I was beginning to regret our wedding and the delay it had caused everything. I was short tempered and given to long periods of silence, when I fumed. I bit my nails so far down that my fingertips bled almost constantly. Luke was at his wits’ end with me. Nothing he could say or do or suggest made anything any better, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him one thing: that I was seeing my mother all over the place. Was she watching me, or haunting me, or was my mind playing tricks on me? I didn’t know. I only knew she unnerved me. I felt as though she had come for me, to drag me down with her into death. I tried to ignore her. She never came too close, the vision of my mother, and she never touched me.
Yet.
But she did stop me from things. Once, we decided to take a train out of London, and when I stepped up on the platform, I saw my mother inside. She was watching me. I faltered, and I couldn’t go in.
Another time, I saw her across a busy street, right before Luke and I were about to cross. I had to stay on the opposite side until she faded away. Luke couldn’t cajole me away, or convince me to move. He was patient with me, but he didn’t understand.
I had even lost my appetite for cake, which meant I was eating almost nothing. This made it difficult for Luke to hide my medication. He thought I never knew when he was slipping me something, but I always do. The cake tastes grainier, and chalky, when there’s a foreign substance tucked inside. After eating it, I would feel drowsy and my senses would be dulled. But I wouldn’t see my mother for a while, and that was… nice. For the first time, I would take the medicine with a glass of water, and Luke wouldn’t have to hide it. He was pleased with my progress in that regard.
I hadn’t been back to Bedlam in a while. It had been curious that my last travel, the one that brought my whole family plus their miserable guests, had deposited me on the streets of London and not inside the hospital, like usual. I suppose London itself was close enough? Knowing me and my sad luck though, I’d end up back there soon enough. If not after my next travel or two, then because I’d be bound to do something stupid and someone would take me in forcibly. It had happened before; I remembered after the Bodley, kicking and biting as the people drug me to my new home. I think it had even crossed Luke’s mind recently to take me in. Oh, he wouldn’t say it, but I think he thought it, once or twice, during one of my silent spells or my violent fits. The last place he likes to see me is there, but I know he always hopes eventually a doctor will be able to help me find normalcy. They didn’t help my grandmother though, did they? Or did they? Perhaps she’s found rest and happiness, after all. But to never travel again? What sadness. Poor grandmother! I resolve not to end up like her. I wish I had her recipe though, so I could write my own ending.
Finally, Luke ran out of patience. He realized I had to do something to put my past to bed, and staying in London was making me worse. I couldn’t seem to make myself board a train, and obviously Sonnet and everyone were long gone. For all I knew, they had all gone to Africa with that doctor and his griddle-wielding wife. I had been to Africa before; it’s ridiculously large. The thought of searching it—with my luck, in the dead of summer with its humid heat—made me tired. We needed something more substantial to go on.
“Harry and Matthias,” Luke convinced me. They were the old brothers from America, from when I first met my sister. “It’s easy enough to go back and find them. They’ll be right where we left them. They don’t know you. They know me, but they won’t know I’m Lost, and they won’t know of my connection to you, or anything that happened in London. I can simply reconnect with them. They might have an educated guess at least where they would go if the year were 1888. Hell, we can go back to the very next day, after your family disappeared. We can live in Sonnet’s house if you want. Maybe we’ll find something there even. All right, love?”
It was a good enough plan, better than anything else I could come up with. I couldn’t explain why I was nervous about traveling again. Probably all that talk about my grandmother. Did she really get worse with every travel?
We went to sleep that night, me in my red calico dress, Luke in his white collared shirt and brown pants. I set my inner clock, as it were, and remembered the old lady’s house across the street from Sonnet’s home. I remembered the old abandoned house outside of town, where I had locked my sister inside and wondered if she’d die there. I remembered the smells of the coffee shop, and the soup kitchen where I had eaten a couple times when I got bored waiting for Luke. I fell asleep thinking of Sonnet’s bed, where I had curled up once before, over a hundred years from now, and when we woke, I was in that same bed.
I have a headache from deciphering Rose’s handwriting. I wish she’d pop over to a more modern century and steal a typewriter, for goodness sake. At times, her writing is studious and painstaking, like a grammar schoolgirl learning her letters, but most of the time, it’s a loopy, scrawling mess of spider leg marks, rubbed out words, and downward spirals. I’m sure a handwriting expert could tell me all sorts of interesting things about my Rose Gray.
“See how the ‘I’s loop up at the corners? Yes, that’s a sign of a murderous mind. And how the ‘O’s are more oval shaped than circular? Yes, she has mother issues. And the tightly wound ‘S’s? Yes, she has a way of invading one’s personal space and taking up residence there.” And how!
I rub my temples and set the diary aside. I’m nearly finished with it. I thought I would want to savor the last few entries, but instead, I am dreading them. I’m not certain why, but I worry about what I will find at the end, or perhaps what I won’t find. Will there be another journal for me to locate somewhere? It doesn’t seem as though there will, but I don’t know how I know that. My inclination is that this one was not penned so long ago. I am nearly up to present time with Rose, though present time, and time in general, is a funny thing with her.
Where is she hiding? Is she holing up in the old hospital? I feel a stab of guilt in the pit of my stomach, wondering if I’ve left her there and been too cowardly to ferret her out. What is to become of that place? My thoughts turn to the old building. Will it stand forever, abandoned and teeming with ghosts of the past? But back to Rose and the situation at hand: did she lose Luke in their travels to confront the men she called Harry and Matthias? Obviously, she came back, from wherever it is they go, or the diary wouldn’t be here…unless of course, she planted it at the Bodley and then traveled. By traveled, of course I don’t mean jumps through time; I don’t think I do anyway. I hardly know what I mean anymore.
Groaning, I rub my temples again. I hardly feel like a party, yet here it is: the day of Mina’s masquerade ball. I should be giddy as a schoolgirl, but I’m not looking forward to it at all. Sam hasn’t been around since our dinner together, so I wasn’t able to ask him to accompany me (though I most likely would have choked anyway, so no harm done, I suppose), I still don’t have anything to wear unless Mina has conjured up something like my fairy godmother would have, and my head hurts. Plus, Nora has been ignoring me again, as though we never bonded over Pride and Prejudice at all, and Mr. Limpet has really gone off the deep end somehow. He’s gotten positively bizarre in his behavior, trying to escape the hospital in his creaky chair, and acting frightened of everything. I overheard him whispering frantically to Mack, “She’s here. She’s here. Didn’t you see her?” and it was just the saddest thing. No one knows what he’s talking about, though we do have some new patients. He just blathers on. He finally had to be sedated, and now he drools more than ever and doesn’t seem to know anyone. I even long for him to ask me to dance, though the idea used to fill me with shivers, and I typically found an excuse to decline. Now I’d happily waltz around the hospital with his creaky old wheelchair if he’d just be himself again.
Miss Helmes had sent me home early today, probably because it was one of those days where nothing seems to go right. When those days come, she gets extremely independent and wants to do everything by herself. We all just get in her way. Mack walked wide circles around her, and I a
voided her as much as possible. The new crew (who isn’t very new anymore and is considerably less shiny and polished and much more haggard looking) learned their lessons, one at a time, mostly for trying to be helpful and anticipating what she might want from them, and she sent a few of them home early as well.
Still groaning dramatically about my poor head, I trudge down the stairs of my flat. There’s a telephone on the wall downstairs, and I may as well call Mina and tell her I won’t be coming. Well, call Danvers, actually. Mrs. Dobson finds the phone vulgar and only the servants are allowed to use it.
Just my luck, a girl from my building is on it already, and as she has entangled herself in the cord, twirling a section, and giggling, it looks as though it may be a while. My groaning intensifies, which will probably only make the throbbing in my cranium intensify, too. This girl, Marianne, can really talk; I know from experience. Once, she nearly chattered me into an early grave, going on and on about gossip at her employment, a department store. I do envy a little bit her job; she spritzes perfume on patrons as they walk by. I suppose it’d only be fun the first few dozen times though. After that, I’d be longing for wall scrubbing. She constantly smells like a bottle of perfume, which is probably lovely in smaller quantities, and I try to breathe through my mouth. Her twin brother, Arthur, lives with her, and the poor man smells like a woman drowning in gardenias.
“Marianne.” I tap her shoulder. She turns and mouths a cheerful hello at me. “Are you going to be a while?” I inquire politely.
Marianne taps the phone, ever jolly, as if I couldn’t see she is on the phone. Groan.
“Are you near the end of your conversation?” I persist, a bit louder this time.
She giggled again into the mouthpiece. “Hold on, sugar,” she says, and then tells me. “It’s my soldier boy. You know, the American.”
“Mmm hmm. Should I come back later then?”
“No, no, honey. I’ll only be a minute! Soldier Boy is going to get me an audition with the Roxyettes!” Marianne trades the phone cord for a lock of her gorgeous hair and twirls that instead for a bit. She begins telling Soldier Boy about several things that happened at work today, including what she bought with her paycheck, which seems to be an overabundance of lacey underpants.
Giving up, I walk the short distance to the front doors and go outside. Maybe the air will clear my head. I smell something delicious waft by my nose, probably from the diner across the street, and my stomach rumbles. What I wouldn’t give for a steak dinner right about now! Suddenly, the scrambled eggs I had planned for dinner sound about as appetizing as boiled eels. Maybe I should go to Mina’s party… There’s bound to be some enticing fare there to sample. Would it be rude to only go for the refreshments and then scamper home to an early bed?
Deep in thought, it takes me a moment to recognize the Rolls Royce Phantom. Stupefied, I simply stand and stare for a moment. Whatever is he doing here? I’d recognize that lovely car anywhere as well as the silhouette of the man inside. I march over and rap on the window. After a moment’s hesitation, it is lowered, and I see Sam’s sheepish expression.
“Whatever is going on?” I demand. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. That is, I happened to be nearby.”
“You did not. Whatever do you think you’re doing? How did you know where I live?” My inner suspicions were dead on. Sam isn’t as trustworthy as my heart had insisted. I could be flattered at his attention (Marianne probably would be), but instead I’m put off. The only way he could know my residence is if he had been cavorting with Miss Helmes or if he’d been following me. Either scenario is sinister, if you ask me. Plus, I can’t imagine Miss Helmes giving out my address; she’s very close mouthed, and she certainly wouldn’t find it proper. Though, now that I think on it, the two of them had seemed as though they knew one another. I remember back to the first day I met Sam. What had Miss Helmes said? Mr. Connelly says a lot of things. I hadn’t noticed then, but it seems a tad cryptic now. Still. I don’t think she’d give him my address, which only leaves the other answer: he’s followed me home. I swallow my fear. I read the newspapers. I see bad things at the hospital. I know what happens when poor, young women get in over their head with dangerous men.
“You have two minutes to explain yourself, Mr. Connelly,” I say, coldly, going back to the use of his surname. Why had I ever treated him so intimately? I could kick myself. “And then I’m going back in and dialing Scotland Yard.”
“Hold on. Hold on, Lizzie.” Sam holds up his hands, as though surrendering. “Get in. We can talk. I’ll explain myself. I promise.”
I stand firm.
“Get in, please,” he pleads, gently.
“No.”
“Then can I come up?”
“No.”
“It’s cold out, and you’re without a coat.”
“I’m fine. And your two minutes are seriously ticking by.”
“You’re just going to stand there, half in the street and talk to me through the car window. Is that it?”
“That’s it.” I cross my arms over my chest, partly to look intimidating, partly to keep from freezing.
“I brought you something. For the ball?” He motions to the seat beside him. It’s a very large box. I scowl.
“What ball? I don’t recall inviting you.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure you meant to.” Now his voice is teasing. “Mina spoke to me about it earlier. She practically insisted I accompany you.”
“Lovely,” I snap. “I’m so glad you could be persuaded. That doesn’t explain why you know where I live.”
“Yes, it does. Mina has a big mouth. Did I mention I brought you something?”
My resolve is melting a bit, only a bit though. Now I’m just beginning to be embarrassed, which is almost worse than angry. Embarrassed at my mistake of Sam being a deranged killer stalking his prey or embarrassed that Mina had to beg him to take me to the ball? I’m not sure yet.
“Yes, you mentioned it. I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”
“That’s probably because your brain is frozen solid. Please get in?”
I tap my toes and debate. Plus, the motion keeps my extremities from snapping off.
“Please?”
It’s the please that does me in and the gentle way in which he says it. I’ve never really been treated with much respect in my short life, especially by a handsome man. Lord, am I really dumb enough to fall in love with him? I want to kick myself, but I also want to enjoy the fall.
“All right,” I grouse, going around to the other side of the Rolls, “but if you kidnap me, I swear I’ll beat you to a bloody pulp. I have had self defense training because of the patients, you know.”
I didn’t actually think he could hear me, being inside the car and all, but I clearly see the corners of his mouth turn up. I get in grudgingly and slam the door a bit. Immediately, I feel sorry for abusing the car.
23
“I still think you’re being,” I pause, “forward.”
He looks shocked. “Forward? God, no. I’ve been called a lot of things, but you wound me, madam. I would never be forward. A sexy brute, a wayward man, a rake who has sold his soul to the devil for a meal, but never forward. Good Lord.”
I don’t do him the favor of laughing, though I’m sure Marianne would have giggled her head off. I’m still wondering what I’ve gotten myself into with this man/boy, and just how far over my head I am. The knowledge that he was lurking outside my flat doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it’s the over cautious orphan in me, or perhaps I’ve just never walked out with a boy before.
“Truce?” Sam offers me his hand. After a slight hesitation, I take it. It’s calloused but warm. It feels familiar even. Like we fit together. The thought, or his touch—I’m not sure which—sends chills up my arm.
“I promise not to hurt you, Lizzie. You can trust me.” His voice is low and disconcerting in its frankness, especially after his joking just seconds before. It seems impo
rtant that I believe him, like he will be disappointed and grieved if I don’t.
“Truce. Now what did you bring me?” Nothing like gifts to melt my stubborn resolve, evidently.
“Open it.” Sam had moved the package over off the passenger seat when I had slid in, and now he hands it to me. He waits with all the patience of a small child. “Go on! Open it! Here, there’s a seal here. No, like this. Turn it over. Here, let me.”
“Oh, for goodness sake. Would you like to do this for me?”
“You’re one of those girls who open their birthday presents at a snail’s pace, aren’t you? Just rip into it!”
“I’ve never gotten a birthday present actually.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I should have remembered that. That was terribly stupid of me.”
“Don’t be sorry; why would you have remembered something you didn’t know? It’s not a big deal.” The box is finally pried open of its tape and glue and whatever else had held it together. I move a layer of fine paper. I know what it is, even before I’ve finished pulling it out. A ball gown. A beautiful ball gown of black gossamer and tulle with gold trim. There’s also a mask, gold and black filigree. I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous, not even in Mina’s closet. I’m speechless. I simply sit and stare at my lap, the black and gold layers spreading over me and spilling over and in and through my fingers.
“Do you like it?” Sam sounds anxious. “We can get you something else if it’s not your style. I’m a man, after all, I don’t know dresses very well.”
“You do,” I cleared my throat. “You do know dresses very well, actually. It’s wonderful. I just don’t know what to say.”
Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 Page 18
