The Mesmerist

by Ronald L. Smith

  The bells are louder now, and another curious sound joins them. It is a song, sung in a clear, high voice, one that I have heard before.

  “The smile upon her bonnie cheek

  Was sweeter than the bee;

  Her voice excelled the birdie’s song

  Upon the birchen tree.”

  It is Father’s song.

  I feel myself drifting, although I am standing still. The tide pools around my bare feet. I look up, out onto the ocean. A small ship with a silver sail rocks on the water. My heart aches.

  “Jess,” I hear a voice call. “Jessamine.”

  I open my eyes. Balthazar stands before me. “That is all, he says. “You can go no further.”

  My head is foggy. “It was beautiful,” I whisper.

  “Yes. Beautiful beyond words.”

  “Is that your home?”

  “Of a sort. The realm of Faerie is in the mind, as much as it is all around us.”

  I truly do not understand.

  “Tell me more,” I demand. “The silver ship. What was it? Where was it going?”

  Balthazar smiles, and it is a sad smile. “I cannot show you more, dear one. For once mere humans glimpse the white shores of Faerie, they often go mad with desire. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?” He takes my hand. “Sleep now, Jess. Our work is not yet done.”

  And then he leaves the room, his boots clicking on the floor.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A Message Revealed

  The image of the silver ship has stayed with me and brings such a sad, melancholy longing when I think of it. But at the same time, it feels joyful. It is truly a conundrum.

  Late this afternoon I find Emily and Gabriel in the parlor playing a game of jackstraws. Dust motes filter through the windows, and a halo of light surrounds Gabriel’s head. They look up as I enter.

  “You all right, then?” Gabriel asks.

  I feel a wave of embarrassment and absently reach up to touch my face. “Y-yes,” I stutter. “Much improved.” I try to smile, but I am not convinced that it looks genuine. Now that I am feeling better, other thoughts have returned. Come to us, Jessamine. Come, darkling.

  Gabriel spills the thin sticks onto the floor, creating a toppled forest. Each player must take a turn and remove the sticks one by one. Whoever picks up the most without upsetting the pile wins. I find it troubling that they are playing a childhood game when the world outside is full of ghouls and necromancers.

  I walk out and into the back garden. To my surprise, Balthazar is here, sitting on a stone bench. A Roman bust, covered in ivy, lies broken among the high weeds. The air is cold, and I immediately want to rush back inside, but instead I take a seat next to him.

  “Ah,” he says, distractedly. “How are you feeling?”

  “Rather well,” I tell him. And it is true. My scratch is now only a faint red line. A battle scar, just like Jess the Pirate Girl. I sniffle a little at the memory of that childhood silliness. Now I have seen things that would send a strong man into madness.

  Balthazar’s gaze seems to drift over my face, not focusing on me. He looks at my hands. Does he expect them to be as sharp as razors? Covered in hair?

  “Any dreams?” he inquires, raising his head. “Anything … unusual?”

  “No,” I answer, but recall my visions of the white mist and the terrible sound. “Why do you ask?” I’m growing concerned. “Do you think I’m going to—”

  “I just want to be certain,” he says mysteriously.

  “Certain? Of what?”

  He reaches out and touches the scar. I do not draw back, for there is nothing threatening or impolite about it. Right at that moment, Gabriel and Emily appear.

  “Having a party and you didn’t invite us?” Emily asks.

  Neither Balthazar nor I answer.

  “Gabbyshins cheats at jackstraws,” she complains. “I had to quit.” With her elbows, she nudges Gabriel, who only shakes his head.

  Emily seems so childlike, but then I remember how she scratched the ghoul’s back with her white-hot fingernails, and the thought vanishes.

  Balthazar stands up suddenly. “Right, then,” he says. “You’re all here.” He pauses. “I have been called away. There is a matter I must attend to, and it cannot go unbidden.”

  I am taken aback.

  “This I must stress,” he says, looking at the three of us. “Do not attempt to reach out to Mephisto on your own. Do you understand?”

  Emily gives a sour look. Gabriel is silent. But I will not be. “So we’re just supposed to sit here and wait for you? There could be an attack. Who knows what might happen?”

  Balthazar kneels by the bench and takes my hand in his. “Jessamine. I implore you to wait for my return.” He says this with an air of authority that I cannot ignore.

  “How long will you be gone?” I ask.

  “Hopefully only a short while. Two days at most.”

  “Blimey,” Emily mutters.

  He stands back up. “Be careful, and always be on your guard. And, again, do not attempt to reach Mephisto without me.”

  And with that final warning, he turns and walks back inside the house.

  I sit in my room, staring at my hands. How could Balthazar just venture off in the midst of our mission?

  After Mother died, he said we would avenge her. How can we do that when he is not here to guide us? We’ve done nothing since the attack in the cave.

  I glance at my satchel. Those are Father’s weapons in there. “Within you lies strength yet to be discovered,” Mother told me. “Like your father … and your mother.”

  And it is then that I know what I must do.

  I draw out the spirit board, and we gather around the table.

  “Jessamine,” Gabriel says hesitantly, “what are you planning to do with that?” His tone sounds almost fearful.

  “I am not sure,” I answer. “But we need to find out more about Mephisto and this ‘rosy’ business. Balthazar isn’t giving us any answers, right?”

  They look at each other warily.

  “He said to not try anything while he’s away,” Emily reminds me.

  “He’s got his own way of doing things,” Gabriel says. “He always takes his time.”

  “He’s a faerie,” Emily says, as if this is a completely natural explanation. “They take a long time to do anything. One time it took him a bloody hour just to answer a question.”

  I shake my head. “We need answers. The boy in the alley and the ghoul recited the same rhyme. We have to find out more.” I take a calming breath and look at both of them. “I don’t know what will happen, but I need you here in case something unfortunate occurs. Now, are you with me?”

  Emily chews her lip. Gabriel fiddles with his hands. Finally they look at each other and nod at the same time.

  I find parchment, quill, and ink and place them on the table. “Write down the words that the planchette spells out, Emily.”

  “Don’t know me letters, Jess.”

  She says this without the slightest hint of embarrassment. It is I who feel like a beast. I should have known. “Oh—” I start. “I’m sorry. Well, perhaps I can teach you one day.”

  “Would you, Jess?” Her voice is eager.

  “Yes,” I tell her.

  Gabriel takes the quill in his hand and dips it into the inkwell.

  “We need candles,” I say, rising, but Emily’s small hand stops me short.

  “No. I can do that.”

  I sit back down.

  Emily closes her eyes. She breathes out through her nose several times. Little sparks of light flicker around her face and then spread outward, illuminating the table. I can see the spirit board clearly now. She sits back and smiles.

  “All right, then,” I say, letting out a breath.

  I suddenly realize that I have not used the spirit board in quite this manner before. I have never asked it a direct question. Does it even work that way?

  I place my fingers on the planchette. “�
�Ring around the rosy,’” I begin. “‘A pocketful of posies.’ What is the meaning of these words?”

  My fingers immediately tingle. The back of my neck goes cold, as if I have stepped out into a winter’s day without a scarf. A chill rises in the room. Emily hugs her arms to her chest. Gabriel looks on with a determined gaze. I close my eyes. At first there is only a black curtain, but slowly, like white stars filling a night sky, I see it—​a face, as white as alabaster, with raven-black hair falling to either side. The eyes are two red embers. I hold the image in my mind, although it is unsettling. The planchette scrapes across the board—​to the left, now right, now down. I swallow and feel sweat on my brow. The face disappears, to be replaced by a tunnel—​a long passage filled with white fog. I hear screeching, a terrible grinding sound that sets my nerves on edge.

  My hands suddenly stop moving. I take a breath and open my eyes. Emily’s light is a warm yellow and spills across the table. I look to Gabriel, whose face is troubled. We do not speak, but he turns the parchment so I can read what is written.

  But before I can take in the words—​

  “Come to me, darkling,” a disembodied voice calls out. “Come to me and save your city.”

  My heart thuds in my chest.

  Emily’s light goes out.

  “Who are you?” I demand, my eyes flitting about the room. “Show yourself!”

  A dreadful pause, and then—​

  “Soon, my lovely. Very soon.”

  The table begins to vibrate. I lay my hands palms down on the surface, as if somehow I can stop it. The legs begin to shake, drumming the floor beneath me. Gabriel and Emily both stand quickly. “Stop!” I shout, but to whom I do not know. Gabriel reaches into his coat and takes out his harp, but before he can play a calming note, the spirit board rises up and flies across the room.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Old Nichol

  Come to me, darkling. Come to me and save your city.

  The words burrow into my brain, and I cannot be rid of them. None of us speak for a long moment.

  “Well,” Emily finally says, “looks like old Balthy was right.”

  Her tone makes me bristle. My hands are shaking. “I had to,” I say in defense. “I won’t stand by doing nothing while my parents’ killers are out there.”

  These words seem to cast even more of a pall over the room.

  “There was more,” Gabriel finally says. “The words revealed on the spirit board.”

  He’s right, and only now do I recall them, but Gabriel speaks first. “Beyond the grave I come.”

  My heart aches. “The same as when I had the vision of Mother,” I whisper.

  I sleep fitfully and remain in my room the next day, only venturing out to join Emily and Gabriel for tea. We all sit with a silent sense of guilt, knowing we have not heeded Balthazar’s warning. Even Emily is quiet for once. Darby floats through the halls like a ghost, doing her chores without speaking.

  It was all my fault.

  Beyond the grave I come.

  Balthazar finally returns the next morning without explanation. We tell him what has happened, and his face is grim. He scolds us as if we are schoolchildren. “That was very dangerous, Jess. You could have opened yourself up to attack.”

  We are in the parlor. Gabriel cradles his harp between his legs, polishing the wood with a cloth, and Emily sits cross-legged before the fire.

  Balthazar begins to pace, taking long strides across the room, his hands behind his back, just as Father used to. “Tell me again,” he says, “of this face.”

  I breathe out and settle my nerves. “It was a cold white face, one whose features I could not really see. But the eyes—​they were as red as embers.”

  Silence falls between us, but for the sound of Balthazar’s boots on the floor.

  “And the words?” he asks in a tone I do not like.

  I swallow and repeat the phrase I cannot forget. “‘Come to me, darkling. Come to me and save your city.’” I feel dreadful just saying it aloud. “What do they want with me?” I ask the room.

  “Retribution,” Balthazar says, his nervous pacing finally coming to a stop. “Remember, Jessamine—​your father was instrumental in destroying Mephisto in the past. It is vengeance they seek. First the wife and then the—”

  He stops short, as if realizing what he is about to say. He sighs. “They are trying to lure you with threats. Surely it is only a trap.”

  I think on that a moment. What would Father do? Always the first to rush into battle, Balthazar had said.

  I feel an ache in my temples, and look down to see that I am gripping the armrest of my chair so tightly my knuckles are white. I’ve had enough. Everything is bottled up inside me, and now it needs to be released. “But we need to act!” I say firmly.

  Emily flinches at my outburst. For a moment I worry that I have spoken out of turn, but then my resolve stiffens. “We have to do something. Mephisto is out there right now. It is me they are seeking! The voice said come to me and save your city. If I go to them, I might be able to—”

  “No,” Balthazar says curtly. “I told you before that they cannot be trusted. I will not allow you to walk blindly into their midst, wherever that may be.”

  Emily and Gabriel shrink at Balthazar’s tone. I try to look into his mind, to see where he has been, but the way is blocked by a dense forest of trees. I could only do it before because he allowed me to, I realize.

  “Now,” he says, letting out a labored breath and tugging the ends of his waistcoat, as if everything is settled, “there is something I want to show you. Come. Gather your coats.”

  Before we depart, I make sure to take my weapons.

  I am feeling rather on edge as we depart 17 Wadsworth Place. Mother said I have strength yet to be discovered, yet Balthazar is holding me back.

  We take an omnibus to a small neighborhood not far from ours. It is called the Old Nichol, Balthazar tells us, and the narrow, winding streets run like a crooked maze throughout. Every terrace house seems to have cracked windows. The smell of fish and sewage rises on the air. I hear a baby’s desperate cry from somewhere nearby, and I want to shut my ears to the sound, for it will not stop. I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.

  We arrive at a tenement that is on the verge of collapse. The windows are shattered. I run my finger along the brick, and it comes away black. “A fire?” I ask.

  “Soot,” Balthazar replies. “From the nearby factory.”

  I look down. A fine, dark dust peppers my clothes.

  “Crikey,” Emily says, peering around. “I thought Nowhere was bad.”

  “This is one of the worst slums in England, Emily,” Balthazar says. “People are left to fend for themselves here, with no help or concern from those sworn to protect them.”

  “It’s terrible,” I say.

  One of the doors has an iron grate in front of it, and Balthazar pulls it away. The whole thing comes off its hinges and falls squeaking and groaning to the ground.

  “Follow me,” he says. And then—​“You may want to cover your noses.”

  I take out my handkerchief and hold it warily to my face.

  The ground-level flat we step into is just one small room. The only light is from a broken window. A sharp, gaseous odor surrounds me, and I wince. I once had the unfortunate experience of detecting such a smell from a dead cat down at the docks. What will we find here? I press my handkerchief more firmly. Emily and Gabriel look a little pale, but they only hold their fists to their noses.

  “Just in here,” Balthazar says.

  We step around piles of tin cans and broken bottles, the remains of a small fire. Cracked oil lamps and several pairs of battered shoes are on the floor. There is another door, one I did not see when we entered, and that is where we follow Balthazar. It is here that the smell is the strongest, and now I see its source.

  Bodies.

  Two bodies are laid out on the rotting floorboards. It is a man and a woman. Their face
s are composed, as if sleeping, but it is a sleep from which they will never awaken.

  “Bloody hell,” Emily mutters.

  “How did they die?” I ask through my handkerchief.

  Balthazar kneels down and, with one finger, turns the man’s head to the side. “Here,” he says.

  Hesitantly, Emily, Gabriel, and I kneel down too. I look closely at the man’s neck, which is mottled with purple bruises. “The rosy sickness?” I venture.

  “No,” Balthazar says. “Watch.”

  I look on with morbid fascination. To my horror, Balthazar digs his fingers into the man’s neck. I close my eyes in revulsion but open them only to see him pull something out, which makes an awful squelching sound.

  He holds it up, and the weak light in the room reveals a curious instrument. It is an iron-gray cylinder, like a small tube, caked with blood. I swallow and try to stay strong, although this entire venture is dreadful beyond belief.

  “What in the name of God is that?” I ask.

  Balthazar tosses the tube aside. “It is a draining device,” he says. “These bodies are completely drained of blood.”

  Emily stands up and walks closer to the dead woman’s body. I peer at her sleeping face. Her long black hair falls to her shoulders, but her skin is sallow and mottled. Does she have a daughter? I wonder. Someone who loved her, the way I loved Mother?

  Emily reaches down and points to the woman’s neck. “Same here,” she says. “Looks like somebody done sucked the blood right out of ’em. Like they was being had for supper.”

  I close my eyes.

  “Vampire?” Gabriel suggests.

  Balthazar stands up. “No, Gabriel. A vampire takes only what is needed to sustain him. There is no blood left in these bodies at all.”

  “How did you even find this place?” I ask, staring around the ruinous room.

  Balthazar takes a handkerchief from within his coat and wipes his hands. “It is easy to find people who will take a few coins to keep their eyes and ears open,” he says. “All over the East End, I have heard reports of corpses just like these, drained of every drop of blood.”

  “Mephisto?” I ask.

  “It has to be,” Balthazar says. “But to what end?”