The Crimson Inkwell

by Kenneth A Baldwin

  “I thought we were avoiding that question.”

  “I’m dreaming. You’re just a conjuring of my memory, mixed with my current perspective.”

  “Luella, don’t think that way. We were close to achieving something great.”

  His personality was too wishy washy. My father had been constant, filled with love and support, never guilt or insistence. He was too flawed to be my father’s ghost, and I didn’t have energy for a dream that was anything but an escape.

  “I wish you were him, but I can see you’re not. I need to wake up now. Where is the exit?” I tried pinching myself hard, but I remained on the corner. I bit my cheek until I tasted blood. I slapped my knuckles against a streetlamp and felt searing pain.

  I didn’t wake up.

  I couldn’t escape the dream. The magical energy inside of me stirred up like leaves in a breeze. I had never felt it while unconscious before, but as my frustration grew, the power amplified it. I turned on my father. He grinned maliciously, and the terrifying, blood curdling nightmare venom coursed in my veins. The feeling of panic and helplessness.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  “Your father,” he replied, but I knew he was lying. I tried to breathe. All of these dreams after missing him for so long. Did I imagine it was coincidence that he started to appear in my unconscious thoughts so soon after I encountered magic for the first time.

  “The fog,” I muttered, peering at him anew. Magic camouflaged itself. Bram never told me magic was so blatantly cruel.

  His cold laugh echoed before the fog crushed him like a wave on the shore. It enveloped both of us. I could not feel my feet or legs below me. I was buoyed up into a beautiful weightlessness, effortlessly commanding my will against gravity. It was as if I was drowning in soft, cream colored down, but my lungs had adapted to breathe in feathers and my eyes to see through their filaments as clearly as the particles of the air.

  In the midst of this peculiar white canvas, I saw a shade, barely distinguishable, in front of me. I could nearly make out a humanoid form, but just as my eyes set to focus on it, the shape changed into something new.

  “Let me go!” I shouted, but no answer came in response. Instead, I felt a deep vibration, starting in my feet and making its way up to my head. In the vibrations, I began to piece together some words, not by hearing, but deep in my stomach, where my anger lived.

  “What are you! I demand you respond,” I cried, giving into the anger. It was better than panic.

  “You gave me life,” I felt the vibrations communicate. In the white fog, I saw a faint impression of my previous dream and the headline of my accompanying story.

  “I beg your pardon?” I couldn’t argue with the understanding the entity gave me.

  “Summoner, you gave me life. I am yours.”

  “I just wrote a story. I didn’t dream you up. You killed a man, and I reported it. I did what any journalist would do.” I couldn’t believe I was arguing with a white snow monster.

  “What a cruel summoner you are. I’ve existed through time, but you created me. I’ve been here since the beginning but have no life without you. I have killed before, and others have found an explanation in every answer but the obvious.”

  “Magic?” I asked.

  “Bid me do. I will obey.”

  “Don’t try to tell me that you’re some type of servant,” I said, scoffing. I felt as though I was communing with an old friend, almost as comfortable as the back and forth in my own head as I penned my articles.

  “Write more stories, and I will make them come to be.”

  “That’s not how this works. I’m a reporter. I describe life events,” I insisted.

  “Then why did you give voice to the detective’s ramblings?” The vibrations flowed through me, more and more persistent. They tried to batter down the wall of reason I’d built up as a defense.

  “I’m sure stories like that happen all the time,” I said.

  “They do, but the world is blind. They stop their ears. The day you went looking for something deeper, I appeared. Do you believe in such extraordinary coincidences?”

  “You’re aren’t making any sense. You can’t argue that you exist in spite of time and then prove you exist by means of a linear progression of events!”

  “Nor can I even exist, and yet I have killed for you already.”

  “I did not ask you to kill anybody!”

  “You wanted a change in your circumstance, a digression from the plan of things. Do you truly think these deviations come without price?”

  “I did not wish harm on anyone!”

  “You did not care what would happen to the strangers. The balance is level.“

  “Bram told me the pen dictated my writing, not the other way around.”

  “The Meddler is a fool.”

  “The Meddler?”

  “He seeks control. He looks to disrupt and interfere with the natural order of things.”

  “And what natural order is that?”

  “Power can only be yielded by those to whom power submits.”

  “So, you’re power then? And you submit yourself to me?” I was incredulous. I remembered the pen, moving practically of its own accord during my feverish episode.

  “Bid me do. I will obey.”

  “Bram told me to listen for the magic. Why not him?”

  “The Meddler is a fool, but he is not without his usefulness.”

  “And why do you present yourself to me now? You’ve ruined my life already. Leave me.”

  “Other forces have prevented our meeting.”

  “Bram?”

  I felt a rushing sensation. The fog around me wound itself into a great agitation, whipping back and forth like it was caught in a cyclone, but I was left at peace. I was the eye of the storm.

  “The Meddler is departed. Now there is nothing stopping you.”

  “Stopping me from what?”

  “What you can become. Achieving your desires.”

  I could not control my thoughts. My heart rushed to Edward. I wanted to be his. I wanted to be his wife.

  “If he is your wish, he can be yours.”

  “How?”

  “You know the way.”

  Lie to him. No. I could not possibly hide the truth that I caused the ruin and downfall of his father. I could not live with myself, knowing and standing beside him.

  “No lies. The truth,” the vibrations hummed on.

  “He wouldn’t believe me.”

  “He can be persuaded.”

  “And what if he was? The only reason I got mixed up in this in the first place was because I lied to my fiancé about Bram. I went behind his back to spend time with a mysterious man. Scandalous meetings! Lying next to him. Communing intimately! Spending hours getting to know him in a way I never cared to know Byron! This is the truth you think will bring Edward and me closer together?”

  “Bid me do. I will obey.”

  “You cannot force him to love me!”

  “Are you so certain?”

  “I would know that it was not his own will. I don’t want a shadow of a man. I want the real thing. I don’t want shortcuts. No more shortcuts!”

  “You would never know the difference.”

  “Would I not?”

  I heard a percussive, distant, albeit familiar, sound faintly cutting through the downy fog. It sounded like horse hooves on cobblestone and the clink of the door handles on a cab.

  “This meeting weakens.”

  “Weakens? How?”

  “Other forces.”

  “The Meddler? Bram? Is he still here?”

  I jumped up with a start into darkness, my breast heaving to fight for air. I was in my bed, alone. I scrambled to feel the covers, pinching myself. What time was it? I ran to my little window and opened it, allowing the cold air to rush in, revitalizing my senses. I looked out, searching desperately for traces of snow or the white downy fog. Nothing. The night was clear, the ground was wet, but without a flake.r />
  I rushed to my nightstand and opened the drawer, feeling in the darkness and retrieving the small vial of ink Bram left me. It was still there, still stoppered, still full. Deep within me, I felt my magic beating like a heart.

  “Anna,” I cried instinctively. I needed my sister, needed to tell her everything, just as I had done with Rebecca. She could help me. She loved me as only a sister could. That bond had to be stronger than the magic.

  “I only believe in one kind of magic.” Rebecca had said so. That magic forged the bond between my sister and me. I hoped.

  “Anna!” I cried again, voice trembling, but no response came. I felt blindly on her side of the bed. She wasn’t there. I raked my mind, trying to piece together the night’s events, but I could not determine how I ended up in my bed at home or account for the previous hours.

  Anna was gone. It was the middle of the night. She could be in danger or doing who knew what with Jacob. What a sister I had been! How long did I expect my neglect to accumulate without consequence?

  I clambered from the bed and clumsily grabbed a shawl to throw around my shoulder. I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, but there was no sign of her.

  I could not lose Anna. I had lost Edward, Bram, I’d even lost any real true relationship with Byron. Not Anna.

  I swung open my front door and ran instinctively to Mrs. Crow’s flat, banging on it without consideration for the hour.

  “Mrs. Crow, please! It’s Luella!’ I shouted, banging harder.

  To my surprise, the door opened quickly, and Mrs. Crow greeted me with a lit candle, dressed in a worn nightgown and a weary expression.

  “I was wondering when you would come to my door,” she said.

  “Please, Mrs. Crow, this is no time for games. Anna’s missing. Please, tell me you have seen her.”

  “I have,” she said, holding up a hand.

  “When?”

  “Right before she left with Jacob. Come inside, dear. I have some tea on.” She waved me in sadly and slowly. I followed, put off by Mrs. Crow’s tone of voice, as if something inevitable had come about.

  I sauntered through the doorway into her flat. It looked similar to my own, except that she had given more attention to cleanliness and less substance in the cupboards. I had made it a point not to visit Mrs. Crow’s very often, partly because I didn’t want to impose upon her and partly because she could be a bit much to deal with. I noticed, for the first time, a likeness hanging on the wall, drawn in pencil, of a robust looking man in a black suit and top hat.

  Mrs. Crow was a widow; this much I knew. She had explained to me several times in the past how her husband had died from street violence. That was before the city had adopted a police force, and a local sheriff’s office could not keep up with a surge in crime. She had since spent her life getting by on what she could. They had enough stored away for her to purchase this small lodging, so at the very least, she wasn’t expected on by a mortgage, but her life was meager and, I imagined, very lonely. At least she had Mrs. Barker to gossip with.

  Still, I now felt a keen desire to connect with her in a way I never had previously. Perhaps I feared that my current path was leading me to her situation. Byron was a good deal older than me, and if I squinted hard enough, I could see a future version of myself living alone, trying to find ways to pass the time.

  “Anna left this afternoon,” she said, pouring tea from an old battered kettle into a porcelain cup. “Truthfully, I thought she might do something rash like this after I heard about you and Byron getting back on.”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Anna told me the other day.”

  “Did you and Anna meet often?”

  “My dear, did you expect her to just sit here reading while you were off at work and play?”

  I accepted the cup presented me and blushed.

  “I just—I didn’t realize.”

  “Anna was the closest thing to family as I’ve had left,” Mrs. Crow said, settling into a chair. “Now, I guess I’m stuck with you.”

  “Stuck with me. What do you mean? Did you two quarrel?” I asked. She put down her teacup.

  “Oh, dear, you don’t understand. Anna’s gone with Jacob,” she replied.

  Gone with Jacob. Understanding hit me like a punch from old Bill at the police station. I feared that she might do something like this. My distaste for the young man grew. He must have taken advantage of her in her desperate state. It wouldn’t be the first time a young rich man tried to abscond with a woman. I massaged my temples. The fallout would be nothing pretty.

  “You didn’t try to talk her out of it?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “Try talking sense into a young, enamored woman? Is such a thing possible? I believe the last time I tried that, I was banished from your apartment.” I winced. “The truth is, we learn these things only after it’s too late. Then, we carry the curse of trying to pass down what we know, but the young never have listened to their elders, and they never will. The heart is just too strong. It will do what it wants.”

  My cup sat on the table in front of me, untouched. I stared at its swirling contents, studying the wisps of steam trailing off its top.

  “I just thought he would be different,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I didn’t think he was driven by the same carnal passion that so many men are.”

  “All men, Luella. Why do think we marry them? It’s one of our feeble attempts at keeping them out of trouble. I tried to tell her Jacob wasn’t blind, and she was wasting her money with those God forsaken pills she kept going on about.”

  “What pills?” Even as I asked, I saw the envelope in my memory, how quickly she had swooped it up and hid it in the cupboard, the empty envelope there this morning.

  “Luella, you must have been walking through your house blindfolded.”

  I felt like vomiting. My sister had not been lured away by a rich young gentleman. She had ensnared him.

  “An aphrodisiac?” I whispered. “Where did she get them?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me, at least not specifically. But, after some deduction, I think it was a no-good peddler at that fair that’s just packed up across the river. Spanish flies, covered in chocolate, so she told me. If that’s not the stupidest idea, I don’t know what is. If it were so easy to fix problems of intimacy, do you think so many men would run to mistresses?”

  I had been so stupid. I felt weightless, smotheringly weak.

  “It’s my fault,” I said to myself more than to Mrs. Crow. “I told her, if she really loved Jacob, she would sacrifice everything to be with him and let nothing stand in her way.”

  Mrs. Crow stared at me vacantly.

  “And you think those were the magic words that sent her down the wayward path? Luella, I’ve known you for a long time. I knew you were always book smart, but I didn’t know that you could be such a fool. Your sister left with Jacob because she realized that she didn’t fit in your life anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re at a crossroads, dear. What will become of Anna when you marry Byron? Do you think she will just happily live downstairs under a head of household she despises?”

  My head hurt trying to remember every warning signal, every cry for help I should have recognized.

  “Until she and Jacob could be wed, yes.”

  “And, if Jacob didn’t work out?”

  “Then we would find another suitable match for her.”

  “There is no other suitable match,” Mrs. Crow said, decisively. “She’s a Winthrop. If I know anything about your family, it’s that you don’t do things the traditional way. While you’ve been busy being so progressive, you’ve governed your sister like your grandmother would have. Suitable match, please. She’s in love with Jacob just as much as you are with your writing.”

  “My writing,” I echoed. “Anna told you about that, too.”

  “Yes, though she didn’t have to. I read Langley’s from time to time, and if Mr. Liv
ingston thinks he can convince me that one of his male reporters can write such a nuanced guide to curtains, then he has another thing coming to him.”

  Of course, Mrs. Crow knew. The pieces were all there. My life was just a puzzle for those bored enough to take a look. Bram had discovered my pen name. Why not Mrs. Crow?

  She made too much sense for me to bear. When did my little sister become so calculating and decisive? I had always just assumed that things with Jacob would work out eventually. But, if they hadn’t, living under the roof with the man who started the downfall would be miserable. Was eloping really her best chance to seal her fate with the man she loved?

  “My dear Luella,” said Mrs. Crow, reaching across the table and taking my wrist gently. “Don’t take this too hard. Take it from someone who has lived a good long while. A lot comes out in the laundry. No one is without their demons.”

  I smiled back at her. If only she knew to whom she was talking. We all had our demons, to be certain. I thought again of the fog and the frightened panic I had woken up to all alone in my bed minutes ago, without the sister that had buoyed me up for so long and in so many ways. Some of us had demons, and some of us had real demons.

  “Mrs. Crow, I was wrong to treat you the way I did the last time we spoke. I’m sorry. Please, help me understand what we should do when Anna gets back. I’m sure, if we can act quickly, we can contain some of the damage she’s caused to her reputation or at least do something to ensure Jacob does the honorable thing.”

  “Luella, please, my dear, you’re still not hearing me. Anna’s gone. She’s gone away with Jacob.”

  Finally, it dawned on me, like the fog clearing at midday.

  “She’s not coming back,” I said, tears welling into my eyes.

  “She left this for you,” Mrs. Crow said, heading to a drawer and producing a sealed envelope. “She said it explained the best way she knew how.”

  “Did you read it?” I asked. Mrs. Crow shook her head.

  “I’ll let you alone now. I think you know the way out when you’re done. If you need anything, you have but to call.” She set the letter on the table, kissed my head, and made her way out of the kitchen, closing the door behind her.

  I stared at Anna’s elegant, practiced handwriting, a single word on the envelope’s exterior. Luella. My fingers trembled as I opened it.