The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (3 page)

Rebecca sighed, easing into her chair as Frederic hopped onto her shoulder. She considered inviting Alexi to tea, then allowed he would be steeped as usual in solitude, frowning over texts of scholarship, his favourite companions. As predicted, their personalities and desires had not changed when the six great spirits entered them. Still, Rebecca and her friends’ lives revolved around duty, a reality that Rebecca resented more with each passing year. Privately she wished those spirits had taken her heart when they arrived, for it was a terribly lonely destiny, and even The Grand Work couldn’t change that.

Percy entered into Athens’s courtyard, a large rectangular space surrounded by archways. Covered corridors with sparkling, diamond-shaped panels of Bavarian glass joined each building, and every facade sported the same Romanesque features hewn from red sandstone. The dormitories rose at the narrow ends, while the academic halls constituted the clerestory length of the rectangle. Athens was sealed entirely by walls from the bustle of London beyond, a sanctuary
where only the ambient sound of a throbbing city washed over the stones like the lap of waves.

The centerpiece of the cobblestone courtyard immediately took Percy’s interest. An angel towered over a fountain of deep bronze, a book in her upraised hand. Lilies at her feet spewed water from their widening buds.

Next, the ladies’ student quarters caught her eye, and she saw they were smaller than those of the gentlemen. As she was surely to be an outnumbered female in her classes, Percy began to realize the differences of this world—a world that held infinite possibility. Percy had long dreamed of romance. Aided by dear Gregory, that genial middle-aged spirit, she’d played every Shakespearean heroine in the privacy of her convent room. However, interactions between Percy and living men, who of course didn’t speak in pentameter, were uncommon. Should occasion call for masculine contact, the abbey specimens were dour men of the cloth who barely acknowledged Percy as human let alone female. Recalling the well-assembled, handsome young men here who’d gaped rudely upon her arrival, Percy remembered Miss Thompson’s pointed remarks on her age and state…and resigned herself to scorning rather than soliciting romantic prospects.

Years ago she’d fallen in love with Mr. Darcy, as she supposed every young woman had done while reading Austen and first discovering her femininity. Romance and imagination were elemental to Percy’s heart. She’d never been in love with a real man, of course, for her skin and convent shelter kept her from ever being noticed or appreciated by any suitable candidates—and she supposed it was safer to relegate love to the realm of fantasy, anyway. But whether she ever might feel the reality of love, the ache of its absence she understood well.

Perhaps, she rallied, she might follow the headmistress’s independent example and someday run a school of her own, full of unfortunates like herself.

Gazing at her surroundings, she let out a spate of fateful
murmurs to stave off the aching prospect of life without love. She was here to learn, not frolic! Recalling the headmistress’s mention of possible employment, she reminded herself to be grateful: an unfortunate such as herself was lucky to get anything at all.

Strolling along the courtyard, Percy found she could easily keep her delicate skin safely beneath the shadows of an arched walkway; the sun would do her no damage here. And realizing that each hall branching off the yard had a variant name of a Greek god or goddess etched above its wooden entryway, Percy smiled.

Stepping onto the small landing of Athene Hall, she threw her slight weight against the thick door to open it and slid into a paneled foyer. Below narrow stairs beyond, a sourfaced woman sat surrounded by lists, notices and unopened post.

The woman started at the sight of Percy. “My, my. Good afternoon, miss, are you a student here?”

“Yes, madame, I only just arrived,” Percy replied. “My name is Percy Parker.” When the woman at the desk blinked dull eyes, Percy’s fingers nervously intertwined. “Room seven?” she added.

The matron broke their locked stares to skim a list of names. “Ah, yes. P. Parker. I’m Miss Jennings. You’ll find me here should you dream of slipping out after hours, no matter what your appearance. Your room is just upstairs,” Miss Jennings finished, and eagerly returned to her lists.

Room seven was marked with gold paint upon a dark door. The room was small but far airier than the brick of Percy’s former quarters at the abbey. A window inset with Tudor roses faced the door. A still life hung above the ironframed bed: wildflowers beside a pomegranate, the fruit’s reddish skin parted to reveal glistening ruby seeds so ripe they appeared bloody. This innocuous image made Percy shudder, and she turned to unpack her meager belongings.

Opening a velvet box, she took out a silver necklace. Near
the door was a long mirror, and Percy donned the necklace and stared: a silver bird with outstretched wings and a tail of flame now flew over the fabric around her neck. She unwound her layers of scarves and lace, freeing her length of pearlescent hair to tumble around her shoulders and down her sides. In the mirror, a barely corporeal reflection stared back.

She touched her face and sighed, confirming that she was indeed flesh and blood. Then she tucked the phoenix pendant below the folds of her dress, out of sight but close to her heart. An ancient and pagan symbol, she could never wear it on the outside of her clothing at the convent, but she had always kept it close, as it was the only thing her mother left her.

A movement near the window caught her eye, and a spirit in a mess of a Regency gown stuck her head through the panes. When Percy met the girl’s transparent eyes, the girl made a face and withdrew as quickly as she had appeared. Percy shook her head. London had an incredible number of ghosts, and she felt like she’d seen every single one on her journey from York.

She’d wished to take the train, but Father Harris had insisted upon a carriage. Percy knew he dared not be seen at the York station platform in the company of such an odd charge. The city had grown slowly before her eyes as they rode: an intricate, messy, living creature. Country pastures speckled with cottages had given way to stout brick houses that narrowed and nestled closer and closer together. Houses compressed into apartments, gardens were traded for window boxes; flower petals began to kiss from one wooden trough to the next before there ceased to be flowers at all, and living quarters were stacked haphazardly amid pubs, banks, shops and city halls. All surfaces had grown progressively darker, choked by the immense soot of the city that added a grim weight to the London fog.

In the heart of the city, stately facades were followed by
dark lanes increasingly peopled by spirits. Shadowed doorways containing desperate, shivering figures opened onto malls where hansom cabs trotted in conspicuous display, grit coupling with grandeur. Down every cluttered lane, wraiths of every station represented the vast spread of life that had built the city over the centuries. Percy’s sight was full of them walking next to unsuspecting humans, floating in and out of wooden pub walls and up from the sewers, turning eerie heads as she passed, acknowledging her.

One disheveled bricklayer floated near a window on Tottenham Court Road, his labouring spirit edging mortar that had long since hardened with a transparent trowel. A society lady in a grand gown passed down the same avenue, vanished, and repeated her journey, perhaps awaiting deferential hails or an escort that never came. Percy could never have imagined the veritable crowds of London spectres. Smiling, she entertained the thought that they welcomed her.

London was a tangled mess of streets rebuilt after the Great Fire and according to ancient maps. Roads twisted, took full-corner turns and vanished completely, began and changed names at strange places and disorienting angles, wound around masses of cramped architecture. From the Thames one gained one’s bearings, but a block up the bank there was no hope to see anything but the fresh, stately spires of Parliament. She noticed only one Catholic chapel, its gothic windows nestled between a cobbler and a butcher. Finally, a fortress the colour of a sooty autumn maple leaf hove into view, tucked within half a city block in the district of Bloomsbury on a road that remained nameless. It had seemed that her destination, Athens, a place the reverend mother had referred to as “London’s best-kept secret,” was perhaps a good place to keep one’s own secrets. Percy certainly hoped so.

Allowing a sudden exhaustion, she sank onto her new bed in her new room. Her eyes felt strange, as if a curtain were drawn across them, and a vision followed: Tendrils of mist
emanated from a dim opening, and a white glimmer appeared at the bottom of the widening black portal. A skeletal hand crept to the edge of the hole. Another hand appeared at the opposite corner. Another, and another…The bony host of hands clicked as they reached upon each other, and there came murmuring whispers of a thousand years. From the shadowy center of the door, something shifted into view—the huge head of a ghoulish dog. Wide canine eyes glistened and shone with an alien, crimson light. A dripping, gruesome snout sniffed as if the beast were on the hunt, preparing to race off and consume its prey…

Percy shrank back, the vision fading. She had no idea what the creature might have to do with her—and she didn’t want to know.

From the eternally dim shadows of the Whisper-world a voice resonated like a deep, angry bell tolling three o’clock: “Where. Is. She?”

“I’ve no idea, dear,” replied a softer, feminine voice. “Was I supposed to do something about her? I thought you’ve been looking all this time. While you’ve only just noticed, it’s been eighteen of their years. She could be anywhere. She’s not my responsibility, you know.”

The deep voice grunted. “Do. Something.”

The woman sighed, her fair skin glowing in the moonlight. Placing her hands to her coiled tresses atop her head, she found something sharp. With a hiss, she brought her thumbs back into view; their pricked pads sprouted thick, dark jewels, garnets that began to overflow and weep. Lifting up her hands, she watched in fascination as the crimson trail spread from her thumbs onto her palms. She turned her hands one direction, then the other.

“Hmm,” she said after a long moment.

“Well?” pressed the voice in the shadows.

“London,” she replied.

“Something wicked, then?” the voice gurgled.

The woman turned and smiled, nonchalant. “By all means, let the dog loose.”

There was a grinding of stone. A ferocious growl erupted from the deep, before a barking, snarling, ugly cloud leaped into the sky. It vanished into the shimmering portal opposite the shadows where the woman’s master stood brooding, a portal where now rose the Tower of London.

The voice tolled again from the shadows. “There will be hell to pay.”

London’s fashionable dead populated Highgate cemetery, near the suitably gothic moorland of Hampstead Heath. It was fitting that the estate of Professor Alexi Rychman was as striking, dark and brooding as its master had grown up to be, a building nestled at an equidistant point from those two eerily beautiful expanses of rugged flora and carved stone.

All in black, greatcoat billowing about him, a widebrimmed hat low over his noble brow, Alexi strode toward the wide carriage that had sped to a halt at the end of his drive.

“Evening, Professor,” called the driver from up top, bushy sideburns peppered with grey and a handlebar mustache framing a familiar jolly grin.

“Evening, Vicar Michael.”

“Evening, Alexi,” Rebecca Thompson echoed from within.

“Evening, Headmistress.” Alexi nodded as he climbed into the carriage, removing his hat, dark eyes flashing with banked fires. He loosened the signature red cravat about his throat as the moonlight fell through the carriage windows
onto those striking features his friends hardly ever saw fixed in anything but unbreakable concentration.

“Bon soir,”
said a soft French voice across the carriage.

“Evening, Josephine,” Alexi replied, nodding to her as well. “Do you have your piece?”

Josephine indicated she did, holding up a small canvas wrapped in paper.

Josephine Belledoux was an artist whose impressive credits included a painting in nearly every major English museum and countless private residences. However, no one seemed to remember her name. Her shimmering, calming pictures produced such a profound effect that they were immediately forgotten…and thus never removed. And there were other effects. The British Museum owned a few of her paintings, the work fulfilling vigilant duty to the Crown in keeping the treasure of the empire free from spectral disturbance.

Josephine had grown into the sort of beauty that could prompt a war. Tonight, her shocks of prematurely white hair were wound into the elaborate coiffure atop her head. Those bold streaks had been there as long as any could remember, since that very first day on the bridge. Out of respect, no one had ever asked why, and Josephine never told.

Alexi closed his eyes and felt within himself for the Pull. The Guard all knew that unmistakable alarm of spectral disturbance. His mind coursed the streets of London, as if tracing a specific drop of his own blood; the massive arteries of London were superimposed upon his own, and wherever there was a spasm, there was his destination.

Rebecca watched Alexi’s brow furrow in mild strain. Alexi’s inner cartography was keen, but her own was unmatched.

“South of Holborn…north of Embankment this evening. Am I right?” He eyed her.

She smirked. “Indeed you are. Impressive.” Each of the six tried to outdo the others on pinpointing their subjects, not only to an address but often giving a specific floor and room. Once, Rebecca had even identified the victim’s attire.

The carriage cleared the countryside and was soon rattling through the dark, bustling streets of London, in and out of gaslit avenues both wide and narrow before slowing on Fleet Street.

“Prepare ye!” Michael’s merry voice sounded from above.

Screams usually alerted The Guard that they had arrived. So it was this time: strangled cries and intermittent bestial growls came from a shattered window a few stories above. A crowd had gathered, murmuring low and excited. The Guard’s carriage stopped nearby, and Vicar Michael Carroll descended from the driver’s seat to help the ladies disembark. He took particular care with Rebecca, and made sure to linger on her arm for a bit longer than mere friendship would require, but Rebecca didn’t notice; her attention was on Alexi, as usual. A raven was hopping on the roof of the carriage and making noise.

Lord Elijah Withersby stood upon the dim, cobbled street pretending to be a bystander, but his fine, rich clothes screamed that he didn’t belong. At his side stood a hearty, dark blonde Irishwoman wearing a modest dress and a distant smile. She still had an incredibly long Catholic name that had been shortened to Jane.

Once assembled, The Guard formed a line and took hands, and Frederic the raven flew to the window. Something magical was undoubtedly present. A wary cry came from the window above.

Alexi’s commanding voice pierced the evening, a single word plucked on the lyre of an ancient language known only to The Guard. The foreign declaration reverberated down the street, and the eyes of the six gleamed too brightly as they turned to gaze upon the bystanders. One by one, as if tired or bored, the crowd wandered off, returning to their various points of origin. Wiped from their memories was the incident; it was as if nothing odd had occurred at all. England’s populace at large was not involved with The
Grand Work. Neither were the denizens of London to know about it.

The raven returned to Rebecca’s shoulder, biting her ear fondly. He pecked at her shoulder rhythmically, and she passed along his information:

“Frederic reports one priest, two parents and a little girl—inhabitant volatile.”

Alexi nodded. “‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more.’”

The company stepped to the landing. Alexi summoned Michael forward with a command: “Come, the gentle heart opens many doors.”

The vicar stepped ahead, placed bent fingers in front of his chest, and the locked front door swung open with a strange metallic sound. The Guard swept inward, and the six tore up the stairs to the flat on the second floor, where Michael’s fingers rose again and the flat’s door swung open with the same odd noise. Passing through the parlor and dining room toward an unnatural light spilling from the bedroom, Alexi flung the unlocked door wide.

Inside was an eight-year-old girl who lay rigid upon her bed, her skin glowing.

“Luminous!” Alexi declared her state as a matter of protocol—of course all could see that the girl was possessed. Planting his imposing presence at the foot of her bed, he looked at the parents, then at the priest, and smiled broadly. “Good evening! It would appear you have an intruder!”

Before the horrified parents or the priest, midscripture, could react to this additional invasion, Elijah fixed them each with an intent stare. The three relaxed at once, and their gazes misted contentedly over. Elijah patted each on the head, satisfied with their submission.

Michael placed a hand on the priest’s shoulder and indicated his own Anglican vestments. “Bless you, Father—and not to worry,” he added to the fellow clergyman who would
remember nothing. “You’re doing a lovely job. We’re just helping.” He always felt the need to explain himself.

Alexi, his expression fierce, tossed off his black greatcoat and suit jacket and began rolling up his charcoal-coloured shirtsleeves. He lifted his hands, conjuring the usual inexplicable blue flame before him. As he turned his palms outward, more fire issued forth, and he began to weave the hovering wisps into a graceful dance. A circle of flickering blue now framed the little girl’s body, but a sick grey light pulsed like a heartbeat within, illuminating her skeleton and shuddering organs.

Rebecca and Michael took positions across the room, while the other three continued various stages of their chores. Josephine ripped paper away from a shimmering painting, and she hung the dynamic portrait of a winged, airborne angel in the center of the wall.

“Name of victim?” Rebecca asked with crisp efficiency, taking notes on a small pad.

Elijah bent over the girl and pressed his hand to hers. He gasped, pictures searing his mind with their psychometric power. “Emily. A quiet child. Inhabitant came upon her during evening prayers. Inhabitant is angry and dangerous—responsible for a death half a century ago. It won’t show me how.”

Rebecca nodded. “That shall suffice, Elijah. Thank you for your talents.”

“It’s cruel. But it isn’t that Ripper,” Elijah went on, shuddering, wiping away the sweat that had burst forth upon his brow.

“Damn,” Alexi muttered.

Remaining unobtrusive, Michael moved to Elijah’s side and gave his friend a serene smile. He gently pressed Elijah’s hands in his, calming him with the effects of his enormous heart. Indeed, an endlessly kind soul could achieve almost anything.

“Thank you, Vicar,” Elijah breathed, and returned to maintain control over the girl’s family and priest.

“Emily,” whispered Josephine, standing at the foot of the girl’s bed. The child’s eyes, squeezed shut in great pain, now opened to stare at her and plead for help. Josephine directed the child’s gaze to the painting of the angel. “Stare long and hard, Mademoiselle Emily.” She herself fixed her eyes on the shimmering seraphim. “This is your guardian, Emily. Look here, he will ease your pain.”

Moving to the parents, who were staring dreamily at the ceiling while Elijah so bade it, Josephine placed a hand above them and turned her palms. Like marionettes, their heads followed her movements toward the picture on the wall. “That is never to be removed,” she commanded.

The little girl began to choke. Michael breathed in a steady rhythm, guiding everyone’s breath by example, and Jane moved opposite Alexi, standing on the other side of the bed. The Irishwoman placed two suddenly glowing hands upon the circle of azure flame that Alexi had summoned to contain the inhabitant, and the rigidity of Emily’s limbs eased.

There came an indignant rumble. Emily’s back arched unnaturally. Blood dribbled from her chapped lips. Jane’s fingers bent as if playing the keys of a piano, and the blood vanished.

“Name of inhabitant?” Rebecca asked, and turned another page of notes on the conditions of the evening: weather, locale, persons present, services rendered, etc.

Elijah bent again, this time touching Emily’s shoulder, where the spirit inside strained against her little limbs. “Muezzin,” he gasped in pain. Michael moved to place a hand upon Elijah’s collar, and began to laugh quietly. Elijah’s face twisted but, after a moment, a sigh escaped and he was able to nod and smile.

“Muezzin is a title not a name, but I suppose it will do,” Rebecca replied, and she began to recite a text that the spirit would recognize and heed. Such literary knowledge was particular to Rebecca, and not strictly a required part of the ritual, but she had found it useful in commanding spirits’ at
tention and respect. “‘Alike for those who for Today prepare, and those that after some Tomorrow stare, A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries,
Fools! Your Reward is neither Here nor There.
’”

The transparent, skeletal form gave a jolting movement in response.

“Nicely done, Rebecca, what was that? And what did you mean, a title not a name?” Elijah was flipping through the Bible in the priest’s hands.

“In life, this spirit was a muezzin, calling all men of Muslim faith to prayer,” Rebecca clarified. “But I sense it began to denounce Allah for his mercy and peace, turning away from faith and from him. No, it will
not
disperse quietly. I don’t know that anything will—” Rebecca suddenly whimpered, overwhelmed by the helplessness the spirit hoped to foist upon them.

Michael stepped forward to dispel the dread, kissing her gently upon the forehead. Her face relaxing, she gave him thanks.

Rebecca then repeated the verse pulled from
The Rubaiyat,
recently translated by an Englishman and indeed perfect for the occasion. The muezzin’s spirit moved in Emily, as if trying to respond: a few gurgling sounds were transferred from the passion of the spirit to the numb lips of the child. The sounds resembled actual words, a distant tongue. Then, sensing it could not use the child’s mouth as it wished, the spectre shifted out of her face and strained a ghastly head away from Emily’s body. Its unnatural mouth contorted in spasms.

“It speaks,” Jane noted ruefully.

It was a particular nuisance of The Grand Work that The Guard was granted a modicum of control over troubled spirits, but no direct communication. They could hear the occasional murmur, but could not always understand.

“Regardless of it knowing my translation of
The Rubaiyat,
I cannot speak its language,” Rebecca spat. “Why is one of
us not a translator, Alexi, for the tiny bits we can hear? Though for that matter, why should we need one? Alexi, why are we mediating spirits from the East? Since when do we traffic in international trade?”

“Yes, Alexi,” Jane piped up. “Nonnative spirits have increased dramatically. Eight within recent months have traversed the whole of the Atlantic and more to rattle our isle. That damned American war alone will have us reeling until we die. And every year it grows worse.”

“I suppose it could be a sign,” Alexi replied. His voice was quiet.

Rebecca stopped and stared. “You mean, a
sign?
”

Emily began mumbling. The spirit was contracting and wrestling more fiercely against her face, desperate to win the child’s mouth.

“Sh…she…she’s coming,” Emily murmured. “She’s coming!” Then suddenly: “SHE IS COMING!”

Everyone gasped. Jane held Emily down as the child shook, and Alexi bound the spirit tighter with violent swipes of his hand and flame.

“You don’t suppose Emily means Prophecy is coming…does she?” Michael asked, surprised.

The group stared, apprehensive. They’d begun to think it just a dream, a hallucination they’d all shared, regardless of any other proof they had of the night. It had been so many years since that incredible woman told them such improbable tales in their chapel, and they weren’t quite sure what to believe anymore. Though, they could not doubt The Grand Work which they now performed.

Alexi set his jaw. “I will believe nothing until I see the foretold signs, and I urge you to do the same. Until then, words are just words. Remember to beware of false prophets.” From his tone, the matter was clearly closed to further discussion.

“Bind with us, Alexi. It gathers vehemence,” Michael warned, reaching out his hand.

Elijah whispered to the parents and priest, and those three continued to stare blankly at Josephine’s painting. The Guard joined hands in a circle around the bed.

Emily’s arms flew out, rigid again at her side. There came a horrible crunching noise from her hands—bones break-ing—and the child screamed. Jane set her jaw and disengaged from the circle, taking the child’s damaged flesh in hers, bestowing a misty sphere of glowing light upon each fingertip; then she again joined the circle.