Ripped, a Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller

by Shelly Dickson Carr

  “Why not call her Mrs. Oracle?”

  “That would be daft, now, wouldn’t it? She’s been standing outside Traitors’ Gate for her whole life. People cross her palm with silver and she tells them what they want to know.”

  Toby went on to explain that he had visited Mrs. Tray yesterday to find out who Dark Annie was and where she lived. “Mrs. Tray knows every single Cockney who resides within earshot of the bells of Saint Mary Le Bow. She told me what Dora told me. Dark Annie is Annie Chapman and lives in Shoreditch on a soldier’s pension from her late husband. Ten to one that’s where Georgie Cross is hiding. I’m paying them a surprise visit tonight.”

  “I’m coming, too,” said Katie, avoiding his eyes.

  “Not a chance, lass. And don’t argue. Now, about Mrs. Tray. Be polite, don’t gawk at her. Even though she’s blind, she sees everything. She’s a true mystic, a genuine clairvoyant, not a counterfeit.” He stared pointedly at Katie who shot him back a “who me?” look.

  “Mrs. Tray is the seventh child of a seventh child. Rumor has it her auntie poked out her eyes so people would believe she had ‘the gift’ and pay good coin for her predictions.”

  “Now you’re pulling my leg. You don’t honestly mean to tell me that her own aunt poked out her—” Katie stopped. She remembered the movie Slumdog Millionaire where the child’s eyes had been burned with acid the better for him to beg money in the streets.

  “That’s just rumor, luv. No one knows the truth about old Mrs. Tray. She earns large sums advising Cockneys who come here to Traitors’ Gate to ask for advice. She wears rings on every finger worth countless sums, and no one dares rob her because she can put a hex on any man alive.”

  “No one can hex someone. That’s superstitious nonsense.”

  “T’isn’t. But whether she can or not is irrelevant. Cockneys believe it to be true. That’s all that matters. And there’s not a one amongst us that would dispute her predictions.”

  As they approached Traitors’ Gate, Katie saw mist rising off the Thames, shrouding the arched entrance in a blanket of grey vapor. A stone causeway leading up from the river was slick with green moss. Katie shivered. Traitors’ Gate was so ancient, but still held something deadly about it. She could almost hear the whispering of sighs and the stamp of long-ago footfalls ringing in the hollow beneath the arch.

  She glanced up.

  Traitors’ Gateway was a long, thick wall of flattened grey stones rising forty feet into the air. The gate itself was an archway of stones set into the wall, the upper reaches curved and funneled like a dark train tunnel. The air was moist and smelled as dank as a wet basement.

  Originally, this entrance had been the water gateway into the Tower. The river had flowed under the stone arch so that barges and boats could sail through to moorings on the other side. In this century, heavy reinforcements of oak timbers and vertical bars closed it all off to the public, with the Thames wharf built up beyond, and the vast moat on either side no longer filled with water, but swampy mud. In Katie’s own century it would be filled with green grass.

  Even in the blurry mist, Katie could see the metal spikes on top of the gate and the iron fence in the distance. No one could enter the Tower from this gate unless ordered by the Queen. Katie took hold of the iron railings, wet with slime, and glanced through the tunnel-like entranceway.

  Slow footsteps approached from the wharf, accompanied by shuffling and wheezing. An old woman in a crinoline skirt, black bonnet, and short velvet cape appeared from out of the mist.

  “Tobias!” There spread across the woman’s face a look of pure delight. “Tobias! Is that you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Toby took off his cap and made a slight bow.

  The old woman shuffled closer, rubbing her hands together. Her black cloak, lined in red, gleamed against her jeweled hands. Her face showed a watchful tension as she peered sightless in Katie’s direction. As she stepped closer, the sun peeked through the clouds above Traitors’ Gate, etching flat shadows of the iron bars onto the ground across their path. Far away and muffled, one of the tower clocks began to toll the hour.

  Katie’s first impression of the Oracle of Traitors’ Gate was one of pity. The old woman was hobbled and sightless, her eyes as misted and foggy as the vapor rising off the river. When she beamed in Toby’s direction, the animation in her wrinkled face made her look cheerful and kind-hearted, like a fairy godmother in a Disney movie. Katie half expected a magic wand to appear from the folds of her hooped skirt.

  “Tobias?” The woman called out again, her voice like a tinkling bell as she groped the air searching for him.

  “Mrs. Tray,” Toby said, stepping closer so she could take his arm.

  “I knew ’twas you, lad,” she chuckled. “You have such a strong presence. There’s an aura about you: great blazes of purple and blue as of the wind before a storm. Just like your father. Never did such storm clouds roil around a man as your father, though he be highborn true enough. Your mum now, she was a gentle lass . . . I always knew her by the sound a petal makes when it falls to the ground. God rest her soul.”

  Mrs. Tray patted Toby’s arm. “I knew you’d be back. You were troubled yesterday. Tell me what’s in your heart, lad, and I’ll tell you what’s to be.”

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet, ma’am. She’s visiting from America.”

  Mrs. Tray nodded and the waves of her snow-white hair beneath the black bonnet puffed around her cheeks like fluffy clouds. “Bring her tomorrow, then.”

  “She’s here with me now.”

  “Who?”

  “The lass I’d like you to meet.”

  There was a long, silent pause. The old woman appeared bewildered, then she leaned closer, scrutinizing Toby’s face with earnest, sightless eyes. It was this eager earnestness that made Katie’s heart constrict.

  “I think not,” the Oracle said gently.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?” Toby’s eyebrows shot up. “Would you like us to come back tomorrow?”

  Mrs. Tray must have caught something plaintive or worried in Toby’s voice, for she lifted and lowered her bejeweled fingers as if feeling something in the air. “Tomorrow, lad. I should very much like to meet your friend. When the Tower clock chimes half after eleven o’clock, bring her here to me. Now, what else can I do for you?”

  “The lass is with me. Standing by my side.”

  “She’s not, Tobias.” There was the sound of a dog barking in the distance, or perhaps the faint roar of a lion from behind Traitors’ Gate.

  “Ma’am . . . ?”

  “Bring her tomorrow, there’s a good lad.”

  The old woman’s words sent a chill up Katie’s spine.

  “But she’s here, Mrs. Tray! Right here. Perhaps you can’t sense her because she’s not a Cockney. I should have thought of that.”

  The old woman’s sightless eyes flickered around like darting pinwheels as if trying to locate Katie. “Tobias, my son. There is no one here but the two of us. I would sense a third person, see their aura . . . whether they be friend or foe, Cockney or no.”

  The silence that followed these puzzling words was finally broken by Toby’s firm, insistent voice. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but Miss Katherine is standing next to me, as real as you or I.”

  “I . . . think . . . not . . . Tobias,” the Oracle said softly and with great hesitation.

  The color drained so swiftly from Toby’s face, Katie reached out to him. She wondered if Mrs. Tray knew the effect she was having on him.

  “You think Katherine’s not here?” he said doggedly, sharply.

  “There’s nobody here, Tobias. Nobody at all.”

  “As I live and breathe, ma’am,” Toby sputtered defiantly. “Her name’s Katherine and she’s alive and present as the moon and the stars.”

  “Not a bit of it. Whoever she is, she’s not real, my lad.”

  “Let’s go!” Katie whispered, shrinking back into the shadows.

  Toby stood rigid
. “Do you mean to make a riddle of this, Mrs. Tray? Are you saying Katherine’s not real and never will be to me because of our different stations in life? Or are you saying she’s not long for this world?”

  “If one be alive or one be dead . . . yes. Is she very pretty, then? This imaginary friend of yours?”

  Toby uttered a small, harsh laugh. “She’s not imaginary, ma’am.” He turned to Katie. “Say something.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Tray. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Something scraped above on the sloping wall. A raven black as night, with a wing span as wide as an eagle’s, flapped noisily.

  “I’m from Boston,” Katie continued. “I’m visiting the Twyford family. Toby has been kind enough to help me. Show me the sights.” Katie babbled on until, with a startled realization, she whispered, “You can’t hear me, ma’am, can you?”

  “Not feeling well today, Mrs. Tray?” Toby asked, a desperate note in his voice.

  “Perfectly well, Tobias. Thank you.”

  “You really can’t see or hear her?” he demanded.

  Mrs. Tray’s wrinkled lips compressed. “There’s nobody with us, Tobias. I promise you, lad. There’s no draught. No sense of another human being. We’re alone.”

  Katie had an idea. “Toby? If she can’t hear me, try this. Tell her I’ve recently come from the London Stone. Just do it, Toby. Mention the London Stone!”

  “Now look here!” Toby bristled. “The two of you are talking gibberish.”

  “Toby, please. Tell her I arrived from . . . or rather, I’ve touched the Raven’s Claw fissure in the London Stone. I’ll explain everything later.”

  When Toby did so, Mrs. Tray’s hands clamped over her heart. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear!” Her voice rose with shattering loudness, then fell away. “Oh, dear me. Tobias, I feel bound to warn you—”

  “Warn me?”

  The old woman’s eyes, though sightless, gleamed like shards of splintered glass.

  “This girl is not who she claims to be. I’ve encountered this before. Terrible ordeal. Terrible.”

  “She’s an impostor? Is that what you’re saying?” Toby’s face hardened.

  Katie gasped. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Toby, please, let’s get out of here!”

  “Mrs. Tray?” Toby asked, blinking suspiciously at Katie. “What do you mean? She’s not who she claims to be?”

  “She’s just not from our world.”

  Toby sighed. “That’s right, ma’am. Katie’s from America.”

  “Not this world, Tobias. Not our world.” Mrs. Tray’s words fell with a heavy, chilling weight.

  Toby thrust out his jaw and began to argue. “ ’Course she’s not from our world, Mrs. Tray. She’s from across the sea, but that doesn’t mean Katie’s not alive and present. Just means she’s not from here.”

  The Oracle of Traitors’ Gate shook her head. “Not from here. Not from there. Not from anywhere. Mind your step, Tobias. Mind your heart. Protect yourself, my lad. I was very young when first I encountered a person of the Stone. I sense danger, Tobias. Hidden danger darting along my nerves.” Her voice quavered.

  Katie felt an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. Flickers of sunlight slanted across the wet stones at the bottom of the Tower wall. Tentacles of light picked out iridescent slime and moss on the rock formations.

  In the distance a train whistle shrilled and echoed and died away. Katie had a strong feeling of déjà vu, almost as if she were back inside Madame Tussauds. She glanced up at the vines clinging to the brickwork below the battlements just as a peal of bells rang out, startling her.

  “A pity about Dark Annie. Such a horrid way to die,” came Mrs. Tray’s church organ voice, which sounded to Katie surprisingly like the hologram woman at Madame Tussauds. She peered closer at the old woman. With her white hair tucked under a lace cap and her soft skin wrinkled like an apple, Mrs. Tray was the spitting image of the hologram woman from the museum!

  “What did you say, Mrs. Tray?” asked Toby. “Did you say Dark Annie? She’s going to die? I asked you about her yesterday. I wanted to know where she lived. Is that why you spoke of her just now?”

  Katie grabbed Toby’s sleeve and yanked. “Ask her if she knows anyone named Llewellyn. Mrs. Llewellyn.” That was the name of the hologram woman.

  Toby turned grimly toward the old woman. “My friend from America is asking if you know a woman by the name of Mrs. Llewellyn.”

  “Gracious me!” cried the Oracle. “How extraordinary! Ask your young friend why she would inquire after Amanda Llewellyn.”

  Katie said quickly to Toby, “Tell her a woman from my world . . . er, sort of . . . looks almost identical to Mrs. Tray. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “What is she saying, Tobias?” insisted the other, staring in Katie’s direction, breathless with wonder as if looking up at the moon. Or through the moon, from the cloudy formations in her sightless eyes.

  “Katie says you resemble a woman named Mrs. Llewellyn. She’s wondering if it’s a coincidence.”

  “Oh, my, how delightful!” beamed Mrs. Tray. “Amanda Llewellyn is my sister. And do you know, Tobias? It’s been years since anyone commented on the resemblance. Oh, this tickles me to no end. Amanda was a great beauty in her day. But, Tobias, is my sister involved in anything unsavory? She’s married to a bothersome, swaggering man, the police surgeon Dr. Ralph Llewellyn, but still . . . I shouldn’t have thought that Amanda would be mixed up with a Stone person. Oh, Tobias! Ask your friend. Is Amanda in any danger?”

  Toby blinked several times. “But you’re the bleeding Ora—!” The fierce defensiveness in his voice died away. “Er, excuse me, ma’am.” He swiveled around to glare at Katie. “Answer the question.”

  Katie shook her head and raised her shoulders up and down. “Dunno. I don’t think so.”

  “There are two of you!” Mrs. Tray clapped her hands together. “I feel it now!” She peered at them through foggy eyes. “Yes. It’s clear to me. One of you has traveled a great distance to get here. So great a distance I couldn’t perceive it at first. Not from our world, to be sure, but here nevertheless.”

  Toby sighed as if frustrated that they were going around and around in a circle. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Tray. But I think we’d best be getting on. Good day to you, ma’am.”

  “Tobias, wait! When people come from the Stone, it’s always about death. Always about murder.”

  “People . . . from a stone? I don’t understand.” Toby scratched his temple. “They come from a stone? What does that mean? Are you saying Katie’s not human? Not real?”

  “People—?” blurted Katie. “How many others?”

  “Quite real, I’m sure,” answered Mrs. Tray. “They always come here with the intent of doing good deeds, righting despicable wrongs. But often they are misguided. Misaligned, as it were.”

  “So I should have nothing more to do with the lass?” Toby demanded.

  “I can’t tell you what to do, Tobias. I can only caution you to tread carefully. Your friend may have good intentions, but the road to the underworld is paved with such intents, hmm?”

  “I’ll cast her out, then. Tell her to go to the devil.” Toby’s hand closed around one of the spikes of the iron gate.

  “Not a bit of it, Tobias. Follow your heart. She is here, but she can change the course of events only with the help of someone from this world. Our world. She can’t do it herself.”

  “This world? What are you saying? There’s another world other than ours?”

  “My dear Tobias. There are infinite worlds. Yes. I believe you must help her, because I sense that you want to help her. But be cautioned, young Tobias. Beware of what you wish for, what she wishes for! In the end it may all come to naught . . . or perhaps this time destiny shall be altered. We can only hope, for the sake of those poor girls—”

  “What poor girls?”

  “The ones about to be slaughtered.”

  “So there really is a mad man out
there? Someone about to butcher innocent girls?”

  “Tobias. Hear me well. I can only know what you know. I can’t predict the future. I see what you see, I feel what you feel. Everything I ascertain is because I pick up the feelings, the senses, the ideas from . . . you. Somewhere inside you, you believe that a mad man will begin to slaughter innocent women. I’m discerning this from you as strongly as a vibrating, pulsing heartbeat. And if it’s true, I hope that you and this young lady from the London Stone will try to stop the carnage. It’s your destiny.”

  Toby’s eyes blazed at the mention of destiny. “Just for clarification, Mrs. Tray. You believe that Katie is an impostor, not of our world, and though she has good intentions, the outcome she wishes to see—that of stopping a man named Jack the Ripper from murdering women—is not altogether possible?”

  “Everything is possible, Tobias. Follow your heart. But treat everyone as if they would do you harm.”

  “Especially Katie? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “People from the Stone mean us no harm, Tobias. I don’t believe she would hurt you or anyone else. Stone people rarely do.”

  “What the deuce are you saying? That she has a heart of stone, perhaps? Is that it? Is that what you’re trying to warn me about?”

  “A person of the Stone. From the Stone. Through the Stone. She doesn’t belong here. She’s not real.” Mrs. Tray raised her jeweled hands, and the rubies and emeralds winked in the sunlight. “Most men to their credit—or discredit—fall in love with an imaginary someone, rather than a real someone, Tobias. The real is often rather gritty. Stone people do have that advantage.”

  Mrs. Tray whispered something in Toby’s ear.

  Katie tugged at Toby’s sleeve “Toby. Ask Mrs. Tray how many others have been here before me?”

  “I won’t.” Toby shook his head stubbornly. “To do so would be to admit that you’re from another planet.”