ELIZA ESDAILE
If the being that took control of me had conducted itself as it had intended, I should not be sitting with you today. When I awoke to find a stranger in control, it was clear that it had almost no knowledge of human society. And in the absence of that knowledge, it would be impossible to carry off the role.
It is easier for them when they completely manifest—when some part of their essence is devoted to the creation of a human body. When they do so, they mimic the characteristics of humans they observe, and learn how to speak and walk and carry themselves as humans. Possession of an actual human requires more power, but it is harder for the less experienced.
My occupant—and forgive me, Reverend, but I shall insist on referring to this being as “her,” for she seemed to be like a young woman—was new to the task, and had little notion of how humans actually interacted. She quite frightened James at first—he did not know what to do with her, and I had been rendered insensible by the transformation, except for that brief few moments when I awoke in the infirmary to learn that I had lost control of my own body. Thus, it was that she came to me to ask my help.
My first impression on coming to my senses was that I was cold. Years in India had made me unaccustomed to the sensation—but this was something different from merely waking with the fire out and the bedclothes disarranged: I was freezing, lying on snow and subject to a bitter wind. As far as I could see in any direction, there was nothing but an icy wasteland.
And then I saw myself, standing in my usual light dress and everyday bonnet, indifferent to the weather.
“What—” I began, scarcely able to speak above the howl. “Where am I?”
“You must help me,” my other self said. “You will help me.”
“I am f-freezing. Where am I? What is this place?”
“I do not understand. Are you uncomfortable?”
“Yes! Yes, I am, I—” I tried to rise, the ice cutting through the thin garment and into my skin. “I am not attired for this weather.”
She seemed to scrutinize me for several seconds, narrowing her eyes. I wondered at the expression: it was like a mirror, but it seemed that her face was animated in a way that was completely alien to me. Finally, she seemed to understand what I had said, and waved her hand. My clothing changed to heavy, thick garments and stout boots, with heavy gloves.
I managed to scramble to my feet. “Thank you,” I said. “I do not understand what is happening.”
“I need your help.”
“In what way?”
“I do not understand how to—how to act. How to be like your kind.”
The words your kind chilled me even more than the biting wind. I tucked my hands into a muff that she had thoughtfully provided.
“Who are you?”
“I am—my name is unimportant and you could not render it,” she said. “You may call me by the first few sounds. ‘Fi.’”
“Very well. Fi. Why have you brought me to this place? And why must you be me?”
“I am to occupy you. I was summoned by—” She broke into a series of syllables that I find impossible to reproduce; but they were curious, musical sounds that echoed weirdly across the trackless plain. “I am to be a protector.”
“Protector?”
“Against those who seek to do harm to one of your kind. Doctor Esdaile.”
“Doctor Esdaile ‘summoned’ you? From where?”
“From here,” she answered. “From my home. Where you are—where we are—is nothing like this place. Instead of being beautiful, it is dirty and hot, full of—” She grimaced; it was an expression that I did not think my face could compass, so it looked completely alien to me. “People,” she finally finished, speaking the word as if she were saying vermin or pests.
“India,” I said, “is very crowded, yes. But are you saying that we are somehow still there?”
“Of course, Eliza Weatherhead,” Fi said. “This is merely a seeming, a place I have remembered so that we can talk. And we must talk, for I require you to teach me.”
“How to be a person?”
She smiled, baring her teeth. “How to be a particular person, Eliza Weatherhead. I need to learn to be you.”
I need not tell you, Reverend Davey, the shock with which I received that statement. I nearly sat down upon the ice from which I had recently risen; I suddenly felt myself weak and light-headed. In short, I came close to succumbing to panic.
All during these brief seconds, Fi’s expression never changed; she looked neither concerned nor triumphant nor any of a dozen other emotions that she might have betrayed. It was then that I realized an important fact—one which surely helped save my sanity and perhaps my life: I knew that Fi, for all that she had taken my appearance and was presently “possessing” me—whatever that in fact meant—was separate from me.
My thoughts were my own. Trapped though I was—according to her statements—my thoughts were yet my own!
“You have taken possession of me,” I said. “Then please tell me why I should cooperate with you in the smallest measure.”
“I do not understand. What choice do you have but to cooperate?”
“With what means could you coerce me? What could you do?”
“I could cause you pain.”
“You could—” I could scarcely contain myself: I nearly convulsed in laughter. “Pain is no threat. What could you do that has not already been done? You have taken my freedom, my body, my—” I spun around on my heel. “You have me here, in the recesses of my mind, I presume, in an icy wasteland that you consider to be home, and you speak to me of pain?”
“I was told that you would fear pain. That you will do anything to avoid it.”
“You were misinformed.”
The grimace returned.
“You do not care about pain?”
“I do not care for pain,” I said. “But there is nothing about it that I fear.”
“What is more,” Fi said, as if she were considering the matter, “if you were to feel pain, it would interfere with my duties.”
It was a remarkable admission, and I apprised at once that it was valuable intelligence. I had not yet recovered from the elation that had accompanied my realization that I retained privacy in this singular state of captivity.
“Then,” I said carefully, “you must find some other coin to pay me with.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I want one thing above all others—to have my freedom.”
“You know I cannot grant that. I am in this position to accomplish a specific task. You speak of pain, and your indifference to it, but you cannot imagine what pain would be my punishment if I surrendered my duty.”
“Then we are at an impasse, I fear.”
“But—” she began, then paused. “But I need your help, Eliza Weatherhead. I require it.”
“You shall not have it for nothing, Lady Fi.”
The grimace took on a more disturbing form—a rather frightening, feral expression that seemed so completely alien to my face that I scarcely recognized it.
“I cannot obtain your help by threat, and I cannot obtain it by force. Therefore, I shall take away the only other thing that I perceive to be of any value to you.”
“And what is that?”
There was a moment of complete darkness, following which I found myself in a completely different place: the conservatory at the Heath house. I felt tears come to my eyes: it was so painfully familiar—I was sitting in my usual chair near the Pleyel piano, and I could hear the soft patter of rain outside on the verandah—that I thought that I had actually awoken there. I was even attired in a familiar dress, one that I had worn a great deal during my last few years as governess for Rose.
But it was not quite the same. The memory of sound and sight was there, but there were no odors at all. The jasmine blossoms from the garden, the faint scent of wood and polishing oil from the furniture and the distant smell of tamarind and coriander from the kitchens, all were missing.
“This is another of your remembrances,” I said to the empty room.
“It is one of yours, Eliza Weatherhead,” Fi said, walking into the room, again a perfect imitation of my speech and my walk; she was wearing the same dress. “This was a place that seemed precious to you, am I correct?”
“You foul it by bringing it before me.”
Fi looked confused. “I had thought to please you, Eliza Weatherhead.”
“And do stop using my first and last name. You may address me as Miss Weatherhead, or you may use my Christian name, if you must.”
“Eliza.”
“Yes. I suppose we are intimates now, and on a first-name basis.”
The sarcasm was lost on Fi; she was baffled by my response, but I expect that she concluded that it was some human matter that she could not yet understand. She walked to a nearby seat and settled into it, much as I might do, though her posture seemed altogether sloppy and unsuitable.
“Eliza,” she said, “you must believe me that I only sought to place you at ease by bringing forth the memory of this room. You were uncomfortable in the previous surroundings and I thought this would be more to your liking.”
I considered an angry reply, but for some reason I refrained. Fi, my own image, seemed suddenly forlorn and sad—and sincere.
“This is a sort of bribe,” I said at last. “Do you think that this will somehow make me more tractable? You choose to be kind to me—I recognize and even appreciate that kindness. But I am still your prisoner. There is still nothing you can do to me, nothing you can take away from me.”
“But I have, Eliza. While you slept.”
I must have now appeared to be baffled.
“Excuse me, slept?”
“Yes,” she said. “Since our conversation at my home, nearly a week has passed. I have been very busy, Eliza,” she said, smiling, again somewhat ferally. “Let me congratulate you: for today you are to be wed.”