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Mary
Ingrid knows. She always has:
Just as we must go back, so too, we must push forward...
Moving ahead. It will start with cleaning up his remains. I could leave them here, thrown about the dingy room the way he did Mary Jane’s back in November. Bloodied, skinned, and unmasked of his very being, it would be poetic. But it would also be too risky. The best chance I have of getting away with it is hijacking the time machine, throwing him in it, and bringing him to another time and place. That will give history something to think about. I could toss him in a river or at the site of a mass shooting. I could go onto a battlefield and leave his corpse among nameless soldiers. With the portal and what I know of the future, there are so many places I could hide him. A bombing victim. A suicide. The Golden Gate Bridge. Any country or place in time. It has to be special. Ultimately, it will become a thing of my own legacy. We will now be entwined, forever, in stories that generations tell for years about the common woman who unmasked Ripper in the literal sense.
I lick at the blood on my lips. The taste of him wasn’t what I expected and I can’t say the iron-y copper taste of dirty coins that lingers in my mouth isn’t delicious. It is. It’s the sweet taste of revenge and justice. It’s knowing that history will never be the same and that my sister will have a chance to live again. With hints of the sun coming up over the cobblestone street outside, I peek through the ratty curtain. I don’t have much time.
I tear at the bloodied bedsheet, pulling corners out from under a saggy mattress. I wish with everything I have that I could leave him here this way for detective inspectors Southerland Swanson, Thick, and the superintendent Thomas Arnold to find. His splayed legs and the bloodied hole where his unimpressive manhood once stood proud are quite the sight to see now. I consider the police logs and photographs that would immortalize him in history as nothing more than a disemboweled, limbless freak unable to steal the soul of the weaker ever again. I laugh, maniacally, as I pull the bed sheet over the bulk of his corpse and begin collecting body parts. I toss them, one by one, onto his slick, motionless core.
It takes more than an hour to collect the pieces of him. The pub clock tower serves as a warning bell. I need him fully in satchels and in that time machine well before the city streets fill with beggars and those more fortunate on their way to warehouse jobs. I cannot be seen. Of course, with society’s notions that a woman like me would be incapable of such a thing, I’ll likely emerge unnoticed. Even in the light of day it might be easy to get to Dorset Street, where I suspect he’s left the time machine without much other than a wanton man’s nod at my breasts or an older woman shaking her head. But it’s not a chance I can take.
Finally, when I’m sure I’ve collected most of him, I survey the room. With rent paid for two more weeks, I’ll have plenty of time to remove the stains and leave the place dirtied in the way only a working girl would – nothing more or less. I gather the corners of the sheet into a bag not unlike what St. Nick would use to bring toys to good children on Christmas Eve. In a way, I feel like him, like I’m offering the world’s most vicious killer’s corpse as a gift to future generations. Using my boots at the edge of the bed to give me leverage, I heave the makeshift bag to the edge of the mattress, finally pulling hard enough to drop him on the floor.
He lands with a bang. He’s heavier than I expected. Thinking quick, it occurs to me to grab a wagon from the fruit stand by the courtyard. No one would notice, not this early. I could bring it back. I just need to get a few blocks down to the time machine. Upon my return, I can easily return it. I may be a killer now, but I am certainly not a thief. Deciding that is exactly what I will do, I grab the last of the bulky evidence. His clothing, a long trench coat, that hallmark hat, and his perfectly tailored pants will be too much to fit in the bag of limbs. Maybe, if I fold them...
Sitting on the edge of the bed and looking down at the bag of him, I take the items one by one to try to condense them. Out of habit, I check the pockets. A long blade, then a smaller one, send chills down my back. I run my finger over a cold, clean blade and think for the first time today of the risk this was. He could easily have used this on me. He had planned to. He had to have. Shivering, I reach into the last pocket. I’m delighted to pull out a billfold stuffed with enough cash to buy me another month at the boarding house. While I won’t stay here, it will be enough to set Gretchen and me up in a less unsavory district. Thumbing through bills, I spot it: His identification card. Again, a thrill runs through me.
It is in this moment I understand the need for souvenirs. This is the one thing that I will keep. I’ll bury it with the portal. It will be my one forever memory of the Ripper; something investigators and reporters will search for forever. Eventually, when Gretchen and I are ready to figure out how to move forward, I’ll sell it. It might fetch enough to bring us the educations women of our time aren’t privy to. It might be the money we’d need to build a faster, better time machine. Or an electric car. The fantasies race the way Ripper’s likely did of women he’d become both God and jury to. Flipping my prize over in my hand, my heart sinks.
According to the ragged ID, the man’s name is Henry Richardson. His stoic expression and facial hair are a near identical match to the man I’ve just unmasked and believed all this time to be Ripper. But it can’t be! It’s not him! I leap off the bed, pulling at the sheet to look at him again. Now, there is nothing to see. There is only the pulpy tangle of veins and tissue similar to raw hamburger meat. Sick, I run out of the room to the street. There, I vomit. Bile and even the bits of him I swallowed for my own sick posterity come pouring out of me.
Henry Richardson. Not him. I’ve done nothing to change the course of history. Gretchen is dead. All because of me. And this man? Just another innocent victim. What have I done? I am as bad as him. I am a killer. A monster. A person who decided to take someone else’s fate and very soul into my own hands. I even enjoyed it. I am damned!
I collapse against the brick wall of the building holding the mutilated remains of what history will later tell me was simply a newspaper reporter looking to unmask the writer of the letter bold enough to challenge Ripper. Banging my head against the hard brick, I close my eyes with no care that I’m covered in blood and that the light of morning’s entrance is coming on as fast as my guilt for what I’ve done. It is then, at 5:03 am, that I feel the tap on my shoulder. A man smiles at me. With his body blocking any chance I have for escape, he stares down at me. It’s him.
“Why, Ingrid West, I heard you were looking for me?”
They are the only words he says before I feel the cold blade on my neck and my world goes black and the entire course of history returns to its original, yet somehow more immense, destiny...
I’m lost in Ingrid’s world again when Hudson barges in no different than Ripper did. But I’m not Ingrid and I can still write my own ending. Slamming my book shut, I smile up at him, asking if he’s hungry. He’s never home this early after a day out with Kate. There must be trouble in paradise. I try not to laugh out loud, imagining a cold blade like Jack’s against Hudson’s neck, not Ingrid’s. Not mine. Where are you, Mistress Death?
He doesn’t bother to take off his shoes. Instead, he plops down at the kitchen table as I watch a pile of dirt fall onto my freshly cleaned tile floors. I remember back to year one when at least he respected my rules and took his shoes off at the door. I’m about to give him shit for this and send him the ‘don’t do it again’ memo too when he comes out with the dreaded statement: “Mary, we need to talk.”
My heart sinks into my chest. This is it. This is the beginning of our last and final death. Be careful what you ask for... welcome, Mistress Death. “About?”
I spin in the direction of the sink. Reaching to a cabinet on my right, I grab a coffee mug. If I have to listen to it, I’m doing it with tea. Popping it into the microwave, I hit two minutes.
“Us.”
“Want coffee? I’m making tea for me. Chinese.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m not. What’s wrong? What do you want to talk about?” I smile at him as if I have no clue at all that he’s a cheating, lying skeeze. It’s the same smile I shot at the guy at the credit union who asked me why I felt the need to make such a large transfer into a personal account. I’d told him “cruise” and it’d managed to shut him down. For Hudson, well, I wouldn’t allow it to be that easy.
Reaching under the kitchen sink, I grab my new hammer. “When we’re done, I need you to hang a picture for me in the bathroom,” I say, only to explain my weapon of choice. While I’d had no plans to do it now, Ingrid West and her downfall had taught me it was important to always be ready. After I killed him, I could get back to my reading. I’d read her story enough times to know it didn’t end that way and that, in the end, after the cliffhanger, Ingrid West got what was hers to take. She was my kindred spirit.
I watch Hudson pick at his nails—something he’s done since I met him when he isn’t sure how to broach a topic or whenever faced with conflict—and ask again. “So? What do you want to talk about? Like what about us? The wedding?”
He shakes his head from side to side, finally resting his head in them. With his elbows propped on the kitchen table like a common cannibal, I swear the man’s about to cry. I grip the hammer. I could do it now. Things don’t always go to plan. I could clean the mess up later...
“I’m just done. I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t want to renew our vows, have a kid, any of it. We just aren’t right for each other,” he says. “You’re a great person but not the right one for me. We aren’t good together, Mary. Don’t you feel that too?”
I dig my nails into the painted black wood on the hammer. Arching my wrist and lifting my arm just enough to signal I haven’t come into the situation unarmed, I finally place it on the counter. Not now. It’s not time. Turning toward the microwave, I pop it open, grab my tea, and consider my options. Ingrid would slice him. She’d split his head in two. There’d be nothing left of him. She’d lick up his blood when she was through. But I wasn’t her. I wasn’t a Wendigo either. No, this was my real life – not a novel or even fan fiction. I had to face the monster I’d pledged forever to and head on.
Bringing my tea to the table, I sit down like nothing at all is wrong. Hudson stares at me as if holding his breath for an announcement. Dipping a tea bag into the steamy water, I finally look up at him and say, simply, “Is there another woman?”
“No.”
He says it like he’s practiced it. He should have practiced harder. Like opponents in a chess match, it’s my turn to make my next move.
“Good. I can’t imagine what the partners—hell, your poor mother too—would think of that. So this is simple. If you are unhappy, I can call a therapist. We’ll go to counselling and work out whatever your issues are. We made vows. I intend to keep them. Renew them too,” I say, bringing the hot cup to my mouth as an excuse for more time to think.
“A therapist won’t do it. I want a divorce.”
“Want is nice. Need is different. So is a promise. Enough of this talk. Tell me about your day. Mine was good. So glad you asked. I’ve been doing more reading about Ingrid West. I was able to write three chapters too. You’ll like my take on her. She’s very committed to what she wants.”
“I don’t care about your characters! If you would focus on what I’m saying it would help!” Hudson finally snaps.
“Help? I’m sorry for finding something to do while you run off to work at all hours. Pardon me for having a life outside you.”
“Someone has to pay the bills! You refuse to work. I still don’t know why you gave up the boutique. You did so great with clothes.”
Say that again when I hit the New York Times bestseller’s list. I hate him. In a swift motion, I pull the tea bag out and fling it across the room. It hits the fridge and plops to the ground. Hudson watches and shakes his head. “You’re fucking crazy, Mary.”
“No. Not at all. Crazy would be you. Throwing away everything. For what? And what will the families think? Might you give me a reason you aren’t happy? Don’t I at least deserve that? A chance to fix it, maybe?”
Hudson sighs. “We just aren’t a good match.”
“We were.”
“We aren’t now.”
We never were but a vow is a vow! “So, we fix it. I’m calling the firm. They’re waiting on a head count. I’d suggest you do some thinking about what you really want to do. I can’t see them being too eager to promote you with trouble at home, can you? But thank God it isn’t another woman. I’ll give you that. If there was? Well, I’d be furious. I might even have to pull an Ingrid West.”
“What the hell does that even mean?”
“Read the book. I left you a copy on your nightstand. I mean, if you care to understand me. I wrote it for you. For us, even.” I stand and move toward the fridge to pick the tea bag up, wishing I’d just come out of the closet years ago and let my life take on a whole other direction.
“Yep. I have time for that.”
“You should. I mean, if you weren’t so busy working.”
“Jesus. Enough of that. I work to get away from you.”
“Oh. Well that’s nice. So, tell me. It sounds like you’ve made up your mind about us and this marriage. But you might want to rethink that. I should probably let you know that I’m late. So when you think about what you’re doing, take that into consideration. I know how you feel about kids growing up without dads.”
Hudson’s mouth drops. “How late?”
“Three weeks. Appointment next week. I wanted to surprise you but, let’s face it, you like to peek early at presents too. Think pink.” With that, I leave the room.