Chapter 9

Protect Me With This Eternity

 

No especial concern had I for the male guest Lady Amanda was entertaining until he spoke of demons.

This sinner arrived days after I met my future victim. Equal to that shipboard scene of failed salvation and utter death, my introduction to Eric returned to me in dreams. The similarity I found in these events was unclear, though the outcome of each was intended murder; and to God I prayed fervidly that this latest pack of sinners variously presuming and planning death would meet failure in their foreboding. Somehow that failure must be my part. I knew I must save myself, but to abide by my own morality, I could not save myself alone.

Elsie answered the door as I crawled about my chamber, determining the damage from her latest covert bout of cleaning. While I was sighing on the roof, Elsie had obliterated my urine markings so small that no sinner should be sensitive enough to find them. And since my way with dusting was inadequate for the fastidious servant—in part because I used but a rag, the duster being the murderous makings of a slaughtered fowl—Elsie had also removed the accumulated dust from beneath my bed. At least she had not oiled there, leaving me a surface recognizable as wood. But was this failure from her lacking time—in that the irascible lass might return any instant—or from fond consideration? Perhaps the latter, for my sole natural friend, the spider, remained at peace in its corner. And it seemed that Elsie remained at peace in mine.

Upon hearing the word “demonic” from below, I ran to the balustrade, seeing Elsie guide a mature sinning man into the drawing room. His suit seemed more severe than usual for men of Rathel’s peerage, a dark, familiar jacket. Cursed with curiosity, I moved down the stairs to Elsie, who was proceeding with her chores when I accosted her.

“Elsie, who is the male with Rathel?”

Having been violently scraping away encrustations inside a decorative flower crock, perspiring Elsie looked up to me with personal astonishment, proceeding to condemn me for shaming her person.

“And you’re having the gall to be traipsing downstairs in your nightclothes and without brushing your hair, you thankless waif?”

Theodosia’s nearby presence precluded my free speaking. Though all the servants knew of my rejecting the state of ladydom, the less familiar pair rejected me outright because of that attitude. Only a mad person, they believed, required convincing to become superior in English society, the servants willing to sacrifice most any attribute shy of their immortal souls for the opportunity. Therefore, no intimate revelations did we share. Only Elsie received my deceitful rantings.

“No more sorrow in existence could I feel than to have so offended you, kind Elsie, and to my chamber I shall rush to overcome my shame if only you would comment as to the identity of the gentleman herewith arrived.”

Before Elsie could reply that Mistress Rathel’s guests were not my concern, I quickly closed that space between us to whisper, “I heard him say ‘demonic.’”

She ceased her scraping to look firmly toward me, then continued with her activity. Her smell was changed, as was her face, Elsie with an odor of concern, an expression of apprehension.

“And the gent is London’s chief magistrate, Sir Jacob Naylor, being the most important official of law in the City, sitting beside the Lord Mayor hisself.” Her tone had also changed, Elsie no longer comfortably scolding me as before. “’Tis an honor we’re having, child, for such a great man to visit our home. Now be up the stairs lest he’s seeing you disheveled like no lady of his city.”

Away I ran, Elsie seeing that my goal was not the upper story, but the great closet outside the drawing room. As I moved inside and to the far wall, Elsie wondered when I had learned this place the best for listening.

I could smell that the magistrate was being served tea a long walk beyond as polite persons travel, only paces away as the witch listens. Rathel had left the door to the drawing room open, in that a gentleman should not be privately met with a lady unless family, this another lesson learned by the witch though not considered sensical. And here was the subject to be discussed: not ladies, but witches. Within the closet by the wall with wainscoting on only the opposite side, I listened improperly, though not inappropriately, for the subject was me.

“I must presume, Lord Magistrate, that you’ve some exceptional cause for placing such questions to me.”

“Not so exceptional that you cannot call me Jacob, Amanda. In fact, one of our fine citizens is the cause.”

“Am I not one as well, Jacob?”

“One of London’s finest, and especially valued considering the aid you’ve oft given England by helping us rid her of demonic entities. Your ability to distinguish witches from common women is a unique, inestimable faculty.”

I could not smell this man, but his voice held neither especial warmth nor a brazen lack of decency. How Amanda was affected by him I remained uncertain, though it seemed that even her current firm position was being addressed to a peer, a sinner equal not only in society, but strength.

“I hope the time does not come that you doubt my motives regarding such malice because my aid to you is accompanied by a request for payment.”

“A tribute of currency would be understandable, but since you request naught but a mention to the city’s council or the king’s chancellery, I find your fee temperate. Perhaps certain people care not for my wielding influence toward you, but as long as I publicly acknowledge my ideas as having come from yourself, I remain proper not only for the written laws of England, but also the established rules of political integrity.”

“Then why on this occasion are you doubting my own integrity? Why is it you accept the word of the architect instead of mine?”

“The architect has responsibility for London’s greatest new cathedral, and that is God’s jurisdiction. Considering the man’s position, he is due the benefit of my investigation.”

“But accusing—”

“I present queries, Amanda, not accusations. Further, you might ease my task by being forthright and cooperative, recalling how well we have partaken of mutual business in the past, a compatibility not yet changed, I trust.”

“It has not, Jacob, but you can understand my displeasure at being accused by a man who has caused my family such torment.”

“I am sorrowful for any torments in your life, Amanda, but disputes between households are not within my bounds. Demons in England, however, are. Therefore, allow me to ask my questions and thus satisfy both my office and Mr. Denton while imparting brevity to your distress.”

“You could have further questions, Lord Magistrate? The first to leave your mouth virtually named my adopted daughter as a witch.”

“The query was not quite so crass, Amanda. And reasonable it was of Mr. Denton considering your familiarity with witches. Since by nature, your profession deals with punishment, the possibility exists of your subjects’ seeking retribution. To gain such vengeance, even demons influence people more than the elements. Considering that you now house a person previously under Satan’s spell as per your own admission, Mr. Denton’s queries must be understandable even to yourself.”

“Understandable, but not agreeable, and presumably a type of vengeance of Denton’s own, for even humans can be wicked.”

“Please me, Amanda, by not being coy, not being defensive when no offense have you caused. To obviate Denton’s further distressing you via my office, answer me casually and quickly.”

“Quickly and officially, Jacob, my daughter Alba is possessed by great God alone, for truly she is as pious a child as any I have known.”

“Please speak of the child’s potentially transferring the corrupt force that previously influenced her.”

“Never in my experience have I known of such demonic transference. Do not misconstrue: Alba did live with witches. She did not, however, become one from this proximity. Neither did the exposure confer to her any witches’ power. Either one is a witch or is not. And no one dispenses Satan like a beverage.”

“From my own experience, Amanda, I know demonic folk to transmit evil through every physical medium.”

“Demonic humans accomplish the same, Jacob, through physical mediums, such as poisons and knives, and intangible mediums, such as lying and graft. But Satan is not corporeal on this Earth. Instead, he exists as malice. The black lord uses the witch as a means, not an equal.”

“The means for my own worst experience of evil—my father’s death, a sinister demise which well you’ve heard.”

“True, Jacob, the Plague is the most wicked of illnesses.”

“Most wicked exactly, and though some fools say it was brought by rats from the Continent, I know it was brought by witches from Hell. If rodents carried the disease, it was given them by witches. But here we disagree.”

“I doubt that witches have the power to kill such a multiplicity.”

“My own parent is the singular of my concern. As for doubts, I remain disappointed that you will not allay my own by enlightening me with your expertise in witches.”

“For a cause well depicted, Jacob. Witches would have my life through a charm long established if I ever I reveal their truths. But that past will change no more than the place of your father in Heaven. In our immediacy, however, is a current evil. You have come about Mr. Denton’s accusations, which I would dispose of. Are we ended with his comments as to my daughter’s transmitting evil, perhaps the Plague?”

“Denton’s comment is that you brought your daughter into his home to torment the boy, Eric.”

“I brought Alba to the Denton household to boast of my enviable state in having so felicitous a daughter, and to help mend the discomfort our families share. The failure in the latter was not from the Rathels. Need ye further assurance, Jacob, further reply?”

“The architect has been specific in maintaining that the girl aroused his son as only persons married under God should become.”

“Does he lie so daringly as to assert that my daughter lured his boy? That she made toward him either bodily revelation or a taunting with words?”

Rathel’s last speaking was so intense it caused a change in my own facial cast, as though she were speaking to me. The magistrate of London remained undisturbed.

“He did not,” Naylor stated. “Mr. Denton alleged that the girl projected her gender via some evil emanation.”

After a loud scoff, Rathel replied, “In fact, Jacob, evil was emanated there. Evil was the wicked Eric boy who brandished the lust of his manhood to all present. My daughter emanated only a beauty of person that she has scant idea of. Alba revealed nothing but a lovely face. The ill-bred Denton scoundrel revealed the wickedness of his body. Does the architect deny this?”

“He suggests that some evil flow from the girl caused the lad’s maleness to be…evident…when it never had been before.”

“If a beauteous face be wicked, then Alba is evil. But since Lord God created lovely girls to make all our lives pleasant, the wickedness is not from my household, but from the Denton boy’s lust. As well, God was so gracious as to give the girl no understanding of beauty’s power. Should I thus correct her deficiency by having lurid folk such as the Denton wretch teach her seduction? Should I scar her face to avoid the evil in wicked males? I say not, sir. I say leave her exquisite as God intended. I say speak with His ministers to correct the corruption in this situation, for it lay in the lewd Denton youth.”

“Enough of this bother,” the magistrate declared, and I heard him rise. “Enough of Denton’s anxieties. And enough of my efforts’ being wasted when I have true concerns of evil in this city. I thus take my leave, Amanda, and thank you for your forthright replies.”

After the sinners parted, I withdrew to my chamber for acceptable dressing and to suffer a distress worse than Rathel’s. She had referred to me as her daughter before, but now I was sickened. Ah, what a fool that Vidgeon woman to have desired me legally while possessing none of Rathel’s resources—and what of her hair, her mentality? Had she cured as well—or as poorly—as Amanda? Lord God, make Vidgeon average again, I prayed, not wishing known people to suffer further. And what a fool I had been, for if now an adopted Vidgeon, my station would be superior in not being subject to familial revenge. Sarah Vidgeon would yet be mindful and hirsute, and my mother would be alive. In that situation, could I not have secretly met with my true family on occasion? Later, could not Mother and our friends have designed a less dangerous plan for a full reunion? But now, with Lady Amanda, I was a sea removed from my home, and an eternity removed from my mother.

Typical of the sinners’ outlandish affairs, my torment was not alone. Though resembling Jonsway’s alderman in attire, this magistrate was more akin to the bishop in nature, even as Amanda was a more dangerous version of Sarah. Pure was Naylor’s danger, for whereas Rathel sought a sinner’s death, the magistrate threatened only witches. The true source of my melancholy was Naylor himself, an official akin to the former in seeking the demise of witches for the sake of God and England. And I was certain that unlike the bishop, this male I would meet again.

• • •

Less tidy in its artifice was that section of the grounds outside the kitchen. Here was soil made raw from traversal, not gardening, a path where servants walked to an unkempt mound for burying the household dung. The path’s opposing course led servants through a thick gate to the depths of London for tasks of marketing, the home’s lesser members having an exit from the grounds separate from the lofty females’ route. And which of my opposing parts would I emphasize if ever again I achieved escape: the simple rear exit fit the witch in me, or the elaborate front metalwork appropriate for the lady I deigned to become not for social status but survival? But how would I ever quit this sinning world now that release via cooperation was shown to be false? False and failed, I knew, ever since meeting the passion of the victim’s father, the incarnate architect, meeting the ambitions of another lawman seeking witches as though a lode of precious metal. And though Rathel only demanded that I attempt her plan, I knew that a relationship to directly involve the source of man smell would be impossible considering the strain of simply visiting the family. I thought of Gosdale, whose advances seemed fetid, thought of the boy growing a bit and changing from a person to a heinous male due only to the fundamental lechery of men. No, no, I would require a new means for achieving a true life. Therefore, I sought the support of an army, which I would recruit in the guise of Miss Elsie.

“And now it’s plain water that’s distressing you, I’m hearing? The simple well which is bringing you water makes your poor self ill?”

“My meaning, stern and literal Miss Elsie, is that the bucket induces a metal taste and smell in the water due to its iron strips.”

“Aye, and it could be worse, lass, by having a lesser bucket, one only of wood, and thus splitting soon after you’re using it.”

Elsie carried the bucket. I had wielded the rope.

“And I’m telling you, lass, that the mistress is not having you at servants’ tasks, and if I’m to be chided, then the fault and shame both be yours.”

We progressed to a bench where average servant and improper, learning lady sat to shell peas. We might have been in the natural world, nearby buildings hidden behind leafy trees to shade us, shelter us from housed witches seeking a view of space but finding only humans concerned with future eating.

“Would vegetable preparation on my part also distress the mistress?” I asked.

“Aye, it would,” she confessed, “but it’s one I’m enjoying, in that your companionship improves as you learn to be less of the wild creature.”

“I also find your presence increasingly adequate, Elsie, a satisfaction stemming from your personality, not merely your physical presence, which nevertheless is compatible, since you’ve neither periwig nor paint to obscure your natural appearance.”

“Ah, yes, lass, and what a terror I’d be to seem the lady,” Elsie huffed, pods flying from her now-violent fingers.

Refraining to mention that no local witch was as sensitive as she, I continued to seduce this servant into my ranks.

“With whom did you share such activities before I entered the household?” I wondered.

“Ah, but the chores I’m finding different are not the small ones of skinning, but the heavy ones of toting. That’s where the persons are different, for once an older but everworking man was here for the massive things. It’s the mistress, then, who’s having him leave lest the young girl coming be influenced toward menfolk too soon, though that’s hard to figure with his age. The more important man leaving was Master Franklin, God keep him. But even with him, there was no true family, which the mistress was ever lacking.” Elsie then paused, her face displaying an odd visage. “Before you, Alba.”

“I must beg your pardon, miss,” I replied with true offense, “in that your meaning hopefully eludes me.”

“What I’m saying, girl, is that since the mistress is never having a child from her body, at least she’s having one now for her heart. And no daughter from a person’s own womb will be better kept than you, lass, I’m assuring you that.”

Elsie’s manner of warm generosity was not that aspect of her presentation to move me. The power here was in content, her striking interpretation of my place within the household.

“I must say, Miss Elsie, that to become the child of a sinner is not merely an unpleasant thought, but one utterly revolting to any witch; for despite the rare individual’s curse of seeming the sinner, we all are sisters in spirit. To inform you accurately, know that the purpose of Rathel’s bringing me here is to achieve not family, but vengeance. Though knowledgeable in the ways of witches, she revels in a particular delusion, believing that I, as a witch, am physically capable of destroying a male—this Eric person—in order to punish his father for that previous romantic dissent. As for family, having a sinner as a mentor is excruciating; having one as a mother would be perverse. I will ever have but one true mother, a soulless crone who although dead for God’s eternity will live forever in my thoughts.”

Elsie dropped her peas as though unable to support their mass, so weak she became.

“Girl, I would be struck deaf from what I’m hearing!” she loudly declared. “The mistress is telling of your delusions from that old life, but to be calling not only yourself but your poor dead mother a witch and a crone and soulless! Praise God, child, that even as He gave your resting mother a soul, may He soon be giving you a true understanding of yourself so that these fantastical things you’re saying be ended, along with the pain you’re now causing your true friend, this Elsie.”

Having ejected her entire energy, Elsie was exhausted as she turned from me and regained her vegetables. I, however, remained calm and strong in my speaking.

“Elsie, you are nearly acceptable as a person in that you have less the smell of the powdered lady and more of an animal’s odor, but—”

“And thank you everso for calling me stinking!” she interrupted.

“Therefore,” I pronounced firmly, “in order for our compatibility to continue, I shall display my true nature in evident proof and thus convince you of God’s truth and mine.”

“So, what is it you’ll be doing, girl, since proving false things is not possible? You’ll be showing how you’re harming the boy or how your family is a pack of soulless fiends?”

“My own most gracious thanks to you, Miss Elsie, for deeming me the fiend,” I scolded. “With this basic tenet I shall begin: that although a witch, I am no more demonic than you, though somewhat less than Rathel. To provide you with this proof, however, you must first provide me your promised word.”

“And if I’m promising to believe false things, child, then no proof at all will be coming.”

“The vow you must give me in speech and God in prayer is to never reveal the scenes I shall display; for as you are well aware, witches in your sinners’ semi-moral society are due grisly execution.”

“And rightfully so,” she declared, “considering the evil they’re bringing to God’s world.”

Now I was the one affronted. No longer was I chatting with a friend, but had found the need to defend myself, defend my kind.

“No more outlandish delusion could exist than that my mother and her similars are heinous and worthy of a torturer’s fire. I will cure your ignorance, Miss Elsie, by revealing myself a witch and yet worthy of your friendship. I shall also prove myself superior as a person to your opinion of me; for by demonstrating myself a witch, I prove myself honest and not the liar you believe. Thereby you will understand that my uncomfortable attitude in London must be considered in light of the truth of my life, not the prejudice of any person’s fantasies.”

Elsie’s tightened breath revealed new tension. Though skeptical, the woman was also frightened by truth’s potentials. And, as was common with sinners, she was curious.

“Girl, if you’re to be proving yourself a dark spirit, it would not be done with a palsy on me hands, eh?”

“Even as I verify myself a witch, I shall prove these additional assertions: that witches cause neither illness nor disease, never harm crops and livestock, nor transmit plagues as though letters sent from Europe. If a reasonable person, you will then comprehend the facts of my life that I’ve often mentioned but you’ve never accepted. In fact, witches are repulsed by the eating of our fellow animals, and rightfully fear manipulation by sinners who would kill us. The former is my cause for stressing crops, not creatures, in my diet. The latter is the source of my opposing Lady Amanda.”

“And how is it, young Alba, that you’re proving yourself the witch in some way that an unbeliever might believe? It’s no coldness of skin that’s making a person the witch,” Elsie added. “Perhaps you’ll be showing some magic.”

“I will display magic if thereafter you bear a child to demonstrate procreation,” I retorted.

“Girl, and you’re old enough to be knowing that making babes is not a thing done on one’s own or within the span of a moment.”

“Yes, miss, I do understand, and hope that henceforth you comprehend that magic is no less involved or difficult, an activity I care to undertake as much as you would bear a child for my enlightenment.”

“Aye, and it’s for the best, girl, that you’re not proving yourself wicked,” Elsie sighed, “for I would have you as you are: often deluded but occasionally sweet.”

Moments before, Elsie and I had abandoned our shelling as though waiting for a brilliant method for confirming the lass either a genuine witch or a true fool. Then I was struck with an easy proof of witches that in my current era had mutated toward fear.

“Not from my rare felicity but a sought objectivity, I shall prove myself the witch by swimming for you.”

“Ah, but it’s known even commonly, lass, that no witch can be swimming,” she submitted.

“True enough, but my reference is not to paddling like a coot, but remaining beneath the water’s surface for a duration certain to convince even those uncommon.”

“But the nearest water, I’m saying, is the River Thames, unless you’re to be ducking yourself in a rain barrel.”

“I would not presume to impress you by immersing my head in a bucket as though promulgating a lark or washing my hair.”

“And a fine offer that would be, considering how filthy you allow your hair to become.”

“I require no further deprecation, miss. I have now decided that, yes, with this river you have suggested an acceptable example.”

I saw myself there. At the river’s edge with Hershford Bridge in the distance, visible through the haze as though a painting on the sky, a harmless depiction akin to one on Rathel’s wall. I saw myself there, not drowning in the depths as the bridge implied, but standing apart from the unsupportive structure, at the water’s own level, not an intimate locale but one less dangerous than my dreams. I envisioned entering the water, not being hurled toward execution, but slipping at my will beneath the calm surface. My best wish and greatest reinforcement for my plan of proof was my following imagination, that my dreams of drowning would disappear along with the bridge’s sight, vanish from my mind’s night creations congruently with the sinners’ span disappearing from my eyes.

Proving myself soulless to Elsie might be dangerous, but since Rathel could have me executed as a witch any moment, what greater harm could this servant bring? But her confidence seemed valuable, for I was beyond presuming that I would ever fulfill Rathel’s plans, despite my cooperation. That first close association with the architect and his victim son augured a stress the young witch would not readily survive. Not without a cohort.

Elsie and I departed at once, careful to exit the grounds without being espied by its populace, whose mistress was away on business. Traveling that worn path to the lesser exit, we entered an alley, then proceeded to verify Satan within me.

Our secretive retreat was tainted by Elsie’s visions of doom. With every step, she moaned about losing her employ should the mistress learn of this journey. I was therefore made to vow convincingly and often that I would not attempt to flee, as though I had some reasonable goal, Elsie mentioning that this ignorance had not stopped me before.

To achieve the river where I might gain an aide and rectify my sleeping, we unfortunately traversed what seemed a huge expanse of London. Elsie at my side was superior as a guide to Mother in Jonsway, for being a denizen here, the servant found no surprises in our travel. Nevertheless, she insisted upon remaining unobserved, as though a witch concealing her identity for survival’s sake. Elsie felt that any person recognizing her would inform Rathel of her servant’s being out with the new lass in tow for criminal purposes, a ludicrous fear, for in fact our purpose was evil.

Though not the first sinner interfered with us as Elsie shooed me along, a new torment found me as though to fill the vacancy of unimplemented anxiety. Through the London air came an unknown smell that was unpleasant yet not quite terrifying. Only the accompanying heat was frightening, Elsie and I passing a shop wherein a male made bottles with an open flame and his own air. The sight struck me with a rushing sense of alienness more than danger, and I had to whisper harshly for Elsie to explain how such an event as a sinner’s blowing bubbles of molten sand could possibly be. Familiar with the girl’s wilderness innocence, Elsie provided a clear explanation that in no way relieved my feeling that although I might come closer to being a simple person such as Elsie, the sinners’ greater artificiality would always remain unfathomable. But why was I uncomfortable with this thought when my unending innocence proved me the continuing witch?

At the river’s edge, I found disappointment: no bridge was visible on this curving segment of the Thames. Well removed toward that way, Elsie described. Without this prime element, I was certain that my prediction would not be fulfilled, and my dreams would remain like that bridge, imperceivable in the present, but as unavoidable as the past. No better was the water itself, which seemed incapable of cleansing mere dirt, much less imbedded dreams; for the river stank, soiled from the sinners’ industries, from cooking animals to blowing glass.

Only the lapping of water against the docks was passably satisfying, the liquid swells soothing my future loss, which would be the failure to lose my nightly scenes. At least I would prove those nightmares no more than imagination, this river for demonstration, not drowning.

“And it’s a foolish notion we’re having, girl, and one yet changeable,” Elsie declared, standing near me as she looked about for witnesses. “I’m saying we return now, before the mistress finds us.”

“Let us find me the witch,” I intoned, my voice so confident or so inhuman as to send Elsie a step away. Thereafter, witnesses were of no concern to her, only the youth professing to be more than a girl. But her old sensibility remained, Elsie the servant aware of her duty.

“Aye, girl, and what are we thinking, now, with the autumn weather about us? To be wet completely will cause you the croup, and I am not having you ill.”

Intelligent was Elsie’s attempt to impress me with a desire to preclude my illness, as she rubbed, rubbed her dress with all her fingers.

“This weather is neither cold nor wet enough to harm me, miss, for witches are not subject to vapors.”

“Ah, then be thinking of me, lass. If you’re to be swimming in these waters, I am the woman who’ll suffer from your ruint clothes—and my ruint life, because the mistress will see you wetted and know you were out and the fault to be mine.”

“More important, she would know my intent, that of proving my true life to you. Then we both would face disaster. I shall therefore immerse only myself, not my clothing. Since my hair will necessarily become wet, if we’re found at Rathel’s house, I shall maintain that I’ve allowed you to wash it as is your continual wont.”

“No, girl, and I’ll never be so wishing to clean your hair that I’d seek the great troubles before us. Right you be, lass, in wording it disaster. And since I’m struck with some decent thinking, I bid the two of us return home afore we make disaster for each other.”

Expecting that disaster to strike like a storm, Elsie looked around for bystanders who might witness against us. Though previously she had attempted to appear innocent with her observing along the road that paralleled the river, Elsie now looked stressfully everywhere for sheer danger. No worker nor passerby approached, Elsie and I shielded from most directions by an empty shed. But Elsie’s extended viewing revealed none of the true disaster, for one step away stood the lass removing her attire.

“Alba! and you’re mindless now to be denuding yourself on the Thames!” she hissed. As Elsie reached to pull my dress around me, I moved away with a step and a slip, and the garment fell to the ground.

Miss Elsie then revealed her true intelligence, understanding that her path of curiosity led directly toward that inferred disaster. Therefore, she abandoned disbelief, proceeding directly to agreement.

“Aye, Alba, and truly I’m believing all you say about witches and plagues—and any thought in your mind, child, if only you’ll be clothing yourself and return with me!”

But I would not clothe myself, would not return. Being of a race more physical than social, the witch pulled herself from the servant with an economy of effort, dropping crinoline and bloomers to the dry planks of the wharf, then into the river with scarcely a splash.

As I looked to the water, the enterprise’s most tactile aspect of wet suffocation became primary. Aware that the immersion to benefit my future would torment my present, I accepted a demeanor of dutiful accomplishment, intending to perform the task of convincing Elsie as though my continued survival were at stake. For no reason other than survival would I walk through water. Not to cross a river only paces long to gain food and end my starving, not to save myself a walk of days around a water body. Perhaps to quench flames consuming my sinners’ attire, but nothing less. Though something burned me enough to force me toward that water, in the following moment, I was not ensuring my survival, but losing it.

At once I was drowning. The last sound heard was a gasp from Elsie, my last thought to remain calm and procedural, to keep my eyes closed and pinch my nostrils shut to avoid irritation in these sensitive membranes from the dank sinners’ river. But once ensconced in the fluid, I found myself captured by it, and I was not retaining my breath, but bereft of it. After that first, smothering moment, I was prepared to push upward from the river’s bottom to gain air again. But since any form of human can survive without breathing for a brief spell, I survived my airless moment and came to understand my problem. Of course, water supplies a witch air, a fact I had neglected in my concern for drowning. Less air comes from water than the atmosphere, but enough for survival. Then the water’s filth became significant again, for I was eating it. I had opened my mouth to take in the Thames, allowing it to pass in and out via my pumping cheeks. I had to eat it like fruit, consume its saving juice, which was wet air the fish know well, that a witch can smell and even sinners see as bubbles.

I calmed; very calm. I achieved understanding. Since I received little air, I knew to undertake equal activity. I calmed, allowing the water’s air to seep into my lungs. Though continuing to feel some smothering, I breathed through it, a great fear ready to rush through me even as I was ready to rush through the water. But no further terror and no sudden movement came as I breathed enough for survival.

I remained calm, very calm. To ensure this mild state, smothering one panicked thought away, I determined to imagine a walk lengthy enough to prove myself unsouled. Taking but a slight step to retain my balance in this buoyant world, I imagined walking through Rathel’s house, from garden to basement, returning through the kitchen and to the library, up the stairs and down again. The river’s bottom here was strewn with sharp shards and hard-edged materials, the discharge of sinners’ luxuries. Since the water greatly reduced my weight, however, I suffered no stumblings as I walked a pace or two while imagining many; for mild movement seemed to help my breathing, aiding the water’s entry into me, where it might leave its air.

After twice traversing my imagined route, I returned to the river’s edge, one hand outstretched to feel my way, being cautious not to open my eyes and suffer from a wash of effluent. In those last moments of my immersion, I nearly smiled because salvation was ahead. Just a few more steps, and I would find relief, and knew my mother would be proud. And joy I felt, not from salvation, but because I had not shamed my greatest love.

Dry Elsie was swaying. Her countenance was one of confusion, and the servant reeked of fear. Collapse seemed imminent, but with my rising from the water, her disposition changed, Elsie becoming rigid as she stared.

Distress caused me to look away and concentrate only on myself. As water fell from my mouth, true air entered unpleasantly. I felt my lungs burn, and determined to inhale shallow breaths, not the deep gulps I desired. The respective sensations differed profoundly, the water’s thick dullness compared to true air’s sharp bite. A moment later, breathing somewhat better, I opened my eyes, looking to Elsie with a silent plea as I lifted my hand for help.

The woman did not hesitate to offer aid. No longer staring at me in confusion and disbelief, she saw that the pilings at my feet were steep and awkward for climbing, especially for a youth who had not been breathing for a duration of terror.

As Elsie grasped my arms, I stepped away from the Thames. She spoke, her voice implying anger, though her scent described relief.

“Alba girl, I knew you to be drowned and myself insane for allowing you to enter. But then I’m seeing you move, not your head with that dark hair, but your white skin like a ghost to chill me dead. No person who breathes could remain so long below without expiring, yet you’re moving and I can see, lass, though I’m disbelieving even now.”

Though opening my mouth, I could not speak. Bending slowing toward my clothing, I spit away more of the river’s filth. Reaching to wipe my mouth, I saw a pair of trembling hands, one mine, one Elsie’s. Never had I seen my mother tremble.

Elsie’s aid was interrupted by a new difficulty as obvious as the dimples on my hips; for as soon as the servant ceased her vigil for witnesses, a parcel of them arrived.

Two men and three women ran toward us from different directions, gasping. Though I remained slow and uncertain, Elsie moved rapidly as she guided my dressing, on with only the outer gown, her intent to cover my person at once and take the mass of underthings along. Her thinking turned most competent, Elsie explained the situation before the assemblage could demand the facts of this remarkable scene.

“Oh, and the courageous girl is throwing herself in the river to save her mother’s imported dog from drowning. Oh, what a thoughtful lass to set her clothes aside and not be ruining them. God bless the poor child who’ll be suffering now since the cat could not be saved.”

“Dog,” I coughed.

“Since the dog could not be saved,” Elsie added in correction. “Oh, Lord Jesus, bless the dear girl for her courage and kind manners!” she concluded, and looked toward the sky.

During her speaking, Elsie attempted to hurl the dress around me so that we might flee without further explanation. Because I certainly did not care to be centered in a pack of sinners whether denuded or hidden in a sack, I cooperated, though my movements were more restrained than Elsie’s: only one of us had faced drowning. But we of the Rathel household were not alone in handling me, Elsie toward the end of her most imaginative explication of drowning beasts finding it necessary to shove aside the hand of a sinning man who was covering my breast with his fingers. Upon recognizing the move as no random slip, Elsie responded in accord with the man’s behavior.

“Ah! you flipping rotter to have your hand on the child’s bosom!”

Though gasps from the other sinners proved them agreeable with Elsie’s allegation, the guilty man had a rationale of sorts.

“But I was helping the lass dry the water away. She’ll catch the croup with such moisture.”

I said nothing, for I could not care. In a manner, I was still beneath the water. Had I not seen other members of my family there?

Most astonished of all, the man’s female companion proved herself the wife by spouting shouts and also spittle, so violent was her response.

“Satan take your bloody soul for fondling a lass!” she screamed, and shoved the man so hard against his chest that he nearly toppled over. “Curse your black hands, untrue husband, for such corruption before my very eyes!” she suggested, and threw her arm at the man’s head in a tremendous arc, connecting soundly with his jaw, a blow to collapse him to the wharf and frighten all decent persons regardless of their ability to travel in a submariner manner. Though smashed most combatively onto his back, the man yet retained his senses, looking upward between his wife and me, attempting to ascertain why he had attacked the child, why one so young seemed irresistible.

“Not only a girl before my very eyes, but one not even a wench!” the woman continued, and kicked the downed man with her ending word. “Having your hands on a baby’s breast no older than your own daughter!” she shrieked, and again delivered a blow, her shoe directed against the man’s own bosom, this latest attack inspiring him to evade so totally that his balance was sacrificed to dodging, the husband toppling into the Thames with a greater splash than mine, a blubbering noise from the intake of water silencing his previously blubbering lips and their inadequate explanations.

Now covered to the ankles, I was pulled along by Elsie, who held the unlaced fabric tightly around me to prevent further revelation of the man’s fleshy goal. Though the greater scene had drawn additional sinners, the battle between spouses became their surpassing interest, a relationship more interesting than a retreating child and her guardian. Away we went with a bundle of underclothes and a largely nonplussed witch, though the servant remained protective, an initiative clearly coming from her heart, and therefore worthy of my appreciation.

Once removed from the crowd and settled in a rapid pace to Rathel’s townhouse, Elsie received a terrible revelation known as truth.

“Ah, this is why the mistress is removing the male servant,” she wheezed grimly, looking not at me, but somewhere far ahead, though she continued to hold my apparel tightly, even cruelly, against my torso. “The lady ever knew how you’d be drawing men, as you did in church—I’ve heard of it, lass—and just out of the river though you might be drowning.”

“Of course, Miss Elsie, as long I’ve told you. And what is more convincing to you: that normal men turn lurid when near me, or that I’ve proven myself impervious to God’s waters?”

“I’m believing you, child, for whichever cause, and because never did I feel you dishonest. Deluded, surely, as the lady was saying, but no more. But of Mistress Amanda’s dishonesty, it seems near justified considering your danger.”

The servant looked closely to me, emitting a strong emotion not easily described, though her own words were fine explanation.

“A lady such as ours going about her vengeance is understandable, Alba, when such damage was done her heart. Ah, we must be praying, child, for God to heal her spirit. But how can a lass such as this,” she moaned, and squeezed me as though to crush me dead, to protect me with this eternity, “how can such a peaceful babe be dangerous? Yea, lass, I’m believing you much and might believe you more, but I’m having to ask God, not yourself, if I should curse the witch or love her.”