian had purchased my freedom. I refused to believe Thaddeus had been unredeemable. Though he had abused me in much the same manner my father had, his passion and anger originated from my gift of touch. Papa preferred the bodies of young girls. I had been found naked, covered in the blood of my parents, standing amongst their mutilated bodies. I had killed them but so much time had passed since the gory discovery that Julian easily framed Thaddeus for the crime. Julian had ridden my brother through a confession and right up to the hangman.

No one forced Ning Shiru. He sacrificed himself to protect our secret. I could have bought off the officials and had him released but it would cause a scandal. The Pope would have eventually heard. Even the dullest of men would deduce that the only reason for me to protect a murderer would be if the recipient of that pardon had perpetrated the crime for me.

For his selfless act, I put on my finest black dress and paid tribute at the grave. Normally an executed person would burn in the crematorium but I paid secretly to have his body buried in the ground with a modest but proud headstone.

Because he was a heathen and a foreigner, the church would not permit his body on consecrated ground. In fact, he was not buried anywhere near the cemetery, but out in the country. The peaceful and solitary locale suited him, in my opinion, and made it easier for me to visit without calling attention to my actions.

My guards held back, allowing me to grieve in relative solitude. Once under the canopy of trees, I closed my parasol and hung it on a loop of my skirt near the secret pocket where I kept the cylinder. Not one to pray, I whispered my apologies, in case his spirit hovered nearby. I turned to go but an odd crumbling sound stopped me. A small mound of earth near the center of the grave grew, like a mole burrowed from underneath. I paused to watch and discover what sort of varmint was brave enough to venture out with me so nearby. What emerged shocked me.

At first I thought it was the tip of a snout. Then a second appeared beside it and I realized they were fingers. Ning Shiru wasn’t dead. I dropped to my knees and clawed at the ground, screaming for my men to help me. His freed hand grasped for mine and I held it, assuring him that I wasn’t going anywhere, that we would extricate him from his internment. I encouraged my guards to dig faster. I praised the Chinaman mentally for devising such a plan and having the strength of character to carry it out without a single hint to me about his intentions. This was genius; no one would be the wiser and no attention would be called to us.

Nothing but dirt and his death shroud separated him from us. I tore away the latter when the former was removed. This man wasn’t right. Gone were the warm, intelligent eyes I had seen only yesterday. They were milky cataract-covered monstrosities. I scrambled back as he latched onto my gown with his mouth. My guards pulled me from the pit. Shiru came soon after. One guard clamped an arm around his throat and two more grasped each arm. His inhuman speed gone, Shiru struggled with restrained strength, trying to get to me. Slow as he was, his desperation gave him an advantage.

Shiru bit into the forearm of the guard holding him from behind, tearing out a chunk of meat. The injured man screamed and released the captive, falling into the open grave. I tried to speak to Shiru, to calm him down and assure him we were no threat. He stared blankly at me as he chewed and swallowed the severed muscle. Shiru stepped to his right, leaning, his mouth open and ready for his next bite. Attempting to keep clear of that maw, the guard on that side pushed him away.

Shiru fell onto the guard left holding him. Startled, I stepped back and lost my footing, twisting an ankle and dropping on my side. Though the cracking sound resembled breaking bones, I felt no pain. The cane tube of my parasol had splintered into a sharp point at the top. Grasping the crook, I held it out in front of me as a weapon while the other hand checked to make sure the cylinder was unscathed.

Shiru clamped his teeth down on the neck of the man under him. More screaming filled the air. The guard struggled and pushed but Shiru was undeterred from his dinner. He pulled away and the skin between his teeth stretched and then snapped, leaving a jagged and bloody hole. He looked at me as he chewed, arterial spray hitting him in the chest and face. He had struck a vein and my guard bled out quickly.

The last guard hurled a rock, striking Shiru’s skull. Shiru’s neck, already weakened from the gallows, snapped. He collapsed seconds later with his head dangling at an impossibly odd angle. The last man standing rushed to his associates’ aid and the other crawled out of the grave to help but not much could be done. As a Carrier he could have healed a cut or slice but regenerating the missing flesh would take more time than the downed man had. He was pale and already cool to the touch.

I told the guard from the grave to apply pressure to the neck of his fallen companion with his good arm. The third man carried the one near death back to my waiting carriage. I leaned over Ning Shiru’s body to grasp him by the shoulders and drag him back to his grave. I froze. Though his body lay motionless, his eyes searched and mouth chewed. His broken neck had only paralyzed his body, but everything above the neck still worked. His strong jaw was still dangerous.

Hands on my hips, I considered how to kill something that was already dead. After witnessing the deaths of many Carriers I wondered what made this one special. Plenty of their lives ended by hanging and severed spinal cords. The lessons Julian had taught me came to mind and the answer seemed obvious.

I stabbed the pointed end of my ruined sunshade up through the neck, jaw, mouth and into the brain. Just as I had done with the performer who had enraged me upon my first visit to the Incola Club, I moved my hand side to side, scrambling his brain like an egg in the hands of a kitchen maid. That did the job. Shiru was truly dead.

The truth was clear: it was our body, our biology, that made us Carriers. Our brains made us Incola.

 

Upon my return home, I sat and penned a letter to Leonus, detailing the events of the day, while Sally shouted orders. What a spectacle we must have made doing two completely different tasks, my hand seemingly writing on its own without any attention of my mind. Leonus, a contemporary of Julian and Paetus, was my ally. He did not have the same greedy ambitions as those two. He had no wish to rule the world with the largest army of Carriers on the planet. I entrusted him with questions, the man who supported my actions in the Incola world. He was the one who found my daughter after we thought she was lost forever and gave her back to me; he knew that priceless secret and had never betrayed my trust.

I forbade him from visiting me. I received no callers while in the country. I claimed I didn’t want to call attention to myself. In truth, fooling myself into believing we were a normal family became simplified when everyone surrounding me was human. I thought that leaving Carriers behind meant I could be clear of that world. I was mistaken.

My country estate was a six-hour ride outside of London, on a fast horse. The steam engine locomotive allowed for a much shorter trip if a train came through at the right time. My messenger would barely make the last one of the night and would ride on one of the cars, no matter if it were for animal, coal, human, or vegetable, so that he could deliver the letter personally. Leonus and I had exchanged many letters over my years of self-inflicted exile and this method of delivery was most reliable.

I sent for the doctor to tend my injured men and then went to clean up. Moira was nowhere to be found, her trunk empty save her few possessions, and she did not answer my calls. I rang down to the atrium but when she did not return after a few minutes, I examined my gown. It was my best black and I could have torn it from my body but didn’t want to ruin it. I washed the gore from my face and hands as best I could. The dress could be cleaned.

I went up to the next floor and asked if Dawn could help me. She seemed surprised by my request but happy for the opportunity to spend extra time with me alone. I showed her where the laces were and gave her the seam-ripper. Careful not to come into direct contact with my skin, she worked silently out of fright, I think. Watching her in the looking glass, I suddenly realized that she was on the cusp of womanhood. Soon her childhood would be no more than a memory.

She asked what had happened. I said only that protecting that which we love sometimes requires violence and that being a female didn’t mean that we must shy from those bloody obligations. “You should never be too frightened to do what is necessary. I will protect you from everything I can but someday, something unpleasant might fall to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mama, I do, but…”

I turned to look at her and gestured to the footstool in front of me. “But what, Dawn?”

She sat on the footstool and chewed on her lip before asking, “How do I know the difference between what is necessary and what I want to do?” I waited, not quite understanding what she meant. “I get so angry sometimes that I cannot think straight. My mind is muddled with…urges…to hurt people.”

A normal mother would touch her daughter in an attempt to comfort. My hands remained in my lap. “It is in your nature—our nature—to hunger for exertion and even violence.”

“Were you feeding your hunger for violence or fulfilling a necessity to protect when they imprisoned you?” Our solitude emboldened her to speak in a way that was unconventional in our time but not enough to ask directly what I had done to be institutionalized.

Feeling that she had something to add, Sally spoke. “It was a little bit of both. There was a lot of pent-up rage about my life but I managed to contain it until they threatened to kill someone that I loved.”

“Who?”

“You, Dawn.”

Her curiosity overwhelmed her decorum. “You killed your parents because they threatened to kill me?”

Because we had never spoken of the specifics to her before and none of our staff had permission to discuss such an intimate subject, I was stunned that she knew. “Who told you who I’d killed?” Sally asked, already making a short list in her head concerning punishments for those who’d betrayed our trust so completely.

“I’ve always known. The women where I lived before you found me said that I couldn’t have you when I asked for my Mama, because you were in an asylum for killing your mother and father.”

Those women, prostitutes, had protected her from disappointment, I told Sally silently. They did not want her to set her heart on something impossible.

They were, most likely, preparing her for the life she would have been forced into if Leonus had not found her, Sally argued. Selling your body is only possible after the desolation of your dreams. They were sparing her that pain by not allowing her to entertain the hope of salvation. Sally answered her original question. “Yes, I murdered my parents because they threatened to kill you, before you were even born.”

“Like the doctors did to Moira before you saved her?”

I knew then that she had seen Moira’s most prized possession, the preserved fetus—her unborn aborted baby—floating in a jar that she kept in her trunk. “Yes,” I said, not wanting to delve further into this conversation concerning sexual relations. We were only a step away from questions about how we came to be with child.

I chose my most comfortable gown for family dinner with my children and slipped it on without any assistance. Adding a layer of safety with gloves, I held my hand out to Dawn only after moving the cylinder from the previous gown to the current one. “Come along. Let us see what has kept Moira.”

We went straight to the atrium. Moira hadn’t answered my summons but she never went anywhere else. We often brought food to her or she refused to eat. She wouldn’t abandon her trunk for anything except the aviary, not even her own health. Had there been a fire, she would have died in that trunk rather than leave it.

We felt something was off as we entered at the pond end. Dawn looked up at me and then ran to the other end where the twittering of birds should have been nearly deafening. The silence was unnatural. I followed her, the gravel loud beneath my footsteps. The trees rustled, moving in the wind. Completely enclosed on all sides including the glass top ceiling, the atrium should have had no wind.

Dawn leaned out of the three-meter-tall windows that made up the wall. “They are all gone! Someone opened these and let my birds escape.” She clutched me around my waist, weeping.

Taught since I was very small that physical touch was not only wrong but dangerous, I forced myself not to recoil. Patting her awkwardly, I said, “There, there, Dawn.”

The netting on that side of the enclosure had been torn down. This was no accident. I gently pushed Dawn away to examine smatterings of blood on the ground under the tallest tree. It looked like someone had taken a fall and landed there and not escaped injury.

My first thought went to the only little boy, the one most prone to tree climbing. A trail of blood and displaced grass and dirt led away from the site. I tried to keep my voice calm as I said, “Ring for Ambrose, Dawn.”

“It was him. I know it.”

I followed the trail. “No, it wasn’t him.” I found Moira. She had fallen from the tree but someone had beaten her as she tried to drag herself to safety. Someone had kicked her repeatedly after she had wedged herself under the birdhouses, until she was dead. She would have been unrecognizable even to me if not for her fiery red curls, rendered orange in comparison to the blood pooling around her.

 

Relieved after seeing Ambrose with my own eyes, I had the entire house searched for an intruder. Though the rest of my staff didn’t like her, I could not believe that anyone who knew Moira would have been capable of hurting her this way. I became convinced that this was the act of an Incola attempting to possess my children.

Dawn and Ambrose slept in my room that night. She regarded him with distrust until slumber finally took her. I worried and mourned too much to rest. Moira had been with me for so long. Helpless and childlike, she relied on me for shelter and security. I brought her into a dangerous life then failed to protect her. Not wanting to disturb my babies, I internalized my grief. The sorrow in my soul confined my chest and the lump in my throat restricted my breathing. The pain amplified, moving from emotional to physical, until I thought my internal organs might burst.

I stared at the red-hot embers in my fireplace, wondering which hurt more: what I felt or if I were to shove my hand into the intense heat. Sally offered to take over and send me to the warm, safe place inside us to rest until I was ready to face this hurt. I refused, feeling I deserved this anguish. The hours crept by. I was awake when my messenger returned in the wee hours of the morning.

The messenger was not alone. Leonus had sent his two most trusted Carriers, Andrew and Auley, to assess my safety. I would not normally have them in my bedroom but I was unwilling to leave my sleeping babes.

Andrew whispered, “Lady Brooksberry, were you bitten? Please be honest because any omission could lead to much death and present a great danger to your children.”

I shook my head. “No. He tried but never got close enough. He did bite two of my guards. One died shortly after and the other has a tremendous fever. The doctor has seen to them.”

Andrew and Auley exchanged glances. “We will need to see the body, my lady.”

“Certainly, if Leonus feels it is necessary. Someone can show you to it in the morning.”

Andrew disagreed and said, “We cannot wait until light. He must be dispatched immediately.”

“Dispatched?” Sally blurted a little too loudly. I turned to check on Dawn after a small rustling of covers. “What do you mean dispatched?” I asked much more quietly. “I told you he already passed.”

“He will come back and there will be more fatalities unless we take precautions. Where can we find the fevered man?”

“So that you may dispatch with him also?” I asked indignantly.

Auley handed me an envelope. “Leonus’ letter will explain. We are very sorry for the intrusion.”

“I sent him home,” I answered. “The stableman can tell you where that is located. Do. Not. Harm. Him. Nor his family.”

Andrew and Auley bowed their heads in acquiescence. With that, they left, closing the door behind them and I began to read.

 

Leonus started his correspondence by saying how anxious he was about my safety. If I read his letter then I was not bitten, but he would not know my state until a reply arrived. Andrew had instructions to send an immediate reply as to my health. He went on to say that he would ignore his apprehension and trust that I was indeed all right and simply answer my questions.

He claimed the Chinaman suffered a lack of soul. Neither he nor I believed in the soul, an eternal part of us that was judged by God upon our death, but there was something, a consciousness, that moved from Incola to Carrier. With no terminology better suited, soul was settled upon.

Leonus begged me to come back to London where he could shelter me from such harsh realities. He said that I was no longer safe there and needed to be in a centralized location surrounded by Carriers who could protect me and my children. Human guards would not do. I could not imagine that the madness of London would be safer than my country estate and my reply said as much. My estate might have been infiltrated by one determined Incola but that city teemed with them. Carriers waited in every alley, held every serving tray, and one could get greedy. Fear already ruled our lives far too much; it couldn’t be allowed to force us from the only home my children had ever known. Dawn, in particular, would feel a great loss since she loved this place so much.

I postponed the decision until after Moira’s funeral. My grief for her is private and I will keep the memory of her lovely burial as my own. It is enough that the circumstances of her death were shared.

Over the days that followed, my life began to unravel. The stability this place had come to symbolize was undone. Dawn was convinced that Ambrose had let her birds out. His very presence enraged her. Walking by her beloved, now empty, aviary reopened the wound anew. She could not be reasoned with during these fits and she injured several people attempting to get to him.

The man Ning Shiru bit died of his fever and I allowed Andrew and Auley to do what they wanted with the body. The undead outbreak was averted but the desecration of graves drove many of my servants and human guards away.

Losing Moira forced the rest to go. It wasn’t that they cared for her; my inability to protect my lady’s maid meant no one was safe. We could not find Moira’s murderer and my household servants abandoned me, citing the dangers of working for my household. Some gave letters of resignation while others, after hearing my tirades at those following protocol, simply disappeared. In the end, I had no choice but to acquiesce to Leonus’ wishes. We would move back to London, to be surrounded by those who understood our behaviors, shared our inexplicable rage, and were better equipped by nature to handle Dawn’s outbursts—where I could, once again, slip behind the facade of the Victorian woman. I found I was excited by the idea once it was decided. It meant I could begin my search for my nephew.

Julian had never mentioned that my brother Thaddeus had fathered a child. I only discovered the fact while examining the legal paperwork concerning inheritance. Julian, when he died, had not known what gender Ambrose would be and he’d set up a number of contingencies, one of which mentioned the son of Thaddeus. Over the years we had searched every record in Julian’s vast library. None spoke of the boy’s name or location and so that is where we will begin. The death of my son starts with the search for my nephew.