Cogling

by Jordan Elizabeth

  The stench of rot lingered in the thick air. Fog clung to the deserted dirt streets and wove around the few gas lamps lining the cobblestone sidewalks. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the red buildings.

  “What do you do now?” Ike asked the farmer. Edna envied her companion’s even tone of voice. She’d never been in the meatpacking district before, although she knew her parents visited at the holidays for slabs of beef. Her mind conjured images of dead animals left bleeding within the tall buildings. Perhaps there were others still alive, left mewling for help in cages or closets. She pictured the foxkins trapped by the hags and shuddered, the evil taking note. Ike rested his hand on her shoulder.

  “There’s a boardin’ house for people like me,” the farmer said. “Plenty of ‘em, really. I’ll stay at one o’ them.”

  “Boarding houses for farmers?” Rachel scoffed. “Boarding houses are filthy to begin with—”

  Edna pinched her arm.

  Rachel squeaked and jumped, rubbing the spot.

  “Boarding houses for travelers sellin’ their wares,” the farmer said, as if Rachel hadn’t insulted his lifestyle. “Keep my stuff safe in a locked barn ‘till I can sell it off come morning. I sell it to shops an’ the like.”

  Ike bounded off the back of the wagon. “Thanks for the ride, sir.”

  “We’re indebted.” Edna leapt off and tried to help Harrison, but he pushed her hand away and jumped down by himself.

  In the glow of the street lamps, Rachel scanned the buildings and wrinkled her nose. Groaning, Ike grabbed her around the waist and swung her down. She glared at him, stomping her foot.

  “The Saints be with you.” The farmer tipped his hat and turned the ignition on his wagon. With a puff of steam, the vehicle lurched forward, wheels rattling through the road’s deep ruts.

  Something crashed in an alley to the left, and in the smog ahead, a cat yowled. Edna thought she’d known Moser City, but this darkness held new terrors she couldn’t control.

  “I’m going to Hilda’s,” Ike said. “Then I’m going to the king. He’ll stop the hags.”

  “He won’t,” Harrison whispered.

  “Are you coming with me?” Ike glanced from Edna to Rachel.

  Edna looked at Harrison. The scrawny child at her side with vivid veins across his skin and dark circles under his eyes was her brother. Would he ever return to the person he’d been before? “Of course. I’ll do anything to help you stop them.”

  “I’ll take you home first,” Ike said. “You can see your parents. Harrison can decide if he wants to stay or not.”

  “No, he has to go too. He has to show the king what they did to him. It can’t continue or happen again.” Even as she uttered it, Edna realized her brother couldn’t make the trip. What the hags had done to him was enough. Dragging him in front of the King, showing off his wounds, would be far too cruel.

  “Rachel?” Ike pressed.

  “Lady Waxman,” she muttered, “and I’d like to see my aunt.”

  “You won’t help us?” Edna’s heartbeat increased.

  Rachel jutted her chin. “Of course I’ll go. I’ll see my aunt first. I won’t look like a country bumpkin when I’m presented!”

  Ike brushed his knuckles across Edna’s cheek. “You live on Lee Avenue?”

  She started to ask how he’d known, then remembered how he’d gone with her when she first packed her travel bag, long since lost. “Yes.”

  “Rachel, where’s your aunt live?”

  “Quinn Street. I can just imagine what she’ll say when she sees me.” Rachel laughed, but the sound emerged shrill, with a rattle at the end. She finished in a cough.

  “Edna and Harrison live closest. This way.” Ike headed down the street. Edna hurried after him, still clutching her brother, and Rachel followed.

  Mud splashed over their feet. The girls’ heels clicked against the sidewalk. A cat yowled again. The lamps flickered, and one went out, casting darkness over a patch of the street. Fog crept up their legs, but Edna kept her gaze on Ike. “This is why I don’t go out at night. It isn’t safe.”

  A rat scurried out of an alley and darted in front of Rachel. She screamed and grabbed Edna, knocking her into Ike. He caught the two girls in his arms, but his broad shoulder bumped against a doorway. Harrison laughed so hard he doubled over, tears in his eyes. They glistened on his cheeks as they trickled down to his chin.

  “Isn’t funny,” Rachel snapped.

  Tears came to Edna’s eyes as her brother laughed, so like the boy she remembered from before the kidnapping. He would always double over and cry, his laughter everywhere, whenever something silly happened. She giggled.

  Ike chuckled, pushing her and Rachel away. “We don’t want to be out here longer than we have to be.”

  “Because of the dangers that come with night.” Happiness faded from Edna. Harrison gripped his sister’s hand so hard her nerves throbbed, but she held him tighter. Another rat scurried by, but this time Rachel bit her cheeks and looked away.

  A few coaches rushed by as the group exited the meatpacking district.

  “Who could be out this late?” Harrison asked. “Maybe they will give us a ride.”

  “We don’t want a ride from young gents who want to slum or visit a club.” Ike paused. “Or off to a brothel.”

  “A what?” Harrison tipped his head.

  “Shush.” Edna’s cheeks flushed.

  Gin addicts slumped in alleys. An emaciated cat pawed through a pile of horse feces. A rat scurried out from a broken crate. Five children dressed in rags sat in doorways watching the four walk by. A little girl held out her cupped palm but didn’t say anything, glassy eyes pleading.

  They turned onto Lee Street. A man wearing a long black coat and a top hat walked toward them. He kept his head turned away, and they pressed against the nearest tenement to avoid him.

  “Almost home.” Harrison grinned.

  “Almost,” Edna echoed. Her heart thudded. “So close.” She could almost taste her mother’s special pumpkin bread, smell the must that clung to the sofa.

  “Let’s run!” Harrison released her hand and darted down the street, his bare feet slapping the stones.

  “Harry-boy, wait, I can’t lose you again.”

  “I’ll come for you tomorrow,” Ike said, low.

  Edna glanced up at him. The nearest gas lamp cast flickering light across his face. Dirt streaked his skin. His eyes shone glossy.

  Despite his ulterior motives, he’d helped her save her brother. She opened her mouth to ask him to spend the night at their tenement, but recalled he’d planned to see the hag, Hilda.

  “Thank you.” Edna grabbed his shoulders and kissed his cheek. Despite the filth on him, she caught a whiff of his masculine, familiar scent. Her cheeks burned, so she rubbed the backs of her hands across them. She couldn’t feel anything besides friendship for Ike. He was half-hag. Her parents would never allow her to be with someone with such mixed blood.

  Ike caught her against him, one hand on her back and one on the curve of her hip. He met her gaze, his lips parted, and her heart leapt into her throat.

  Ike touched his lips to the corner of her mouth, then to her cheek, and when his lips closed over hers, it seemed to steal her breath. His tongue swept her mouth, craving those corners, touching every centimeter of her until she had to lean against him, her hands knotted in his shirt, to keep from falling. Ike, so hard, so muscled, but gentle in his touch.

  He kissed her cheek once more before he stepped back and bowed his head to her.

  Edna dashed after Harrison before she kissed him again. The damp ground made her slip, but she regained her balance before falling. Her brother waited on the doorstep of their building, hopping between feet.

  “We’re here,” he whooped. She laughed, jumping up the steps to join him. As she grabbed the door, she realized she hadn’t bid farewell to Rachel. A pang of regret stabbed her heart, but she pushed it aside.

  The tenement’s interior was d
ark, with only a few oil lamps left burning in the stairwells. They ran up to their floor, tripping and giggling. Home, home, home. The word danced through her mind, fueled by the evil energy. Her mother would be sitting at the kitchen table dabbing her tearful eyes with a handkerchief. She’d hold them close and babble how glad she was they were returned.

  Harrison knocked on their door. “Mum, we’re home! Mum.”

  Edna hadn’t realized she’d thought they would never get back until she stood on the familiar threshold. Tears pricked her eyes. Now she and her mother could cry together. Harrison might cry too. The family could heal him.

  She turned the doorknob and the door opened. Surprise caught her for a second. They never left it unlocked. She pushed on the door and it swung, the hinges squealing. Darkness covered the kitchen.

  Harrison bounded inside. “Mum, it’s us! Where are you?”

  Edna followed him in. A strange, acidic vehemence hung in the air. “Mum?” Apprehension made her nerves tingle and the evil lift.

  A match hissed to life. The flame transferred to a lamp, illuminating their mother where she stood at the kitchen table, her eyes wide. She wore a white satin dress from the Music Hall with puffed sleeves and a lace bodice, her pale hair pulled back in a severe bun, except she wore no cosmetics.

  “Mum!” Harrison bolted into her arms, but she stepped back and held up her hands.

  “What’s wrong?” Edna stepped closer. A faint scent tickled her nose, overpowering her mother’s perfume.

  “Get away,” their mother whispered.

  “Mum?” Harrison whimpered.

  Edna recognized the scent. Magic. “Harrison, get away. This ain’t right.”

  “Exactly.” Another light appeared across the room. A flame floated in the air above Mother Sambucus’s outstretched hand. A police officer stood beside the hag.

  “Harry-boy, run!” Edna grabbed her brother’s arm and turned toward the door, but magic flung it shut.

  “Edna Mather and Harrison Mather,” the police officer intoned, “you are both under arrest.”

  “On what crimes?” Edna reached for her mother, but the woman stumbled back.

  “What have you done?” Without rouge and kohl, her face appeared pallid, her gray eyes too dark.

  The officer lifted a scroll. “You kidnapped Lady Rachel Waxman, daughter of your employer, Lord Waxman, and murdered multiple hags when you burned down their factory.”

  The air is so still in the dead of night.

  e didn’t kidnap Rachel, the hags did!” Edna’s heart raced and the evil threatened to burn them. She couldn’t allow it to rear.

  “Eddie, how could you?” Her mother gulped.

  “I swear on the Saints.” Edna stumbled backwards toward the door, dragging Harrison after her. He reached out for their mother, mouthing her name.

  “The children are clearly delusional.” Mother Sambucus sniffed. “The littlest criminals always are.”

  “You can’t prove anything.” Edna grabbed the doorknob and shook it, but it held fast. Mother Sambucus chortled.

  “You’ll face trial before the judge and Mayor,” the officer said.

  “This can’t be real. We should be safe.”

  “Oh, my babies.” Her mother rubbed her hands across her face, moaning.

  “We’ve gone through too much to lose now.” Edna released Harrison so she could touch the cameo as she turned the knob again, and it clicked open. Edna dragged her brother into the hallway.

  “Get them!” Mother Sambucus shrieked.

  “Edna, Harrison!” Their mother’s voice rose shrill on a sob.

  “Stop!” The officer stabbed his finger at them.

  Edna ran for the stairs. As she grabbed the railing, a second officer lunged from the nearby doorway. He seized Harrison around the waist and hefted him off his feet.

  “I got the little one,” he yelled.

  Edna stumbled back. “Release him.”

  “Help!” Harrison screamed.

  Panic nipped her mind.

  No, she had to get Ike. She and Harrison couldn’t stop two policemen and Mother Sambucus. She charged in the other direction, toward the stairs leading up. The officer darted from her apartment. He reached for her, but she kneed his crotch and kicked him behind the legs. He grunted, stalled. She took the stairs up two at a time. Her feet pounded against the old wood.

  “Halt in the name of the King!” The officer’s deep voice nipped at her heels. Her toe caught on a step and she fell, smashing her shins against the stairs. Tears stung her eyes. Grabbing the railing, she heaved herself up and kept going. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.

  He ran after her, his long legs catching up fast. Edna grabbed a toy train, left outside a door, and threw it down the stairs at the officer. It caught him in the face with a crunch, and he staggered against the wall. Edna didn’t wait to see how badly she’d hurt him; she kept running, telling herself not to feel bad for causing pain.

  She reached the door leading to the roof and kicked it open. The skirt of her dress tore on a nail jutting from the doorframe.

  Apart from discarded garbage, the rooftop lay empty. She ran toward the side, and tripped over a dark lump. The lump shouted, and she screamed, crawling backwards on her bottom. Her long skirt tore further up her leg.

  The lump shifted and a stained blanket slid away from a man with a long, bristled beard. “Whatchu doin’, wretch? Get away. Scat.”

  She rolled to her knees, jumped to her feet, and made it to the edge of the roof before she heard footsteps thumping the stairs. Edna glanced across the roof, but didn’t see anything to prop the door shut with, so she stood on the edge. She spotted the metal fire escape, but counted missing rungs on the ladder.

  “Odds bobs.” She’d fall off the ladder if she tried to climb down.

  She glanced at the next building. I can make the jump, it’s not too far away.

  “Halt!” The police officer burst onto the rooftop. The light from the lamps below and the moon above flickered on the blood covering his face and staining his uniform shirt.

  Edna drew a deep breath and leapt.

  Rachel gazed up at the brick apartment building on Quinn Street with a tightening in her belly. She had rarely seen her spinster aunt since her mother’s death. Aunt Kate, her mother’s sister, was frowned upon by the rest of the family, including Rachel’s father. He viewed her as a disgrace, but Rachel had honored her mother’s memory by sending Aunt Kate gifts on her natal day.

  “This is the place, then?” Ike asked.

  “It is.” Rachel straightened her shoulders and strode to the door. Each apartment followed the next, with three floors and a door with a stone stoop of five steps and a wrought iron railing. The ornate brass knocker, shaped like a cherub, chilled her hand when she lifted it. The thud echoed through the door when she dropped the knocker.

  She glanced over her shoulder, but Ike was gone. A little boy chimney sweep wandered across the street. Her heart thudded harder. He’d left without saying goodbye, like what Edna and Harrison had done. “Fine. I don’t need to talk with servants and half-bloods.”

  Gritting her teeth, she knocked again.

  The sound of footsteps echoed from within. A second later, the door opened a crack. Candlelight danced across the features of a pudgy, middle-aged woman.

  “Can I help you?” The maid’s eyes raked Rachel’s disheveled ensemble.

  “Please.” Rachel grabbed the edge of the door. “Is Aunt Kate here? Miss Kate James? I’m Rachel Waxman, her niece.”

  “I highly doubt that. Be gone. I’ve no likes for you. There’s a poorhouse down the way. Try there.” The woman pushed to shut the door, but Rachel shoved her boot against the jam.

  “You must recognize me.” Rachel hoped this was the same maid her aunt had kept years before, when Rachel and her mother visited.

  “Street filth,” the maid spat.

  “It really is me. Lady Rachel Waxman.” She searched her mind for something she could
say to prove her worth.

  “Wait,” a female called from down the hallway. “Who is there?”

  “Just a beggar, ma’am. I’m—”

  “Lady Rachel Waxman,” Rachel called. “Come to see her Aunt Kate.”

  “Rachel?” Heeled footsteps quickened across a hardwood floor. “Hurry, Mary, open the door for her.”

  The maid narrowed her eyes, but she stepped back to open the front door fully. Aunt Kate stood behind her wearing a brocade robe over a white nightgown with a high lace collar. Her black hair was pulled back in a tight bun.

  In the candlelight, Rachel recognized her aunt’s thin face, the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, the silver streaks around her forehead in her dark brown hair. She ran through the doorway into her aunt’s arms. “Oh, Aunt Kate! I’m so glad.”

  “Come, my child. You look awful.” Aunt Kate’s voice wavered. “I’ll get you something to eat and somewhere to bathe. Then you must tell me your troubles.”

  “Has my father told you anything?” Rachel leaned back.

  Aunt Kate averted her eyes to the floor. “No, I don’t hear from him.”

  Rachel’s breath whooshed from her lungs in relief.

  The maid coughed. “What would you have me do, Miss Kate?”

  “Do what you should.” Aunt Kate pressed her hand to Rachel’s shoulder and led her to the kitchen. A minute later, the front door shut.

  Edna’s shoes slid across the slick roof. The tenements were close enough together that she could jump from one to the next, but now she’d reached the offices, which had slanted roofs.

  “Odds bobs.”

  She fell to her side, bumping her hip, and grabbed the top of the roof. Shingles bit through her clothes. Below the building, fog ate the street. Gas lamps glowed in yellow circles. A motorcar rumbled by and a dog barked from the alley below.

  “Stop!” The officer still pursued, jumping the rooftops after her.

  Edna grabbed a metal pipe to regain her balance. She got to her feet and shuffled across the slant while her breath emerged in frantic huffs. At the end, she jumped to the next roof.