I'll Be Damned

by Erin Hayes

  I push the thought from my mind. It’s ridiculous. Having sex with him doesn’t mean anything. We did that as a transaction. Nothing more.

  Still, I wonder why he is in London instead of on a ship in the Atlantic. Perhaps I’ll have to pay for his passage back to America once he’s better. It would be expensive, but I feel slightly better knowing that I’d get him far away from what’s happening in London. There’s no telling what will happen with Mister Holmes and Adelia still out on the streets.

  Perhaps America will be a far safer place for him in the future.

  I quash my sadness at the thought of an ocean separating us. There’s nothing more to this. The only reason I brought him to my home is because of my duties as the Harker.

  Nothing more.

  No matter how much my body says otherwise.

  I leave the room and close the door behind me, leaning against it for a long moment before heading to the bathroom.

  I stay in the bath for a long, long time.

  Later, I sit at my vanity and brush out the wet tangles from my hair. I feel only a little better after my bath, like my skin may be washed, but there’s something deeper within me that won’t ever be clean. And maybe that is the curse of being the Harker.

  I can’t even look at myself in the mirror right now. Every time I do, I see Margaret’s face in my own, and I can’t stop myself from crying.

  Margaret. Thomas. Papa. Catherine. Even Jared.

  What can I do?

  I close my eyes and put my head on my hands and just allow myself to cry. After everything that has happened, it feels good to finally let out all that I’ve been holding back thus far.

  It feels good to let myself feel the things I should have felt a long time ago.

  “Hazel…”

  I feel the feathery touch on my shoulder, and I whirl around to face it. Because I recognize that voice. I recognize that touch.

  And there she is.

  My breath shudders to halt as I take her in. “Catherine,” I whisper.

  Because my dead sister is standing right here before me. Only, we’re not in my bedroom anymore. No, we’re alone in a plane of white nothingness that stretches out as far as the eye can see. A sense of agoraphobia and claustrophobia overtake me at the same time.

  I’ve heard of this place my whole life. And now, I’m finally here.

  Catherine smiles demurely at me. “Welcome to the Void, Hazel.”

  I’ve been told how the Void is a special place just for the Harkers. A Harker who has grown into her powers can reach across life and death to speak with her ancestors. It’s a space that we only share with each other.

  It’s a space where I can gain certainty of what I’m doing as the Harker.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I rush up to her and wrap her up in an embrace. Even though she’s a specter, she feels solid and real in my arms. As if I’m hugging my older sister back in the real world.

  Catherine is as beautiful in death as she was in life, a prettier, more petite version of my gangly self. I always thought that best pieces of Mother and Papa had combined to make one of the most striking women ever. Her hair is pulled back and her green eyes are as vivid as ever, perhaps more so in the space of the Void.

  I look around at the space surrounding us that isn’t truly here or anywhere. “I cannot believe that I’m here,” I murmur in amazement. “That I can finally see you.” I’m overcome with emotion as I look around.

  Catherine puts her hands on her hips. “You finally tapped into your magic last night, Hazel. You are growing into your powers. I’m so proud of you. You’ll make a fine Harker yet.”

  I glance back at her, curious. “Why did it take so long?”

  “Honestly?” She snickers. “Because you doubted yourself. You doubted your place and your abilities. Why ever did you doubt yourself like that, Hazel?”

  I swallow back the lump in my throat. “Because,” I whisper. “Because no one could ever replace you, Catherine.”

  She gives me an apologetic smile. “No one can outdo you, dear sister. You must be strong. For what’s about to come.”

  “And what is about to come?” I ask her slowly.

  A sad expression crosses her beautiful features. “Henry and Adelia Holmes won’t give up. And our family will face some great tribulations ahead. From Thomas’s rebellious state to Margaret’s anger. And,” she adds softly, eyeing me, “especially with the baby on the way.”

  “With the…” My voice trails off as I understand the weight of her words. “With the baby? My baby?” My hands go to my belly, which is flat because no, no, no, no—nothing happened when I made love to Jared.

  “My monthly bleed came,” I tell Catherine. “I’m not pregnant.”

  She shakes her head. “It was lighter than normal, yes? And earlier than it should have been?”

  A queer sort of dread fills me, and all I can do is nod.

  “Some women,” she says softly, “bleed a little when they conceive. It’s perfectly natural, and there’s nothing to be worried about.” She takes both of my hands and smiles exuberantly at me. “You’re going to be a mother, Hazel. You’re going to have a baby.”

  “A baby.” I bite my lower lip, as I think about the implications of that. So many emotions fill me at the thought of having a baby. From exhilaration to shame to everything else that comes to mind. I put my hands on my belly again, and even though I know there hasn’t been a change from before, somehow, now, it feels different. “I’m going to be a mother?”

  “The best mother.” Catherine beams at me.

  No. No, I can’t be the best mother, because I conceived this baby out of wedlock, and I’m planning on giving her or him a future without a father. I simply planned on training my child to be a better Harker than myself.

  I wouldn’t be the best mother from that.

  Without warning, I start crying. Catherine chuckles sympathetically and wraps me up in a hug. “It will be all right, Hazel,” she murmurs. “It will be all right.”

  “Jared,” I tell her. “I have Jared—”

  “You have to make the best decision for you both,” she says.

  “He was supposed to be back in America,” I told her. “Back in America and none the wiser about this. And now…” My voice trails off. And now he’s injured and somehow here. Like some forces are drawing us together. But that can’t work. It simply won’t.

  Catherine pulls back and looks at me. “You have to do what you think is best, Hazel,” she tells me. “Just know that, regardless, I’m proud of you. You will do right by everyone. I’m certain of it.”

  I’m not. Yet, as the world around me fades back into the physical world of my bedroom, and I’m once again at my vanity, I know what I must do.

  And it may be the hardest thing I’ve had to do yet.

  25

  Jared

  My throat is on fire as I wake up once again. It feels as though I drank a bucket of lye and then minced it like a butcher. I grimace and there’s a hoarse, rough noise that I don’t recognize.

  Oh, wait. That’s a groan.

  From me.

  “How do you feel?”

  I open my eyes, and she’s here. Catherine or Hazel or whatever her name is. She is sitting by the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, her expression unreadable.

  “Like hell,” I tell her. My voice is raspy, sounding more like the wind through dead leaves than an actual voice. I reach up and touch my throat again. The bandages are still there. “How long...how long have I been asleep?”

  I wish it didn’t hurt so damn much to speak.

  A look of concern passes over her face before she schools it into an impassive expression. “Several days. You were attacked by a vicious animal, and we managed to save you.”

  Several days? Attacked by a vicious animal?

  I think back to what happened. It all almost feels like a dream. Like I am remembering what happened through someone else’s eyes. Spending the night with Cathe
rine—Hazel. The Vermont leaving without me. Finding Rob again. Trying to pickpocket and get some money. Getting attacked by...something...

  Wait! Rob!

  I startle and try to push myself up, however, Hazel presses me back down. “Rob. What happened...to Rob?”

  She frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t know who Rob is,” she says, apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

  “Rob is...my friend,” I manage. And suddenly, the knowledge that I don’t know where he is only makes me feel worse.

  I was trying to protect him. Trying to protect him, and—

  “You probably shouldn’t speak, Jared,” Hazel says with the empathy of someone who doesn’t quite believe me. She thinks Rob is a figment of my imagination. “So allow me to do the speaking.”

  Yet, she doesn’t speak, not right away. She only watches me for a long moment, and even though I’ve seen her body and told her that I love her, there’s this distance between us that I know is too far for me to cross.

  I’m not sure what I did. Or what happened to me. But I feel as though I can never fix this.

  “You obviously cannot travel back to America in this state,” she says. “We are having some trouble here that will make your stay impossible.” She doesn’t tell me what those troubles are, although she looks stricken for just a moment. “I think it would be best if you were to heal under the guidance of a trained physician.”

  I open my mouth to ask her a further question, but she holds up a hand. “Really, you shouldn’t speak,” she says, and she gives me a small smile. “I have arranged for you to stay at a boarding house, where a good friend of mine will check in on you. He is a physician, and he owes me a favor. Under his watch, you will recover quickly.”

  I open my mouth again, but she chuckles dryly and shakes her head. “Please, Jared.” She exhales softly. “When the doctor says that you are healed enough, I want to pay for your way to America. I’m not sure what you’re still doing here—”

  “I—”

  “—please,” she pleads. “This isn’t easy.” She crosses her arms. “When you’re ready to go back, I will pay for you to go back. It’s the least I can do for—for…” Her voice trails off, and for a moment, I wonder what she was going to say. But she composes herself and gives me a smile. “This is the right thing.”

  What is the right thing? Why?

  My mind is all over the place. From wanting to know more about her to wondering what happened to me and to Rob—I can’t seem to hold my thoughts together. They slip through my fingers like water.

  Pathetic.

  “Thank you, Jared,” Hazel murmurs. She sits forward and kisses my forehead. Without another word, she sweeps her skirts around her and gets to her feet.

  No, don’t go, I want to tell her. I have so many other questions. So many things unanswered.

  To my surprise, I do find words, only they’re not the words I expected. “Hazel?”

  She stops at the door and glances at me. She doesn’t answer, but only watches me with her huge, haunted eyes.

  “Who—who are you?” I ask. “Who are you, really?”

  She hesitates long enough for me to wonder if she could hear those last words spoken through my raspy throat. She only smiles, and I see a tear slide down her cheek. “Just think of me as a mistake, Jared,” she says before she slips out of the room.

  Leaving me alone.

  26

  Hazel

  I lean against the door to Jared’s room, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I can’t believe I just did that.

  I close my eyes and murmur the words I’ve been living by to soothe myself. “It’s for the best,” I murmur. I put my hands on my belly, at my unborn child there. “It’s all for the best.”

  Lizzie is across the hallway, watching me in silence. “So you’re truly following through with this?” she asks.

  I nod. “Yes. I have to, Lizzie.”

  “Even after what you just learned?”

  Lizzie was as shocked as I had been to learn that I’m pregnant, perhaps even more so. When I came out of the Void and told her the news, she had gone as white as a sheet before she questioned everything, even down to the legitimacy of Catherine’s assessment.

  “Are you sure?” she asked me. “Are you sure that Catherine hasn’t been dead too long?”

  Lizzie had been the one who helped me arrange for Jared to stay at a boarding house. I called in a favor for a friend of the family who is a physician to check in on Jared as much as necessary. Long ago, Mother saved his life, and he has been happy to repay it in any way ever since.

  Which is a good thing now, as I doubt Margaret will want anything to do with me. Even if it means saving Jared’s life.

  “We should transfer him to the boarding house while he’s asleep or give him laudanum,” I tell Lizzie as I push myself off the door and walk down the hallway. “I don’t want him to see the route and know who I am or where I live.”

  It was one thing to bring him to my house when I thought there wasn’t a deeper connection between us. It’s something else entirely to learn that I’m carrying his child. For this to truly work, he must not know about our baby’s existence. I chose to go this route because I thought it would be easier on everyone.

  I must follow through with it. I must remain strong, even as my heart is breaking.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Lizzie tells me.

  I give her a sad smile. “That’s the thing, Lizzie. I do.”

  27

  Jared

  Six weeks later

  I stand at the Millwall Dock, looking at the ticket I have in hand for a passenger steamship back to America. It’s a first-class ticket, for a stateroom at the bow of the ship, giving me an ample view of the ocean the entire way. It will be the first time I have traveled on a ship as a passenger rather than a sailor.

  Still though, I feel a sense of loss as I look down at this ticket.

  I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not like Catherine—excuse me, Hazel—has come around the boarding house since I was transferred there from her residence. In fact, I haven’t seen Hazel since that morning when I woke up and she told me her plans for my recovery.

  Like I had no say in it.

  It’s almost as if she were trying to get rid of me. Like I am a source of shame for her.

  Then again, there are so many contradictions to Hazel that I’m not sure what exactly to think of her. She had dressed up as a prostitute to sleep with me. Saved me and then discarded me as quickly as she could.

  So many contradictions and all I can think about are how sad her eyes looked that day six weeks ago when she shirked anything to do with me.

  It doesn’t make sense, though.

  "Love me," she demanded when she was in my arms. "Tell me you love me."

  And I did. I truly believed it in that moment.

  And now…

  She lied to me. She pretended to be someone she’s not. Pretended to be a part of a world that she wasn’t truly a part of. She didn’t even take payment for that night. To what end? Simply to find a man to share her bed with for a night?

  I don’t believe it. Not really.

  I should be angry. Furious at the duplicity. Yet, I can’t find it in me to sustain anger for that long. Not when I have spent the last six weeks recovering in a nice boarding house with a physician to keep an eye on me. And now I have a first-class ticket to America that she paid for.

  Yet, I feel empty inside.

  There is something else going on, and I feel as though if I just search a little harder, I can find the answers.

  I wrap the scarf around my throat tighter so that other passengers don’t see the ruin that is now my neck. I have a series of newly pink scars around my throat, evidence of my injury. Despite the humid summer temperatures, I keep my neck wrapped up in a scarf to avoid stares and questions. So many people treat me like an invalid, and while my voice is still raspy and hoarse, I don’t want others to continually ask questions while I k
eep silent.

  So I keep it covered up.

  The boatswain’s call sounds, a low, haunting sound that rattles my bones and alerts everyone on the dock that the ship is ready for boarding. All around me, the swell of the passengers pushes against me as they try to make their way onto the gangplank.

  I stand stock still, unable to move.

  Everyone else has friends and family that they’re boarding with. They bring trunks of luggage and I even spy some dogs among the luggage. Everyone is prepared for a luxurious trip back to America.

  Everyone except me. I don’t even have a bag to bring with me. Everything I owned was back on the Vermont. Everyone I know here is trying to push me back out to the ocean. They say it’s for my own good.

  No.

  Even as I think that single word, I crumple up the ticket in my hand and make a fist.

  No, I can’t go. I can’t board the ship and leave everything here. Not with so many questions left unanswered. Rob is still somewhere out here on the streets. He must be alive. And Hazel is somewhere here with her own mysterious plans. I shouldn’t care about her. Not after everything she did to me.

  Yet, I can’t just leave without speaking with her. Wherever she is in London, I’ll find her. I have to.

  I may be the biggest fool on either side of the Atlantic. But that is fine with me.

  I am going to find Hazel and get some hard answers from her.

  And, maybe, see if that night together was really the mistake she claimed it was.

  28

  Hazel

  Being with child apparently makes one sick at the sight of blood. I used to be able to handle the spray from the carotid of a vampire without batting an eye. Now, however, I can barely stomach it.

  Then again, there’s not much that I can stomach these days. My mornings are spent vomiting up my guts, while various foods and teas that I love are now repulsive to me.