ELIZA ESDAILE
When I opened my eyes, I found myself in my own bed—the bed I shared with James Esdaile. A man I knew by reputation but whom I had just met for the first time sat by me, his face composed and peaceful.
He seemed to notice me at once, despite my attempt to feign sleep. I reached my hand out, but there was no weapon ready to hand.
“I do not know why you have spared me,” I said quietly.
The man unexpectedly smiled.
“Why do you remain?”
“I seek to comfort you, dear lady,” he said, and reached out to pat my hand. It was a wonder! Reverend Davey—for it was none other: the man who had sought to kill my husband—was truly acting the part of a vicar.
He was a dangerous man, a skilled mesmerist and a criminal boss—and a clergyman. I did not know him in the latter context; indeed, I only knew what James had said of him.
He sees only one side of power. He does not understand what he might let loose.
“I do not want your comfort,” I answered.
“Then I would have you answer a question.”
“What question?”
“Why are you here?”
That was not the question I would have anticipated. I looked around me at the familiar bedchamber; it was near dark and chilly outside of the bedcovers.
“This is my house. Where should I be?”
“I thought you might vanish entirely.” He sat upright again, his hands on his knees. “I know what you are—what you were. You were the thing—”
“I am not a thing.”
“Clearly not,” he answered. “But you were—you bore the being with which Esdaile made his devil’s bargain. When he died—”
I shuddered. “Then I did not dream it.”
“No, madam. You did not. I did not kill him, as I had intended. You did not consume him, as you intended. And when, instead of vanishing, you simply fainted, my priorities changed.”
My first impulse was to ask him what he could possibly mean by that comment. But I knew, and he knew that I knew, exactly what he meant.
“Watching my husband die was good and sufficient reason to faint, Reverend Davey.”
“A point taken. It would be more poignant, except that Esdaile’s arrangement was with a chthonic spirit, a demon of earth, who has been his guardian since he—you—returned from India. But when such spirits manifest a physical body, they only remain until they accomplish their duty.”
“You thought—” I paused to consider what conclusion he had reached. “You thought I was the physical form of …”
“Why should I have thought otherwise? But obviously, I was wrong. And as I said, madam, my priorities have changed.”
I took a few deep breaths. I felt some combination of relief and terror. “Then tell me what you intend.”
“I intend to learn from you, Mrs. Esdaile. Eliza.”
His assumed familiarity put me off, but I was altogether too shocked to object. “Learn?”
“About the chthonic spirit that inhabited you. I wish to understand how you survived this experience without succumbing to madness.”
“How do you know I am not mad?”
“Because, because, dear lady,” he said to me, “I understand madness very well indeed. And you are sane. I need to know why.”
He looked deep into my eyes. I knew what he was doing: if I had learned anything over the last several years, it was the methods and means by which mesmerists pursue their Art.
I could have resisted. I do not know if I could have withstood his ministrations, but honestly, I was not sure it was worth the trouble. I wanted to go back to sleep; I was exhausted.
But I was free.
WILLIAM DAVEY
My enemies among the Committee would have had it believed that I was unfeeling, monomaniacal, and ruthless. Let me say that I am not monomaniacal: I feel that I steered a middle course and that I sought to keep the Committee directed in that manner as well. Nor am I unfeeling. To the contrary, that Eliza Esdaile was not a manifestation of a chthonic being but merely a vessel—and, clearly, an unwilling vessel—aroused my empathy.
She had been taken that morning from the Crystal Palace by house servants, along with the body of her husband. The local constabulary provided an escort. I accompanied them as a friend of the family and a clergyman; there was no one who would gainsay me.
As I had told her, my assumption had been that she had been created. When she remained after Esdaile’s suicide, I realized that could not possibly be the case. It made sense: though chthonic beings had more physical matter to work with, possession was far more efficient than manifestation for all stoicheia, chthonic or otherwise, since it was not necessary to construct a body and animate it to resemble life. It was an error due to lack of experience—at that time, I had as yet had little to do with any stoicheia from any of the elemental realms.
Yet none of these beings are accustomed to human patterns of feeling and thought; they even seem to perceive the passage of time differently. For Eliza to emerge from the traumatic experience with a shred of sanity was so singular that I could not bypass the opportunity to learn how she had done it.
Thus I confess to the third attribution that my detractors place upon me. I do not think it an exaggeration to consider me ruthless. Therefore, far too soon after the tragic events beneath the crystal vault of the exposition hall, I provided Eliza the means to tell her story.
In this way, I began at the end of the story—where Esdaile ended.