Chapter 3: Miss Warthrop
Annalee,
I have come to a final decision regarding your care over the summer months. You will be returning here to New Jerusalem until next September. Your boarding pass you have in possession already. I will not have time to meet you at the docks in New York, but I will send Will Henry as your escort. He will accompany you from the New York docks to the train back to New Jerusalem. I anticipate a missive from your school concerning your performance to proceed your arrival. I expect your mediocre at best achievements to have improved since the half term.
Your father,
Dr. Pellinore Warthrop
Anna,
I didn't tell the doctor. If you ask me to keep a secret for you, Anna, I will keep it. But be careful. Don't be angry at me for saying so, but sometimes you sound like your father. What you said in your last letter, about wanting to look the stuff of the world in the face. It was what convinced me not to try to dissuade you from looking for monsters. Warthrop has said almost the same thing. I just want you to look after yourself. You said you can't tell me who you found to teach you, but Anna, you should. I might know them, or could find out about them from the doctor, monstrumologists are a close knit group, I'm sure they have at least been introduced. I only say this because there are dangerous people in this field, Anna. I know you can take care of yourself, I have been to New York, I know what sort of steel it must have taken to get along there on your own. I don't want you thinking that I regard you as fragile. But let me be worried over you, it is only fair, you worry over me.
I looked up lindworms, Anna. You fought one of those. Their venom turns blood into sludge! They eat people whole. Forgive me, I am only afraid that whoever is taking you with them is using you. I have met a man in this field who would use a living person as bait. I could not bear it if you came to any harm.
But I'm sure you're tired of my warnings. Let me tell you about Harrington Lane. Warthrop has been his usual self, as I write this, and why I have time to write this, he is lost in a melancholic stupor. He's been in his room for days, he barely takes any meals, he is unshaven and foul. I hear him in the night, pacing across his room and muttering or shouting. He penned that letter, the one mailed with this one, threw it at me to copy out and then devolved into the mess that he has become. He has mentioned more than once that you must be quite busy with your studies if you cannot even write to him. He said vehemently that as valuable as his time was he would read your missives and send replies. Anna, I know that he was not kind to you, but write to him, please, Anna, as a favor if not for him then for me. I think that it would put him in a better mood and you can imagine how much more pleasant my life is when he is in a better mood. I know that he is difficult and can be cold and cruel, but he is a good man.
I will leave off there, talking about the doctor, I would like to tell you something of myself. I know that the doctor has already told you that I will be coming to fetch you from the boat, but I have something more to tell. I decided, if you can keep secrets from the doctor (and the devil knows he keeps secrets from me) I could have my own turn. If he were less distracted he would have noticed and I can only hope that my ruse hold up until we see each other at the end of May. It is not much of a lie, I have only told him that your ship is to arrive on the third of June when it is scheduled to come in on May 29th. The only train available will be leaving New Jerusalem on May 28th, so do not worry, I will be there to meet you. I thought that we might explore the city together. I know it is where you grew up, I thought that you could show off your hometown to me. I also thought that time with you and away from the doctor would be welcomed. I hope that isn't too brazen on my part. Since you are not supposed to be there we will have to share a hotel room, of course I will show you every courtesy. It is only that if we are both going to be hunting monsters, I think that we ought to enjoy time we can spend together, the lifespan in this profession is not particularly long. But please, Anna, tell me if you will harbor any sort of discomfort with these arrangements, I will, of course, not hold it against you.
I await seeing you on bated breath.
With affection,
Will
p.s. If you don't recognize me on the docks (I am a good deal taller than I was) I will be the boy with four fingers.
Father,
Don't worry if you're too busy to write back, I'll understand. School is alright, I know you aren't happy with my marks but for Christ's sake it's not like I have any background in any of this. I'm working my hardest though to do as well as I can, if you want to blame anybody for my lack of academic success why don't you pen a letter to the New York City school system.
But if it means so much to you, I'll try to get my marks up at least a little by the end of term and figure out what the hell a Latin dative is.
In case you're worried about me wallowing away in loneliness, I'm fine. I'm alright at making friends. There's this boy, Jack, that I met from the boy's school. We get on alright. I don't know if I'd call him a friend, but he had my back against this big dog that came up on us. But I guess I won't waste you time with stories of schoolyard tussles. And I know, spend less time fighting dogs with boys and more time studying Latin grammar.
Your mediocre at best daughter,
Annalee
p.s. For Christ's sake, stop signing your name Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, we aren't colleagues.
Will,
If the doctor figures out you pulled one over him, don't you dare tell him you followed my lead to do it, he'd never let me near you again. That said, I'm glad that you did it. There were three days between when I got your letter and when I had a chance to write you back. I've barely been able to keep a smile off my face. The man I'm working with keeps teasing me about it.
I can't wait to be in New York with you, Will. And don't worry about it, you aren't being too brazen, I can't imagine you doing anything untoward, close accommodations or not. I know you said you've been to New York before but if you went with Warthrop I bet you hardly saw anything worth seeing. Don't worry, I'll take you to the best spot in the whole city, you'll love it. You aren't the only one waiting on baited breath for it.
I wrote a letter to Pellinore, but I want it known that I only did it because you asked me to. I suppose if you can tolerate his company he can't be foul all the way to the core. And, since we've established honesty between each other, I suppose it would mean something to me if he wrote me back. Tense as our relationship might be, he is my father.
Speaking of my father, did you mean it, when you said that I was like him? I'm not upset over it, Will, if I say it frankly I was a little touched. I guess it's only human nature to want to be able to see something of your parents in yourself. Still, I hope you meant the part that makes you follow him around so loyally and not the part that makes me want to slug him one in the jaw.
But really, that is enough ink spent over Pellinore Warthrop. Have you really grown so much taller that I might not recognize you? Bet you've gotten handsomer too, haven't you. I think I'll recognize you before I ever see your four fingered hand by looking for the most strapping young man on the pier. I haven't changed so much as that, at least, not on the outside. But I've gotten pretty good at throwing knives, I'll show you when we see each other. You'll have to be careful though, I sliced up my hand pretty good the first time I tried it, I've got the scars to prove it. I'll show you those too, when we see each other.
Counting the days until May 29th.
With as much affection as ever,
Your Anna
"Lee?" Jack asked, his brow furrowing as he looked passed me to the weapons' case that stood behind his desk in his study.
He had allowed me to curl up in the cozy chair that sat next to a lamp in the corner to read the books he thought that anyone who ever hoped to be interested ought to read. These weren't dense papers on the scientific theories of things over my head either, it was Jules Verne novels mostly. I had never so much enjoyed reading, although, truth be told I still did not have much of a head for it and only got through them as fast as I did because it made him so pleased.
I looked up from his book I had tucked against me and replied, "What?"
He had opened the case and was running his finger down the blades of knives and the barrels of guns, "Did you clean these?"
I shrugged, "Yeah, thought I'd make myself useful."
He laughed and gave me an incredibly broad smile, "They have never looked so radiant," he took a rifle off the shelf and began and thorough investigation of it, "I do not need to show you something more than once, do I?" He gave me a jovial wink.
I blushed under his praise. Although he probably knew just what he was doing, he had guaranteed that nothing in his weapons' case would ever harbor another speck of dust.
"How are you liking Verne?"
I grinned, "It's good, lot's of adventure, but I don't know if I'd like being in an underwater ship for that long."
He laughed. His hair was unbound as it often was when we were at home, and he wore nothing but his shirtsleeves and trousers over stockings. He leaned against his desk. When he didn't say anything else I turned back to my novel
"I've come to a decision about you, Lee," he said as soon as I was immersed in the story again.
I looked up, "Oh yeah? 'Bout what?"
"About the continuation of our deal after your sweet family summer."
"And?"
"I'll be in New York City on October 17th, to take a ship to Columbia for a hunt. I won't wait for you, but if you're there, I'll pay your passage."
"Yeah, I'll be there," I said, "What's the hunt?"
His eyes twinkled, "Oh, there are been whispers of a Mohan hiding in the forests there. I have always intended to try my hand with one, and you provide just the right incentive."
"Incentive for you or for the Mo- what'd you call it?"
"Mohan," he repeated, slower, "And why ever can't it be both?"
"So I'm bait again?"
He shrugged, "That was the deal, Miss Henry, and how well have I held up my end?"
"No, I'll go, I just want to know what I'm getting myself into."
He gave me a feral grin, "You do have all summer to figure it out, what sort of tutor would I be if I just told you everything you needed to know?"
"October 17th?"
"October 17th," he confirmed.
"Where d'you want me to meet you?"
"The ship is called The Explorer, it will leave the twenty third dock at three o'clock in the afternoon. Be there if you would like to continue our companionship."
"What'll you do if I don't turn up?"
He shrugged unconcernedly, "It isn't as though Columbia won't have girls I can use instead of you. I will simply have to put up with having an unconscious girl carted around the Columbian forests. I do so appreciate that you are willing to accommodate your own transportation."
"You wanna write that down for me?"
He obliged, writing the docking information down in his looping script and handing it over to me, "Don't be late."
"Why're you leaving from America anyway?" I asked.
He answered with a sunny smile, "Oh, I have something to pick up from an old friend of mine across the pond." He ran a hand through his blonde hair and said, "When is it that you leave?"
"Next Monday, s'that all right?"
"Yes, yes," he said waving a dismissive hand, "I had only thought to escort you."
"Why?"
He gave me a condescending look, "There is great cost in having a box filled with an unconscious wretch transported through wilderness, Lee. That is not to mention that I must find some way to keep her fed while she awaits use. It would require finding a guide and transportation that would not mind using a witless young girl as bait, for there would be no way to feed her unseen. Besides, I had not realized how particularly helpful it was to use bait that had a little spine. You save me great trouble and you are of less than no use to me if you are knifed in the street on your way to the London docks. I trust someone is meeting you on the other side?"
"Aw, m'I blushing? That was sweet, Jack."
He winked at me again, "Sweetness is what I am best known for."
The next Monday, dressed in a fashionable dress, with a parasol over my arm like a proper lady, I walked arm in arm with Jack toward the London docks. I had made sure to have the instructions from my boarding pass memorized before I had left my bedroom. The paperwork said "Pellinore Warthrop" very clearly on it and I didn't want Jack seeing it over my shoulder.
He was dressed in his usual elegance and we made quite the pair walking down the London streets. As much as I had objected, I was glad he was escorting me. It was hard to do anything alone when I was forced to wear girl's clothing. Under his other arm Jack carried box. I had asked about its contents but he had refused me with a tantalizing smile.
We reached the docks, the nice docks, not the scrappy workers docks. These were filled with passengers that looked more or less like Jack and myself, either scurrying onto ships themselves or seeing people off.
We stopped in sight of my ship and he released my arm, "I shall see you on October the seventeenth, Miss Henry."
"Thanks for the escort, Jack," I said, "See you in New York."
"Oh, before you run off, I have a gift for you."
"What? You do?"
He produced the box from his side with a smile, "I think it will be quite as useful for me if you have these as it undoubtedly will be for you."
I took the box and removed the lid. Inside were a new pair of leather boots, far nicer than the ones I had been using, and a little bigger, mine had been getting too small. He reached into the box and turned the right one up. Along the inside of the boot was a leather sheath built right in. Tucked into that sheath was an ivory handle.
I drew out the knife and looked at it with delight. It was longer than my old knife, with a better handle and less rust. The blade gleamed sharply in the sun and the ivory was cool on my skin. On the metal of the blade, right under the hilt where it wasn't sharp there was engraved, 'L.H.'
I swore under my breath, Jack laughed and said, "So you like them?"
"Yeah," I muttered, "Thanks, Jack."
He did not ruffle the hair he had spent thirty minutes fixing, but patted the side of my face, "A worthwhile investment."
"See you stateside," I said and mimicked his cavalier wink at him.
His eyes twinkled at that and he bent to kiss my fingers, "Enjoy your summer Miss Henry."
I peered anxiously around the pier, trying to find Will among the milieu. I had taken particular effort to make myself presentable before I had disembarked. I hadn't been able to make my hair as pretty as when Jack tugged and fussed it into place, but it was reasonably well done. My heart was twittering in my chest in anticipation of being reunited with Will. Regardless of how little actual time we had spent in each other's company, he was the closest friend I had ever had.
When I saw him my spine shuddered and my heart felt as though it were thudding to a stop. For it was not Will who stood on the pier waiting for me, with his big earnest smile and cowlicked hair. Tall, brooding, and unwelcome was Doctor Pellinore Warthrop hands clasped behind his back and looking unhappy.
Irate that I had spent any time at all on my hair only to be greeted by Warthrop, I approached him, fingers twisting over my suitcase handle. Only now did I realize how incriminating the contents of my bag was. New boots with a built in knife, seventy five pounds, and, worst of all, a scale stripped off a lindworm.
He looked down at me as soon as I approached him. His eyes looked wild, lit somehow by their own flame. His jaw was clenched and his long fingered hands curled and uncurled. If he had looked at me like that in Harrington Lane I would have cowered, but on the streets of New York that smelled like home I had more spine.
"Thought you were sending Will."
"Will Henry did not prove himself up to the task."
"Well…" I said, I felt like I should offer some sort of greeting, but I wasn't sure where we stood. I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly.
He looked down at me equally as awkwardly, "Our train leaves shortly, we ought to go."
"Sure," I said, and followed him down the pier toward a hansom cab that waited for us. Belatedly, he turned and took my bag for me and put it into the cab. I got into the cab after him and sat across from him. He studied the cab's window, dedicatedly not looking at me.
The cab started down the street and I fidgeted uncomfortably. He sat as still as marble, jaw still tense. It was a long ride to the station and in heavy traffic. He didn't speak for nearly twenty minutes.
When he did he opened and shut his mouth a number of times before saying in a harsh and lecturing tone, "The Latin Dative case in a form of the noun indicative of its use as the indirect object of a verb or in conjunction with particular prepositions."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
His gaze riveted to me, "Do watch your language. Did you or did you not express confusion concerning the Latin Dative in your missive to me?"
I shrugged, "Oh, right."
"As such, I was clarifying its use."
"...thanks."
"You are quite welcome."
He relapsed into silence. I kicked idly at the floor of the cab, after a long pause I said, "I didn't know if you'd even read it."
"It was not long, I found the time." He looked back at me and said in a voice that sounded forced into civility, "How was school? You mentioned friends."
"Oh, yeah, uh, school was fine," I shrugged, I was less sure I could keep up this string of lies in person when I didn't have time to think it out.
He gave me a long time to say more, when I didn't he pressed on. It sounded very much like it was a terrible burden to ask such trivial questions, "Tell me about the boy you spoke of, Jack. I hope he did not lead you to more fighting, you know how I feel about that."
I restrained myself from scratching at the scar down my forearm, "Jack? Oh, yeah he's alright. He went to the uh..the boy's school though. So...didn't see him much."
"...How about your lessons? Did you find them enjoyable?"
My stomach lurched and I thought of Jack, the real Jack purring the anatomy I would never forget. Frontal bone, maxilla, mandible, as he touched them on a corpse. His gentle guidance to help me find the arteries that would bleed a man in minutes.
Interrupting my distraction, Warthrop's hand came out and tilted my face up toward his. I pulled my chin back with a jerk and his hand shot back. He covered the awkwardness with concern that I assumed was faked, "Are you quite all right, Annalee?" he asked, "You seem...unwell."
Terror shivered through me. Did he smell it? Might he open up his medical bag and shine a light into my eyes and see what sort of thing sat across from him?
I shrugged again, "It's just the ship," I murmured at the floor.
"Ah," he said, "Didn't quite get your sea legs?"
I tried to keep my eyes from meeting his. Silence hung in the cab for the rest of the journey, thirty more minutes of only the two of us breathing in the shadows.
When we arrived at the station he took my bag for me and even put out his hand to help me down the steps of the cab. The silence persisted onto the train and well on our way to New Jerusalem.
More than an hour into the journey he finally spoke again. "Tell me more of your year, Anna...lee." He had almost managed to use Will's nickname for me, but lost his nerve at the last moment.
I studied the floor, "Not much to tell, I guess. I did try, you know, in class, even if I didn't do so good."
"I may have over-" he started, "-Will Henry might have-" he paused again, "I am sure by the end of next term you will have risen out of mediocrity."
I crossed my arms and looked resolutely out the window. Finally, after more than twenty further minutes of silence I said, "Did you do anything worthwhile while I was at school?"
He scowled at me, "Of course I did, you were away for nine months, I have done much in that time."
"Will you tell me about any of it? What's the use in telling me that monsters exist if you won't even tell me which ones?"
He conceded on this, if only a little, "I will not tutor you in monstrumology, but I suppose knowing in broad terms what I am working on would do you no harm."
I thought that he had given himself this out so that he might take the opportunity to brag about what he had done all winter.
"The first half of your time away was spent concluding my thesis regarding the creature Will Henry and I were tracking at the time of your departure. Felis Verulentus, it is a creature recently discovered and lacks a common name. But, as I am sure you could tell from the Latin, it is a venomous cat. I believe it to be native to the Netherlands although we found it southern Georgia after it escaped a rather foolish black market dealer of exotic pets."
"Did you kill it?"
"Unfortunately we were forced to, but we were able to retrieve the carcass and bring it back to my laboratory for examination."
"Will says he lost a finger."
He glowered at me, "How would you know that?"
I gave him a look of indignation, "Just because you only write to tell me what a poor job I'm doing at school doesn't mean everybody else does."
He paused, "You and Will Henry write to each other?"
"Yeah, s'that a problem?"
He stiffened his back, "No, it is not. I was just not aware."
I pressed him, "So Will lost his finger?"
"Do you doubt his word? Why would you need me to confirm something that he told you? Why would you bother to correspond with him if you question everything he tells you? If that is your reasoning why would you not write to me and simply inquire about Will Henry's state of affairs?"
I swore, "Can you be less of a horse's ass for twenty minutes?"
He thundered, "I have told you innumerable times to keep a civil tongue in your head."
I lost my fire and backed down, "I don't care, yell however much you want." I turned my head and looked out the window, refusing to give my attention to him.
He let me brood for awhile then said, in a more reasoned tone, "Would you care to hear about the second half of the winter? We received a rather interesting gift from one of my colleagues."
I tried to soften, "Sure, tell me all about it, Pellinore."
In a hesitant tone he said, "If you wish...you may call me 'father' as you did in your letter."
I did look at him then, he was holding himself very still. It would have been easier to imagine that he was made of stone than of flesh. I tilted my lips up in a quirking smile, "Sure...father...tell me about the gift."
"An old friend of mine from Britain acquired it. It was alive when he got it, although it had to be put down before it came across the sea to me. It was getting too large by then to be properly handled. When I received it it was well preserved but nearly seven feet long already." His eyes were aglow with excitement, "I was not even aware that there were breeding females left and here I was able to inspect a young one."
My stomach twisted, "What was it?"
"In the original linormr but, more commonly, the lindworm."
I was torn between laughter and horror. There was no way it wasn't one of mine. Jack had said that they were rare and the timing was too good. Something unbidden swelled in my chest. My father had prided over something I had caught. It had been me that had sliced them out of their mother's corpse. Me that had bottled them up wriggling and tiny and taken them all the way back to England. I almost asked him about the armor, if it had been hard to get through with a scalpel. But, in the nick of time, I remembered myself.
"The hell is that?"
He scowled, "Language, Annalee. A lindworm is a creature native to Scandinavia and parts of Germany. They have been nearly entirely eradicated by the encroachment of civilization, however, and are nowadays nearly nonexistent."
"Right, but what are they?"
He looked at me sufferingly, "A creature not unlike a snake, although they have been called, for want of a better term, a dragon. They are fifty to seventy feet long in maturity and appear like an enormous snake, thickly coated in armor."
"How'd anybody get ahold of a baby?"
"I am not sure, I believe my colleague purchased it from an unwholesome sort of man in London."
"D'you still have it?"
"No," he said, "I sent it to the Monstrumologist Society in New York, it will remain there."
Silence fell again. Less awkward but still not comfortable. He ventured, after a moment, "You told me that you got into a fight with a dog on the street."
"Yep."
"...Were you wounded in any way?"
"No."
"That boy Jack defended you?"
I scowled at him, "You keep forgetting that I been on my own two years in Five Points 'fore I got to you." I said, letting the street sound of the city creep back into my voice. Jack's dislike of the dialect had nearly erased it. "I can take care o' myself."
"Will you tell me how your mother died? And how you got along on your own?"
His voice was of a quality heretofore unheard from the mouth of Pellinore Warthrop, so I gave him a cleaned up version of the truth, "I boxed in the street some," I said, "Or cleaned, did laundry a little. Kept me in food mostly."
He nodded, "And your mother?"
"...a thug knifed her in our apartment."
His body jerked and he stared at me, his dark eyes moving over my face, "She was murdered?"
I tried to meet his gaze, "Yeah."
"Did they apprehend her assailant?"
I laughed a little cruelly, "I lived in Five Points d'you got any idea what it's like? You ever been near there?"
Coldly he answered, "I have not."
I shrugged harshly, "It's run by gangsters, Whyo's mostly, police don't get up there much. Nobody cared if some broad from the slums got knocked off. They cared less that another kid was out on the streets."
"I am beginning to understand why you were not afraid when I told you of the existence of monsters."
I gave him the most honest answer I could, "I am not afraid of anything."
His dark eyes seemed to be trying to peel back my skin to look within. I held his gaze steadily. Finally he changed the subject and said, "Will Henry has been greatly anticipating your arrival."
"That's what he said in his letter."
His next question was posed delicately, "Do the two of you write frequently?"
"I guess."
"And when you pen your reply is it more than a paragraph filled with foul language?"
I gave him a sneering smirk, "Well when he writes me it's more than a paragraph of condescension."
"Are you telling me that you expected long and emotive missives from me?"
I scoffed, "Just saying you get what you give, old man."
"And he writes you effusively?"
"What?"
He looked annoyed, "Writes a lot," he clarified, "Long letters."
I shrugged, "Honest letters, not always long. Look, what's between me and Will is between me and Will."
The angles of his face seemed to sharpen with his sneer, "He is my assistant and you are my...daughter. Any fraternization between the two of you is entirely my business."
"No it damn well ain't!" I almost shouted at him, then, softer almost like a plea I said, "Don't read what I send him. They're Will's letters, not yours."
He clenched his jaw, gritting his teeth, then loosed them and said in what was clearly attempting to be a reasoned tone, "I sent you away from my home, Annalee, to protect you from the dangers of Monstrumology. Those employed in such a profession do well to take neither lovers nor wives, do I make myself clear?"
"Are you saying don't marry Will or don't fuck a city broad and leave her with a kid?"
He recoiled at the language and the accusation, "Annalee."
"Don't worry, Doctor Warthrop I'll send you a letter 'fore Will and I run off together."
"Then the two of you are courting," it was not a question.
I swore again, "No, alright, if you gotta know, we aren't. For Christ's sake we just write letters. S'not like you're good company for him."
He ignored the last comment, "You ought to leave it that way."
The first thing I heard upon entering 425 Harrington Lane was thundering footsteps coming down the stairs. A moment later Will appeared in the doorway to the foyer and, regardless of the doctor who stood right next to me, threw his arms around me in an embrace. I held him back, just as tightly.
"Anna!" He said in my ear, "You're here!"
The doctor cleared his throat and Will released me instantaneously. He was taller than he had been the last time we had seen each other. His shoulders had broadened too. He had almost lost the look of the boy I had said goodbye to and seemed much more a young man. His hair, however, still stuck up in an untidy brown mess and his earnest smile had not changed.
"Hello, Will," I said a little breathlessly.
"Bring her suitcase upstairs for her, Will Henry," the doctor barked, "And snap to!"
"Of course," He said, grinning at me and taking my case, "I made dinner, in case you were hungry. Are you?"
"Yes," I said smiling back at him.
He disappeared briefly back up the stairs. The doctor glowered at me and I followed him into the kitchen.
Will reappeared at the kitchen door a moment later, still grinning. He ladled stew out for each of us and took a seat beside me. The doctor looked between us with narrowed eyes.
It was an odd feeling, sitting next to Will. We had lived together only briefly and really written quite infrequently, but I felt so tightly bonded to him. His arm rested next to mine on the table and our forearms leaned against one another. His forefinger was indeed gone, pink puckered scar where it had been. The doctor looked between us with a foul expression.
"You don't look as scrawny as you did last summer," I said to him.
He nudged me with his shoulder with mock irritation, "I was never scrawny."
I nudged him back, "Whatever you say, Henry."
"Will Henry," the doctor said sharply, "If you're finished glutting yourself there is cleaning to be done in the basement."
Will shrugged himself to his feet and said, sounding only a little disappointed, "Yes, sir."
"I can help him," I offered and he looked at Warthrop hopefully.
"No," Warthrop retorted with finality, "I am sure you are tired from traveling."
"No, I'm not," I said, "I'll help Will."
He gave in with a huff, "Fine, assist Will Henry, but I expect both of you to be working with utmost efficiency."
"Course we will, doc- uh - father," I said, ending somewhat awkwardly.
He seemed mollified and swooped into the library, leaving Will and I alone.
The moment he was out of the room I launched myself back into Will's arms, kissing him on the cheek, "I missed you, Will," I said into his ear.
He gripped me back tightly and pressed his lips against my hair, "Glad you're safe, Anna."
We stood together for almost an entire minute with our arms wrapped around each other. I had not realized the amount of tension it induced to be around Jack Kearns until I was back beside Will Henry. I felt his shoulders ease under my hands and he was almost slumped against me. I also pressed myself close, burying my face against his neck. He swayed slightly as he held me.
Finally, we loosened our holds on each other and he looked at me with eyes the color of honey. "We should get to work," he said at long last and release me entirely.
I followed him downstairs to the laboratory that I had never been to. It was dingy and dark, filled with sour smells of chemicals. Our work was a milieu of glassware and necropsy tools that needed washing up. Will did all of the washing, with me drying them, careful to prevent water spots.
In a whisper I could almost not hear he said, "So, tell me about your monster hunting. You promised."
I did. Leaving out the bit about the kidnapping, I told him about the wolf fight, the adrenaline and rush. I told him about the German castle and the lindworm, rolling on its head and my companion shooting it out from under me. He was rapt in his attention, leaving off the cleaning to listen.
"Did Warthrop tell you that we got a lindworm? Was that coincidence?" he asked.
"No," I said with excitement, "It was one of mine, the one we got was a female, we took her babies after she was dead."
"You should have seen Warthrop's face when he saw it!" Will hissed, "He was over the moon. But you said you had scars to show off."
I showed him the line across my fingers from knife throwing and the cut up my wrist. He showed much more interest in my wrist, tracing the thick scar with his finger and inspecting it under the lamp light.
"Now you," I prompted.
He went back to washing and I to drying and he told me about his winter in every detail. Telling him about my escapades and released something in my chest. I felt unburdened, lighter than I had. I could see the same effect acting upon him. His eyes glowed more the longer he spoke. Finally, at the end of his stories, he showed me his hand up close. He showed me the the other scars he had too, from previous fights. Bites on his arm and scars marring his chest.
"Will Henry! Annalee!" Warthrop called from the doorway, "Are you finished yet? You have been down there far longer than necessary. You must have finished with the cleaning."
I heard the distrust in his voice and I could imagine what he thought. Will, red blooded and fifteen pressing me, pretty and just short of fifteen against the wall in the dark and secluded basement. Lips pressed to each other and to necks. Hands exploring under the hems of shirt and bodice.
I understood the concern. It would be blatantly wrong to call me less than pretty, and an abject lie not to concede that Will had become quite handsome. But there was no fire between Will and I. His touch was sweetness, not temptation.
Will started up the stairs, "Yes, sir!" he said, "We're done." Halfway through his voice cracked awkwardly and he coughed in embarrassment. I followed him up and endured the doctor scanning over our clothing with a distrustful eye.
"It is late, time for bed, both of you," he said after finding no obvious faults in our appearances.
I felt light and girlish, relieved of the burden that had been so onerously mounted on my shoulders. I gave Warthrop a gleaming smile over my shoulder as I headed toward the stairs and said, just before I went through the door, "G'night, father."
He stiffened, "Goodnight, Annalee."
Will followed after me. He stopped briefly in the hall at my door, halfway between the landing and the ladder that led to his loft, "Goodnight, Anna," he said, kissing my hair again, "I am glad to have you back."
"Night, Will."
That night, I woke with a cry. The dead of night was still around me and I shook with the visions that had plagued my dreams. A body in pieces, blood on my face. A heavy frame knocking me to the ground in an alley. My nightgown and sheets were damp with sweat.
I lay back against my pillows, trying to purge the ugly visions from my eyes. That was when I heard it. Soft cries that filtered into my room broken by long and keening moans. I got out of bed and felt my way in the dark to the door.
When I reached the hallway it was obvious where the noise came from. It was not Pellinore Warthrop's cries and thrashing abouts from the left. Those I would have ignored. It came from the right, and the voice was too tender for Wartrhop's anyway. Will.
I climbed up the ladder and pushed open the door, coming halfway into his loft, "Will?" I called out softly, "Will."
His body thrashed up, twisted in the sheets. I could see his outline silhouetted in the moonlight coming in from the window behind him. His hair stuck up and his breath came hard.
"Will, are you alright?"
"Anna?" He asked blearily, "Did I wake you? I'm sorry. I'm alright. I'm fine. It was just...just a nightmare."
"No you didn't wake me...I was already awake."
The pause was filled up by his breath, slowly returning to normal, "You too?"
"Yes, me too... Do you want me to go?"
He ran his hands through his hair and said, voice shaking, "No...I...I want you to stay." He lurched, suddenly uncomfortable, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask you to...not in my bedroom...I'm sorry, Anna."
"I'll stay," I said, climbing entirely into the loft and shutting the door after me. I approached his bed and with trepidation he shifted over to the far side of it.
"I don't want to make you uncomfortable," he said.
I laid down on his bed, facing him. I reached out my hand and he took it in his. His skin was clammy and cold.
We lay there, him somewhat awkward and me restrained for several minutes. His breathing was calmer than it had been and he no longer shook. I reached out in the dark and pushed his sweaty hair back from his forehead. This broke his reticence and he tugged more forward.
Considerate and kind he opened his arms and allowed me to succumb, pulling myself into the warmth of his body. He wrapped his arms around me and ducked his head against mine. Shrouded in the dark and holding each other so dearly neither I nor he was capable of keeping ourselves contained. Alongside mine, his body renewed its shaking, terrible tremors passing up his spine and down his arms. His hands grasping my back and holding me flush to him. I twisted my fingers into the fabric on the back of his nightshirt and held him desperately to me.
It was curious. We were, both of us, entirely starved for affection, so utterly destitute that we hung onto each other as though we were staving off drowning. But, as in the basement, there was no quickening of the blood. It was the dam we had both put up against the things that we had seen breaking away with the force of mutual company.
"Please, Anna," he said into my ear, "Promise you will….that you won't...no matter what I have done."
"No matter what you've done, Will," I whispered back, "Promise me too."
He pressed his lips to my forehead, "I promise. I promise."
"Will," I whispered into his skin, "I'm afraid that I am a monster."
His fingers brushed back my damp hair from my forehead, "Then you're in luck," he breathed, "For I am uniquely trained to understand you."
For two months, the summer was as idyllic as it was possible to be at Harrington Lane. I helped Will keep the house and clean up after the doctor. Will occasionally disappeared into the basement and was kept late hours.
Warthrop and I were in somewhat of a stasis, neither affectionate nor indifferent. He did make a point of making forced conversation with me when we had breakfast together. Mostly, he went on long tangential lectures and Will and I sighed and exchanged commiserating glances.
Since the first night, I had spent each night either in Will's loft, or he in my room. He soothed my nightmares and I his. I knew the fury it might send Warthrop into if we were discovered, but it was worth the risk. Will was beginning to feel like a portion of my own self forged in the male form. As he had the first night, he understood half formed sentences and thoughts I did not myself fully comprehend.
I too, drew meaning from the barest look in his honey eyes or the shiver in his brow. If there were an ingredient to the human form, the stone that made Warthrop or the smoke that filled Kearns, Will and I were made of something the same one.
It was in July when Hell came down in the form of Pellinore Warthrop.
He walked into the kitchen where Will and I ate. His entire body was tense, more tense than I had ever seen it. His face was held in such perfect icy stillness it would have been easier to believe that he were a mannequin than a man. His eyes, darkened near to black and filled with thunderstorm were riveted to me.
He stopped at the opposite side of the table and reached out a hand. It moved slowly with deliberate intent. On the table before me he put a letter written on horrible and familiar stationary.
The Esteemed Doctor Pellinore Warthrop,
I write, unfortunately, to express my confusion and concern in regards to the correspondence you sent to me in June. You wrote inquiring after the academic standing of your daughter, Miss Annalee Warthrop. You expressed your satisfaction that her progress had improved and asked for specificities to the nature of her academic flaws. You also requested detailed analyses from her professors regarding how best you might assist her to improve further.
However, I must express my humble confusion. We have in our records correspondence from you, dated October the Twenty Third, declaring that a family emergency required Miss Warthrop's immediate return to America and the conclusion of her enrollment at the West Chariot School for Girls. I must confess that due to the brevity of her enrollment we sent you neither a report of her midterm progress, nor certainly her final term progress, for which she did not attend.
Please send further correspondence if you would like to renew her enrollment at West Chariot School for Girls this September.
Your Obedient Servant,
Mister Gerard Waverly,
Headmaster
My blood went cold in my veins and I raised my eyes from the letter to my father. His nostrils were flared and his jaw was set.
I had nothing to say, it was obvious what I had done, a man like Warthrop would not have had trouble putting together the pieces.
It would have been easier if he had screamed, but his voice was low and deadly, each word meticulously pronounced, "Whatever does Mister Gerard Waverly mean, Annalee, when he says that you have not been enrolled at the West Chariot School for Girls since October of last year? Because it was my belief that you were enrolled until the end of the term, and that you received mediocre results. Is that not what I was informed of in the missive from your school? However did I receive your marks if you were not in attendance to earn them?"
Will had gone stiff beside me and I could feel him shiver. It was what drove me to talk. If there was any salvaging to be had, it would be to keep Pellinore from discovering that Will had had any knowledge of my truancy.
"I sent the marks. Forged them, I mean, on stolen stationary," I said, trying to look him in the eye.
He leaned forward, "You will tell me why. You will spare no detail."
I scooted my chair back from him and ran my hand awkwardly through my hair, "I was failing. I was failing out of everything," my voice shook a little, unexpectedly. He had sent a letter asking how he could help me improve. For the first time, I felt the stirrings of guilt that I had let him down so utterly. "I didn't have any friends, I didn't know what anybody was ever talking about. They were going to kick me out."
"You were failing? How difficult could it have been? How thick headed are you, Annalee? That you could not even manage your first year of studies?"
I fired up at once in defense of myself, "I'm not thick headed, I just never got taught how to read French! I really tried hard, you know, but I couldn't catch up!"
He snapped back, "And you did not think to say anything to me? Your first reaction was to take matters upon yourself and deceive me? You might have simply sent a letter telling me that you were unable to keep up with even the most rudimentary of your studies."
I sneered at him, "Why? So you could haul me back here and ignore me like last summer? Remember them Greek lessons you tried? How'd that go, Pellinore?" My New York accent had flared back so readily in my anger than his name came out closer to 'Pellinow' than 'Pellinore.' I kept on, "You think I wanted to come back 'ere and sit in my room wit you and Will goin' off afta monsta's?"
His hand moved to hit me across the face and I leapt back, pulling my knife from my boot on instinct. He drew back in a jolt and Will cried out, "Anna!"
I took another step away from him and slid my knife back.
Oddly, insanely, this diffused the situation. Pellinore's look lost its vitriol and became clinical. Mine sheepish rather than wrathful.
"Sorry," I offered, "It was just..."
His voice much softer Pellinore said, "Give me the knife, Annalee."
I shook my head. I was not about to be disarmed, not even in this house inhabited by only Will and Warthrop. Nor was I going to arm a man who had just tried to hit me.
He tried a different tact, "Would you give it, instead, to Will Henry? I am certain he will eventually give it back."
I looked at Will who nodded at me encouragingly. But I shook my head again.
Although he watched me carefully, he forged onward, "Why do you keep a knife in your boot like a thug on the street?"
I sneered, "I was a thug on the street, Pellinore. Most o' my life I was a thug on the street. I don't know why you keep forgetting."
"There is no need to arm yourself in your own home."
I snarled a laugh, "My mother got knifed in my apartment 'n my father hunts monsters, I think there's plenty reason."
"I suppose I can concede you that. What did you do to sustain yourself? For God's sake what did you do all year if you were not in school?"
I shoved my hands in my pockets and scowled at the floor, "Same's I did in New York."
His lip curled, "Fought in the street?" He tilted his head like a viper and said, eyes not moving from mine, "Will Henry, how did she spend the year?"
"Will doesn't know anything!" I said defensively. If anything, this convinced him more thoroughly that Will did indeed know something.
"Will Henry."
He was twisting his fingers together and not looking at me. I saw him chewing the inside of his lip. My heart broke with my resolve. I would not ask Will to choose between his loyalty to me and his loyalty to Pellinore. I spoke before Will had a chance, "I was hunting monsters."
The shock that went through Warthrop seemed to electrify the entire room. My only consolation was the smile of thanks Will offered me, understanding as he always did, what I had done.
Understanding cleared the doctor's features, "The dog?"
"Beast of Gova-"I stuttered, forgetting the French name.
Quietly he finished the name for me, "Gévaudan. A Beast of Gévaudan. There were reports of one in Lorraine. You are saying that you took part in the hunt for it?"
I looked up at him, trying to read his expression, but it was indiscernible. I nodded.
"Did you or did you not say to me that it was you who killed it? That cannot have been the case. Beasts of Gévaudan are nearly two thousand pounds. It is simply not possible that a girl of your size and age could have withstood it."
I didn't waste my breath trying to convince him. I drew my little knife again, flipped it so I held it by the blade and threw it the opposite direction of either Will or Pellinore. My torso twisted just as Jack had taught me. The knife spun elegantly through the kitchen and lodged itself deep and point first into the center of a decoration on the kitchen wall.
Warthrop, who had flinched when I launched into my display, approached the knife and yanked it from the wall.
His back to me, long fingers touching the mark on the wall he said, "I told you before, Annalee, Monstrumology is not a profession for a young lady."
"I'm not so much a young lady."
"I will find you a remedial school for next year. You will stay there. Do I make myself understood?"
"Sir?" It was Will, speaking up unsurely.
"What is it, Will Henry?"
"I don't mean to disagree with you, sir-"
"Obviously you do, else you would not be speaking."
"She'll run away from that one too. She's going to find a way to hu- study monstrumology with or without your permission."
"And what would possibly give you authority on that, Will Henry?
"She told me, sir."
"She told you, Will Henry? I find that highly improbable. You mean to tell me that before it was even conceived of that she would be sent to a different school she told you this plan? Or do you mean perhaps that she telepathed you the idea just now?"
Will scowled, "I mean she as good as told me, sir. In a letter. I can show you."
"Will!" I said, betrayed.
He looked at me with big eyes, "Trust me, Anna."
I hesitated and bit my lip, but those eyes were undeniable, catching the light from the window and looking golden more than brown, "Alright, Will."
He ran upstairs and came back clutching my letter. He read the part he meant out loud before he gave it to Pellinore, "'I feel it like a calling from the stuff of the world itself, Will, and I can't turn it aside. I want to see everything that lurks in the dark, to rip it open and look it in the face. '"
Pellinore snatched the letter from Will's hands and read it over. He would know now about the lindworm too. He said nothing for a very long time. Finally, not looking up from the letter he said, "I will teach you, Annalee, but I will not take you into the field."
I smiled, not at Warthrop, but at Will, who smiled back. There were different things in our smiles though. He saw a long term companion who would keep him company during the tedium of lab work and be waiting for him to return from adventures. I only saw that I would get two months of instruction on monstrumology. Even promised tutelage under Warthrop, I had no doubt that October the seventeenth would find me on that ship with Jack.
Being taught monstrumology by Dr. Pellinore Warthrop was exactly as exciting as I had anticipated it being. Which is to say, dull to such a degree than only Will's presence kept me from gouging out my eyes with spoons. It was almost entirely trailing after him listening to endless lectures about esoteric details that I did not care about or understand.
It was also cleaning up after him and convincing him to eat when he refused. It was long hours copying his notes and letters. It was going through endless newspapers. And, all through September it was waiting for he and Will to return from an expedition. I was so bored during that month and a half that I nearly wrote a letter to Jack, just to complain about it.
The only benefits, and I could only scrounge up two, were that I was free to both practice my knife throwing and research the Mohan. And, to give him credit, there was probably no place else in the world better to research a monstrous creatures than Pellinore Warthrop's library. It took me only three days to find information on the Mohan. It became clear within the book's first paragraph, why I was integral to Jack's hunt.
But, once I had found the few books he had on the subject, I soon exhausted them and was returned to a state of abject boredom. I missed Will and even more, if that were possible, I missed the thrill of adventure. I wanted to feel my blood sing in my veins again and longed for it like an addiction. I could throw my little knife, or Jack's gifted slightly bigger knife. I could scramble up door jambs and pull myself up and down eaves and window ledges. I could sprint through the countryside and leap over tables. But I could not capture even an iota of the battle lust that rumbled into my marrow when a hunt was afoot.
Weeks turned into a month, and still they had not returned. They had not even told me where they were going.
When it reached October 10th I begrudgingly, and with much disappointment, admitted to myself that I would be leaving while Will was away for a second time. I would have had to leave on the fifteenth, the next time a train would be going from New Jerusalem to New York. I sharpened both of my knives and packed by bag a hundred times, looking out the window all the while. I had a gutted fear that I would not see Will again, at least not for a long time. I would not so easily be able to come back after I ran away. But I could not bring myself to forgo meeting Jack.
On the eleventh, I sat at the kitchen table, struggling over a letter to leave explaining where I had gone. It was then that I heard the door open and my heart exploded into pounding. I shoved the paper into my pocket and darted into the foyer. Bedraggled and travel worn, Will and Warthrop stood in the doorway.
I launched myself at Will and clung to me with equal desperation. Warthrop, giving no greeting, brushed passed us into the house, "Will Henry, there is much to do in preparation, snap to!"
Will pulled away from me, smiling. I heard his stomach give a vicious rumble.
"I'll make dinner," I said, kissing his cheek, "Go help Doctor Fussy. Tell me about your hunt after"
He returned my kiss and followed his master.
Pellinore allowed Will a few moments to gulp down the dinner, wherein he told me that the creature they were hunting had entirely eluded them before they were forced to return with haste. Soon after we were both put to work copying out notes for some sort of lecture. Warthrop had not even stopped to clean himself up from travelling. Dark circles were under his eyes and, even more than Will, he looked malnourished. Mad energy was about him, driving him forward with no regard to his physical state.
"What's this for anyway?" I asked two hours into listening to him revise and edit a horrifically boring speech, "Why'd you come back if you didn't catch what you were after?"
He glared at me for interrupting him, "The Annual Colloquium at the Society is upcoming. I have been asked to appear as a keynote speaker. It is because of that that I was forced to return from our unsuccessful venture. The Colloquium is of utmost importance, both of you will be in attendance. Annalee, you will behave yourself.."
"When is it?"
"The seventeenth of October."
"Where is it?"
"New York City. We leave on the fifteenth."
"If you insist," I said. But what a gift he had given me.
If Warthrop hadn't been so caught up in preparing for the honor of delivering his keynote address, I'm sure he would have realized I was up to something. I can't imagine I kept my churning nerves to myself. Will knew something. He kept giving me long and searching looks, but he said nothing in front of the doctor and we had no time in private. Warthrop had put us up in two rooms, one for he and Will, the other for me. In such close quarters there was no way to sneak off to see each other, even in the dark of the night.
But I had proceeded in making a plan of escape for myself, even if I had no time to tell Will what I was up to. The plan I had laid out for myself was delicately timed, although fate seemed to have intervened to a remarkable degree. On October the seventeenth we were required at lectures that would last until two o'clock. Warthrop's would be first, and we would sit watching him in his family's box. I corrected my thinking awkwardly, our family's box. After the lectures, at three o'clock, we would be meeting for a late luncheon with one of Warthrop's colleagues. That meant that when we left to travel between these two locations, I would make my escape to meet Jack on the docks.
This meant, of course, that everything I intended to bring would have to be inconspicuously on my person. For that reason, I was glad that October in New York was chilly. Warthrop had purchased for me a new fashionable dress, and a woman's dress rather than a girl's. In 1891, this meant a bustle at the back and a large voluminous skirt. Under the skirt I wore my trousers, new sleek trousers I had spent some of my lindworm earnings on. I wore my new boots on my feet and walked with care not to let them peek from under my skirt. One knife resided in the boot, the other strapped to my thigh. The remainder of my money I had packed in the bodice of my dress.
The morning was impossible. The lectures, starting with Warthrop's and, if possible, getting more boring from there, were insufferable. I only stayed awake through them due to the flutter of nerves in my belly. When the last lecture ended at two fifteen, I was antsy to leave. Warthrop had joined us by then and, as the final applause ended, he rose to lead us to the street.
We had not made it more than ten feet from the box when he was stopped and congratulated by a fellow monstrumologist. Another one after that. All of them seemed to be clamoring to shake his hand and tell him what an impressive speech he gave. I noticed, however, that each monstrumologist gave me more than a passing glance. I would not say anything to him, but I suspected laying eyes on a daughter that Warthrop, still unmarried, had suddenly appeared with, might have been a bigger draw than whatever the hell he had blathered about for forty minutes.
Still, the clock that hung in the anteroom of the Society building read a quarter to three by the time we were making our way to the street. My heart pounded erratically in my chest. It was not my intention to get on the hansom cab that awaited us. I did wish that there were fewer of Pellinore's colleagues around. I harbored the twin fears that one of them would react to a call to aid from him and that my flight would cause him such embarrassment that he would never forgive me.
In the hubbub I waited until my father was halfway into the cab before I pulled Will back. I pressed a kiss to his cheek and whispered, "Goodbye, Will." Then spun and took off, sprinting as fast as I could in my double layers away from the cab.
"Doctor Warthrop!" He called out.
Over my shoulder I saw my father turn from where he was, poised in the door to the cab. He saw me immediately, streaking passed his contemporaries.
"Annalee!" He thundered.
But I paid him no mind. I knew these streets far better than he did. I slid into an alley and divested myself of my lady's clothing, ripping them off more than undoing the laces. I was left in only the shirt and trousers I had had underneath. Unencumbered I fled away toward the docks.
The fifteen minutes I had to travel the many blocks to the pier seemed to go by in a blink of dodging between cabs and pedestrians. I could smell the salt air and hear the noises of ships. But I could also hear the bells going off, alerting me that my time was up. How promptly would the ship leave?
I skidded around the last building and the pier came into sight. Dock twenty three was just in front of me. I looked up and saw her, The Explorer. She was not large, no steel commercial vessel. Tri-masted and wooden, sitting low in the water. But she was already shipping out, her last lines being cast off. I saw him standing on the deck, blond hair tied back and fluttering in the sea breeze. Jack Kearns was dressed as elegantly as ever, arms crossed over his chest. A small crease of unhappiness marred his handsome face.
I started up the dock at full pelt, "JACK!" I shouted.
His face lit up in a sunny smile when he saw me and called back, "Best hurry, Lee."
I pressed myself forward into a sprint, ready to leap from the end of the dock when I was seized by the wrist and wrenched back. I turned back, fist raised against my assailant. Pellinore Warthrop had me by the wrist, dark eyes looking madly between me and Jack Kearns.
"Annalee," he said, he was out of breath, his clothing ruffled. Will was half a block behind him, racing to keep up. "Is that who took you hunting? Jack Kearns? Tell me, Annalee!"
I pulled on my wrist, "Let go!"
There was panic in his voice that I had not ever heard there before, "You will not go with him, Annalee, not him."
There was a part of me that wanted to listen to him, to go back to the lunch date and the relative safety of Pellinore Warthrop. But the call to the hunt was too fierce and I could do nothing but answer it.
"Sorry, pop," I said and drew my knife from my boot and slashing it shallowly across his fingers. He let go at once and I launched myself away from him, pelting up the dock. The ship was ten feet out, too far to make the jump, but I could not help but try. I launched myself from the very edge of the dock and could hear my father racing behind me, feel him reaching out after me to arrest my jump.
But I was a hairsbreadth too swift for him. I arced across the gap toward the ship. I called out to him again, reaching for him, "Jack!"
My jump was just short of long enough. My toes touched the edge of the deck but I did not have enough momentum to swing myself toward it. I began to tip back, flailing wildly to catch hold of something. Jack's hand flashed out and pulled me securely onto the deck of the ship. I was out of breath, heaving from exertion. I straightened, Jack's hand on my shoulder.
His hand raised in a little wave, he looked back at the dock, face alight with unmitigated glee. Pellinore stood at the very edge of the dock, cravat loose, hair tussled and blood trickling from his fingers. His face was livid with anger, eyes torrid returning Jack's stare.
At his side was Will whose gaze was just for me. Unlike his master he did not look angry, but horror struck.
