Candle in the Attic Window(77)
“You see the currents of life. Take your gifts and go. But do not overstep your bounds. Do not weave the threads of life and death with your own hands.”
I did as I was told, responded to the demand to go on living, and gasped painful, cold air.
Dock workers had pulled me from the river; the mass of piers and ships blessedly buffered the undertow. I never did get the chance to properly thank those workers and I still regret it. A doctor who happened upon the scene took charge and so, I was bid to lie still. Coats were thrown over me, women glad to have something to fuss over that was not their dead relation.
I put my hand to my face and touched a bloody gash on my forehead. My nose still bled. The six I’d glimpsed were nowhere to be seen. But that was all right; they’d given me something. That woman had inspired in me confidence to be an anchor against forces pressing in all around us and the light had only confirmed it. I knew then it was my duty to aid the living while I lived. I patched my grief. I steeled my heart, stuffing it with purpose and pride. These things may yet be flammable.
As for whether I’ll help the dead once I’ve crossed onto that shore is knowledge for another day. Yet tonight, perhaps, but not this moment.
My duty is to life while I have it. What knowledge I have I must use. I mustn’t stand back and let a man’s train derail and kill him, even though I abhor him. The lantern at my elbow is lit; the smell of oil is distinct. The letter is in my hand, addressed to Mr. Bentrop. It simply says:
If you take that 8pm train into the city next Tuesday, it will derail and you will die. Sincerely, your second chance.
My hands shake. I return to these pages after having dropped the note in a mail box, despite the dark, dangerous lateness of the hour. Countless spirits attended my wake; I could feel their icy tendrils bouncing behind me. A drunkard or thief wouldn’t have dared accost me; the air at my back would freeze the standing hairs on the bravest of necks. I was the Reaper. Off to delay tidings of death.
But did I, in doing so, inappropriately weave the forbidden threads?
And for a man such as Bentrop, of all people? What of the other poor souls on that 8pm departure? Do they not matter? Yet, I sense Bentrop has a further part to play in matters in which I am engaged, and I must act on instinct, even if it violates instruction. What good is a gift untapped?
Bentrop is in part responsible for the needle which is about to come to the city. A vast stone obelisk from the sands of Alexandria. “Cleopatra’s Needle”, it is called and it shall sit beyond the steps of our lovely Metropolitan Museum of Art. Men like Bentrop see in the artifact a vast power. Men like Bentrop need to be curbed. Yet, there I went, warning him against the closing jaws of prophecy. Still, he has to take the advice. There is choice involved. Two walks. Two paths. Bentrop has helped to bring a tower into our city that boldly points to the sky, as if in a demand ... must he not be prepared for how the skies will answer him? Must not I, too, be prepared for just such a reply?
Ah. Pardon the dark mark upon the pale page.
My nose has begun to bleed. Damn.
The steps are on the stair. Landing. Stairs. Landing. My hallway. Far worse than the cold, I maintain.
I confess I’m not ready to again face that passage where angels tread and devils pace. What force will win me this day? Who is closer to seizing any of us, the angels or the devils?
As God is my witness, I rattle my saber. I shake my bones. No matter what takes me, the angels or the devils, I am not finished here, upon this Earth. I am not finished.
I will walk, my friends, my loves, all those I’ve yet to meet.
I will walk the passages. You will hear my footsteps. There, the creak upon your floorboards. That will be me, what I may yet become. It’s always one of us, for good or for ill. I pray the angels win. But it’s always war, just beyond the limits of our flesh and the corners of our eyes.
Every sound you hear.
Every whisper, every creak of a settling house.
You’re hearing war.
You cannot end it; you cannot avoid it; mankind made it and seems unable to do without it. Even without bodies, it wages on for you.
Listen, friends, and take up whatever arms you will.
Listen: It is at the doorstep.
Leanna Renee Hieber graduated with a theatre degree and focus in the Victorian Era. While performing as a professional actress, she adapted 19th-century fiction for the stage and her first publications were hot-headed little plays which have been produced around the U.S. Her novella, Dark Nest, won the 2009 Prism Award for excellence in Futuristic, Fantasy or Paranormal Romance. Her Strangely Beautiful series debut (Gaslight Fantasy), The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, hit Barnes & Noble’s Bestseller lists, won two 2010 Prism Awards (Best Fantasy, Best First Book) and has been optioned for adaptation into a Broadway musical, currently in early stages of development. A proud member of Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America and Romance Writers of America and also a member of actors unions AEA, AFTRA and SAG, Leanna works often in film and television. She lives in New York City with her real-life hero and their beloved rescued lab rabbit. “At the Doorstep” is set within the Gaslight Gothic world of Magic Most Foul, releasing November 2011 from Sourcebooks Fire, beginning withDarker Still: A Novel of Magic Most Foul Please visit her at http://leannareneehieber.com/, on Twitter @leannarenee and Facebook.com/lrhieber.
Frozen Souls