Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters referenced from the films From Hell or The Libertine, nor do I represent either historical figure, Frederick Abberline or John Wilmot. I write merely for myself and those readers who take an interest. Thank you. - E.
PROLOGUE: Oxfordshire, July 1680
He was supposed to have died.
He felt himself die, and he was certain of no less. He had been so readied for it. And yet, the world seemed to slowly reawaken to his senses, all of which were burning with a ravenous ache, a thirst unlike that which he'd ever welcomed for the spoils of drink or the plumpness of women. This was a jolting spasm of pain that shot down the curve of his neck, through his sides, and along the course of his arching, revolutionary spine. His fingers curled, shutting into an angry fist. He bit into his lip, which was unusually cold, even for death.
Even for lifelessness that seemed all too irrelevant.
John supposed he could have screamed for help in the darkness. He imagined he could have thrust himself from wherever it was he seemed to be, whatever frigid and empty and echoing place housed him now. He pictured himself pounding on the wooden boards of an unintentional casket, punching a hole through with his fists, and finding an avenue enough to slither his way from the grave sight, out of the hole he knew he must be in, and back to England's grey-sky again. He could have, of course, in his painless dreams.
If they had only been but such.
Paris, March 1889
Toe out, chin up, back arched properly. No more enhanced, no less.
The satin ribbons of her shoes, the boned chemise, the waves of crinoline and lace upon her skirt, all amount to who she is, what she will become this year. With an orchestra she transforms into another being entirely, a creature of form, artifice, elegant canter. Her heels never meet gravity. She only floats on toes, on air, on her fragile weight.
Le Exposition Universelle is what everyone is talking about, a spectacle of art, of renaissance, of passion for progression. Ballet will be heavily noted upon this event, and Ella, will take that lead.
She keeps her mark across the bar, balancing from plank to plank, fluttering at the mirrored wall, her reflection taken under scrutiny all the more by her eye. So she struggles more, pushes herself further, wider, harder and faster than ever before, until her calves grow weak with disillusionment and her arms flail with lack of nourishment. Every spin, every flex brings her closer to perfection for the increasing number of silhouettes beyond her. An audience grows of both students and instructors, all of those who have brought her this far, this quickly.
Two years ago she was starving on the streets of London, and now, she was the princess of the Parisian Ballet. So she dances, until there is nothing left of her but the droplets of sweat across her brow and between her delicate breasts.
When the scratchy music eventually comes to a stop, so does she, ever so gracefully near the window of the large room. Her eyes open and from where she stands, amidst the clapping and cheering, she can see the iron giant, the one they call the Eiffel. They've been building it continuously for months, years, and its assembly is set to be shared with the world in less than three weeks. It is a sign of hope—for the city, for independence, for Eloise Rousseau and her tantalizing ways, for everything she's worked so hard for.
There is very little now that can stop her from accomplishing her goal and ruling the world around her.
London, October 1889
A cloud of smoke wafts across the desk of a man with very little coming into his life, and even more leaving it. He should have died a year ago with the drugs, the loss of another beautiful woman. It should have been enough to finally relieve him of breath.
Instead he remains, scanning over scribbled accounts of a case that took place while he was lost inside of his office, exhausted, beaten to death by the drugs that still hold all function over his fragile body. The monster caresses his heart day in and out, with very little need of anything substantial, anything subjective to his life. Godley, his dear friend, is his final line to reality, as well as his continuous guardian, protector of his job, his livelihood.
Abberline rises with his cigarette, dragging it loosely between his lips as he nears the high window of the second floor building. It is early morning to him, merely by the color of the skies, the touch of dew against the glass panes, the quieting sounds below on the Chapel is alive in the middle of the night, and then dead until the sun falls again, the way it always has and probably always will be. Most of what occurs here—his occupation even—is based on the nightly happenings of degenerative London; the brutes, the whores, and the murderers all alike in their sauntering ways, their raunchy tones throughout the dark air.
By now his child should have been six, a good age, a worthy time for him to have spent with Victoria, who herself would have been thirty-one and still just as beautiful as the day he met her. But it was only him, thirty-five years gone by, and he was left stale and alone in the smoke filled office. There was no interest in the cases piling up on his desk, and even less interest in taking another breath.
Godley would be arriving within minutes, and only then could he bring himself to actually work, to feed on the morning discoveries of flesh and bone, and to set into justice that which never once worked for him. Frederick had nothing to live for, but he did so for the sole discretion of his visions. They continued to plague him into believing there was something left for him to find, something for him, somewhere...