Chapter 16

My dearest Natalie,

This will likely reach you just before I see you again, but I had to tell you an odd thing that happened to me after I met with the Majesty.

Walking in Bloomsbury on business, I turned down a narrow street between Romanesque buildings. A severe woman—tightly buttoned in gray, with brown hair pulled taut beneath a hat—exclaimed as I came around the corner.

She blurted out as if she couldn’t help herself, “Good God, young man, you must be freezing!”

“Headmistress,” chided a tall man all in black. More severe than she, if that were even possible, he swept out from behind her and past me like some swooping raven, black hair and black frock coat billowing, looking behind me as if I were being followed by a parade or something.

“One moment, Professor. That’s too much for one boy to handle. Look at all of it,” she said, gesturing around me.

“Excuse me? All of what?” I asked.

She turned, piercing me with gray-blue eyes. “Pardon me if this seems rude and presumptuous, but you’re very haunted. Recent brush with death?”

I stared at her, then back at the man who, with a sour expression, was nonchalantly waving things off around me as if I were surrounded by flies. Or worse.

“Yes,” I replied slowly. What else could I say?

“That explains it,” she replied. “And why you’re wearing a scarf in summer. They do give off quite a chill.”

“What does?” I asked.

“Ghosts.” She clapped her hands in an authoritarian way and spoke sharply to the retinue of spirits that had evidently been following me. “Go on! Off with you. He’s the picture of health, no thanks to you.” She looked at me, behind me, then at me again. “There. All better. I shouldn’t be saying this to you, but I’ve a suspicion you’ve seen and heard stranger things than this.”

“Thank you…I think? And you are?”

“Oh,” the woman chuckled drily. “Don’t you worry about who we are. If darkness follows you, turn your face away. Don’t feed the shadows. You’re a doctor.” She tapped her temple, her eyes glittering though she never smiled. “I can tell. I’ve a sense about you. We need doctors, young man, of all kinds. My friends and I are doctors of sorts, in the way we’re called to be. Death didn’t claim you, so you’ve work to do. So go on and heal the wounds of this world, my boy. We can never have too many healers.”

She reached out to touch me on the cheek as if I were a long-lost son but thought better of it. Turning back toward the mouth of the alley, she headed toward the man all in black who awaited her with his arms folded, looking bored and impatient. He held out an arm for her and she took it, falling into intense conversation as they turned the corner toward the heart of Bloomsbury with no further thought of me or glance back.

I was a lot warmer. I felt amazingly better. I rolled my scarf up and tucked it in my briefcase.

What else can I make of this odd meeting but that it was a sign? A sign that there are others in the world who are drawn, like us, toward inexplicable callings. If there’s a Master’s Society, then we must form our own society of peers in resistance. Perhaps London is that much safer with people like those two. Now New York needs people like us. I’m filled with purpose and cured of my chills.

Rallied by the encounter, life surges in my veins, and I’m more determined than ever to expose the entire insidious operation before more damage is done. I shall honor the strange good deeds done to me by strangers down a Bloomsbury alley.

In visiting family deposit boxes, I retrieved funds and a few treasures. I’ve enclosed a cameo pendant from my mother. It isn’t doing her any good now, certainly, and I know she’d have liked you. Loved you. So please take it.

I’ll see you very soon. In a dream? I’d like to see you in a nightdress, unless you’re being modest. Which I respect, I do. Utterly. Even if modesty isn’t any fun.

Yours,

Jonathon

I laughed, as if the pall that had been lifted from Jonathon by those odd good Samaritans was lifted from me too. I undid the twine and thin paper to reveal a gorgeous white cameo on an onyx surface, surrounded by a glittering pewter filigree and hung on a silk ribbon. The girl in the cameo was nymph-like, with flowers in her hair, a faerie queen for our strange fairy tale. Gazing in the mirror, I held it up to my neck, then put it on and waltzed about the room. I’d need Mrs. Northe or someone to give me a waltzing lesson before Jonathon and I could attend a ball together.

***

I slept well, at first. But the hazy dream of moving shadows came into sharp focus, likely somewhere around 3 a.m., when all my dreams seem to reach their zenith.

Jonathon and I stood many paces apart, the usual corridor of my dreamworld windy and noisy as with the clatter of steel and rail, or the blowing of a terrible storm. His boat was coming across the ocean toward me, so a certain rocking lull came into our hallway. Light came into the corridor as if from windows, but it blinked in and out as though we were standing between passing trains on either side, or in and out of undulating shadow constantly in transit.

“I’ll see you soon,” he called to me, the black waves of his hair buffeted by the wind. I ached to run my hands through the locks.

He looked me up and down, and I noticed that I was only in my summer nightgown, a more revealing one. “Ah, thank you for the nightdress,” he said, grinning rakishly. “I’ll come for you soon.”

I stepped forward, reaching for him.

Love in its first bloom, all the poets said, was full of aching and impatience. So then was I. And so then was he.

But something changed.

The flickering lights went dark, and a single dim light from one far-off window cast my love into stark contrast and deep shadow.

It was not love that had him approaching me with the look I remembered from the demon. His eyes held that odd reflective quality of the demon’s. “I’m coming for you,” he growled. The noisy, echoing corridor was filled again with those dread whispers.

And he swiped a hand at me, ripping the neckline of my gown.

“You think they won’t know what you’ve done? They’ll know. My strength grows. I will kill you, Arilda, after all.”

Arilda.

The name I’d taken when I tricked the demon. He had been targeting young women with the names of saints. It gave him some kind of added power. And it seemed he still remembered mine.

And then the reflective eyes were gone, and Jonathon stood before me as I knew him to be. But he stared at me as if in pity and turned to walk away.

“Jonathon…” I called after him.

“Cruel,” he spat.

He reached into the darkness, opening a door beyond the charred study. He slammed the door behind him, and I was left alone again with only murmuring darkness and the sting of jagged fingernail scratches upon my collarbone.

I awoke and was alarmed to find that there were indeed scratches where I’d felt them in my dreams. While my bond with Jonathon was stronger for the supernatural experiences we shared, perhaps something of the demon was still an echo somewhere inside? Was Jonathon fully rid of him? Whatever conduit brought my premonitions, did it let in something ugly too? How could I filter the good from the bad?

I fingered the scratch and tried not to cry. As with the runes on my arm, I felt violated. When a person sleeps, he or she is vulnerable, and nothing should ever attack a vulnerable being. No unwarranted or unwelcome, uncomfortable attention should ever be tolerated.

Pushing back my nightgown sleeves, I cried out to find more runes upon my arm, the same red thin markings, as if carved with a delicate pen-knife. I denied them, shaking my head, my hair falling from its bun. “I renounce thee,” I said, and they began to fade. I marked them diligently.

***

Later that morning, I caught a downtown trolley car to Mrs. Northe’s so I could check on Rachel and translate the runes.

Mrs. Northe noticed me rubbing my arm as I entered the parlor and surmised the problem. Rachel was nowhere to be seen. “Nightmares manifest again?” Mrs. Northe asked.

“In more ways than one. If I’m not careful, could my own dreams kill me?”

“No. But something of that demon must be living in your subconscious. Feeding upon your nightmares.”

“Growing stronger?” I choked.

“Only if you let it,” she replied. I would have to enlist Jonathon to help me fight off the shadows as he used to do in my dreams. Something within me wasn’t allowing him to be the hero as he once was. She led me into her library, and we sat again with the book of runes.

“I am co—” the letters roughly translated. Still incomplete.

Mrs. Northe plucked a small, clear bottle of colorless fluid from a shelf of religious icons. She tapped a few drops upon my wrist and crossed my wrist with her long fingertips. Any lingering irritation completely faded.

“And that is?” I asked, gesturing to the bottle as she returned it to the cabinet from which it had come.

“Holy water, of course,” she replied.

Before either of us could wonder further about the message, a rough sound came from upstairs. Rachel had some capacity for sound but it was untried. We both rushed upstairs and found her lying on her bed, eyes closed but moving rapidly beneath their lids. We tried to rouse her but to no avail.

“She’s been like this now for a while,” Mrs. Northe explained. “I can only think that she’s receiving information, that she’s in a sort of trance. Spirits have hold of her and are keeping her in this stasis. I’ve tried to break through, but she’s resisting.”

It was like her body was comatose. I thought of Elsa and my stomach sank, wondering about Samuel and what would become of them both.

Looking tired, Mary stood outside the hall in the open doorway.

“Yes, Mary?”

She entered and handed Mrs. Northe an envelope. Mrs. Northe quickly scanned the contents, then handed me the letter.

THE TRANS-ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH COMPANY

Almost at port. Arrive at noon.

Jonathon. I ducked my head into the hall where a gorgeous grandfather clock stood sentry. “It’s eleven thirty!” I cried.

“Well, you’d better take my carriage and go then!” Mrs. Northe called.

“What, without you?” I said in the doorway, watching Mrs. Northe place a cool cloth over Rachel’s forehead. My mouth hung open, a sudden blush blooming furious upon my cheeks, which only made her laugh.

“I remember being in love, Natalie dear. And I trust your virtue until I’ve reason to believe otherwise, so do take care of yourself.”

“Th-thank you,” I sputtered. I was more in debt to this woman than I could imagine. An uncomfortable thought. But Jonathon and I had become so used to doing things on our own for survival that it was hard to adjust back into the reality of chaperones and permissions.

Thrilled as I was for our reunion, the question remained: Was he forever entwined with the demon? What if in the next dream he did more than scratch me?

I need to stand strong for us both, to separate fact from fiction and realize dreams are not reality. Clues exist there, but what occurs face to face in the honest light of day is what matters. But the runes on my arm. Those were in the light of day. I wasn’t sure if the idea that I might be losing my mind was a comfort or an additional inconvenience.

I took a seat on a Cunard pier bench downtown near the Battery, the scene incredible and dizzying. The screech of gulls, the bells of numerous ships, and the calling of various vendors made the waterfront a festive carnival. Great, long, floating behemoths of steel and bright paint set off on any number of potentially life-changing journeys.

I sat with a thrum in my heart, watching the parade of passing ladies, gentleman, and children, all with anticipation on their faces. Do they, like me, wait to reunite with someone special? Or do they await a boat to take them to an exciting destination where someone expects them, awaits them, longs for them? A pier or a train station is a thrilling place of aching and impatience, eternally in its first bloom of love.

In my mind, this was what I hoped would happen when Jonathon stepped off the gangplank:

I hoped we’d fall into each other’s arms and into an embrace that couldn’t be troubled by the impropriety of kissing passionately on a dock. That’s what piers, docks, and train platforms were for. The playful, jovial couple I imagined we could be would act as if all anxieties were forgotten.

No. Instead, this was what really happened:

I stared at him as he exited the ship and came down the roped plank and onto the pier. His eyes sought the crowd and pierced me. Oh, he cut a handsome figure: black mourning jacket and crisp white cravat, wide-brimmed hat in hand, those eviscerating bright eyes brightening still at the sight of me, a delicious grin spreading across his face.

But despite this welcome, gorgeous sight, all I could think of was the moment in the corridor when he tore at me. My flesh still bore the scratches, and they once again throbbed in pain. How could a dream actually wound me? I looked him in the eye, knowing if I saw any of that telltale reflective quality the demon had worn.

“Natalie,” he said, approaching me, reaching out for me. Something on my face stilled him. He furrowed his brow. “What. Why are you looking at me that way?”

“You hurt me…” I blurted. It wasn’t the first thing I’d wanted to say. I’d wanted to kiss him.

He stared at me. “I beg your pardon?”

“The last dream, the loud corridor. You changed. You ripped at my gown. Look—”

I pulled the lace neckline of my bodice aside so he could see the marks. He hissed and reached out his fingers as if to touch them but then withdrew.

“Natalie, if you dreamed that, it wasn’t me. We didn’t share that. I remember seeing you,” he lowered his voice, “in your nightdress, but you faded abruptly. I know I didn’t…wound you…” He stared at the marks in horror.

“Then someone else has your face in my dreams?”

He set his jaw, bright eyes flashing. “Someone else wore this face, Natalie. You know that as well as I! And I hope you’d know me better than to think any part of me would ever hurt you, awake or asleep,” he snapped, turning away.

I heard him begin to speak jovially, as if to someone else, staging how he thought our conversation should’ve begun. “Oh, Jonathon,” he said, affecting his neutral American accent, “welcome back. I’ve missed you. How brave you were!”

He shook his head and replied to himself. “Oh, Natalie, it’s been an awful business, playing the demon, alone. Thank God I have you—” He glared back at me as he began walking away. “That’s what I hoped I could count on.”

I watched him exit the Cunard gate, my throat dry and my cheeks burning with anxious embarrassment. I hurried to catch up.

We wove silently through the throng of passengers. On the street he stopped to gain his bearings. I gestured toward a line of carriages awaiting those who could afford them. We were provided for by our own “Northe” star, our guardian angel to whom we were increasingly beholden. I nodded to the driver as Jonathon helped me into the carriage. “I’m s-sorry,” I stammered as I took my seat, “I…”

“You can’t be responsible for your dreams?” he interrupted, climbing in after me and closing the cab door. “You can, Natalie. You can be the master of them. I’ve seen you banish demons. ‘I renounce thee,’ you’d say to what frightened you. But these days you let other men in and you wake up wounded. Where’s the brave girl who crossed a world to get to me? Won’t she believe in me? Won’t she fight the demon off?” He was as stung as he was angry. “Instead you assume I hurt you and not your own mind? You think higher of your nightmares than me?”

“Jonathon, please.” I did not expect such a vehement reaction.

He set his jaw. “I had a right terrible time in London, Natalie. I could use a friend. Some kindness and cheer. I’m tired of being frightened, so the last thing on earth I want to see is that sentiment reflected in your eyes. Dreaming of my friends is one thing. Being scared of the man you once claimed you love, for no founded reason, is another.”

“I know, of course…” But still, the marks. “How could the marks be my mind alone? Do I not have reason to be scared?”

“You do, Natalie. For that, I’m scared for you too. Perhaps we didn’t spend time enough away from the source of the dark magic.”

“It seems I didn’t. But if it’s lying in wait for me, where? What do I do?”

“We banish it as before.” He looked at me. “Together.” He tried to smile.

Not knowing what else to do, I threw my arms around him. Couldn’t we talk deliciously of flirtations? He tensed as I touched him. That only made me squeeze him harder, not wanting to be denied. “I should’ve just kissed you madly there on the dock.”

“I’d have much preferred that,” he muttered. I thought about obliging us both, but I wanted the tension to fade first.

“I was worried sick for you—” I murmured.

“It was the only thing to do. The Majesty couldn’t have known the results of your amazing reversal. He couldn’t know I was myself again, not the demon. Their confidence is their weakness. They don’t think of the faithful or those who might prevail against their magic as threats. They assume their darkness trumps all.”

“Jonathon, you were valiant and brave, but please don’t become confident as their…double agent. They were happy to rip you apart once. They wouldn’t hesitate—”

“I daresay they wouldn’t. But I plan on keeping them at a distance.”

“Even as they move ‘operations’ to this city?”

“Ah, yes, well…Here I have you. My secret weapon.”

“Do not endanger your ward,” I said, eyeing him.

“My ward? Ah, yes, Miss Rose, my ward.”

“You have to admit that’s a delicious plot, Lord Denbury.”

“Oh? Delicious?” He leaned over me and his lips were against my temple, sending hot, tea-scented breath upon my cheek. “Tell me, what does the handsome young lord do about his pretty ward very nearly his age?”

“Torments her,” I murmured, lifting my lips to his ear.

“Does he? How does he torment her?” he countered in mine.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me,” I whispered, and my body thrilled from the tips of my ears to my toes, delighting in the game.

“Ah. Well, then.” He pulled away and spoke very seriously, his eyes somber. “I suppose it’s time I told you that I’ve a fiancée back in London.”

There was a terrible moment as I stared at him. Was he serious? He looked serious. I didn’t know anything about how the aristocracy worked, and he was still in so many ways a stranger. It was completely plausible that his family had him betrothed since birth. I was suddenly dizzy, falling back toward the carriage door.

Jonathon caught my shoulder. “Oh…is that not the kind of torment you mean?” He grinned.

I hit him hard on the arm. “Don’t do that. I’m still reeling from that dream with all those society ladies draped all about you.”

“Oh, and Nathaniel had his arms about you, kissing your neck, and I’m supposed to just ignore that?”

“That was just his flirtation manifesting in a dream.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Natalie. What makes you jealous will make a man crazy. I’m sensible and level headed, but don’t test me. Play fair.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said, kissing his cheek, delighting in his title.

“My ward,” he said, chuckling. We fell into an awkward silence.

“Can we…can I begin again?” I asked timidly, clasping his hand in mine. “Jonathon, my love, welcome back to New York. I’ve missed you terribly.”

He looked at me, and I saw the haunted face I remembered from the painting. Yes, he was cured of the curse, but so much had been taken from his life and his reality had been shattered, a burden I could not reverse. He allowed his steeled armor to fall.

His delectable lips curved slightly. “Better. Come, torment your guardian, my pretty young ward…”

I leaned in and kissed him, finally. Slowly, deliciously, and thoroughly. I hoped my kiss explained how much I cared. “Much better,” he breathed, and his arms locked around me tight and strong. The reality of him was so sure, so solid and true. How could I have ever doubted him? Absence can indeed twist perception. So can the wrong sort of dreams. But this. This was the truth. A truth I’d gained my voice for and risked my life to save.

As we clattered up Lexington, we finally drew back to catch our breath. Then came questions. “So, other than flirting with you,” Jonathon began, “what did Nat say?”

As I relayed the details, Jonathon looked around for something to punch and instead pounded his fist against his knee. “Murdered. My parents were murdered.”

All I could do was take his hand in the long, tense silence. There was nothing I could say to bring them back or undo the horror done to him. “When all of this is said and done, Jonathon, they’ll not have died in vain. I’ll do anything I can to make sure that’s true.”

“See. Now that’s my brave girl.” He kissed my forehead.

“I told Nathaniel about Samuel. Since you might not be in a position, with your double identity, to help him, maybe Nathaniel could.”

“Good.”

“One more thing. Nathaniel was approached by someone, a chemist, about a drug that could eliminate melancholy. Seems he was interested in targeting Nathaniel’s Association.”

“More Society business? Another of the three departments, pharmacology? That might be the next phase of experiments. But I still don’t know what Preston’s really doing. I couldn’t outright ask since I’m sure the demon knew well enough.”

“That’s where Rachel comes in. Preston is her employer. He has been asking her to do strange things, the most recent of which was to tie spirits of the dead to segmented body parts. Something, I might add, I foresaw in a dream.”

“Dear God. Then what? What’s being done with the parts?”

“You’re going to have to ask Preston. He’s likely returned. Ask to see the work, per your instructions from the Society.”

“Well, then, that’s the first task for both of us.”

“Me too?” I gulped.

“He’s already met Miss Rose. You may hear or pick up on something I cannot. Besides, I feel I’m at my best when you’re at my side.”

I smiled. This was the core of true love: when someone brought out the best, bravest, and strongest parts of you and stood with their best self beside you.

We stole another kiss for as long as we could before the carriage slowed. I pinned up a few locks of hair that had come undone and we smoothed our clothing.

“Hello, dear boy!” Mrs. Northe exclaimed, embracing him at the door. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Northe. It is good to be back again with you both.”

There was genuine warmth between them, and I prayed that my father might welcome him with similarly open arms, but that seemed unlikely. Mrs. Northe doted on Jonathon like a prodigal son for a while, striking that enigmatic balance between mother and friend, making you think she was the most valuable woman in the world to you. And she was. But being so in debt made me nervous.

“Is Rachel all right?” I asked.

“Still resting. More peacefully this time. Perhaps the spirits are preoccupied.”

We relayed our thoughts about what Preston may have in store. Mrs. Northe listened carefully but said nothing. Jonathon didn’t waste a whit of time.

“We must be off to Dr. Preston, as directed.”

I nodded. “Yes, Jonathon, it’s true, that must be done…and…”

“And?”

“And you must meet my father,” I said.

“Ah, yes. Of course. Come on then, Miss Rose, we’ve an investigation to begin.”

And with that, brave Lord Denbury was out the door, seemingly suddenly more nervous about meeting my father than confronting a mad doctor. It wasn’t as if Father was intimidating, but I suppose fathers of girls men loved always had that sort of power, the power of one simple word in answer to the question: May I court your daughter?

What if he said no?