A Hymn in the Silence

by Kelley York

  “He’s been hounding me to speak to Reverend Thomas,” Virgil says dryly.

  James rolls back his shoulders with a long-suffering sigh. “And Virgil has been nagging me ever since you left, William. It’s been horrible.”

  “Good, you need to be nagged at sometimes. Christ, James, sit down; your pacing is making me nervous.”

  With a huff, James drops gracelessly into the chair beside mine, and his fingers ghost the back of my hand, taking hold of my shirt sleeve. He wants to touch me and knows that he shouldn’t, and the urge to simply grab his hand in mine is overwhelming.

  It’s then that I notice Virgil and Adelia watching us, and I could almost take the looks on their faces for concern. “What is it?”

  They exchange glances before Adelia says, as delicately as she can, “Reverend Thomas knows about the two of you, doesn’t he?”

  Instinctively, my spine goes rigid and I draw my hand away from James, who sighs and says with ease, “He does, yes.”

  “And that doesn’t concern you? What if he tells the police?”

  With the commotion of everything else, I’d not honestly thought about such a thing. A sinking feeling of dread encompasses me.

  James is unflappable. He reaches the distance between us and reclaims my hand—properly this time, his fingers lacing with mine—and flashes a confident smile at Adelia. “Do you really think they’ll take his word over ours?”

  “Maybe not,” Virgil says softly. “But clearly we’re concerned enough about it to bring it up.”

  James tips his chin up, defiant. “Even if they did, I would simply steal dear William out of the country where no one would find us. I worked awfully hard to get him, you know, and I’ll not allow anyone to separate us now.”

  I can’t take my eyes off this ridiculous man of mine. Were we not subjected to an audience, I’d be kissing him senseless. As it is, I can’t help but squeeze his hand tight, and I suspect the look on my face is utterly sappy and adoring and my cheeks are undoubtedly cherry-red. He has that effect on me more than I’d care to admit.

  “I only wish you to express some caution,” Virgil says with a frown.

  James waves him off. “You fret too much.”

  “I fret because you give me reason to. You, especially, are not subtle, James.”

  “We appreciate the concern. Truly, we do,” I interject. “I promise we’ll be careful. Though perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have a conversation with Reverend Thomas before they come to take him away?” I take the silence of the room as agreement. We’re all exhausted and want nothing more to do with this whole affair, but they must know I’m right.

  Together, the four of us relocate to the cellar, entering with caution. Reverend Thomas is seated at the far end of the room. Not bound, likely because there are men posted outside and Nathaniel here, standing guard. It doesn’t appear as though he’s even tried to get up to wander around.

  Adelia nods to Nathaniel and gives him permission to step out so we might speak with the vicar alone. Nathaniel hesitates, but bows his head and slips away.

  The cellar doors fall shut. Thomas lifts his head to regard us, a pleasant smile upon his face. “Good evening.”

  “About to be not so good once the constables come back,” James drawls, pocketing his hands. “I hope you realise it’s likely the gallows for you. Or spending the rest of your life in prison; not sure that’s any better.”

  “Are you here to try to frighten me, Mr. Spencer?”

  James’ eyes narrow and a sneer begins to form on his face. I press a hand to his chest to nudge him back as I step forward. “No, actually. We came to ask about the process you used to force a spirit into an unwilling person’s body.”

  Thomas’ smile widens a notch, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His lips remain pressed firmly together in defiant silence.

  Nowhere in my mind had I thought this would be simple, of course. “All right. What about The Order? What can you tell us about them?”

  Still nothing. Reverend Thomas gazes back at me impassively.

  Behind me, James lets out a frustrated huff of breath. “Now, look here. You’re responsible for the deaths of several innocent people—”

  “Not a one of them was innocent,” Thomas interrupts. “Not Flora Brewer, not Madeline Edison nor Abraham Fletcher. Not even Flora’s bastard children.”

  James’ shoulders lift, fury lit bright across his face as he steps forward. His temper is too short for this, I realise, especially running on frayed nerves and little sleep; James can’t abide by innocent people being hurt. The memory of Oscar Frances still burns too hotly in his mind.

  I place myself between James and Reverend Thomas, palm pressed flat against James’ chest to command his attention. “Step outside. Let me handle this.”

  “What?” James’ gaze snaps to me. “No, he’s—”

  “Let me handle this,” I repeat.

  James hesitates, muscles in his jaw twitched tight as he grinds his teeth. He spares a brief look at the vicar before he does as I ask and retreats from the room. Virgil follows, bless him, undoubtedly to try to calm James down. I’m fortunate today; normally, James’ temper is not so easily quelled. I wouldn’t put it past him to hit Reverend Thomas out of anger, but it wouldn’t make him feel any better.

  Adelia steps up beside me, her presence significantly calmer than James’, although I suspect she’s merely better at hiding her anger. These were people she knew and cared for, after all.

  She says, “The Order. I want to know what it is, and why you were working for them.”

  Thomas rolls his gaze ceilingward. “You’ve been running all about the countryside these last two weeks, Lady Adelia. Very unbecoming for a lord’s daughter.”

  “I’m obliged to show you how unbecoming I can be if you refuse to cooperate,” she responds coolly.

  “Now, that is a threat. Shall you pluck off my fingernails, or place my legs in a vice?” He smiles again. “Somehow, I feel you two are not the sort to stoop to such levels. While this one—” he pins me with a stare, “—is already bound for Hell, I believe you are still in God’s good graces.”

  My muscles screw up tight as I resist the urge to strike him. I’d be lying if I said it wouldn’t make me feel better. Were James still missing, I dare say the only way Reverend Thomas would be leaving this room would be with a broken jaw.

  “You’ve kidnapped and murdered several people. I don’t think the constables will mind if you have a few broken fingers,” Adelia says. It’s an empty threat, but it’s all we have right now.

  Reverend Thomas’ doesn’t so much as flinch. “By all means. Have at it. I have God on my side, and with Him I can endure whatever punishment you might seek to throw at me.”

  Christ almighty, he really does believe it, doesn’t he? He believes everything he did was in the name of a higher power, that it was all justified. And if he does, I’m not certain any amount of torture would make him talk.

  Adelia seems to have reached a similar conclusion, because she lets out a frustrated huff. “The constables will return in short order,” she snaps. Then she whirls on her heel and manages to make stomping out of the room look elegant.

  At her departure, Reverend Thomas returns his attention to me.

  I make one last attempt to ask, “What is The Order?”

  He responds with a curt laugh. “You have no idea what ire you will invoke if you continue asking those questions. They have eyes everywhere.”

  “This is me not caring. What is it? Who is it?”

  The vicar merely bows his head, but his eyes roll up, never leaving mine. “That isn’t really why you’re still here, Mr. Esher. That’s not what you’re wanting to ask me.”

  I cross my arms. He’s correct there. While The Order is something I fear we’re going to need to investigate further, my immediate concern lies with J
ames and me. Protecting us. “Is there a point to asking if you plan to divulge my and James’ relationship to the authorities?”

  “To what end?” he asks. “The only true judgment that matters is God’s, is it not?”

  I’m not buying that, as much as I wish I could allow it to put me at ease. “If you really believed that, then you’d not have doled out your own punishment to all those people.”

  He smiles, saccharine sweet. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to find out what I will and won’t tell them, hm?”

  The cellar doors open once more and Nathaniel returns, likely at Adelia’s behest. “I apologise for interrupting, Mr. Esher, but the constables have returned.”

  My jaw clenches tight. I have little grounds to ask them to keep him here further. All I can do is re-join the others and watch as Reverend Thomas is shackled and led to the wagon outside, as silent as the grave.

  I never want to see this man again unless it’s swinging from a noose.

  If I never have to see this farmhouse again, I’ll die a happy man. As it is, when we arrive, James and I sit in the carriage and simply stare at the building for several minutes, working up the nerve—and the energy—to go inside.

  I’d tried to insist he stay behind to rest. He’s been up and going, going, going, since waking this morning, but James is never one to sit idle. He’s also being a bit clingier than usual, so I suspect the events of the last several days have him more rattled than he’d care to admit.

  Odd how the Brewers’ farm feels so much less ominous now despite the lingering spirits. I can feel them, a faint crawling sensation beneath my flesh. As we let ourselves in and James stills and draws in a slow, deep breath, I think he must feel it, too.

  This time, when I call for the Brewers, they flicker into view at the corners of my vision. Still absent is Mr. Brewer, I realise, but one thing at a time. There’s a sort of calmness to their presence now. The fear I felt from them before has gone.

  James leans against the wall, hands pocketed, watching one of the children seated on the ground not far from his feet—a tiny girl with braided hair and a mauled face that once looked much like Adelia at that age. What happened to this family was not fair, and although we couldn’t save their lives, I’m glad we could at least help them find peace. I always wonder if these moments remind James of the friend that we couldn’t save, if he finds any solace at all in what we do.

  “Go ahead, William,” James says. “Send them off.”

  Send them off. I wonder where it is they go when they leave here. Do they still wander on some plane of existence? Simply…out of our sight? We already know not everyone can see them even as they are, and that with practise, James and I have grown more attuned to their presence. We know some people have more natural talent for it than others. It’s possible, then, we simply push them on into another realm where we cannot see them.

  I still have so many questions I’m not certain I will ever get answers to until the day I draw my last breath and find out for myself.

  I face the Brewers and, as I speak, their attention diverts to me. “Flora Brewer, Jules, Lottie, Douglas, Alice… Reverend Bernard Thomas is the one responsible for your deaths, and justice has been dealt to him. You’re safe, and it’s time for you to go.”

  They disappear into the shadows, the only sound of their departure that of a relieved sigh beside my ear. Everything in the house feels different with their absence. Quieter. Safer. It is now just a house littered with bad memories and nothing more.

  James breaks the silence, voice low and soft as it fills the emptiness.

  “Pale rider to the convent gate.

  Come, O rough bridegroom, Death.”

  I close my eyes, silent for a spell. “We’re missing one.”

  “Hm?”

  “Hugo Brewer. He wasn’t here.”

  “That’s because you sent him off already, darling.” James pushes away from the wall. When I look to him and frown, he smiles. “Who do you think was possessing me?”

  My eyes widen. “You could tell?”

  “A bit. It was…just a feeling. I’m not sure I could explain it, but his anger, his sadness… It was palpable. It lingered even after he was gone.”

  My stomach turns with the thought of it. Do such emotions linger with Miss Bennett, too, I wonder? She opens herself willingly to the deceased. The willpower that woman must have in order to repel the spirits when she wants control again… Is that something James and I could ever hope to learn? “You never should have had to go through that.”

  He shrugs. “It’s part of the job, dear William. All of it is. It’s why I would understand if you decided not to do it anymore.”

  Those words drag me back to the last real conversation we had in this house, how James more or less told me he’d not fault me if I were to leave him for a more “traditional” life. After he disappeared, I replayed those words in my head, again and again, lamenting how I allowed it to end. Had the worst happened and I never saw James again… I would have had that as our last conversation—him thinking I could ever choose a life other than the one I’ve built with him.

  “About what you said before,” I begin slowly. “I’ve thought a lot about it.”

  James fixes me with a stare that I think is not as confident as he wants it to be. “Have you? I meant what I said.”

  “I don’t doubt that, but I fear I did you a great disservice by allowing you to walk out of here that night without telling you how wrong you were.”

  He frowns. “Pardon?”

  This is the difficult part. Talking out the thoughts in my head. There are things I’m not certain I could bring myself to tell anyone—even James. Things that I could mention only in passing, never in detail. Yet I can’t truly express to him the impact he’s had on me without him knowing at least something about what I’ve come from, what my life was like before him.

  Perhaps some dark secrets have to come out to air sooner or later.

  “It was my mother who got me started on the laudanum,” I begin.

  “Yes, you’ve told me that.”

  “I knew I relied on it too heavily. The summer before my third year, I attempted to go off it on my own and... Well, you’ve seen how poorly that goes. Mother and Father thought me impossible to deal with. Either I was taking too much and they accused me of being useless, or I was not taking it enough and they thought me too over-sensitive and prone to hysterics.”

  James gives a tight, humourless smile that I’ve seen plenty of times before, the smile that suggests I’ve given him another reason to dislike my family.

  I continue, “One afternoon, they went to a dinner party for a business partner of Father’s. I desperately wanted to go, but I’d been struggling the days prior. Mother feared I’d have one of my ‘fits’ and embarrass them, so they left me home.

  “While they were gone, I snuck into Father’s study and took the revolver from his desk. I thought to use it. I thought…surely it would be better for everyone all round if I were gone. Better for them, and myself. If I was never going to get any better, then what purpose was there to continue on?” I gesture vaguely, struggling to push the words out because it’s humiliating, exposing myself in such a way to someone whose opinion matters so greatly.

  James’ arms slowly drop to his sides.

  “…At any rate, clearly I changed my mind at the last second and decided I would give it one more go. ‘One more school year,’ I said. If I couldn’t make things better, then the next summer, I would do it. But do you know what? I’m glad I waited.” I move away from the table and step up to James, lifting my palms to cup his face. “Because it got better. Because there you were, and you made it better. You made me better, sweetheart.”

  His eyes have glazed over, and the smile that twists at his mouth is more sad than anything else. His arms instantly go around me, dragging me to him. “Yo
u’re such a fool,” he murmurs, but his voice is so gentle and without an ounce of reprimand or disappointment.

  I wonder if he thinks differently of me now. If the idea of me standing there in Father’s study with a gun pressed to my temple and sobbing like the bloody world was ending makes him think less of me. Nothing had mattered more to me in that moment than making everything just…stop. Cease. Quiet.

  To this day, I don’t know what it was that changed my mind. A sudden, exhausted sort of calm had swept over me, enveloped me in its arms, sapped me of all energy to do much of anything—including pulling the trigger.

  I put my arms around James without hesitation, nestling my face into his neck. “You are my everything, James. For as much as I struggle, as difficult as things are for me that are so simple for everyone else—I’d not trade you for any such normalcy. You are what makes me want to be a better man. I’m sorry I’ve been failing at that.”

  James shakes his head, pressing his lips to my neck and sniffling quietly. “I worry for you, darling. I want to be able to help.”

  That’s the difficult part, isn’t it? Because I don’t know what will help anymore. I fear driving James away with my stormy, unpredictable moods and my inability to function the way others can. I worry about what happens if, someday, I do have to step back from this job and let him go it alone—or with another working partner. Oh, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it.

  For now, though, I just want to hold onto him tightly, tipping my head to press kisses to his jaw and face. “You do help. You and your ridiculous business names and poetry and eating biscuits in bed…”

  James pulls back with a sunny smile upon his handsome face and a faint sheen of tears in his eyes. Always so emotional, this man of mine. He ducks his head to capture my lips with his own and murmur warmly against them, “I love you, you know. One day, I’m going to get you to understand how happy you make me.”