Pumpymuckles

by JayneFresina

  "Ah, but you see, Lucretzia, the good thing about being by the sea is that your view always changes. The water never looks the same from one day to the next. A man is never in the same place when he looks out at the sea each day. And when I have Ever at my side it is the same as looking out on the sea. She is the sea."

  Her eyes gleamed scornfully. "And you can be faithful to one woman for the rest of your life?"

  "Yes," he replied without the slightest hesitation. "Because without Ever, I wouldn't have a life."

  Despite her full plate, she had not touched a morsel. Instead she sighed frostily and pushed at the food with a fork.

  "You're surely not going to act the role of the jealous former lover," he muttered. "I thought you said you liked her because she has gusto."

  Her lips formed a peevish smirk. "I do like her. I wish I didn't. It would be easier to dislike the woman who stole your heart."

  Gabriel chuckled and wiped his lips on a napkin. "Well, my dear, you tried your best to scare her off, as any self-respecting former lover should. You did what you could."

  "I didn't try to scare her off. I tried to warn her. And I told her the truth. We do all come and go at your whim. We bask in your light, waiting for your attention, trapped by your aura. It is a form of magic you possess, Gabriel Hart. Now she has fallen under your spell too, poor child."

  "She's not a child."

  "But she is young and has led a sheltered life. I feel the urge to protect her."

  He looked down the table and smiled wryly. "By all means be her friend, Lucretzia. But don't try to treat her like a child who knows nothing. Don't imagine you can pull the wool over her eyes, because I think you'll find she sees through you like a pane of glass."

  She pouted. "And does she see through you too?"

  "Yes," he replied simply. "She saw through me from the beginning."

  "Then she knows you are the demon she came here to vanquish."

  He said nothing.

  "And now, it seems, she has," Lucretzia sneered. "If you let her tell you what you should do."

  "She doesn't do that."

  "Oh, really?" With one brow smugly arched, Lucretzia picked up her fork and finally began to eat.

  * * * *

  Ever found him in his study that afternoon, bent over his desk to admire a large paper poster that Max Connolly was grandly unrolling to show him.

  "Ah, there you are, Ever." Gabriel looked over his shoulder.

  "Mrs. Hart-to-be," the other man acknowledged her with a nod and a puff of cigar smoke, as if he was too busy to spare more than that.

  "Come and give us your opinion, sweetheart."

  "What is it?"

  "Max has had a bill painted up."

  She hovered in the doorway. "A bill? For what?"

  Connolly waved his cigar and leered, his eyes crinkling up at the corner as he wheezed, "Just wanted to give an idea of what the promotion would look like. Thought it would help Gabe here to see all the work I've been doing. 'Course, it's still up to him, whether the fight goes ahead or not. But it won't do no harm to show him a few ideas." He stared through the smoke with his hard little eyes. "Try not to spill any coffee on it."

  Although she had no desire to participate in any of this, she also didn't want to be shut out. Somehow, she still hoped that Max Connolly's plans might all come to nothing, that Gabriel would make up his mind, once and for all, and send the agent packing, whatever he thought he still owed the man.

  Approaching warily, she looked at the large sheet of paper that covered the entire desk surface.

  Gabriel stepped aside to make room for her, and set the seahorse paperweight down to hold one of the corners, preventing it from rolling up. "What do you think? Colorful, ain't—isn't it? Stands out."

  Yes, it was brightly painted to catch the eye of anybody who passed it. There was a picture of Gabriel, with his big fists poised to throw a punch directly at the onlooker. And above him four words.

  Ever stared and, yet again, her stomach flipped. The room darkened around the edges.

  And here he came. Whistling down his tunnel.

  Water trickled down the soot-blackened walls.

  "What..." She couldn't breathe. The room was tipping. "What is it?"

  "That?" He looked to where she pointed. "That's what they used to call me. Gabe 'Pumpin' Knuckles' Hart." He laughed. "Funny, eh?"

  She could only shake her head. "I've seen it before."

  Both men looked at her.

  "I've...seen it before." She took a step back, blood draining out of her through her feet. The darkness closed in. Tiny, cold bumps formed all over her arms.

  "She can't have seen it already," Max Connolly slurred. "I just had it made. It's brand new. The paint's barely dry."

  A lump was stuck in her throat, and she couldn't swallow.

  I'm coming to get you.

  "I've seen it before," she repeated, louder this time, the words ringing in her ears as if they echoed down a tunnel. "But not bright and new like that. I saw it...faded...frayed and torn. And very old. Parts of it ripped away completely." Was she moving backward by her own power, or did the desk and the poster float away from her, out of her reach? Further and further it went, the picture growing smaller. Gabriel going with it, squeezing into the image as that black border thickened.

  "What are you talking about? Ever? Ever?"

  Wake up, Ever!

  "In my nightmares," she whispered. And then the blackness closed all the way in.

  * * * *

  Excerpt from Case Studies: The Fugue State of Ever Greene,

  by Dr. Owen Frazer

  When interviewed by the police, Mr. Everett Greene explained to investigators that it was his idea to take the family to Cromer pier on that day in July. As a professor of history with special interest in the Victorian era, Everett was keen to visit an historical exhibition at the pavilion, and while viewing the exhibit, Ever's parents lost track of her, both thinking she was with the other.

  As soon as her parents realized Ever was missing, they embarked upon a search, each taking a different side of the pier. They then found two police officers on duty and a thorough search of the beach and the pier was undertaken. Everybody on the pier that day was interviewed, and, in the first weeks after Ever Greene's disappearance, some became suspects in the case, although all were eventually cleared. Among those suspected of some foul play were Astrid and Everett Greene themselves, who were both interviewed extensively— separately and together.

  Then a red ribbon from Ever's hair, along with several pennies, were found floating in the water by the pilings, and since the tide was high at the time of her disappearance— and it was known that the child could not swim— an accidental drowning was feared a likely explanation.

  However, there were no witnesses to the child falling and no body recovered, which led many to reject this theory and retain their suspicions of Astrid and Everett.

  Four months later, when Ever returned to her parents house, it was a shock to all concerned. A medical examination revealed nothing wrong and an interview with the child psychologist resulted in no new information. The only difference reported by her parents was that Ever, who had never spoken prior to that day in Cromer, began speaking normally after her reappearance. She also began to experience vivid nightmares.

  It was evident that she had not fallen into the water after all, since the child could not swim. There were no reports of anybody seeing her in or around Cromer during the four months of her disappearance, not even a potential sighting.

  The events of July 13th, 1957 would forever remain an intriguing mystery. But whatever happened to her on the pier that day, I believe it could safely be assumed that this was the catalyst for the future incidents of fugue state and for the creation of a nightmare monster she called 'Pumpymuckles'.

  * * * *

  She looked up at the tattered, yellowed poster displayed on the fake brick wall. Parts of the paper were torn away completely, jagged edges f
orming fangs that seemed even more sinister under the dim electric light that was being used to portray a Victorian street lamp.

  Her father, busy admiring the display of "Vintage (Late nineteenth/early twentieth century) Seaside Memorabilia" had forgotten about his daughter for a few seconds, and Ever, standing at his side, gazing upward, could not take her eyes from the remnants of that terrifying poster.

  With the missing and torn lettering, she could not, at first, figure out what it said. Her mind filled in the rest.

  Suddenly she was breaking out in a cold sweat, frozen trance-like before the exhibit. She knew the man in the picture. The way he was posed, with a fist directed at her, Ever was certain he might step right out of that brick wall, and grab her.

  Pump…y...m...uckles.

  Yes, that must be his name.

  And he was coming to get her. She could almost see his lips moving and she knew...she knew what his voice sounded like.

  Ever turned and pushed her way through the crowd to find an exit into fresh air and light. Her mother must be somewhere nearby. Astrid had gone to find "a decent sandwich", as opposed to an indecent sandwich, and would probably be sitting outside on a bench, waiting for her husband and daughter to come out of the pavilion. But as soon as she emerged into the bright sun, Ever was swept along in a fast-moving crowd of day-trippers. She saw that kite— the one she'd noticed earlier while she was on the sands with her father— and she followed it, with one hand shading her eyes from the stinging sunlight.

  Everything about the day was clear to her at last. She could smell the sea, feel the boards rumbling under her feet, hear the shouts of excited children and harassed parents. The picture which used to come and go in frustrating flickers was now filled in, the colors sharp and crisp. She even knew that one of her pigtails had come untied, the ribbon lost. Her mother wasn't going to be happy about that.

  Transfixed by the kite, she had forgotten to look for her mother, and then, as she stood by the railing at the end of the pier, she heard that tune being whistled. Someone floated in the water far below, but she could hear them clearly, even through all the other noise, because her ears were so well attuned to the slightest sound.

  When she slipped over the railing it happened so suddenly and yet slowly, as if she fell through time itself and even when she hit the water, she didn't make a splash. The next thing she knew, Ever Greene was under the surface and there was a boy there, his face panicked, white. She took his hand and he took hers. Cold, desperate hands.

  I don't want to die.

  You won't. You can't.

  And the moment they touched, his panic subsided. Her unbound hair floated around them in dark tentacles and everything was silent. For once, there was not a single sound to hurt her ears. It was blissful. Peace at last.

  The boy smiled, and she smiled back. But then, quite suddenly he was jerked away from her, leaving Ever bereft, abandoned in the cool green silence. Only then did she realize how far she had sunk. Only then did she remember that she couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes and her mind, seeking comfort, ruffled its pages, like a book in a draft.

  They went to sea in a sieve, they did;

  In a sieve they went to sea;

  In spite of all their friends could say,

  On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,

  In a sieve they went to sea.

  The next thing she knew, Ever Greene was twenty-four years-old, riding along a cobbled street in a Hansom cab, in the year 1905.

  * * * *

  Excerpt from Case Studies: The Fugue State of Ever Greene,

  by Dr. Owen Frazer

  Upon Ever's return to her parents’ house after the four month unexplained absence, her mother claimed that Ever seemed older than her years. This may be an impression resulting from the child's sudden use of verbal communication after six years of silence.

  Her father said that Ever had always been a solemn child who did not play as other girls her age would, but Astrid Greene was certain their daughter had changed.

  The seahorse brooch that she brought home with her could never be fully examined as the child refused to leave it in anybody's hands and kept it hidden away all her life.

  Following the accident and her death in 1975, the brooch was recovered among her possessions and buried with her. By that time, the Greenes had decided that the mystery surrounding their daughter would never be solved and, indeed, it is a case file that, despite many hours of study over the years, I've concluded will never be closed with a solution.

  No one has succeeded in finding an adequate explanation for the monster 'Pumpymuckles', although I suspect that this could be the key to what happened to Ever Greene on Cromer pier that day, and why, for years afterwards, she occasionally left her body to go "wandering", as she herself called it. Did she vanish into her fugue state to run away from 'Pumpymuckles'?

  Or did she leave this world to find the monster in his?

  As Ever herself would say, some mysteries are better off left unsolved.

  * * * *

  She had walked out of his study, slowly, her feet heavy as if they struggled through deep water.

  The memories were all around her now, bright, gleaming, noisy.

  That was why she had seen the seahorse brooch before when he gave it to her in Norwich. She had seen it in 1957 when she came out of the past and still had it in her hand. And she had seen that poster in the future too, old and damaged by the years between. The moment she laid eyes on it, she knew that Gabriel Hart was waiting for her and that she belonged with him.

  Somehow, when she tumbled from the pier their worlds and times collided.

  They weren't supposed to find each other when they did, which is why, after four months, she'd found herself back in the future again, clutching her seahorse pin and with no memory of the man she loved. Nothing but dreams that she took to be nightmares.

  Heart straining to beat, Ever looked up at that great chandelier in the hall of his house. It glittered and swayed.

  Was she being sent back again?

  Oh no, she didn't want to go back. Not again!

  She loved her parents dearly, but she wanted to stay in this time. She wanted to stay with Gabriel. Never had she felt so much desperation.

  The chandelier rocked violently and trembled, as if there was an earthquake, and Ever had nothing to hold onto. The world around her was disintegrating.

  Wrong Way No Exit.

  She turned her head. Felt rain on her face.

  She should have brought an umbrella with her, but this rain came out of nowhere.

  A quick dash across the road and she'd be inside anyway. Tugging her coat collar up to her cheeks, she ducked her head and walked out into the road. It was a dead end so there shouldn't be any cars coming. Ever Greene had only left the house to buy a newspaper. What could happen to her in the ten minutes it generally took?

  But on that rainy summer day, eighteen years after The Vanishing from Cromer pier, a tired driver took the corner at speed, ignoring the signs that warned, "Wrong Way" and "No Exit". He didn't see Ever at all, or so he later claimed, until she was on the road, under the mangled metal of his car.

  Surrounded by falling, spinning glass that cut her skin and made her bleed, Ever Greene floated again in slow-motion.

  "Stay with me." A hand found hers, just as it did before under the water. And with his kiss, Gabriel Hart gave her his last breath.

  Or did she give him hers?

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Ever? Thank God!" Gabriel's face finally emerged from the swimming colors above her. She was on a couch, in his drawing room, her feet up, her head resting on a pillow. "You fainted," he exclaimed, accusatory. "Don't do that again! You scared the life out of me! And Palgrave!"

  She wanted to cry. This time she was staying. The other life she had known was gone and she would be with him now forever. Forever. Just like it said on her seahorse brooch.

  "I love you, Gabriel," she whispered, gripping his hand tightly
. "I am so glad I'm here with you."

  "Well, so am I." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Where else would you be? Didn't I tell you, nobody else will ever take care of you the way I can?"

  How strange, she mused, that this man was her guardian angel. Of all the guardian angels in all the world, she had to pick this one. Or had he picked her? It had, after all, been his advertisement in the paper, looking for her.

  Perhaps, one day, she would go back to visit her parents and see how they got on without her. Make certain they were alright.

  But they wouldn't know she was there, of course. Unless she left them a sign. Something mischievous, she thought with a smile.

  She understood it all now. She was free.

  No longer did she stumble into that tunnel and fear what was ahead of her. She knew 'Pumpymuckles' was waiting and there was nothing that could hurt her now. She'd flown to the moon and there, at last, she found happiness.

  "You really don't like that poster, do you?" he said. "You didn't have to faint to get your point across."

  "Actually..." she considered, her head tilted against the pillow, "I like it. Without it I might not have found you when I did. We might have missed each other."

  "Never! I knew I'd find you one day."

  How much did he know and understand? Damn it! She still couldn't read his mind.

  One thing was for sure, he would always be able to surprise her. There would certainly never be anything dull about this marriage "lark", as he called it.

  "Are you going to fight again?"

  He pondered for a moment. "Nah. I'll bow out gracefully. Let them wonder what happened to ol' Gabe— Pumpin' Knuckles— Hart. Some mysteries ain't meant to be solved, are they?"

  She smiled. "Nice poster though. You should keep it."

  "I should, shouldn't I? They can put it up with Gabriel Hart As He Were While Livin'."

  And Ever wondered, did he know that she wasn't?