The Strangely Beautiful Tale Of Miss Percy Parker (5 page)

Blood was everywhere, drenching the dirty stones of Hanbury Street, flooding the gutter below a wooden gate. A bleary-eyed crowd, growing despite the ungodly hour of the morning, gazed down in horror at the mangled corpse. Constables and a haggard investigator crawled the scene like insects; real flies buzzed alongside. Rumours and shrieks filled the air, and the word “Ripper” was on everyone’s lips.

A lean, severe woman stood just beyond the horrified East End crowd. Her brown hair was pinned tightly beneath a simple touring hat, save for one renegade lock, and Rebecca Thompson folded her arms and gazed down at the scene from the steps of an adjacent tenement. At her elbow was the usual tall, formidable man in a long black greatcoat, and he tipped his top hat and squinted upward, his mop of dark hair rustling in the breeze.

“My God, Alexi,” Rebecca murmured, brushing her gloved hand across his forearm before resting it again upon the buttons of her sleeve. “Darkly Luminous work this must have been, to have produced such an effect.” She shuddered. “Is this a sign of something new?”

A distracted hum was his only reply.

“Alexi, are you listening?”

“There are gargoyles atop this shabby roof. How odd,” Alexi mused. “Yet they neglected their sole duty—to deter whatever demon struck here. Poor girl. Poor dead girl.”

“You’re
not
listening to me.”

“I always listen, Rebecca.” He turned dark eyes to hers, and his sculpted lips softened into a slight smile; a rare occurrence. “It indeed may be a sign. But we cannot know for sure until this”—he gestured grimly toward the body—“is added to something more substantial. Until we see all that was foretold.”

“I confess, I’m shocked we’ve had so long to wait for Prophecy.”

Alexi’s jaw hardened. “As am I.”

“May she actually help us,” Rebecca muttered, squinting at a flock of ravens sweeping around a nearby spire. As Frederic, that unique bird with a patch on his breast, hopped down from a rafter to squawk at them, she waved a mollifying finger. “Forgive me for asking, Alexi, but could you…could you have neglected her along the way? Could we have missed her? We’re not growing any younger. If…”

His stern gaze halted her speech. “‘Placed in my path,’ it was said. No one has been placed in my path that we have not considered and discounted. Please don’t distrust my sensibilities, Rebecca.”

She hurried to say, “Of course, I was never suggesting—”

“Please trust that I’m well aware of my age, and that I will remain all the more alert for it!”

Rebecca sighed. “Why do you dislike talking about Prophecy so?”

“Why? Because it’s private.”

“Private? What’s private about a public prophecy?” Rebecca scoffed. “There’s nothing private about the fact that our number of six will become seven.”

“The…fate of the seventh and myself is private.”

Rebecca groaned and clenched her fists. “You’re still go
ing on about that? About the two of you? Alexi, in what part of her speech did your goddess say you were supposed to love the seventh? Those words were never spoken; love has nothing to do with it!”

He turned and pinned her with his eyes. “I’ve always believed it, Rebecca. You alone know this. Unless…”

Rebecca held up a hand. “I’ve never said a word.”

“And you must not until the time is right. I can only imagine the dreadful gossip.” He grimaced, pained. “Elijah wagering on my intimate thoughts…The years have proven that my fellow foes of Darkness are drawn to melodrama and rumour.” He ground his teeth. “A bond of love
is
implicit in Prophecy, Rebecca, though you claim otherwise. I’ve made my life choices accordingly, difficult as that has been.”

“No, no.
Convenient
as that has been,” Rebecca muttered.

Alexi folded his arms and eyed her. “Pardon?”

“It’s very convenient for a man as stoic as yourself to decide you’ll simply wait for Prophecy like some arranged marriage. None of that dreary mortal pining; none of that average human mess of emotions for you. No, you’ll just wait for something divine, and when ‘all the appropriate criteria have been met,’ like one of your algebraic equations…huzzah, you have a bride!” She turned away, hands clenching the folds of her skirts.

After a moment, she whirled on him again, as if she could keep silent no longer. “Should you be right, would you even know what to do with her? No, Alexi, I daresay you wouldn’t. And as you persist in thinking of Prophecy as some sacred love affair rather than an order of business, you’re making it more complicated for yourself—and more dangerous for us. Mortal hearts make mistakes. They are cruel, unpredictable things.” There was a tense silence as Rebecca caught her breath.

Alexi’s jaw worked slowly as he stared down at her. “Is that all?”

Rebecca’s eyes flashed. “Hardly. But I’ll stop there.”

“Why are you so adamant that I am mistaken?”

Rebecca simply stared at him. She opened her mouth and closed it, shook her head, defeated.

The crowd shifted, and she and Alexi caught sight of the dead body again, now being placed gingerly on a board and hauled away. The scene had accumulated much to-do. “Enough to give one nightmares for months, that,” Rebecca murmured.

Alexi tilted his head. “Of course. But we’ve seen such horrors before.”

“When?”

“One lifetime or another,” he replied, absently holding out his arm. Rebecca took it, and he continued speaking, stepping down from the landing. “And this tragedy may be only the cry of poor Whitechapel, nothing more. We’ve no concern with human crimes, no matter how ghastly. If it becomes our Work—if the supernatural becomes evident—we will act.”

“Patience, eh? It never fails to surprise me when that is your counsel, Professor.”

A brief spark passed through his eyes. “Was that not what we just discussed, my dear? If I had no patience, I’d have gone mad long ago.”

Entering the dank shadow of a nearby alley, Rebecca sighed. “Fifty Berkeley Square is causing trouble again,” she remarked. As was often the case, she was the first to feel the burning in her veins.

“The usual? Noises?”

“Yes, and moving lights. Books ejected from second-story windows, blood dripping from their bindings. It will be rather a mess.”

Alexi sighed. “Shall we clean it up, then?”

She shook her head. “Let me handle it.”

“Rebecca, Bloody Bones is a trial. It’s not a task for you alone.”

“Alexi, please. You’ve enough to worry about,” she assured him. When he raised an eyebrow, she asked, “You truly think I cannot arraign the subject myself?”

Alexi was silent.

“Shall we bet on the matter?”

Alexi’s lips curved. “Why, Headmistress, you surprise me. I didn’t think you a wagering woman.”

“You press me to strange deeds, Professor.”

“Indeed. Well, then: a bottle of my favourite sherry. It shall await me at La Belle et La Bête upon your failure. I do believe Josephine keeps several in stock—perhaps for just such an occasion.”

Rebecca grimaced. “While I have every faith in my success, I do wish your tastes were less expensive. But, a bottle of sherry it is. And now we’d best get back to Athens.”

“Should we?” he asked.

“It
is
the first day of class, Professor, and you have students to terrify.”

“Ah yes, so I do.”

The small student body of the academy bustled noisily through the halls. Percy, however, prepared in quiet.

Her linen gown of her favourite light blue colour was simple yet elegant. She tucked her silver phoenix pendant lovingly between the layer of her chemise and dress, and felt the familiar comfort of its chain around her neck and its solid form below her breast, a hidden fortitude. In a manner of ritual necessity, Percy shrouded herself further. She draped a blue scarf about her head, circling her neck with the soft fabric and folding its edges into the neckline of her bodice. She buttoned satin gloves that hid her deathly pale hands. But donning her tinted glasses as her final barrier, she was seized by a fit of nerves—despite a hint of rouge upon her cheeks and lips, there remained no cure for her unmistakable pallor.

Glancing once more at her first class assignment, she gath
ered her books and opened the door into the busy hall, hoping to remain as inconspicuous as possible. But the instant she appeared, it began. And while the reverend mother had warned her, Percy couldn’t have known the ongoing shock of being stared at so intently and by so many. Whispers and curious peering created a cacophony of sound and sensation, and Percy felt riddled by pinpricks. The journey down the hall and through the foyer was a gauntlet filled with snickers and gasped comments, students poking one another and pointing.

After overhearing one young lady ask her friend when they’d begun to admit carnival attractions to Athens, Percy had quite enough, and threw her slight weight against the front door, grateful to slip into the outside breeze. The welcome sight of Marianna, smiling at her and waiting on the steps, lessened the weight of her circus novelty.

The girls walked toward Promethe Hall, where they had a literature class together. “I see now, Percy,” the German girl offered quietly. “How people look at you.”

“I must admit, Marianna, I was not prepared for the extent of it.”

“You are, how do I say…?
Attractive,
Percy. You ‘attract’ many looks.”

Percy smiled wearily. “I suppose you could say that.”

“In time you will no longer be a surprise,” her friend stated with confidence.

“I hope. Have you met other girls in our hall? I’ve remained solitary.”

“A few ladies came by and introduced themselves. They were polite.”

Entering a book-filled room lined with tables, the two girls took to the corner. A few students nodded at Marianna as they passed, and one civil young man deigned to smile at Percy as well.

Marianna poked Percy’s arm. “That one looks nice.”

“Hmm?”

“The boy who just passed us and smiled. He is…handsome.” Marianna peered for a bit at the student in question.

“You may look, Marianna, but I beg you to recall the headmistress’s speech. She gave it to you as well, did she not? We are to have not the least bit of contact with men, however handsome.”

Her friend just shrugged and, as roll call was read by the instructor who entered—a round woman named Mrs. Henrick, who spoke in a shrill tone—paid particular attention to the name of the young man she had noticed: Edward Page.

Mrs. Henrick went about the room and asked students to name their favourite author. Marianna answered “Goethe,” and Percy answered “Shakespeare.” Percy felt the teacher’s eyes upon her, as well as those of the other children, and was grateful for her glasses. Though they were a meager shield, they were nonetheless some protection.

Mrs. Henrick pried further. “Favourite play?”

“Hamlet,”
Percy replied, and immediately felt a pang for her dear ghostly friend Gregory, to whom she had played Horatio a hundred times, holding his dying—already dead—body.

Mrs. Henrick prated on, and Percy became confident the class would pose no trouble. She also pledged to help if Marianna got behind in her reading.

After class, the girls were forced to go their separate ways, heading in separate directions down the academy’s various halls. Marianna strolled off to a composition class, and Percy became nervous. The very name Mathematical and Alchemical Studies sounded both exotic and threatening, a true barrier to what she imagined would otherwise be effortless study here.

It was hard enough to ignore the murmurs of the living, let alone those of the dead, who also sprinkled the school grounds. Percy heard everything, despite attempting to hide beneath her numerous accoutrements as she crossed the
courtyard. Living students wondered if she was a ghost haunting the academy, while the dead wondered the same. She prayed to someday grow accustomed to this trial.

Alongside her, nineteen other students shuffled into a chamber that looked more like the nave of a gothic church than a classroom. It was filled with long tables, lined with stone beams and bordered by stained-glass windows of mythical creatures.

Sitting near the back, Percy tried to become invisible. However, pale as she was, transparency was impossible. She wished she could join those around her, the dead floating through the walls. Some spirits paid avid attention to the assembling class; some simply hung in a wandering breeze; while others chattered softly about the woes that tethered them to this world.

Percy began to curse inwardly. She denounced the gift that alienated her from both populaces; she cursed her ability to see and hear those she more closely resembled, and also her kinship to the living who would never understand the strange sights that her eyes now found commonplace. It was as if she watched distant members of her family on both sides, but through windows that precluded her from joining them. Yet the family could not be ignored; there was always noise to keep them in mind.

A door burst open, and the assembled company, ghosts included, started. Out from an office at the front of the room strode a tall figure in black, and the ensuing silence was deafening.

The newcomer turned to face his students. Percy’s breath caught. Here stood the most striking man she had ever seen. Lustrous dark hair hung loosely to broad shoulders. A few locks turned out in an unkempt manner contrary to the rest of his appearance, while a few strands clung to his noble, chiseled features—a long nose, high cheekbones, defined lips like a Grecian sculpture and impossibly dark eyes. He was dressed in a long professorial robe that hung open over a
smartly buttoned velvet vest, and a crimson cravat at the throat was the only colour this distinguished figure sported.

Percy gaped a moment before coming to her senses and shutting her mouth, her face growing hot. The professor’s hair was not greying, yet a few creases upon his regal forehead betrayed years of deep thought. Percy guessed that he might be twice her own eighteen years—and yet, as she looked around, she found her male peers plain and unremarkable in comparison.