by Forbes, Kit
“They were soaked through and muddy.” The doctor turned and took a small bundle from atop a nearby table. “These should fit you.”
With a nod of thanks, I pulled on the button down shirt then swung my feet off the table, regretting it when my head spun. I wasn’t looking at the inspector or the doctor, but they were staring at me so I concentrated on pulling on the loose pants. I went to zip up and stopped short. They were fly front like Levis 501s, only made out of stiff cotton, or maybe wool.
“Something’s not right here!” every instinct and nerve ending in my body screamed. But I didn’t know what was wrong and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask the bearded guys in the old-fashioned get ups.
Wait. They were dressed the way I’d been. The girl was dressed similar to Agatha. They must be part of the costume party. “Where’s Agatha?”
“Agatha?” the inspector asked. “You address your mother that way?”
I laughed, regretting it instantly as pain lanced through my head. “Hardly. She’s my aunt. I traveled here to London with her. So are you guys with the convention, too?”
“Convention?”
Seeing the confused looks of the doctor and the skeptical one of the inspector, I touched my forehead and winced then leaned back against the table. “Look, I’m sure I’ll be okay in a bit. And if not, I’ll go to the emergency room. I don’t want to hold you up if you need to get back to the party.”
“Party?”
“The big Saturday night costumed gala…thing.”
“Today is Monday,” Dr. Trambley informed me.
My stomach lurched. “Monday? No…it…If these guys weren’t part of the convention, there was no good reason for them to be dressed in those old-fashioned suits. Unless they had some strange fetish.”
The doctor checked my pulse. “Memory lapse is not unusual with a head injury,” he said with a clipped professional tone that also implied it wasn’t always the case. “Do you know the date?”
“August sixth?”
“Do you remember what happened?” The inspector moved closer.
I knew I was on shaky-ass ground and decided the less said, the better.
“Agatha insisted on taking a walk—”
“In this weather? It’s not fit for man nor beast out there!” the inspector cut in.
I nodded. “I told her it looked like rain but she’s a bit eccentric. Anyway, the lightning started and…” What had happened then? “That’s all I remember until the cop…and then some woman…a maid?”
“And when was this?” the inspector asked.
“Saturday. I thought it was Saturday.” Something’s not right. “But if today’s Monday… no, I couldn’t have been lying in the park the whole time.”
“Indeed,” the inspector replied. “And you’ve no recollection of your activities since Saturday then?”
“No.” My body trembled deep down inside. “One minute I went back to get Agatha’s shoe, and the next thing I remember is a bolt of lightning, then falling to the ground. That’s where the cop found me.”
“As I said,” the doctor cut off the inspector’s line of questioning, “Memory loss is not uncommon. It also seems as if he’s suffering some form of shock that may have been induced by proximity to the lightning. His clothes do show signs of blackening. It’s remarkable he’s alive, actually.”
The inspector seemed to accept this. Grudgingly. “Your man said something about him being a relative of mine?”
Relative?
I stared. I had a bad feeling on this and decided to go for Trusted Tactic # 2: try to sneak away. The most I could do was inch to a chair along the wall and sit down.
The doctor took a letter from the top of his desk. “He had this in his pocket. Apparently from you to your sister in America.”
They were discussing the letter I’d had as if it was a current event, even though it was over a hundred years old. Written by a man long dead! This was definitely crazy. “You’re Ian Fraser?” I blurted out, before I realized what was leaving my mouth.
The inspector turned on me, dark eyes narrowed. “How did you come by this letter?”
The shock made me woozier than the bump on my head. It couldn’t be! I wanted very much to disappear and I did. Sort of. I passed out.
When I came to, I heard the doctor and the inspector talking, so I stayed as still on the exam table as I could.
“…No money, no papers of any kind in his pockets. He had only the watch and letter,” the doctor said.
There was a silence before the inspector answered. “He might very well be the nephew my sister warned me might turn up. But this nonsense of traveling with an Aunt Agatha is ludicrous. There’s no such person in the family, certainly no one who’s gone to America.”
“Not so fast,” the doctor said. “The boy’s brain is a touch addled from the ordeal. Perhaps she was a friend of your sister’s. Maybe he calls her Aunt Agatha as a form of respect.”
“I suppose…”
What the hell? This is completely crazy. This can’t be the Ian Fraser from dad’s diary.
Chapter Four
Genie
I fumed with frustration outside the Princess Alice public house on the corner of Wentworth and Commercial Streets. “What I’m telling you is for your own good.” I knew they weren’t listening. But I had to try.
This was one of the better establishments in Whitechapel and I hoped the prostitutes here would be more receptive than the ones who frequented the pubs further off the main streets. Now I wondered whether anyone could be less receptive than these women.
Even though it was ten o’clock at night and the orange-yellow illumination of the gaslights was half-smothered by the fogs, there was a lot of foot traffic outside the pub. Soldiers, men in suits, laborers, and housewives clogged the streets, the locals avoiding returning to their cramped rooms as long as possible.
The women dressed in shabby clothes, many in their thirties and forties, most of which appeared at least ten years older. I knew many of their stories, knew they were desperate for the few coins they got from selling themselves. My heart went out, especially to those with children whose husbands had deserted them. And that was precisely why I had to continue trying to help them. If the mothers contracted syphilis and died, who would take care of the children?
Growing up with an unaffectionate mother was horrid enough. I shuddered to think of any child growing up in an orphanage.
For the most part, the crowd brushed past the ring of prostitutes without a second glance. But I was continually being interrupted by men singling out one of the girls and negotiating for “a bit ‘o twist.” And more than one of the men had the audacity to look at me with far too much interest before being hauled off by one of the other women.
“Ooooh,” one of the women cooed, “for our own good, is it? You, wiv your fine manners an’ fancy clothes an’ coins jinglin’ in your purse, you know what’s best for us, do ya?”
“The hospital will give you a free exam—”
“Like we needs another man pokin’ at our privates,” another cut in. “We gets plenty o’ fancy gentlemen pokin’ about down there. But they pays us first, they do.”
“Maybe she needs a ‘examination’ ‘erself,” a third joined in with a raucous laugh. “Bet you never entertained a gentl’man proper. ‘Ave ya dear?”
I flushed clean down to my toes. I knew this one, a sad case, but one I’d thought was listening to reason. “No, Annie, I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean—”
“Oy!” a drunken soldier shouted to me as he staggered across the street towards her. “What say I introduce me John Thomas to yer Miss Laycock?”
“Doesn’t mean what, dear?” Annie ignored the soldier. “That ye’ve not ‘ad the old itch for it?”
“No!” I fought to retain my composure. I turned on the soldier who was making disgusting noises. “Off with you, you swine!” The soldier acted stunned, considered the sta
tement a moment then executed a reasonable about-face and marched off drunkenly, muttering obscenities to himself and anyone who might care to listen.
“Ooooh, what a shame,” Annie said. “I could introduce ya to a couple blokes what’ll make ya thighs twitch fer wantin’ it,” she added with a wicked leer.
“Give her the crawlie little beasties more like.”
“That’s just the point,” I insisted. “The hospital will give you medication to treat—”
“Luvvie.” Annie interrupted, giving an indulgent pat to my shoulder. “Last case o’ them I got was from a doctor.” She scratched obscenely. “Don’t need to go to no hospital. They delivers, they do.”
The other women laughed at that.
“Oh, they delivers all right,” one of the women in the background added. “And they put ‘em in there right enough but they ain’t never there to catch ‘em when they come out.”
“But syphilis, it can kill you.” I threw my hands up in exasperation.
“So can not workin’,” said a fourth woman quietly. “Me an’ my three brats’d starve if I stayed off me back. So riddle me this, how to feed ‘em if I’m locked up in hospital.”
I turned and saw the anguish in the woman’s face. The symptoms and signs I knew all too well. The woman already had syphilis. And she knew she was dying. My anger at the women and their stubbornness burned itself out, replaced by rage for the men who used them, at the injustice of it all.
These women had no hope. And it was that, as much as anything, that killed them. It was killing their children, too. And taking little pieces of me along as well.
***
Mark
I woke in the dark. I sat up in bed and reached for the lamp to chase away the last of a quickly fading dream, but it wasn’t there. I groped for a moment before I remembered I wasn’t at home but in London.
I rubbed my eyes and slowly oriented myself in the dark. I wasn’t quite sure where I was. It seemed unnaturally dark and quiet. Even the hotel with its thick curtains over the window let in some light and the silence was broken by the occasional sound of traffic whizzing by on the streets. Wait. The storm. Lightning. It didn’t seem like a hospital. A hospital would be better lit.
Rubbing my eyes with my palms again I tried to adjust to the darkness and saw a hint of light under what proved to be a door. The door opened onto a hall that didn’t look like any hospital I’d ever seen.
A polished wood banister stood across from the door and an oriental carpet that ran the length of the corridor. There were other doors along the hall and at the landing. An elaborate chandelier hung on a chain from the ceiling, lighting a sweeping staircase that led down to a marble tiled entryway. I walked that way. A small table stood in the middle of the entryway below on which lay a top hat, a silver-headed cane, and a pair of gray gloves.
Great. I’m dreaming I’m in one of Mom’s books.
I turned back to the room I’d exited and noticed for the first time the softly-hissing gas lamps on the wall that gave off an eerie, dim light.
Where was I? I couldn’t quite recall. There’d been the costume party. Oh, right. This must be the house of Agatha’s friend, Percy. We were going to stay with him for a few days after the convention so Agatha could visit other fossilized professor friends in London. She must have had me brought here after the near brush with death.
I peered back into the room I’d exited and saw a bathrobe thrown over the end of the bed. I didn’t see my clothes so I opted for the robe. As I pulled it on, my toe brushed a pair of leather slippers. I slipped them on too.
The bathrobe was over-the-top fancy, quilted maroon satin with black lapels. My mom would have called it a dressing gown.
I had no idea what time it was but figured it was too early for anyone to be up. I moved quietly down the stairs, feeling more than a little silly in the dressing gown. At the bottom of the stairs, I noticed a door cracked open and peeked inside. It looked like a small office, maybe a library. There was a decanter of liquor on a little table near the fireplace.
I remembered drinking brandy. Or had it been part of the dream? I could find out easy enough. I poured a tiny bit and tossed it back. It burned and tasted exactly as it had in the dream. The dream in which my dad’s ancestor Ian was present.
A gas lamp was on low, but I didn’t want to fiddle with trying to turn it up. Glancing in the direction of a soft ticking, I saw the mantle clock. It was a little past four. Normally, I’d just be sneaking into the house. I scanned the room. No TV. No video game to pass the time. I didn’t think there’d been a TV upstairs either. I supposed Aunt Agatha’s friend was going all out with “keeping it real” for his favorite historical era. There was a high-backed leather chair with a couple newspapers on a table beside it. If I was lucky there’d be an international edition of the New York Times or something so I could catch up on the baseball scores. The Pirates had actually been winning more than losing when I left home. I’d been looking forward to ditching the guys and sneaking into a couple games during one of the August home stands.
Settling myself in the chair, I picked up the top paper. It looked weird. The print was strange the way a page from an old typewriter looked compared to a computer printout. The articles seemed downright odd in the way they were written.
This didn’t make any sense, even considering it was the London Times and not the New York Times. Then I noticed the date: 5 August 1888. That Percy guy’s recreation would have to be complete. I skimmed quickly through the other papers.
They were sequential, going back several issues.
All dated August 1888.
But somehow they didn’t have the feel of the antique papers my mom collected for her research. Newspapers only a few years old turned yellow and brittle. And these were supposed to be over a hundred years old? I shrugged it off, deciding they must be reproductions. But somehow, part of me didn’t quite believe that.
An odd clop-clopping sound in the distance caught my attention and I slowly recognized it as the sound of a horse just like the county cops back home rode in the parades my dad used to take me to when I was little. I got up, went to the window, and pulled aside the thick drapes. The house appeared to face a park, but the streetlights were bathed in such a thick fog it was hard to see much.
I dropped the curtains then tore them open again, that feeling of something not being right nagging at me. It was what I didn’t see that bothered me. No CCTV cameras, no cars, no glow of the city lighting up the fog. Even at four in the morning, there should’ve been some sign of the real world out there.
I heard the horse again. Turning away from the window, I followed the clip-clops towards the back of the house, pausing only briefly in front of the door marked “Surgery.”
I tried to remember the dream. I’d heard a man’s voice say something about a surgery…
But nothing else would come so I went through the door at the end of the hall and then down a few stairs to the back door. Behind me, another short set of stairs led down to some room with a well-worn but very clean wooden floor. I heard the rattle of glass outside, then the noise of the horse again. Retreating this time.
Working the lock and the latch, I slipped out to find myself in an alley behind the house. I stood beneath the dripping eaves of the roof. It was no longer raining.
The smells caught me before my eyes or brain registered what I was seeing.
I smelled horses, and the dank smell of rotten eggs. The alley was dimly lit by a light somewhere on the street and it was difficult to make out details but, there was a shed with a carriage and horse stall at the back of the house. And the next house. And the one on the other side. And the ones across the alley.
Down the alley stood a milk wagon, a big white horse stamping impatiently as it waited for the milkman to return. That had to be the clopping around I’d heard.
Away to my right, I made out tall chimneys spewing thick clouds of smoke.
Bu
t except for the chuffing of the horse and the clink of glass bottles, the place was virtually silent.
I looked up.
No tangle of electrical or phone wires. No moon. There had been a full moon last night, hadn’t there? I was sure I’d seen it before heading to the wax museum with Aunt Agatha.
I rubbed my eyes only to find the scene unchanged before me. I tore at the cloth bandage wrapped around my forehead, drawing needles of pain from a cut.
I swallowed hard and slowly turned around. The pain was real. This was real. It hadn’t been a dream. I’d really met my dad’s great-great-something uncle. It was impossible. But it was the only explanation that made sense—even if it was totally crazy.
The horse started walking again just as the milkman came into view.
I darted back into the house.
This time, I stepped into the surgery. There was nothing modern in it. No little lights to examine ears or throats. No big electric light over the table. No sink or rubber gloves or wall mounted bottles of hand sanitizer. The certificate on the wall proclaimed Cornelius Trambley to be qualified to practice Medicine. And it was dated 1851.
The doctor’s record book was open on the desk. The latest entry read, “Mark Stewart, American, possibly struck by lightning,” and was dated 6 August 1888.
I slipped out of the room, went back to the study, and stared at the bottle of brandy. Probably not a wise idea to go there, but man, it was tempting to get wasted and forget all this crazy crap.
Chapter Five
Present Day
Agatha
“For the parlor of a purported psychic, this room is notably unremarkable.”
