Eterna and Omega

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  Using her body as a shield, Clara made a rude gesture toward DeWitt that the woman couldn’t see. Josiah giggled—a sound Clara loved dearly—and hesitantly stepped over the threshold. She scooped up the skinny boy in her arms and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, at which he laughed outright before whining in protest.

  “Aww, Miss Templeton, come now, what’s that for?” he said, wiping his cheek but still grinning as she sat him down.

  Out of the corner of her eye she could see DeWitt staring at them in horror; this gave her some distinct satisfaction.

  “Because you’re the most helpful, useful young man in the world. The senator and I consider you family and I want everyone to know it.” She shot a pointed look at DeWitt. Josiah seemed somewhat stunned by her praise. Clara turned back to him and spoke more softly. “Now, if you would be so kind to finish off your work by telling Franklin everything that’s happened today, and where we are should he need us, I would be most appreciative. He owes you double for all this back-and-forth.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you.”

  She put her hands on her knees to match his height, looking intently into his wide brown eyes. “You stay safe and take care out there, Joe. I do worry over you.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Templeton, Reverend gave me a special blessing!” he said with another big grin. He darted out the door and took off down the street, turning back once to wave, which Clara returned.

  As Clara headed back upstairs, she saw that DeWitt was trying to pretend she hadn’t been staring.

  “New York City,” Clara mused pointedly as she climbed the stairs, loud enough to be sure the proprietor heard every word. “Full of the most interesting people in all the whole world, and none so beautiful as every kind and race of child.”

  Entering the room upstairs, Clara found her associates deep in discussion.

  The reverend punctuated Bishop’s explanation of Wards with his declaration: “The Lord’s weaponry has to be as varied as mankind’s capacity to invent horrors.” Rising to his feet, he drew an ornate silver dispenser from his breast pocket and cast a bit of holy water about the room.

  They set a designated watch, but the night grew so very quiet that eventually they all drifted off where they sat.

  * * *

  The next morning, they awoke to pouring rain and a knock on the door. Mrs. DeWitt said, “There’s a Mr. Stevens downstairs, asking to see you. Excitable man, I gave him a cup of tea to calm him.”

  Clara clapped her hands to her mouth, tears leaking immediately out her eyes.

  “It worked!” she exclaimed. Bishop embraced Clara with a joyful laugh, then Blessing and Evelyn in turn before turning to address the increasingly disturbed proprietor.

  “Thank you, madame,” Bishop said as the foursome swept past, descending into the low-ceilinged, cozy pub on the first floor. Stevens sat glassy-eyed beside a lit hearth that was working to take the dampness off the wet air.

  “Well. You survived!” Clara stated excitedly as everyone gathered around.

  Reverend Blessing stepped near and, without a word, inspected Stevens closely. Clara knew Blessing was looking for signs of demonic possession. He’d seen enough of it in his day.

  Stevens bore the scrutiny without shrinking, even allowing the reverend to peer into his eyes for longer than was comfortable. Finally, Blessing nodded and made the sign of a cross over the man. Stevens reacted as if he’d been dying of thirst and the clergyman had given him a drink of water.

  Once they were all served—tea, strong coffee, and some sweet breads—Clara leaned in and said, “Do tell us what passed last night. Quietly, please.”

  “We’ve already made a stir with our mixed company,” Blessing added in a murmur rather than his usually sonorous voice. “Let’s not compound the issue with overheard discussions of demons.” Evelyn and Bishop nodded in support, and all eyes turned to Stevens.

  “The Wards. It’s fascinating,” Stevens whispered excitedly. “You’re right about the need to make it personal, Miss Templeton, and thank you.”

  He took a deep breath and memory passed over his face like a black cloud. “The Summoned came for me. Deep, dark shadows, the stuff of true nightmares. The shadows are part of this work and always have been. But no one can truly be prepared when they come for you.” He shuddered and stared into the fire for a long moment.

  “Go on. This is vital, Mr. Stevens,” Clara urged. “Truly vital.”

  He nodded and resumed with renewed vigor, obviously heartened by her encouragement. “Your initial Ward kept them at the foot of my bed, no closer, Miss Templeton, and there’s a congratulations in that.”

  Clara looked around for Louis, to see if he heard the good news that his work was a lifesaving success, but her ghostly paramour was nowhere to be seen.

  “But there was no banishment,” Stevens continued. “A Ward is helpful in keeping danger at bay, surely, but what about banishment? As a child, I used to see ghosts. The more I told them to go away, the less they came, until one day I didn’t see them anymore. Unfortunately, these dark forces are no ghosts. They need a force equal to their own, something to push back against.

  “The trouble was finding my magic,” he said, looking each of them in the eye, as if he was living for the very first time. “What could I call sacred and personal when everything had gone so dark and horrid?”

  He showed them a small, ragged-edged daguerreotype of a woman. “My aunt, who raised me. She’d always been sickly, but she never made a worry over it, not a sound really, just suffered all her life in silence. When she died, I resolved to go into chemistry and see if I could make people’s aches and pains go away. Then I was lured into the Society. I lost track of the reason for my work.”

  He indicated a torn edge of the remembrance. “I put the corner of Auntie’s likeness into the second mixture Miss Templeton afforded me, along with a strand of my hair, and the whole of a pendant of St. Luke I’d been given as a child. I wasn’t named for the saint, but Auntie insisted, ‘Luke, you’ll be the death of me, please wear this to protect you, you impetuous boy…’” Tears in his red-rimmed eyes spoke of ill health and strain.

  “The chain broke long ago, but I always carried the medallion in my pocket. Because it meant something to her, it meant something to me. And who knows, maybe it’s helped keep me alive thus far. I put that right into the vial. Lit it all up, as you said—the catalyzing power of fire I know well. I looked the Summoned in their nonexistent faces and said, ‘No, I will not be taken.’ And wouldn’t you know it…”

  Stevens, either a born storyteller or, like Ebenezer Scrooge, he was reborn unto a new personality after the most harrowing test, had his audience all leaning in and their teas and coffees gone cold.

  “They hesitated, there,” Stevens went on, “as if confused, clearly reluctant to be sent off. The vial lit up brighter than any fire. Once the contents had been reduced to ash,—save the saint, he of course weathered the elements without tarnish—I threw the contents at them and they vanished, as if I’d blown them out like a candle. Wisps of blackness, then nothing.”

  Everyone collectively took a breath.

  “And then,” Stevens continued, “I slept. I honest to God slept, for the first time in years. It’s a miracle, whatever is up there in the heavens be praised.”

  “Indeed. I only hope this is a result we can repeat,” Clara stated.

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Bishop asked pointedly. Stevens stared at the senator with more earnestness than she’d ever seen, perhaps the expression of a man on the gallows suddenly reprieved.

  “He is,” Evelyn said firmly. “The spirits assure me.” She turned to Stevens. “Your Auntie Mim is proud of you. She forgives you for the candlesticks. She knows you were just trying to afford a nice gift for the girl, she’s sorry it didn’t work out.”

  Stevens burst into sobs. Evelyn blinked as if coming out of a reverie. Clara knew, from years attending séances with her and Bishop, that Eve
lyn was often unable to stop the spirits from using her to send messages. Everyone took to their cold tea and coffee until Stevens regained himself. Blessing offered his handkerchief, at which Stevens mumbled thanks.

  “How can I next help?” the haunted man said suddenly. “I was prepared to die. And I am still, but if it is not my time yet, let me further your causes while I can.”

  This redemption helped Clara feel that her Eterna hadn’t entirely done harm.

  “Help us make more Wards,” Clara said. “We’ll need to place them all over New York, and people may have to learn to make their own, depending on how widely these ‘Summoned’ attempt to permeate.”

  “I should be happy to,” Stevens said, “but I’ve no place to live at present. Everything I had belonged to the Society—”

  “My mission includes rescuing animals,” Blessing said. “I’ve a kennel uptown with a small shack on the property. If you are willing to look after the animals, particularly the dogs, you may live there. Help with the Wards, and, if there’s any more of that dread toxin that you unleashed upon this city, you’d best make up a cure.”

  “Gladly,” Stevens replied.

  “Good, then, get to it. Thank you, Reverend,” Bishop said, rising, handing a bill to the disapproving innkeeper who did well enough to keep quiet.

  “I’ll escort you to the place,” Blessing said to Stevens. “I hope you like dogs. Between Henry Bergh and I, and our ASPCA associates, we’ve rescued more than we can easily take care of ourselves.”

  “That will be a joy as well, Reverend,” Stevens stated earnestly.

  “Our associate will bring you the ‘recipe’ for the Wards,” Bishop told him, “and you’ll be responsible for collecting the necessary items. Depending on how many we’ll need, you’ll have help. You’ll be checked upon regularly, if you even think—”

  “As long as I live, you’ll have my thanks, service, and loyalty,” Stevens said.

  * * *

  Clara kept calling hours. Not because she was being courted or because she was so woven into the social fabric of New York society that she needed such formalities, but she did have a valued associate who preferred tea and sumptuous fabrics to the hard chairs and inconveniences of an office.

  Years earlier, Mrs. Evelyn Northe-Stewart had explained, in a conversation over dinner, “Rupert, the girl needs calling hours. She needs a semblance of being a lady, of tending to the duties expected of her. That office you’ve put her up in is hardly conducive to the kind of talk ladies need to have to really get to the heart of matters. We need to be surrounded by lace and demure comforts, so that in a world owned by men, we appear inoffensive while we slowly and sweetly move to dominate.”

  This had made Bishop grin and his eyes light up. Clara had instituted the policy that week.

  It was Evelyn who had been Clara’s primary visitor in the years since. Clara had few acquaintances and fewer friends; the nature of her work and her epileptic condition kept society, and much of the rest of the world, at bay. And it was Evelyn who came to call the day after Stevens had gone off with Blessing, with a familiar face in tow, a young woman displeased at having been brought along.

  The housekeeper let Mrs. Northe-Stewart and her daughter-in-law into the fine parlor, where Clara had opened the curtains wide. It being another gray day, the light did not hurt her gold, delicate eyes as much as bright sun did. While Clara was hardly a shrinking violet, she was a “sensitive” in nearly every meaning of the word.

  Clara greeted Evelyn and Lady Denbury warmly, the former, elegant and statuesque, always at the cutting edge of fashion, the latter, pretty, auburn haired, and dressed in similar finery, likely at the advice of her stepmother, helping a middle-class girl who had married above her station. The younger woman looked tired, and Clara doubted it was because of the young child at home. Natalie Whitby, Lady Denbury, displayed the kind of weariness that comes from nightmares and spiritual unrest.

  The housekeeper brought them tea.

  “How are you feeling, Clara?” Evelyn asked in her best maternal tone. “Have you had your … visitation?”

  “I have.” They hadn’t had time to discuss Louis since the medium had connected his spirit to Clara. “It’s been informative. Hard, but … carrying on Louis’s work is what I am meant to do.” She spoke circumspectly, for there were things Clara didn’t feel comfortable saying to anyone other than Evelyn.

  “There’s much you may be meant to do, Miss Templeton,” Lady Denbury said in an encouraging tone.

  “Clara, please, Lady Denbury,” Clara insisted, not for the first time.

  “Natalie, then, Clara,” the young woman replied, somewhat to Clara’s surprise. Her voice shifted, becoming less personal. “I’m here because I’m having nightmares, and as you may recall—”

  “They’re portents,” Clara said.

  “Yes.”

  Clara readied herself for yet more difficult news. “Well. Do tell.”

  “I’ve had … visions … of a man … in a cell,” the young woman said slowly, her cheeks flushing in frustration and shame. “Bear with me as I speak, I beg you. Selective Mutism no longer keeps my tongue in shackles … but … when speaking of the horror, I sometimes seize up.”

  “Oh, Natalie, how I understand,” Clara assured her. “I seize up quite literally when surrounded by supernatural onslaughts, I uniquely empathize. Continue when ready and comfortable. I am grateful you’re here. I know you wanted nothing to do with this after your case was settled.”

  Lady Denbury nodded. She took a sip of tea and visibly collected her nerves, squaring her shoulders, her bright eyes sharpening with determination. When she continued, her speech was much more fluid.

  “I didn’t. And I hate that my husband remains in London. I hate that anything has been asked of him. But that’s not your fault, Clara.” She took another deep breath before continuing,

  “To the nightmare. I saw … Moriel, to be specific, the ringleader of the Master’s Society. There were images of pure torture, along the lines of the experimentation we dealt with ourselves, but now burgeoning on an almost, I shudder to think, industrial scale. Moriel planted harrowing, horrid seeds and the trees of his work bear fruit of the highest evil.”

  “He is not dead, then?” Clara said, aghast. “Was Moriel not sentenced to death in England?”

  “Perhaps he was, but we don’t know for certain,” Evelyn replied. “We all thought Stevens was done for, after all.”

  Looking older than her years, Lady Denbury shifted in her chair. “The beast’s petty, personal motive against my husband has been supplanted by something far greater. My dream may not be literal, but that which Moriel woke gathers again. One can never truly kill evil, just displace it for a time.” She leveled her gaze at Clara. “My telling you of this is the extent of my involvement. I cannot have the demons sniffing about me, my house, my husband or, Christ forbid, my child.”

  “Agreed, Natalie, entirely,” Clara said. “Well, then. I’ve been feeling a burning need to go to London. This confirms it. When should I leave?”

  “Don’t act hastily,” Evelyn cautioned.

  “I’m not being hasty. When action is incited, when a chess piece is placed upon the board, why, if I make a countermove, am I hasty? You and Rupert—”

  “Clara, it isn’t only the timing. I’ve a caution for you.”

  Clara pursed her lips. “What else have I done?”

  “Don’t be so quick to be defensive,” Evelyn scolded. “This is something I foresee. You are a captivating spirit, and people and forces are drawn to you. Be careful the company you keep.”

  The medium refilled her teacup, speaking in a measured tone that Clara could not ignore. “Every morning that God grants us, the universe offers a finite amount of energy. Every day is a choice in how vitality is utilized. Hope is measured against practicality, dreams pitted against fears, indulgences weighed against sacrifices. Love strains against loss. Every day our angels battle our demons.

&n
bsp; “To rise to such challenges is a daily election, each day a new opportunity, and we must surround ourselves with fellow soldiers who make the decision to fly with us rather than entrench us deeper into a squelching pit.”

  Clara allowed this wisdom its appropriate breadth and space. After a moment, she sought further clarity. “Are there those around me now who seek to drag me down?”

  “Perhaps. Those who may need more than you are able to give. Be careful of excess weight.”

  Clara nodded, unsure whom Evelyn might mean. The woman’s message needed to be taken in and digested, like a hearty meal.

  “London has its thrall,” Evelyn added. “It is a captivating city. I adore it. But home is here.” Her expression was far away, wrapped up in old memories that she did not disclose.

  As the ladies sipped tea, Evelyn asked questions about her grandchild. Fighting the Society had resulted in a few romances and increased families, despite all its horror.

  Clara knew with the same certainty of her past lives that she was not to have a child herself, similar to Evelyn. Sometimes those with gifts had to be different kinds of mothers to the world, in ways the world would not expect, and likely not often understand.

  The women took their leave, and Clara read the notes she’d kept in a personal diary around the time of the Stevens trial, and notes on an earlier interview with Lady Denbury, then just a mere museum curator’s daughter. It had been only a couple of years, but they felt like lifetimes past. She made some new notes about this recent talk.

  That evening Clara nearly fell asleep at her writing desk at home, slumping over, so she shifted into bed, and it was the rare night when slumber took her swiftly, the moment she lay down. She was awoken only by the eerie, strange sounds of electrical surges from Edison’s nearby power plant, and she hoped there wouldn’t be another disaster on the street that night.

  * * *

  G. Brinkman—a man who went by many various names—awaited his current quarry on Pearl Street.

  He had already advised Lord Black that this man might be of use as a weapon when the black tide of Master’s Society terror was finally ready to pour forth from the floodgates that had been for years now merely experimental.