The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart (29 page)

It seemed as though the beast could have snapped me in half if it wished, but something held it back. Something of my struggle, my fight, my resistance was keeping it from breaking me…

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. Jonathon 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.