Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 (17 page)

Mina laughs.
“The very worst kind. Cook might serve the wrong liver mousse and chaos will erupt. You have no idea how dreadful these affairs can be when things go wrong. Once, Mother accidentally shuffled the seating arrangement around the wrong way, and I can’t even tell you the awkwardness that permeated that evening. You could have cut the tension with a sword.”

“
Sounds terrifying,” I deadpan. I’m starting to regret my promise to come. Liver mousse and small talk, in a dress that’s so large, it could fall off me at any time, all while no one asks me to dance. What a way to spend the night. I’m wishing suddenly I could cry off and spend my time finishing Rose’s diary.

Just as suddenly as the thought comes, I
’m desperate for closure over Rose Gray once again. Just when I had thought my life was my own (such as it is), and was beginning to enjoy myself and forget her, she manages to yank me back into her head and soul. How must the people in her life—Sonnet, their father, and Luke—have felt? They actually knew her and loved her, or tried to. I’m simply an observer, and I feel completely engulfed in Rose. She swallows me whole like the gown did, and I eye the pile of suffocating satin with distrust.

21

The feeling of being somewhat possessed by Rose hasn’t left by the time I take my leave of Mina. I’ve pocketed a few sandwiches, or really, Mina has pocketed them for me, and I feel like Little Red Riding Hood with her basketful of goodies and sweets for Grandmother. Instead of skipping merrily through the forest, I trudge around the puddles dotting the streets of London. Not for the first time, I wonder what life would be like elsewhere. Would I still be me? Could I be anyone else? The Lost, imaginary though they are, had some things going for them, I reckon: to start off new in exciting places, to never be tied down, to wander like gypsies, and see the world, in so many different centuries? I suppose it would have its drawbacks, but to me, it sounds rather heavenly.

I wonder what it would have been like for Rose to travel to so many different eras, yet always be yanked back to Bedlam. Of course, it hadn
’t happened that way, but she believed it did, and so the result is the same really. She believes it to be true, so it affects her as if it’s true. At least I think that’s what the doctors would say about it. No matter that it can’t possibly happen, this time traveling she speaks of, she still is who she is because of what she feels in her bones is fact.  Poor Rose. Not for the first time, I feel sorry for her. I wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley, but I do feel sorry for her.

I pass by the shops and see an advertisement for a Jack the Ripper tour through White Chapel. I remember Rose
’s supposed connection to him with a chill. Naturally, she’s too young to have ever met him in any place other than her imagination. I finger the advertisement and eye the crude pen drawing of the infamous killer. “Would Rose draw his likeness like that?” I wonder. “Only fifty years ago,” I muse. Theoretically the man could still be alive. After all, they never caught him. If it even was a him. For a moment, the idea of my very own murderous Rose Gray being Jack the Ripper fills my head. I pull my shawl around me. That’s taking things too far. Suppose Rose did meet him, only not back then of course, but more recently? He could have killed the girl named Emme for her after his reign of terror in the 1880s. He could have killed her just last month, or last year. Supposing Emme ever even existed in the first place.

But picking apart sense in her ramblings is pointless. There may be some truth, no truth, or a bit of truth, in all her memoirs, but who is to say which parts? I can
’t say. Trying to find out is useless, yet I still want to try.

I let my fingers linger over the drawing of Jack and stare at the date and times of the tours. The orphan director would never have let us go to such sensationalistic fodder, I
’m sure. And Mrs. Dobson would never allow Mina to go: too unseemly. I don’t even really want to go, but suddenly I wonder if
she
would. Rose.

After all, killers usually return to the scene of their crimes; do they not?

Being Mrs. Dawes was harder than I expected, but so worthwhile! Marriage agreed with Luke. He was happier than I had ever seen him. He introduced me to everyone we met, as his lovely wife.
Why, he would even invent reasons to meet people just so he could introduce me. I think in a way, he was trying to distract me, and it certainly worked. I forgot for a spell why we had come to London in 1888 in the first place. I spent some time keeping house until we were kicked out for squatting. I learned to bake cake, though I had no gift for it. Luke would make me feel better by eating it, but I usually stole the better stuff from the bakery around the corner.

I had very nearly forgotten all about Sonnet. By the time I remembered and could hold the thought in my head long enough and found the energy to do something about her, she was gone again. Traveled? I doubted it. She hadn
’t been here long, though as I had said before, perhaps my interference in her inner clock messed things up. But I leaned towards a different theory: that she had simply run away.

Silly coward.

It wouldn’t be that difficult to track her, but did I even have the desire anymore? I liked being Mrs. Luke Dawes. Couldn’t we just stay here and be normal? He wanted it. Part of me wanted it.

And
then I dreamed, a horrid dream, and I knew my past wasn’t over. I saw Mother in her blue dress, floating in slow motion over that cliff. Her skirts billowed out around her like a parachute, but not one that could save her from the dreadful crash at the bottom. She stared at me, reproach in her dead eyes. She wasn’t proud of me. She didn’t love me any longer. I had messed everything up. She was upset at me, even in death.

She wanted me with her, I thought.
Death came to me in a cornflower blue dress.

I was sure of it, and I was paralyzed with fear. I hadn
’t been afraid of anything in who knows how long! What a peculiar feeling it was. Was this clammy feeling, this shaky emotion, this pit in my stomach how I made others feel? The last time I was scared was when I realized Solomon had left me at the Bodley. And that wasn’t necessarily fear… more sorrow and anger than anything.

I
awoke, and I knew I had to find Sonnet and finish what I had started.

Luke was disappointed, of course, but you make sacrifices in a marriage. Of course you do. All the research and the experts say so. You give up things for those you love, and he loved me, so he didn
’t fight me too hard. Besides, he didn’t like London any more than I did, and he wasn’t really serious about settling down. Luke with a gentleman’s career? A job? A respectable life? Don’t make me laugh.

We started with the doctor they left behind and his annoying Chinese wife.
Sonnet and Israel had been playing house with them. Why, I’m sure I don’t know. Some sort of friendship, I suppose. I can’t imagine such a thing, but then again, I’m not very like my sister. Luke was spitting nails over how the wife had interfered anyway (if it hadn’t been for her, it’s very likely Israel would have died that night, and possibly even Sonnet), so neither of us would have felt any remorse doing her in. It turned out though that they had left as suddenly as my family. I toyed with the idea of them being Lost as well, but their neighbors claimed they went to Africa to start a hospital, and I believed them. Sounded like the type of idiotic thing philanthropists and do-gooders like to do.

Sonnet and Father had no one. But Israel… I wondered if Israel had anyone. And who had been those old men in America? The brothers? Would they know where my family could have slunk off to?

Then there was Prue, the old cooking woman. She was still here, still in 1888 with us, too old to want to travel, whether through time or across town. They had apparently left her behind. Maybe they wanted to keep her away from them, and thus, from me, but they hadn’t followed that thought through very well, had they? Instead, they left her behind with me. Not smart.

We started with Prue.

Naturally, Luke was dragging his feet a bit, but I promised him we weren’t going to hurt her, not as long as she cooperated anyway. “That’s the problem,” he growled. “Prue won’t cooperate with anyone.”

She
’ll know where they went, I promised. They wouldn’t have left her forever without letting her know their plans. She was like their adopted grandmother. She should have been like my grandmother, but no. They’d all seen to that.

So into
Sir Halloway’s home we went, where Prue was employed as a cook. Truth be told, I was getting a bit tired of slinking around like a criminal, even if I was one. I remembered my days being on stage with Solomon, and missed them sorely. I missed the audience and the way they respected me and what I could do with the knives. Now here I was, a married and respectable gentlewoman, and I was still breaking into homes and trying to put my past to rest. I just needed to finish all this business so I could start the life I was meant to live.

I just had to win, that
was all.

Prue snored like an inebriated old man, but she slept light enough and jerked awake when I reached out to touch her. I didn
’t want to—I don’t like touching strangers—but Luke was still being difficult over being in the house to begin with, and he was sitting in the arm chair by her bed, glowering. At me, or at Prue; I wasn’t sure. He can be a pain sometimes.

Anyway, she jerked awake like I had shot her, though I hadn
’t even made contact with her blanket yet, and she stared at me with recognition in her black eyes. It was a full moon outside her window. Plus, she slept with a candle burning, whether by accident or design, I don’t know, but we could see one another well enough. She knew me. I felt pleased.

“
Rose Elanora Gray,” she said, flatly.

I startled. I had never known my own middle name until then.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you face to face. Not too happy to have been proven wrong. You,” she sniffed towards Luke, as if she wanted to acknowledge him but not let his name pass her lips. “Another one I ain’t happy to see.”

“
Don’t be difficult, Prue,” Luke said. “Just talk to Rose, give her what she wants.”

“
And what is that? Your sister’s head on a silver platter? Is that it? Your sister, who ain’t never done nothing to you?”

“
What do you know about it?” I answered, coldly. “You’re just an old, feeble woman, and your mind is most likely full of mold. Tell me where they went.”

“
Not in a month of Sundays,” Prue answered cheerfully. “Mold, indeed. Now go away before I start screaming bloody murder, and you know I will. I might have just enough love for the Gray family to let you go in peace, since you’re one of them, but I certainly won’t lie here quietly while you murder me in my bed. Now, scat, if you have a brain cell left in that wicked head!”

“
Knock her out,” I instructed Luke. “We’ll take her with us.”

“
I told you. I’m not hurting Prue. You want her out cold; you’ll have to do it.” He was cleaning his nails with his knife again.

“
Thank you so much for the chivalry, and here I thought it was dead,” Prue snapped. “I don’t need any hitting over the head, thank you. I probably wouldn’t wake up from that, and I don’t plan on dying tonight. You want to talk to me, talk. But hand a poor old woman her slippers. It’s powerful cold tonight.”

“
Tell me a story then,” I said, and unbelievably, I handed her the slippers. How did she do that? “I want to hear about Sonnet’s life.”

I think she knew why I wanted to know, to give me clues to where they might have run to, but she
started to oblige. Luke was right; Prue wasn’t stupid.

Only she didn
’t start out with “Once Upon a Time” like a proper story should. That bothered me, but I kept my mouth shut for once. I know how to listen when the need serves me. She blathered something completely unhelpful about how devastated they all were when they had left me behind.

“
Tell me about America,” I said. “Where she was living and working. Tell me where her favorite places where before that. Where she wanted to go. And Israel Rhode. Where is his family? Where would he go?”

She looked at me like I
’d gone round the bend. “If I knew, I wouldn’t tell, not when you have revenge on your mind. Noah is a good man, and I’m sorry you don’t feel no love for him inside, but you can’t go around killing off your family members.”

“
I can do whatever I like. I’m special. Aren’t I, Luke?”

He nodded.
“She can control it.”

“
I know,” Prue sniffed. “So could your grandmother, and it didn’t turn out too well for her.”

“
What are you talking about?” My blood ran cold. What grandmother? Who?

“
Carolina’s mother. You don’t know about her? No, I guess you wouldn’t. She died in a mental institution, or at least that’s what we all assume. After a while, she got so bad she couldn’t even travel anymore, on purpose or by accident, like the rest of us. She was just completely lost. Didn’t know who she was. Was never homicidal like her granddaughter though.” Here she glared at me like I was a naughty child.

Could I believe her? Was she really telling the truth about my grandmother? Was I not so very special then? Was there just something different about the Grays? Then why couldn
’t Sonnet control her traveling? Unless she simply hadn’t figured it out yet. She was a bit dull.

“
Did the traveling make her worse?” Luke asked, softly. Concerned. Concerned for me and my mind, I suppose. He put down his knife.

Prue didn
’t answer; she just looked at him. Then she nodded, slightly. Did they think I didn’t see? Did they think I was so stupid? Something inside me snapped.

“
I’m not getting worse! I’m not! I’m not! I’m not!” I yelled. I picked up Prue’s water glass that was near the arm chair and threw it with all my might at the wall. It shattered and the water dripped down the wall, like blood.

Luke sprang up from the arm chair in alarm. Not alarm that I had gone off on one of my fits of temper, but alarm that I had been so loud in a house we were not supposed to be in. Prue looked triumphant, damn her.

We heard a shout from another part of the house, and then footsteps. I had gone and awoken half the household. No matter. I had gotten some kind of information, though not the kind I had come for.