Shadows Gray (30 page)

“1887 London.” Israel shakes his head. “There has to be something special about the here and now.”

“Besides the corsets?” I mutter, sitting up straighter as a whale bone is sticking into my rib. “Because that seems like revenge enough to me.”

“Wait,” Dad’s fingers freeze to his mustache and his eyes widen. “1887? Is that the year now? I didn’t think to ask. I knew the basic era of course, but 1887? December.  Boxing Day?”

“Yes.”

“Then this is a pivotal night in history.”

“Is it?” I reply slowly, wondering what he’s getting at. “What of it? I’m racking my brain and nothing from history is standing out.”

Dad unfolds himself from the chair and it’s as though his puppet limbs come to life. “She’s out to hurt everyone who she thinks deserted her.  She’s had opportunity to hurt you, but hasn’t taken it. What if she wants to hurt us by hurting the ones we love?”

“Dad, I still don’t know what you’re getting at.  What about the date has you so upset?”

“It’s Emme,” he says, grimly. “This is the night that some legends say Jack the Ripper murdered his first girl. I think it could be Emme.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

If my hands were cold before, they are frozen solid now.  Although my first instinct somehow was to pull away from Israel and run out in the night, he has held me fast.  Now I’ve begun to shake as the weight of my dad’s words sink into my flesh, through my skin and soft tissue, right through the marrow and bones of my very self.  My heart feels as though it is in a vise.

“Just hold on,” Israel whispers into my hair as he holds me tight.  Maybe it’s his rock hard arms that make me feel as though I’m in a vise, albeit a welcome one. “We’ll figure this out.”

“It’s quite possibly his first victim and most authorities believe she never existed because the body – if there was one – disappeared.  She was never truly identified the way the other victims were.  The press called her Fairy Fay.” Dad’s history lesson sounds like a professor, but his voice is shaky and full of sadness. “What a time to remember my trivia…” he trails off.

You look like a fairy princess. In a corset.

That’s what the boys call me.

“Emme Fay,” I whisper. This time I do pull myself out of Israel’s grasp, but he reaches for me again and holds me still a moment longer.

“Coats,” he says. “It’s snowing. We can’t help her if we freeze to death on the streets looking for her.”

I know he’s right, but I hate the precious wasted seconds, the miniscule time it takes to find and then button my long coat.  The costly moments it takes to wind a scarf around my hair and ears.  I hate the cold, hard fact that there is no telephone, no way of communication, no instantaneous way of locating Emme, no warning for Bea.  I hate what I already know we will find.  Because the name is right. The timing is right. The story is right. Who else but one of the Lost would be hard to identify? Would only have a nickname? What kind of body just disappears besides the Lost? She doesn’t belong here. It would be as if she never was. As if she never existed. She would be a legend.

The door slams behind us as we run.

********************

I am beginning to hate winter.  I don’t want to be cold any longer.  I want to wake up tomorrow in a tropical paradise, with Emme by my side.  We can swim in the ocean and wear grass skirts.  Grass skirts; inwardly I laugh at what Emme would say to that.  They would go the way of my poor Garfield T-shirt. 

My mind can’t settle down.  We run through the night, my long dress a bother that whips around my legs as I force them to move faster.  Dad is leading because he has checked in with Bea only yesterday and knows the way.  I have been too nervous to venture near this part of town since the first time and now the guilt I feel for it eats away at me and invades my every thought.

“What other details do you know, Dad?” I shout to him, as we run. The three of us and our six long legs eat up the ground beneath us.

“I can’t think of anything else.  No one even knows if Fairy Fay ever really existed, much less was murdered.  The real Jack the Ripper murders begin in earnest soon.”  His voice is muffled by the time it floats back to me on the air. “I can’t believe I didn’t connect the time period earlier.”

You’re better at history than I.

Emme’s words come back to haunt me.  Why didn’t I see this before?  One of the most famous stories in history is going to begin with the death of Emme.

When we reach the door to Bea’s home, our breath comes in ragged, gasping puffs.  My lungs ache.  Israel bangs on the locked door with excessive force and shouts Bea’s name.  It seems an eternity before Joe swings open that door and when he does, Is shoves me inside and slams it shut behind me without a word.  He and Dad leave me there with a confused Bea, and I know the reason. 

They do not want me with them because they do not want me to find Emme’s body.

I don’t know what to say to Bea and for once I am incapable of lying.  I sit a sleepy Joe up at the table with a pile of cookies in the hopes that the sugar will keep him occupied and awake (we cannot very well allow him to be the only one to sleep tonight) and go back to Bea.  She knows something is wrong and her eyes are frightened and her hands shake.  I place my hands on her face at first as I speak the words I don’t want to say, and then I have to move them to her shoulders because her legs give out.  We both sink down to the couch and I hold Bea, the closest thing to a mother I have ever had besides Prue, and we await the inevitable. 

Unbidden, more words, choppy and incomplete, enter my mind.

Cheer up, ducky! The possibilities are endless!

You’re so naïve, pet.  What kind of boy wants a whore for a mum?

I always thought it’d be you and Israel, actually.  I’m never wrong.

You’re always wrong, smarty.  You said you were going to marry Johnny Depp.

Yeah, well, I ran out of time is all.

It’s not a palace but it’ll do for now.  I’ll move up, Sonnet.  You’ll see.

I remember another conversation too.  One that makes me tremble with anger.

There are bad people here.  I met a bad man yesterday.  He won’t hurt me though, he told me so. He said I was a good girl.  He might hurt you though.”

“Why would he hurt me?”

“Because you are a bad girl! He wants to hurt the bad girls.

And:

I took care of the girl, Luke. All by myself.

Rose knew about Jack.  Rose even met Jack.  And if Israel was right about her need for revenge and wanting to hurt the ones I love, Rose sent Jack straight to Emme.

********************

I’ve heard people say that the waiting is the worst part.  Worse than the news that your loved one is dead, worse than the news that the cancer has spread, or that someone didn’t make it through the surgery.  And it’s true, I discover; the waiting on that couch with Bea was worse even than when Israel and Dad come back with Emme’s body.  She is wrapped in Israel’s long coat and the bundle is small in Israel’s arms, almost like he carries a child.  He lays Emme down on the floor by the fire as Bea covers her eyes and moans, retreating further into the couch as if it could consume her wholly.

“Where’s Joe?” Dad’s voice sounds thick with emotion.

“Asleep at the table,” I reply hollowly.  He had fallen asleep only minutes before and I didn’t have the heart to wake him, danger of traveling or not.

“We couldn’t just leave her body there.  We’ll have to find a place to bury her tomorrow.  We’ll let Bea decide,” Israel opens his arms and I move into them.  I inhale his familiar scent and want to disappear inside of him.  He can’t hold me tight enough right now.

“How bad is it?” I whisper.  I swallow hard as I look at the wrapped body.

“Not that bad,” he answers, gently. “She’s been stabbed through the stomach, but nothing else. Not like the other girls will be.”

“You’re a doctor,” I trip over my words. “Was it quick, Is?”

“Yes, it was quick.”

The words are like balm to my heart even though I know he would lie to protect me.  I will still take comfort in spite of that knowledge, as I pull back the coat from Emme’s face.

She looks like she is sleeping, angelic as always.  I smooth her strawberry colored hair away from her face and kiss her softly.  The tears that fall from my eyes land on her cheek and they glisten there, like diamonds in the firelight, like dew, almost like her very own tears if the dead could cry.

There is nothing to say, nothing to do until morning.  Words are inadequate when grief is so deep and for a long time the only sound is that of Bea’s keening.  After a while, even that stops and we all sleep.

********************

It is late, late morning before any of us awake.  Though my shoulders ache from my strange position, curled up on Israel’s lap all night, I stay where I am, in the warmth of those arms I love so much. 

When Joe wakes up and stumbles, bleary eyed and yawning into the room, Dad springs into action and is immediately by his side.  Explaining something about a walk, he bundles Joe up and they leave through the front door.  I know it is to explain to the little boy what has happened. I stay where I am for a moment longer, but I know what I must do.  There are three people I need to find:  Inspector Walter Andrews, Luke Dawes, and my sister.  I don’t expect Inspector Andrews to believe anything I have to say but I will have to try to make him understand that Emme’s killing was a foreshadowing of more terrible things to come.  As for Luke and Rose…I only know that I am angry, angry enough to force a confrontation. I will grieve later.

“I’m coming with you,” Israel murmurs when I unwrap myself from his arms.  His eyes are still closed but he is fully awake.  Energy courses through his body and nearly gives off sparks whenever I touch him.

“You won’t like where I’m going,” I answer.

“I never do, but I’m coming anyway.”

“Get your coat then.”  I soon as I say it I realize just what I’ve said and an almost hysterical laugh nearly bursts out of me.  He can’t take his coat, as Emme’s body is still wrapped inside it. 

“Bea,” Israel goes over to the couch. “Bea, I know you’ll want some time alone with your daughter.  I’m going to send a cab for Prue and she can help you with dressing Emme.  She’ll know what to do. Wait for her, alright?”

Bea nods and though I am reluctant to do so, we leave her.  It is a sleeting, chilly morning, a bad time to be without a coat, but it only motivates us to move faster.  Israel gives everything in his pocket to a driver and sends him to collect Prue.

“I wouldn’t want Bea to see all that blood on her dress,” he explains softly. “Prue is better suited to take care of everything.”

I nod wordlessly and swallowing back the tears my body wants to spill, I tell him of my first meeting with Inspector Andrews.

“Do you think he’ll listen?  There’s no way to explain how we know anything that makes any sense.”

“I know,” I agree. “But we have to try.”

“Maybe a letter then.  I don’t want him locking you up in a loony bin.”

“Ha ha.  Alright, a letter.  Dad can write one; he’s the historian.  Maybe he can remember another victim’s name or something more helpful.”

“There are thousands of prostitutes in London, especially the Whitechapel district.  I don’t think we’re going to change history, Sonnet.  I don’t think we can, as much as you want to.”

“Speaking of being crazy, what do you know about Bedlam?” I change the subject. “You’re a doctor, have you studied the history of one of the oldest hospitals in the world?”

“I know that the inmates don’t like to be called crazy and the proper name is Bethlem Royal Hospital,” he deadpans.

“Sorry.  How bad do you think Rose had it there?”

“Depends on the time period she was there, I guess.  It’s been around for a long, long time.  If she was there during the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth centuries, it would have been horrendous.  Not much better after, although at least they stopped manacling them to the walls or floors.  In the early eighteen hundreds, just a few decades ago, they would let the patients out at night for dancing in the ballroom.”

“That sounds bizarre and maybe a little scary.  All those poor people dancing their cares away all night?”  I think of Rose sipping her imaginary tea and suddenly I can picture her dancing in her red dress and bare feet in a dusty, old ballroom with the other mad patients; twirling and spinning.  A crazy snapshot.  Somehow the picture fits very well with what I know of my sister. “She said she danced there.”

“Is that where we’re going?” Israel asks.

“Bedlam? No.  No, I want to talk to Rose.  I want to know,” I falter. “I want to know why.  Why she hates me so.  And I also want to know how she does it.  Manipulates time, I mean.  I want out of here,” my last words are spoken viciously and I realize suddenly how true it is.  How bad I do want out of London, this place of cold and death. 

“I doubt she knows herself,” he replies. “She must be capable of some kind of power, but I wonder if she knows how to harness it.”