“Don’t die,” someone said.
And so she didn’t die.
Instead, she slept.
Liza woke again for the third time in a night and gasped at her false memory of Esme’s ordeal. She watched the ceiling of the tiny rented room they shared, and when that proved unsatisfying, she rolled onto her elbow and went back to watching Esme.
And Esme whimpered in her sleep.
18
The bald man woke with a start. He lay listening to the dark house and the rain beating against the roof above, unable to pinpoint what had awakened him. He fumbled along the bedside table for his spectacles and put them on, then went searching for the box of matches he kept next to the candlestick. He was a firm believer in the old ways of doing things, and a candle would do just fine. There was no electricity in his house. He felt strongly that mankind had grown too arrogant and had harnessed an elemental force that would eventually turn on its master. He waited nervously for all of London to burn to the ground, done in by the fiery electrical wires strung here and there over the city.
He struck a match and contemplated the sudden blue flame for a moment before lighting the tallow candle and snuffing the match between his fingers. He felt a sudden cramping in his bowels and, jamming his feet into the slippers on the floor beside his bed, he hurried out of the room and down the hall to the water closet. Not all of the new ways of doing things were bad. Indoor plumbing, for instance, was marvelous.
When he had finished, he pulled the chain to flush and took his candle back out to the hall. The house was old, and the floor creaked under his weight. He walked against the wall where it was quieter and eased open the boy’s door.
At first he didn’t see anything amiss. The candle’s glow didn’t penetrate far into the room. He crept closer, just wanting a look at the boy before heading back to his own bedroom. He had given Fenn a room of his own after they’d returned from the park. The bald man had been proud of the boy for obeying him in public. There had been no shouts for help or attempts to run away. The bald man was sure that Fenn was beginning to think of him as his natural father and to think of this house as his own. Of course, the bald man wasn’t stupid. He had still tied the boy to his bed.
The flickering candlelight played over the boy’s bed, chasing shadows into the folds and curves of the blankets. Too many folds and curves. The bald man approached the bed. He swallowed hard and reached out, grabbed a corner of the topmost blanket and yanked too hard. The blanket flew at his face and he almost dropped the candlestick. He let the blanket fall to the floor and pulled at the other blankets. The ropes he had used to tie the boy were tangled at the foot of the bed.
Fenn was gone.
Panicked, the bald man rushed to his own room and pulled a pair of trousers on under his nightshirt. He used a snuffer to put out the candle and hurried into the hall and down the creaking stairs to the front door.
How had the boy made it down the stairs without the sound of those dry old boards awakening the bald man?
He cursed himself for a trusting fool. He hadn’t double-checked the ropes before going to bed, hadn’t taken out the slack. He had been too kind. Of course the boy wasn’t ready yet to accept his new family situation. It would take more time. The bald man had rushed things, trying to recapture his past. He hesitated, trying to remember his first son’s name, but it wouldn’t come to him. He shook off the sudden twinge of sadness and regret. It hardly mattered now.
Outside, the rain fell steady, but not hard. The bald man left the front door open and went to the middle of the street. He looked both ways, trying to decide where the boy might have gone. The rain beaded on his head and ran in rivulets down the back of his neck. Within minutes, the thin fabric of his nightshirt clung to his skin and his slippers had absorbed enough water to triple their weight.
He hunched his shoulders and shut his eyes, trying to imagine himself as a young boy in a strange neighborhood. He opened his eyes again and looked around. Rain clouds blotted out the moon. A carriage swept by, a gas lamp swinging back and forth from the pole next to the driver. The bald man’s gaze followed the carriage down the street and watched as it turned onto a broader lane where firefly clusters of streetlamps struggled to penetrate the gloom. The bald man’s street was completely dark, no lamps here, and the streets to the east were also residential, but to the west were more thoroughly traveled streets, and those were lit up with gas. He felt sure the boy would have been drawn to the light, dim as it was.
The bald man set himself on a westerly course and followed in the wake of the carriage.
19
Kingsley stared into the dying embers of the night’s fire, not focused on the coals or his surroundings. Outside, rain pattered against the roof. A small noise in the room woke him from his daze, and he slowly shook off his malaise and turned his head. Fiona was standing in the doorway watching him.
“How long have you been there?” he said.
“Not long. Do you feel all right, Father?”
He smiled and nodded. “Of course I do. Why aren’t you asleep, Plum?”
“I heard a noise. A carriage going by outside.”
Kingsley sniffed and glanced up at the clock on the mantel above the dead fire.
“It’s early yet. Or late. You should try to sleep a bit more.”
“I’m awake. Should I get you something? Tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“Have you slept yet?”
“You know, I don’t think I have,” Kingsley said.
Fiona padded across the room and sat on the arm of the chair. Kingsley put his hand on her back. He wiped his other hand across his face and tried to remember what he’d been thinking of. Fiona spoke as if she could read his thoughts.
“Were you thinking of Mother?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was.”
“I was thinking of her even before the carriage woke me.”
“You were dreaming, you mean.”
“Yes. We were all together at Hyde Park, gathered around the fountain. You know the one I mean, with the statue of the angel in it.”
“I think I know the one, but I’m not sure that statue’s meant to be an angel.”
“I think it is.”
“Fair enough.”
“You and Mother were holding hands, and Beatrice was there, too, home from school, I think.”
“We should visit her soon.”
“I’d like that.”
“Then we’ll do it.”
“Do you still dream about her?”
“Beatrice?”
He knew what she meant. She wasn’t talking about her sister.
“Mother.”
“Yes, Plum, I still dream about her. I suppose we always will.”
“Do you think she dreams of us?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“She doesn’t dream anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I have seen countless dead people, I have cut into them and removed their organs and weighed their brains, and not one of the dead has ever told me anything that wasn’t concrete and physical. When people die, their minds no longer work. They can’t dream.”
“What about their souls?”
“I have never seen a soul nor found a repository for such a thing in any body I’ve examined. There is no soul.”
Fiona was quiet, and Kingsley realized he’d upset his daughter. He was too tired to be of any use to his still-grieving daughter. He rubbed his hand clumsily up and down her back. He wished he could offer her some comfort, some assurance that her mother lived on, but since he didn’t believe it himself, he had no way of convincing her. She wiped her eyes, but her hair had fallen over her face and Kingsley couldn’t see her.