Authors: Adam McOmber
The White Forest
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CHAPTER 1
Hampstead Heath, 18—
W
hen Nathan Ashe disappeared from the ruined streets of Southwark, I couldn’t help but think the horror was, at least in part, my own design. I’d infected him, after all, filled him up with my so-called disease. The rank shadows and gaslight in the human warrens beyond Blackfriars Bridge did the rest. Madeline Lee, my dearest friend, would come to hate me for what I’d done. She said I ruined Nathan because of love, and that infecting him was my way of laying claim to his attentions. I couldn’t make her understand how he begged for it, begged me to touch him until he was changed. It wasn’t me—Jane Silverlake—he desired. He wanted the Empyrean, that improbable paradise, and I was its doorway. By the end, Nathan was no longer the boy we had adventures with on the Heath nor the young man who went to war in the Crimea. He grew to be half a human being and half some ancient and unnamed thing, and despite my warnings, we were all pulled into his hell, as if by the swift currents of an unseen river.
I can see the three of us there in the Roman ruin of my father’s garden. It was a warm day in spring, two months before Nathan’s disappearance, and looking back, I realize he was already beginning
to lose himself. The ruin was a folly, meant to resemble the baths of Emperor Diocletian, and the broken gods of Rome stared down at us from their high pedestals—regal Apollo with hands and forearms missing and Venus with her face nearly worn away. Maddy and I sat together on the cool terrazzo near the sunken bath, our skirts pooled around us. We were the same age, not yet two and twenty. Maddy tended to be bold where I was circumspect, yet we shared a common affection for Nathan Ashe. He was a year older—aristocratic and lissome—and most importantly, he treated us as something more than girls. The three of us had been friends for years—taking restorative walks on the Heath and making our discussions in the garden. When Nathan began to change, everything was thrown off balance. We lost our careful orbits and began to fall.
In her lap, Maddy held a bouquet of purple comfrey she’d gathered from the outlying wilds. Her dress was a pale yellow with lovely white fox fur trim at the collar. Even her buttons were elegant—carved from ivory. I felt insubstantial beside her, wearing my fawn-colored linen gown and dark sash. A passing stranger might have mistaken me for Maddy’s servant or perhaps even a chaperone, present only to ensure nothing untoward happened between the lady and the young man. It’s difficult to even picture myself in those days—a mere girl in a plain dress, filled up with longings for things I could never have.
Nathan stood near the cracked bathing pool, which was littered with the remains of winter. Piles of decaying leaves and odd bits of bramble obscured the painted tiles. A lantern casing had fallen into the pool, and Nathan attempted to fish it out, using the tip of his cane. He’d only recently returned to us from the war in Crimea and still sported the red uniform and high jackboots of the Queen’s Guard. I could not help but admire his lithe figure as he strained to reach the lantern. He looked every bit the noble son of Lord William Ashe, famed arbiter in parliament, though Nathan was set to prove he did not share his father’s appreciation for power—at least not the traditional variety.
Crimea had clearly changed him, fraying some indispensable
part of his consciousness. Since his discharge, Nathan had become involved with what amounted to a cult in Southwark, a gathering of the wealthy sons of London’s elite. These lost boys met in the chambers beneath a broken pleasure dome called the Temple of the Lamb, where they were instructed by their spiritual leader, Ariston Day. Day was a foreigner who’d recently appeared on the London scene with all manner of arcane philosophies in tow, and his Temple was our topic that afternoon in the garden.
Miss Anne, Father’s servant, brought a steaming pot of Indian tea from the house, but none of us touched it. Maddy and I were too caught up in our concern, and Nathan was oblivious to simple refreshments. As he worked to rescue the stray lantern, he described to us, for the first time, how he wanted to live upon the
bedrock
of the earth—this being Ariston Day’s own mantra. “Reaching a spiritual bedrock is the hidden enterprise,” Nathan said, a faint breeze playing at his auburn hair. “It’s the secret tract to all the world’s religions.”
Maddy lowered her head, running her fingers over her fox fur collar. Her rosy lips and large expressive eyes appeared less vibrant than usual. “I’m not sure I understand your sudden interest in these foolish ideas,” she said.
“It’s not meant for you to understand—not yet, at least,” he replied. “And the ideas aren’t foolish, Maddy. Living on the bedrock elicits a state like death—a perfect state, which is, in fact, eternal life. We can all attain such an existence if we find the right path.”
“So you’re looking for death?” Maddy asked. “Your adventures in Southwark have turned you morbid, Mr. Ashe.”
“Not actual death,” he said. “A state
like
death.”
“Those are Ariston Day’s words, not your own,” she replied. “It’s not a Temple he’s created down there. It’s—I don’t even know what to call it—a pit where good people get lost.”
Nathan finally succeeded in hooking the tip of his cane through the loop atop the brass casing of the lantern. He slowly pulled the rusted thing free from the bramble and deposited it neatly at his feet, looking proud, as though he’d accomplished something of merit. “Your father really should have this place cleaned up, Jane,” he said.
“It’s one thing to have a folly and quite another to make your guests feel as though all of Rome is going to come toppling down on their heads.”
“Father is—distracted,” I said. This was of course an understatement, as both Nathan and Maddy were well aware. My father had cut our family off from London’s social line after the death of my mother, years before, and I’d been largely a recluse in our decaying house until my friends came into my life.
Forked shadows of oak branches creased the brows of the stone gods that surrounded us, mirroring the troubled look on Maddy’s face. She said, “Why don’t you return to telling us how you’re going to avoid getting yourself murdered down there in wretched Southwark, Nathan?” I could see she wasn’t going to give up on her inquisition of him, and though I took exception to her willful approach, I agreed with her intent. I wanted to know more about Nathan’s experiences at the Temple as well. He’d always had an interest in spiritism, ethereal planes, and the like—such curiosity being provoked by his mother’s frequent séances and my own unnatural abilities, which I’d shared with him. But joining Ariston Day and the other young men at the Temple of the Lamb revealed a far more serious commitment. I couldn’t comprehend Nathan’s talk about the spiritual bedrock any more than Maddy, but I knew from firsthand experience how easily our Nathan could be affected by the promise of transcendence.
“I wouldn’t expect any response from you other than dismay, Maddy,” Nathan said. “You’re afraid of every little thing. If we’re being honest, you’re even afraid of Jane.”
“I am
not
,” she said. “Jane, you don’t think I’m afraid of you, do you?”
I smiled at her, letting her know things were fine between us. “You have your moments, dear.”
She laid the bouquet of wildflowers on the stone floor of the ruin and looked sternly at Nathan. “I think fear is an absolutely appropriate response to Ariston Day. Since you’ve been crossing Blackfriars Bridge you’ve changed, Nathan. And not for the better. Now comes all this talk of death.”
“I merely know my purpose,” Nathan said.
“What
is
your purpose?” Maddy asked. “Define it. Stop being so cryptic.”