The Half Killed

by Quenby Olson

  The sound of the rain is louder here, and I watch streaks of water cut jagged lines across the other side of the glass. It has rained, if my memory serves, for at least some portion of every day of my recovery. The dry dust and grime that coated London for so long have been returned to its former saturated state, and the Thames, that great lifeblood of the country, has swelled and risen again.

  "‘And the floodgates of the sky were opened,’" I mutter under my breath. I close my eyes and revel in the feel of the cool glass on my skin.

  "Miss Hawes," he says, standing nearer to me now.

  I open my eyes and watch as a few short breaths produce a succession of clouds beneath my nostrils and my parted lips.

  "We’ve found no trace of her," he continues. I keep my back to him, feeling resolute that I will not look at him as long as the whereabouts of my aunt is the topic of discussion. "There’ll be a hint, here or there, but it’s like chasing after rats before they can disappear inside the walls."

  "What of the girls?" I find myself asking, my question sending fresh blasts of steam onto the window. "The ones in the photographs? My aunt said there was more to it, that the pictures were only the beginning, that…" I falter into silence. Before I can even lend shape to all of my questions, I fear I already know the answer.

  "They’ve scattered." He follows those two words with a sigh, and I turn around in time to see the fall of his shoulders that accompanies it. "And if what you said is true, that the peerage is mixed up in it, they’ll do their damnedest to make certain they’ve covered their tracks." His gaze flicks towards mine, the uncertainty that is absent from his expression clearly present in his eyes. "Your aunt? Do you think she’s gone?"

  I’m sure that by "gone," he’s not inquiring as to whether she’s departed for a season or two on the Continent. "I believed her to be dead once. I won’t allow myself to make the same mistake."

  He nods, and I watch as his fingers toy with the edge of his hat, the brim sliding through his hands as he turns it, around and around and around. "I thought there was something unnatural about her, about her presence. I felt as if, when I looked at her, she wasn’t quite there."

  His glance now has taken on a request, I think. A request for confirmation that he was not entirely alone in what he saw.

  I take a step forward, away from the window, towards him. Only a step, but I mean it as a test of sorts, to gauge his reaction to my proximity. And yet, it will also be a test for myself. For it has been three weeks now since the voices have departed from my head. Since then, I have heard nothing, I have felt nothing beyond my own dry and dismal musings. And so, another step. Will he flinch when he understands my purpose? Will he back away from me as one frightened? But he holds his position, his face impassive, leaving me to do nothing more but continue with my meagre progress.

  It is when I’m close enough to raise a hand, to touch him, that I stop. I search his eyes, as clear and blue as the first time he looked upon me, but now they are near to glowing under the dim, almost ethereal quality of the rain-soaked light.

  I have to steel myself before I reach out to him. Not with any physical part of myself, but with the gentle prodding of before, the softest of touches I can manage while my mind whirls with its new, unconstrained freedom.

  I expect the same barrier as before, that he will have shut himself off from me. But instead of being halted before I can even begin, I find it disarmingly easy to slip inside his thoughts. And there, in the length of a breath, before I can think to prepare myself for whatever I may encounter, the whole of Julian Chissick is laid bare.

  My senses are flooded with his own memories, all of the scents and colours and emotions that accompany them, everything so much more complex than I would’ve imagined or have ever experienced. And all of it without a single note of sibilant commentary from within my own head.

  I extricate myself before I can go any further, but one moment has already seared itself on my own thoughts, and I feel as if it was my own hand on the revolver, my own sweat-slicked finger sliding over the trigger.

  Even the sound of the gunshot seems to ring in my ears, and I reach out to steady myself, my hand touching his cheek, the heel of my palm tickled by the rough hairs on his jaw. "I am so sorry," I tell him. "For everything I’ve put you through."

  The words sound cheap and paltry, considering that I'm begging forgiveness for having stood this close to him before, and all while convincing him to pull the trigger and watch me perish.

  "It was at Lord Ryall’s that I first noticed it," he says, and I can feel the vibration of his voice through his cheek and upon my hand. "There was a darkness near his body. And then I glanced over at you, and it seemed to flicker and twitch at the corner of my eye."

  My thumb grazes the line of his cheekbone. Quickly, I pull my hand away from him.

  "His shadow," he continues. "It appeared to move, to detach itself, even though his body remained perfectly still."

  I bite down on the side of my tongue, causing my voice to sound strained to my own ears when I speak. "It could’ve been a trick of the candlelight, a draft from an ill-fitted window."

  "Thea."

  How I feel like a child when he utters my name in such a way. A poor, confused child. And perhaps that’s what I’ve always been, my own demons hindering any and all necessary maturation.

  "And again, when we examined the body of that woman pulled out of the river."

  "Sissy," I interrupt him, needing to apply a personality to that discarded life.

  "Yes." He closes his eyes and nods once. "I saw how it was drawn to you, but never quite a part of you, as if some part of you were always holding it at bay."

  I think back to the weight, to the pressure I carried with me for more years than I care to recall. Like a parasite, feeding off my very soul.

  "So, you saw it with my aunt, as well?"

  "It was destroying you," he says, with more pain in those four words than I can bear to hear. "And she only wanted to use you, not caring how much it hurt you."

  "You understand how thankful I am for what you did." My hand twitches, brushing against my dress, placing the lightest of touches on my bandaged side. "You succeeded where I could not."

  It is his turn to reach out, to grasp my hand and turn over my wrist, revealing the scars I will always carry with me. "And you know," he says. "I may never forgive you for it."

  I feel the air slide out of my lungs. He’s damaged, were Trevor’s words. And here, I’ve only gone and broken him further.

  "I’ve something for you," he says all of a sudden, while his right hand disappears into one of the inner pockets of his coat. He retrieves a small leather pouch, tied shut with its own drawstring. "Here. I’ve been holding onto them since…" He clears his throat. "I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with them."

  I accept the pouch from him, the tiles inside taking on an inordinate amount of weight as it rests on my palm. "Thank you," I say, and though I'm tempted to tear the pouch open, to scatter the letters across my bed and see what secrets the letters may have to tell me, I instead place them on the windowsill, my fingers trembling as I pull my hand away from them. "You should leave," I tell him, unable to look at him as I say the words. "You need rest. We both do. And should I need you for anything, I’ll be sure to send a note your way."

  I turn away, needing to pace, to work off some fresh surfeit of energy that propels me forward. I return to the window, and for several minutes, I simply watch the rain coat everything in a shimmering layer of chill moisture.

  "Thea."

  I do not respond to him. It isn’t until I feel his hand on my arm that I’m able to push away from the sill and turn to face him.

  "Shall we go for a walk?"

  I glance at the ceiling, imagining all of the water currently pouring down above our heads.

  "I have an umbrella," he adds, guessing my thoughts.

  And still, I do not speak. The pain is gone now. All of the dark visions that haunted my thou
ghts, my dreams, my every living moment, have departed from me. My mind is my own, and yet, I cannot shake the terrible fear that something—some cruel, malignant creature—could slip back inside, should I ever relax and let down my guard.

  "You should leave," I tell him once more.

  He nods. Once, and almost imperceptibly. "But I won’t."

  I move to take a step forward at the moment he does. And there is his arm, his elbow cocked, his poor hat given a final tap against his thigh before it finds its place on his head.

  "Then let us be off," I say, my own coat snatched from the end of the bed before I bury my fingers in his sleeve and he leads me towards the door.

  Acknowledgements

  * * *

  * * *

  I could not have done this without the help from a great many people, a few of whom I will go out of my way to mention here: A.J. Navarre for her tremendous artwork (along with the motivation it gave me to cross the finish line). K.S. Villoso for constantly nudging me along, nit-picking, and reminding me of the myriad spelling differences that exist from one English-speaking nation to another. Amanda Bohannan for her amazing, amazing editing skills. I also can’t leave out all of the folks at Breaking Quills and World Tree Publishing for their talents in beta-reading, editing, proofreading, and listening patiently as I nattered on about the most irritating of plot and historical minutiae. To all of these and many, many more…

  Thank you.