The Crimson Inkwell

by Kenneth A Baldwin

  Followed me. “You just left the station? Was Cooper aware?” I breathed heavily. I couldn’t blame her, but my natural instinct was to be enraged that she had taken it upon herself to spy on me. I felt my sickness begin to swell in my stomach like embers with no breath.

  “It was practically Cooper’s idea.”

  I breathed through my teeth and lowered my eyes.

  “Is this the first time you’ve followed me?” Mistrust bubbled thickly under my skin. I hardly even knew Rebecca. I’d know her for a matter of weeks. The stress of my failure, of losing Edward and Bram in the course of a day, and the prospect of spending my life in a loveless marriage all muddled together in an overwhelming sense of justice.

  “Luella, please, I am your friend,” Rebecca said, leaning back in her seat.

  “And you told Doug that I was dangerous? Is that it? That’s why he’s hidden us in this back compartment?”

  “He did this, so we could speak in private.”

  “What are you accusing me of?” She knew. I was convinced she knew. I looked down and saw my hands covered in blood. I let out a startled cry and reached for a napkin to scour it off of my skin. My secret had been discovered. I had to run. I had to silence her. I could not be wrapped up in this. The corners of my vision blurred.

  “Doug!” Rebecca cried. I lunged across the table at her, swinging wildly at her face, trying to grope at her wrists, neck, hair anything. She was a threat. She was an enemy, and she had to be silenced.

  Two immensely strong hands pulled me back into my seat, and a massive arm wrapped around me so tightly that my arms were pinned against my body.

  Doug closed the curtain with his free hand. I seethed in and out, staring down Rebecca, my head thrashing about like a woman possessed. She grabbed a glass of water and threw its contents directly into my face.

  The surprise of the cold liquid shocked my senses. It was just enough for reason to stick its foot in the dark doorway before it slammed shut completely, locking out everything but my anger. This was not me.

  I needed to suffocate the anger with something else, maybe a hundred other things. I allowed myself to feel horrified at my actions. I allowed myself to feel guilt over Edward’s father. I struggled physically against Doug until my muscles gave out, exhausting myself. What was I doing? Rebecca was my friend. I could trust her. She had proven this to me. She cared about me. Could I remember trust?

  Before I knew it, I collapsed, limp over Doug’s forearm, my senses wiped to nothing, my emotions back to zero, ready to build from the ground up. I blinked my vision back into focus, but I couldn’t shake a few floating particles from view. They lingered in the air, appearing almost like some type of floating pathway that stretched out of our compartment and toward the front door. They sparkled in my view, almost like bits of the moon, bits of moon dust. I wondered where a moon dust trail might lead.

  Rebecca stared at me with wide eyes. I hadn’t noticed before, but her hands were trembling.

  “You’re not well,” she managed to say.

  “No. No I’m not,” I replied heavily. On a motion from Rebecca, Doug released me and left us again to talk. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I don’t know why I care so much about our friendship,” she said. “Maybe I see myself in you. I don’t know. We all need help sometimes. I know something is wrong, and I will be a support for you.”

  Rebecca’s entire countenance blazed with loyalty and love. I could not doubt her words, and they took root in me like an impenetrable truth. I should have allowed her in, fully opened up to her so much earlier. I never understood the value of a true friend before.

  “Let’s start with this,” she said, again indicating the published weekly. “I think they managed to print five copies of the front page before Byron ran into the shop to shut it down. I found this in the bin. Here’s my problem. I followed you from the police station to your house to Langley’s, in the rain I might add. Then I followed Byron to the printers, where I found this. But, the whole time I followed you, you never once sat down long enough to pen a draft. Can you explain to me when you wrote this story?”

  I searched for words, my back against the wall. How could I explain? What would she believe?

  “I wrote it the night before,” I said. It was time for the truth.

  “That’s a disturbing confession. You recognize what implications you suggest about yourself? The only way you could have written this the night before is if you knew that Edward’s father died that night. How could you have known that.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “But you wrote this. Get your story straight because this doesn’t sound right. Luella, it sounds like you were involved in his death.”

  My mouth fell open. She couldn’t possibly think what she insinuated.

  “You can’t think I was involved in murdering Edward’s father.”

  “This front page has details of the crime scene that Cooper never told you. You must have some explanation for this. I am your friend. I know you will be honest with me because I don’t want any harm to come to you.”

  The truth was brimming at my lips. If I could just poke a hole in the dam, I knew it would burst out in torrents.

  “Do you remember when I asked you whether you believed in the Fog Man?” I began.

  Rebecca nodded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rebecca Turner

  IT TOOK ME a long time to explain everything to Rebecca. I wasn’t sure if she believed me. She made an effort, but something in her demeanor gave away her inner turmoil, deciding whether her friend had lost her mind or lost her way. She was at least willing to go along with it and hear me out. After all, she could corroborate at least some of my story. She had picked up my trail again the night before as I had made my way to the carnival, where she watched me walk decisively to a specific tent.

  In any event, I was either telling the truth, or I had conspired with a carnival worker to kill Edward’s father.

  I couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to follow me without my notice and make a detailed account of my comings and goings. If someone were to follow me with more malicious intentions, I’d be caught completely unawares.

  In the end, I explained all about the success of my first story about the Fog Man, about how desperately that pushed me to find new material, and how I was inexplicably drawn to a mysterious magician named Bram. Something about the tent had pushed me to pursue my curiosity of a magical pen.

  “I can’t believe you never told me about this before,” she said, eyes wide. “So, you can write whatever you want with this pen and it just materializes into fact?”

  “Well, I’m not supposed to be able to directly change my immediate circumstances with it,” I explained. “To most people, I imagine the pen would be a bit worthless. But, as a writer, I’ve been profiting from the mere occurrence of these events. That’s the limit as Bram explained it to me. You can’t do something like write about your family member discovering a gold mine.”

  “So then how did you manage to write a story that resulted in Edward’s father’s death?”

  “I don’t know. In fact, I’ve tried my very best to ensure that I didn’t write anything that would result in physical harm to another human being.”

  “But, it’s here clear as crystal,” she said, touching the front page of the non-published Langley’s Miscellany. “You wrote about this suicide.”

  “I don’t remember writing that,” I said. I thought back to that feverish night, the rush that came with writing more freely, less guarded, than I’d ever allowed myself before. Bram had told me I had written a simple story about financial scandal, but here were the details of Mr. Thomas’ grisly end in black and white. He must have lied to me. How could I not remember what I wrote with my own hand? I shuddered, wondering if deep down maybe I knew something deeper and darker than I could accept. “I’ve been fooled. Using the pen has made me ill.”

  “In what way?”

  “It’s l
ike a magical dependency. The longer I go without using the instrument, or I believe experiencing some type of magic, a rage inside of me builds until it is all but uncontrollable.” I winced. “It leads me to do things—”

  “Completely outside your character?” Rebecca finished for me. I shirked, ashamed of my outbreak. “Does Bram also have this dependency?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I hadn’t given it much thought before. Bram was involved in who knew what types of magic. Did he also experience withdrawals as I did? How did he manage them?

  “But, he knowingly put you at risk by inviting you to use his magical artifact?” she asked. Her tone held a veiled resentment, accentuated by the dancing candlelight.

  “It isn’t like that,” I said, surprised at my own defense of the man I had blamed so ardently before. “There was no way he could have known. He told me he took precautions to protect me.”

  Rebecca raised one of her eyebrows judiciously. “You have feelings for him.”

  Sometimes, I hated the way she could see through me. When I spoke with Rebecca, it felt like gazing into a looking glass. Some days, it was flattering, others less so.

  “I thought I did,” I replied. She let out some mix between a sigh and a scoff before settling her eyes on me in a sisterly pity.

  “If only our brain and our heart could learn to be friends,” she said, shaking her head. “But, we really need to sort out your taste in men.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I replied. “Bram is gone, and I marry Byron next week.”

  “A stupid idea if you ask me.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “With confidence. I could maybe understand if your sister were marrying someone like Byron. But, you and I, we are women with a different backbone than the rest. We can’t be satisfied with temporal comforts. There’s something deeper at work within us. Did I ever tell you I’ve been engaged before as well?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t surprised. Heavens, just look at the woman. I nearly proposed to her myself.

  “It wasn’t right. And, I’ve never regretted walking away. I will marry for love or not at all.”

  I thought I noticed the slightest flicker of her eyes toward the front of the pub. I had never asked Rebecca about previous courtships or her marital situation. Not only did I consider it rude, but I think I was afraid to discover that my pathway ended at her desk. In many ways, I idolized her, but not as a role model for familial felicity. I choked on her mantra.

  “Rebecca, I am marrying for love,” I said, “even if it isn’t a love for my future husband.”

  “You’re making a mistake. If you’re sincere, then run toward Edward, not from him.”

  “I can’t! How can I face him after what I did to him?”

  “You’ve explained it all me well enough, and you insist that you were fooled. I think you were intoxicated, drugged, maybe brainwashed.”

  “I could have turned back at any time. I could have stopped.” My strength was returning, but it was being put to a bitter use. I could feel the tears coming on fast.

  “It wasn’t your fault. You just wrote something down on a stupid piece of paper!”

  “You don’t understand,” I cried. “The magic is real.”

  Slap! I heard the sound of skin on skin before the stinging sensation and the blow knocked the tears from my eyes. I rubbed my cheek, numb and warm, and stared at Rebecca in shock.

  “Stop this nonsense,” she said. Her eyes blazed brightly. “You listen to me. I don’t care what you’re mixed up in, but I only believe in one kind of magic, and you’re trampling all over it. Edward Thomas is a good man who just lost his father in a devastating way. The very least you can do is be a support to him in his time of need. He made your career, and what’s more, he made you happy. Is this how you will repay him?”

  I was still reeling from her slap and could hardly form a solid counter argument.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “He’s at the station now. Go to him. Offer your condolences. Leave this foolish engagement with Byron.”

  “If I don’t marry Byron, he will print the story.”

  “We both know that danger has past. I hardly know Byron, but I know he wouldn’t go out of his way to print out-of-date news just to be vindictive.”

  “I’d still be breaking my word,” I protested.

  “Then break it,” she said. “These are affairs of the heart. They’re like manna from heaven: God-sent and impossible to stockpile for later days.”

  I wanted to hear her. I wanted to run to Edward and press on him to elaborate on the feelings he had shared with me the other day. I wanted to tell him that I was there for him, in whatever way he needed, free of strings, and wholly his.

  But, Rebecca didn’t know the depth of my sickness or my guilt. I had seen magic. I could not deny its power or its effects. What she considered scribbles on a piece of paper were to me an act as implicating as if I had hung the man myself. I would be cursed to hide it from Edward forever, and because I would hide it, I would always bear the guilt. Because of the guilt, I could never feel comfortable at his side.

  At the same time, there was no arguing with Rebecca about his immediate needs. The poor man must have been in the very depths of agony. If there was anything I could do to lessen his pain, I would brave anything to accomplish it. I owed him that. She was right.

  “I cannot break my engagement,” I said. “But, I can be his friend. Where is he?”

  Rebecca did not hide her disappointment or hostility toward my resolve.

  “The station,” she said curtly.

  “At the station?” I gasped. “What’s he doing there?”

  “He won’t stop working,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Facing Fears

  WE ARRIVED AT the station in the midafternoon. The sun hung low in the late afternoon, shining brightly to say goodbye. I tried to avoid the shadows on my walk to the station, trying to gather at least some warmth from its fading light.

  I looked at the dark blue door with its paneled windows and formidable girth. The first time I walked through this door, I was a ball of nerves, a young author embarking on a new journey, throwing the normal convention out the window. The officers felt like strangers then, each more intimidating than the last. Now, I felt like I’d been so wrapped up in the comings and goings of the station that I was practically one of them, albeit one of them with restricted access to just the front hallway and the waiting room outside Cooper’s office.

  Today, I wasn’t just a ball of nerves. I was a complete wreck. The very thought of facing Edward nearly paralyzed me, and without Rebecca at my side, I’m quite certain I wouldn’t have made it even as far as the steps outside.

  “Forward, then,” Rebecca said, placing an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s not freeze to death.”

  I smiled the best I could. I was grateful to have her with me. She had thoroughly convinced me that it was my duty, rooted in my love for Edward Thomas, that I should go to him in the robes of friendship, but my decision didn’t make the deed any easier.

  We walked in, feeling a stodgy warm blast of air, a mixture of heat generated from an excessive number of bodies crammed into the building and the radiators going more than they ought to. We walked to the counter, where the clerk didn’t bother looking up from his desk.

  “Hello. Here to report a missing person?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Johnson!” Rebecca chided. “Not every woman is here to report a missing person!”

  I bit my lip. For once, I felt like I was missing a person.

  “Rebecca, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there,” Johnson said, scrambling to straighten himself out. I had never learned this man’s name. Now that I knew it, some of the caricature was taken out of him.

  “Never mind that,” Rebecca went on. “Where is he?”

  “Out back with the boys.”

  “And, how is he?”

  “I’ve never
seen him quite like this before,” Johnson shook his head sadly. “Poor chap. I don’t know how I’d manage what he’s going through. Most dreadful thing in the world. It’s like losing a father twice over, once in person, once in memory.”

  His words were enough to ignite a powder keg of guilt inside of me. I knew the pain of losing a father, but he lived on so nobly in my memory. If I had discovered him to be a dishonest crook, could I so continue such a sincere reverence. What had I done to poor Edward? My poor, poor Edward.

  “Thank you,” Rebecca said, urging me forward behind the counter toward the back of the building.

  “Wait, she isn’t allowed back there—”

  “She’s with me.”

  “She could be with the ruddy Prime Minister—”

  “Not another word, Johnson, or so help me!”

  This new half of the building was littered with desks pushed in every conceivable nook and cranny. The task force must have been larger than the space. The place was a mess, with papers, sketches, books in every corner, and various articles of clothing draped on each available resemblance of a peg.

  On the back wall, I saw an exterior facing door, with a large window on its upper half, through which I noted an open outdoor area. Rebecca led me to this door before turning to me.

  “I’m not needed here,” she said. I disagreed.

  “You’re not coming?”

  “Edward needs you. I can do nothing for him.”

  “Where will you be?” I asked, instinctively gripping her hand more tightly than before. She withdrew it.