Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart

by Hieber, Leanna Renee

  I renounce thee…

  A flicker of white. White lace. A quiet whisper. The Whisper. Her Whisper. The sound of something loving and beautiful. At the opposite end of that seemingly endless corridor appeared a vision all in white with a face I only recognized from daguerreotypes and my father’s stories.

  Statuesque and fierce, with dark auburn tresses floating all around her as if she were in water, stood a luminous angel. My mother. And this time when she spoke, praise be, I heard her clearly.

  “Demon, unhand my girl! She’s not yours and never will be. There are some you can never win. You think you know the tread of the walks. But I know them too. Those chosen to fight are not yours to command!” She turned, as if addressing someone at my side. “Jonathon, if you will, my dear young man, take care of her.”

  Jonathon? Was he with me? She saw him? I didn’t need my voice to call for him after all. After all we’d been through, our souls had language enough.

  The tension around my throat eased. I reached out, longing to embrace my mother. But instead I fell, crumpling against strong arms as the demon howled again with that terrible train-like whistling shriek, while red-gold fire crackled.

  Looking up, I saw Jonathon, hair wild, eyes bright. He shook and shouted at me. That was my Jonathon, wasn’t he? No…his eyes turned dark and full of rage as if the demon had overtaken him once more. No. No. Only fear placed the demon in him. The demon wanted me to doubt, to turn us against each other. I fought the image, renouncing the evil that sought to claim me.

  Struggling to look at Jonathon again, my vision swimming as though I were suffering the effect of some opiate, I saw him as he was: handsome, concerned, my champion. A veritable halo shone around his strong body. My Jonathon Whitby, lit with angel’s fire, shouted the counter-curse we’d used once before and pulled me free.

  Oh, yes, the counter-curse! Those ancient words that ushered evil back from whence it came. Struggling to speak and breathe, I murmured it with him, the words that had been the key to Jonathon’s prison.

  “Ego transporto animus ren per ianua…”

  I send the soul through the door. The spell had an extra part, difficult to track, an Egyptian word for “soul-door” that interrupted the Latin. But that frame was a portal for souls, a doorway into a realm I never wanted to see again, a door we must shut for good.

  With one more cry of the counter-curse, the corridor seeming to bend around me dizzyingly. With a whooshing crack, the hazy shadows that had extended from outside of the frame like limbs snapped back. Paint exploded onto the floor, and the ugly portal was inanimate once more. At least for now. Maggie’s room had returned to normal.

  “You came for me,” I gasped, my throat still bruised, leaning into Jonathon’s hold.

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll always come for you. But thank Rachel. She’s the one who got me.”

  It was only then that I noticed Rachel tending to Maggie, who was still unconscious against the wall. “What happened?” I asked.

  “I was writing a letter to the Society when she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me here. I admit I had a feeling something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. I know better now than to ever ignore the feeling.”

  I gestured at Maggie, signing to Rachel. “Is she alive?”

  Rachel nodded and moved to kneel beside me. I let Jonathon help me to a sitting position, and I threw my arms around Rachel. “I owe you my life,” I signed to her.

  “We’re even,” she signed in reply. “Thank your mother. She’s the one who told me.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” I murmured. “Mother was there, Jonathon. Did you see her? Wasn’t she beautiful?”

  “No, I didn’t see her. But I heard a woman call my name just as Rachel seized me. We were here in a mere minute. But I had to kick down the door that had locked you in. Gave poor Mrs. Hathorn a fright, charging up her stairs. When she saw her daughter collapsed on the floor and a great breeze in the room, she fainted straightaway.”

  I glanced at the door, whose jamb had been splintered and the fine pewter knob bent to the side. I grinned at my hero. Claire was caring for the prone form of Maggie’s mother.

  “What’s to be done with the portrait now, though?” Jonathon said. “How can we ultimately destroy it? Remember, Mrs. Northe left you in charge.”

  I coughed. “I resign.”

  “Sorry, I cannot accept your resignation,” he replied. I sat up and stared at the closed closet door that now seemed so innocuous.

  “It’s up to us,” I said, thinking of what had been deep in my mind all along. “This has always been about us. The magic is tied to our souls, our bodies alone. We’re the only ones who can destroy it. You and me. We have to burn it. My dreams were telling me that all along. What appeared terrifying was actually a clue: your burned-out study.”

  “While that may be, I don’t want the ashes in any of our chimneys. The demon, when it used the artist to make the painting in the first place, used powders and ashes for the spell. Any remnant of this thing could be dangerous. Whatever we do, it has to be utterly destroyed.”

  “Out above a riverbank. There’s a yard a few avenues east. Some of it is used as a scenic outlook, but there are too many mills for it to be very sightly. Burn it there.”

  “Your father’s going to kill me for being with you again—”

  “Not when he finds out you saved my life.”

  But would the creature yet live in my dreams? Would it have any life or strength there? Not as long as I kept to just this side of the light.

  Jonathon went to Maggie’s side, picked her up, and set her upon her bed, tucking her in. It was a shame she wasn’t awake for it; she’d have swooned in ecstasy.

  He then went to one of her steamer trunks and tipped it on its side, spilling out petticoats, corsets, and swaths of fine fabric. Then he went to the closet.

  Thankfully the Hathorns remained unconscious, allowing us to do what had to be done with no additional histrionics.

  The painting frame and torn canvas had disintegrated further. Jonathon unwound the length of his gray cravat, leaving his collarbone deliciously visible, and wrapped his hands in the fabric so as not to touch the icon of horror directly. He lifted the sagging frame from the peg upon which it had been hung, scraps of canvas already falling away and that ugly grime coating the surface.

  I joined in, my gloved hands protection enough—sometimes ladies’ accessories came in frightfully handy—gathering scraps into the trunk. Jonathon stood on the base of the frame, tore each beam from the other, and stomped upon the carved wood, breaking it into splintering pieces.

  I ducked my head into the hall. Rachel and Claire stood at the end to keep any other staff from coming our way. “Broom and dust pail, if you please?”

  Claire ducked into a closet, handed me the items I requested, and returned to her post. She crossed herself, not looking at me, as if she didn’t want to acknowledge whatever she’d seen here. I wonder what it had seemed from the outside. Perhaps the demon showed differing types of horror to all those who experienced him.

  When the shreds, splinters, and pieces of the painting all were collected and deposited into the trunk, I removed my smudged, smeared gloves and tossed them in. Jonathon did the same with his soiled cravat—a shame since it was beautiful fabric—and looked around for something. He found what he sought in a glass table lantern with a bulb of oil at its base and matches at the side.

  “I’m not waiting another minute to take care of this,” he said.

  “Nothing is more pressing,” I agreed. He looked at me with a terrible grimace. He plucked another of Maggie’s silk scarves and wound it around my neck.

  “Quite a bruise you’ve got rising there.”

  “I’m sure.”

  We went directly to the outlook. I’m sure my father wondered about my whereabouts, but he’d get some sort of explanation after this was finished.

  Past orphanages, coal depositories, and carriage houses, we made our way. Jona
thon was able to carry the trunk on his own, while I held the oil-filled lamp and matches. We were quiet, each in our own reverie.

  These battles had become somewhat ritualistic, and though we never knew what to expect, solemn gravity came with taking care of them. Talking about it would only make it more absurd. What we saw defied explanation, but we were still left with evidence.

  The late-summer air was humid and warm, but the breeze was refreshing, despite the industrial landscape around us. The deck was more an extension of an industrial yard, but it served well as it was thankfully unpopulated, the nearby ceramic factory closed for the weekend. Those who were out for a promenade stuck to the avenues and sidewalks west of us. Beyond us, the river was far below. Vast, tumbling vegetation stood between us and the East River, filled with countless boats. Queens and Brooklyn stretched out on the opposite bank.

  Jonathon broke open the lantern, spilled the oil all over the contents of the trunk, lit several matches, and dropped them in. The hissing fire inside was left to blaze. We let it burn on the gravel plateau and stood back, arms around each other.

  “I am sorry, Natalie Stewart,” Jonathon said. “I keep drawing you back in.”

  “I’d not trade you for the world, Jonathon Whitby.”

  He smiled then, a genuine smile like I’d not seen for a while, and all the shadows that had tinged his expression faded. I did have a good effect upon him.

  We watched the last tactile part of the curse burn to ashes, and then we overturned the trunk and watched the ash scatter in the wind. Jonathon then gave the trunk a healthy kick down the bank.

  Resolution of our matters seemed to end in fire.

  It was fitting then that he turned to me and we engaged in a rather fiery kiss, far from public eye. I wondered how much longer we could go on this way, indulging in stolen kisses as releases of stress and terror. I wondered when we might be able to indulge more properly. And so I dared bring up what I didn’t want to have to.

  “Jonathon. You know I wish to deny you nothing. But Father…I can’t continue flaunting propriety indefinitely. He’s going to demand—”

  “That I ask for your hand or bugger off. I know,” Jonathon said, holding out his arm for me. “And that I prove all dangerous matters thoroughly solved.”

  “I know we’ve not had any time,” I stammered. “And I understand you want all your affairs in place. It’s just that—”

  “I can’t treat this as child’s play. I know. You were a girl but now you’re a woman, and society says I must marry you to continue kissing you. And other, more exciting things,” he said, trailing a finger down my neck, down the side of my bodice, lifting the edge of the fabric to pull on the laces of my corset. I shuddered in delight. “I don’t need a lesson on propriety. Though I admit, I’ve had some improper thoughts about you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Perfectly—” A kiss upon my neck. He trailed down my throat with more. “Passionately—” He pulled at the lace modesty panel across my bosom, revealing more flesh for him to graze with his mouth. “Improper…”

  I gasped, my ungloved hands raking into his hair and seizing the locks, while I shuddered against him, desperate to give over to seductive abandon. If we disappeared into the copse of trees beyond the deck, would anyone care or find us? But what would happen if I gave myself? What would I have if the reality of our class difference, supernatural fates aside, trumped all? The word “ruined” meant what it meant.

  “I’m not of your station,” I murmured mordantly. “You’re not supposed to marry me anyway.”

  He glanced up at me, his mouth braised pink from the force of his kisses. He drew back. “I tell you, class is of no consequence! But if you recall, your father isn’t very fond of me at the moment, not to mention that I have to play my part. I can’t run off and marry you. That would crack my cover wide open, betray my allegiance, and further endanger you.”

  “Must you still play the agent? Don’t you know enough to have others track them? Enough evidence to be done with this?”

  “If I disappear, that’s just as suspicious. While we might be able to turn some things over to the authorities, the Society will come looking.”

  The realization that there was no immediate end to his involvement with the Society dawned on me with a new terror. It might take years before we could be married. I couldn’t continue this. I couldn’t feel the way I did about him and not be closer to him in every way. I’d been through so much in the past days that I was about to throw an all-out fit.

  “Then…what do we do?” I cried, not bothering to hide my desperation. Jonathon eyed me. The wind caught the waves of his black locks, and his shocking blue eyes twinkled, giving him the look of some beautiful creature in the wild pausing amid a hunt.

  “Perhaps a secret engagement might hold everyone at bay until everything can be done with all proper pomp and circumstance.”

  One moment terror, the next joy. How radically my life changed from moment to moment. I grinned and threw my arms around him as we walked. A secret engagement?

  “And no, that wasn’t me proposing, Natalie. That will be a surprise, and don’t you dare go nagging me about it.”

  I giggled and suddenly felt as if every town-house window-box were as grand as a palace garden and every sound of clattering horse hooves the exclamation of angel choirs.

  “But truly, Natalie,” he said earnestly, “you’ve been amazing. So strong through all of it. A lesser girl—”

  “I got knocked unconscious. Twice,” I protested.

  Denbury lifted my chin to look at me with his piercing gaze for a fond lecture. “Natalie, you act selflessly for others without a second thought. You go through paintings, spy on murderers, put yourself in harm’s way, get on trains, travel across the country without hesitation, stare down dead bodies, face your nightmares, talk to ghosts, stand in the way of knives, and translate sign language, all for people you care for. The world needs women of action, and I’ve admired none as much as you. Your light shines bright around you, never dimmed. I’m not sure what’s ahead, but I do know I need a partner and I choose you.”

  And that is what I wanted to be more than anything in the world. His partner.

  My ecstatic bliss was short lived.

  My father must have been watching from the window, for he stormed down the stoop of the town house just as we closed the wrought-iron gate of the garden level behind us.

  “Lord Denbury, I thought I was quite clear you were not to see my daughter. No matter what manner of strange circumstance passed between you two, you do not have free rein to escort her about as if you were her husband. I’ll not be disrespected like this, and that goes for you too, Natalie. Your voice and your whims alone do not liberate you.”

  I was shocked that every biddy in the neighborhood hadn’t opened her window to listen in. Thankfully Father had enough sense to keep his voice down.

  “It’s been…a trying day, Father,” I said quietly. “Would you like the truth of it or a lie?”

  He stared at me a moment, likely wondering how many lies he’d endured. “The truth…Why do you keep asking that question?”

  “Because you should always have the option. A lie would be a lot more pleasant than the truth,” I said, as I undid the scarf around my neck. My father’s hand went to his mouth, tears in his eyes. “Please thank Lord Denbury, Father. He just saved my life.”

  “Come in,” Father choked out, ushering us upstairs.

  Bessie didn’t appear to be present. That may have been for the best. We sat in the parlor. “What happened?”

  I took a deep breath. “Maggie stole the remains of the painting and resurrected it in her room. It had a terrible curse on it. The dark magic attacked me, but Rachel heard the warning of Mother and fetched Lord Denbury to my side. Together, he and I fought it back. We had to dispose of the remains, as only he and I could. The curse marked Lord Denbury and me. And we, together, were the only ones to destroy it. Father, any danger I brought upon
myself is of my own will. You mustn’t blame him,” I said strongly.

  My father stared at us, part in wonder, part in horror. I reached out and squeezed his hand. “We do try to do the right thing, Father.”

  He rose, dragging Jonathon up and into his arms in a wide embrace. “I lost my wife. I can’t lose my girl.” He cried against him. Jonathon returned the embrace in full.

  “I told you I’d do anything for her, Mr. Stewart,” Jonathon assured him. “I mean it.”

  Father drew back. He looked at me, his arm out as if scared to touch me or my bruises. I went to him, and he folded me in the same embrace.

  “Mr. Stewart, I appreciate your position very much. I am sorry for any wrong you perceive. Believe me, none of this is how I’d have chosen to court your daughter if I’d have been given a choice. I’ll do right by you both as soon as I can in good faith. In the meantime, do I have your permission, Mr. Stewart, to come to call tomorrow evening? There’s an event I’d like to take Natalie to, and I’d rather have your permission than sneak about.”

  “Only with a chaperone,” my father declared. “Evelyn wired that she’s been on nothing but express trains and that she’ll return by then.”

  “Good, then,” Jonathon said. He and I opened our mouths at the same time. “Did she say anything about—”

  “Yes, she said to tell you that she got to Samuel in time. He’s damaged but will be all right.”

  Jonathon and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I was suddenly so proud of us, that we’d managed all that we had without her, and so glad we could still turn to her in all our times of need.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stewart. I shall see you soon.” Bowing to my father and then to me, Jonathon walked off down the street, turning onto Lexington toward downtown and his generous hostess’s home. In my darkening mood, when the demon had hold of me, I’d denounced her. I felt guilty at the thought. I missed her, too, her absence only confirming how inextricably linked we were.

  “Father, do you and Mrs. Northe plan to court…further?”