Wool's Orphanage, London, October 1927
Some would have said that the nursery of Wool's orphanage was its worst room. Twenty-four wooden cots, each of the same modest make as the next, were regimented in four even rows. The nurses, though outnumbered by their charges, were of longsuffering tempers and thus held always to the principle that no single infant should be privileged above another. In turn, the infants knew that their screeching and wailing would always magically achieve, though not the complete satisfaction of their impossible desires, at least some sort of extraneous relief, even if they had to persist in their squalling for hours. And so, as though from a hellhouse, screams resonated through Wool's Orphanage every hour of every day. All its orphans had long learned to sleep to this endless symphony of newborn rage.
At night, when the lights were turned off and the curtains drawn, the only source of light for the wrathful infants was the dim handheld lamp of whichever nurse was chosen to guide them through to the morning. One night, a new and especially young nurse, an energetic, pink-cheeked country-girl who fervently wished to do 'some good' for the nation's most deprived, was given this responsibility. Where most nurses made the rounds with their lamp once every hour, this lively new stewardess went every fifteen minutes.
Whenever she made her rounds, she paused before one particular cot—that one of the gypsy twins. Tom Marvolo Riddle and Mary Metis Riddle they were called, and the young nurse found them as strange if not as reprehensible as their names. They were the only infants that shared a cot, and conspicuously the only ones that rarely if ever cried. These two facts, albeit each innocent in themselves, were regarded together as a particularly ill omen by many of the nurses, the young nurse among their number. Thus, perhaps motivated by curiosity, though equally likely by resentment, she took little Tom out of his cot, from his sister.
Little Mary started a terrible wail. The nurse went to place Tom, who had also broken into wails, in a vacant cot at the corner of the room.
However, not long after she left, the nurse felt a lurching sense of wrong in her stomach. Something was terribly amiss. It was too quiet. The nursery was never this quiet. In fact, it was never quiet at all. Slowly, as though apprehended by a leering burglar with a sharp weapon, the nurse put down her canteen of hot water, and rose to return quietly to the nursery, conscious that her heart throbbed like a train engine.
With a hesitating hand she opened the door, wincing as the creaking hinges creaked with a loudness that made her feel intrusive. Armed with nothing more than her lamp, she went in.
In his new cot, the infant Tom stood completely upright and completely still, holding the rails, his head turned at an impossible, macabre angle to face the door, his silhouette cast like that of a gothic effigy in the cold cellar of an abandoned cathedral. The young nurse gasped but no noise came from her mouth. Instead, her head began to ache. Her vision went blurry. She stumbled and quickly grabbed hold of a nearby cot, waking a baby to cry. The pain in her head sharpened and sharpened, as though someone was burrowing a knife through it. She started panting, it was becoming hard to breathe through the nose … she'd never had a headache so awful … it felt burning hot and heavy like an iron …
She ran to little Tom's cot, picked him up, and placed him back with his sister, who jerked her jittery baby arms to hug him. Were it not for the time and place and the souls involved, this reconciliation could perhaps have been called endearing. But the nurse had not seen it, at any rate; her headache had suddenly cleared and, taking advantage of this little mercy, she fled the orphanage in the dead of the night, never to return.
Throughout England, March–April, 1933
The orphans were at a calm, countryside beach. Most of them were excited, if not outright frantic, for they had never seen the sea before. Though the day was cloudy, there was no rain, and as it was a-ways from both summer and Christmas, there were few other people with whom they had to share the scene apart from a meek bunch of rustic villagers.
Mary and Tom were now six. They each had healthy heads of unruly black hair, and good-looking faces with sly but guarded expressions. They were permitted to do whatever they pleased without hindrance, for all the other orphans made way for them—something they had learned to do.
As though for a picnic, Tom brought a straw basket, and within it was neither food nor drink, but a miscellaneous assortment of uneatable things. Round stones, leaves of different trees, dried flowers, and even the shards of smashed beer bottles they had found on the pavement. To the uninitiated, there was no purpose whatsoever to these objects. But for the twins it was part of a great mythos. Whatever belonged to one belonged to both.
They sat on the lawn which overlooked the beach, an old sandstone promenade, and the blackness of the endless sea.
"It goes on forever," observed Mary. "D'you think there's monsters in it?"
"Yes, oh yes," Tom said wisely. "Though there's monsters everywhere. We just don't see them 'cause they hide from us."
"Let's find where they hide."
"We can't go into the ocean," Tom pointed out. "Besides, this is just the North Sea. It's nothing. The monsters in the Atlantic Ocean are bigger, more scary. They eat whole ships. Whole fleets."
"Where's that ocean? The Atlantic one?"
"On the other side of the country. We'll go there someday. Father will take us there. He'll take us to see everything, everywhere."
"But what if the Atlantic monsters eat our father?" Mary asked gravely.
"They won't," Tom assured, "because they're scared of me."
Mary put her arm around her brother's shoulder and pulled him against her. She knew he was right. They never saw anyone, not the other orphans nor the monsters of the world, because they were all scared of him.
"Let's go," Tom decided.
So they continued their scavenging, hand in hand. Down at the beach, they procured seashells to hold to their ears and hear the comatose murmuring of the sleeping Earth; the ones which were particularly resonant were deposited into their basket. At the western end of the shore jutted a few mossy rocks from the sea, each ample enough to serve as stepping-stones. They went there and stopped to squat down and see; between the rocks were little foamy pools in which tiny white fish swam to and fro. Mary dipped her finger in the water to see if they would bite; instead, they fled.
"Giantsss …" hissed a strange, sibilant voice.
Just like the fish jolting away from Mary's curious finger, so did the twins jolt volte-face to see their interloper. It was a snake. A very small snake, its elongated body swaying left and right like the thin stem of a tall flower in a field. No longer than an adult's forearm and no wider than Tom's thumb, it looked almost a little like a large, slim worm, although its skin was a light brown shade that verged on red, like dull copper. Its body had irregular black stripes, and altogether, it was decisively unthreatening.
"Giantssss," it repeated, erecting its body.
"Giants?" Mary repeated. "D'you hear that, Tom? We're only six!"
"Ssmall giantsss … by the rocksss."
"We're still big for it," Tom pointed out. "Can you understand us, snake?"
"Yesss … giant … your tongue I can hear …"
"Are you The Devil?" Mary asked quizzically.
"Devilll?" it hissed in something resembling confusion. "I'm sssmall snake … you're sssmall giantss … the big onesss … they're gone …"
"A snake told Eve to eat the forbidden fruit," Mary taught the snake. "But you're not him. You're just a child."
"Sssmall, yess …"
"Where are your parents?" Tom asked.
"The wingsss took them …"
"The wings?" Mary asked. "You mean the eagles? Yes, they told us there might be some here, though we haven't seen any."
"The eagles ate its parents," Tom theorised.
"Eating … hungry wingsss …"
Mary took another look at the snake, and then at Tom, as though to compare the two. Then, she rendered her verdict.
"Don't worry, we'll take care of you."
Though Tom did not particularly want to have a pet, snake or not, he always assented to his sister's wishes, and thus placed the creature in their basket. Indeed, it went with the twins back to London, and both of them were unabashed before the other orphans with it. She was a girl-snake, and thus given the name Metis, Mary's enigmatic middle name. Mary liked to have Metis coil around her arm; Tom, around his neck.
Surprisingly, she thrived in London. In the country as an orphan-snake, she had to compete with greater reptiles for the same food, and was condemned to slither in everlasting fear of overhead raptors. In East London there were no other snakes, and the largest bird that could be seen was the pigeon, who was hardly a bird of prey. Moreover, it had become a hobby of the twins to hunt food for her, with a jar they had nicked from a jam and preserves store.
It rained plentifully during autumn, and after showers, rainbows would appear in the sky and slugs would abound on the wet pathways. For Metis, slugs were a delicacy, and for the twins, capturing as many of those slimy creatures as they could was a great amusement.
However, their joy with their reptilian friend was short-lived. One winter day, hardly three weeks before their birthday, everything came to an end.
It began before lunch. The twins, with Metis draped over Tom's nape, arrived at the table. They sought the leftmost seats where they always sat and from where the rest of the children kept their respectful distance.
That day, however, their territory was occupied. A new orphan by the name of Isaac Booth, a burly teenager of fifteen with a heavy, compressed head and a skewed smile, had dared to usurp their silent throne. Arranged around him was a troop of shorter boys, all of whose faces were familiar, and all of whose expressions combined excitement with fear—it was a mutiny.
"Why here they are!" Booth declared firmly, confident in his deep voice. "The Riddles. I've heard stories about you two. I believe 'ese stories, but only to a point, as they say. Well, why don't you sit down, make yourselves comfortable?"
"Leave our seats," Tom commanded.
"Your seats," Booth mocked. "Pray tell then, who gave you the right to them? The snake?"
"What a nuisance," Tom hissed to Metis. "I shall have to hurt him."
Mary, suddenly overcome by protectiveness for her snake, took it off Tom's shoulders.
"Ssit elssewhere …" Metis suggested.
None of the boys surrounding Booth understood snake-speech, and so, in their gasping and murmuring and pointing, construed Metis' suggestion as a threat. Booth, however, sat unfazed.
"So it's true," came Booth, with a tinge of admiration in his voice. "You can talk to snakes. You know that brings bad luck, right?"
"Bad luck for you," said Tom.
"But I s'pose you don't care—they say you're of the devil's blood anyway."
"And you dare tempt the devil?"
For a moment, silence reigned as Tom and Booth stared daggers at each other. Then, to the surprise of everyone, Booth conceded his gaze and gave a smile.
"Alright then Riddle, have it your way."
Booth stood up, slowly turned to leave, and in fact took a step in the direction of the stairs as though to retreat from the dining hall entirely—before suddenly turning back and punching Tom in the face.
Chaos ensued. Metis, like a sentient whip, leapt from Mary's arms to strike the older boy's face—and it struck true—only for the older boy to throw it to the ground and stomp on it.
For a moment, the snake laid dormant like a cut yarn of rope on the ground, and Mary, thinking it was dead, screamed—then Booth stomped on it again—which rejuvenated life back into it, but only for it to slide and spring out of the room like a flying fish.
"METIS!" Mary shouted after it before running to pursue it.
Tom tried to chase his sister and their snake, but Booth shoved him back to the ground, his head knocking hard on the floorboards, the bitter taste of blood fomenting in his mouth. How dare you! Tom thought as heat and rage rose to his head. How dare you!
He sprang up and, with all the strength he could muster in his body and soul, seized Booth's arm to bite it with the ferocity of a starved feral dog.
Booth screamed with all of his lungs, but he remained in possession of himself, for it took no time for him to punch Tom in the head. The latter, immediately before falling unconscious, thought he had been hit by a huge metal saucepan.
The next few days passed in a blur.
As it was thankfully winter, ice was easy to attain, and ice Tom had to regularly apply to his bruises to prevent swelling. He was told that he'd left a terrific mark on Booth's arm, and that some of the orphans believed, because of it, that he had replaced his teeth with the teeth of a wolf. Unfortunately he was unable to behold any of his work, his victim having thoroughly bandaged his shame with a grey cloth. Altogether, Tom did not mind his wounds, and in fact they were little compared to the loss of his snake, which was in turn very little compared to the grief of his sister. Mary had not cried since she was a toddler.
"Metis will come back," Tom tried to assure her, though he was uncertain himself. "We fed her."
"She's dead. Dead!" Mary insisted between cries. "In a gutter somewhere, or squashed flat by a car on the road!"
Tom held her tightly in his arms. He had feared that she would be angry at him, that she would hold him responsible for their snake's flight, but she had not even a single tidbit of bitterness against him. For how could she? She was precious. It was then that Tom decided he would never lie to her.
"I don't know where Metis is," he said, "but I know we will make Booth hurt for what he did."
Isaac Booth would not have suspected the twins of any malicious designs, as for days and then weeks, they steered clear out of his way. He and his friends freely occupied the dining room's leftmost seats, and some of the more daring among them wanted him to provoke the Riddles even further. He told them dryly that he had no desire to get bitten again, but the unspoken truth was, he was intensely afraid of Tom Riddle. The scar on his arm, although largely faded, had become permanent. Riddle's teeth penetrated so far into his skin that it was disfigured forever. Moreover, often he had terrible, vivid nightmares from which he would awake covered in sweat, to discover his scar in searing pain, as though it was freshly bitten.
And indeed, the activity of the Riddle twins was subtle enough that it went unnoticed not just by Booth, but by all the orphans. In their room, in the lowest drawer of their cabinet, a doll was being assembled. Chicken bones, chewed to the bone, made its skeleton; snake skin made its skin (for Metis had shed her skin five times since her coming to London, and the twins kept each of her discarded skins in this drawer) and, most importantly, Isaac Booth's hair decorated its head. This they were able to retrieve after the older boy took his weekly shower on Wednesdays.
The Lamb, as the twins had taken to calling the doll, was completed in a little over a month. Glue, rubber bands, and wet newspaper enfleshed it to the full. Arranged on the floor before the twins' shared single bed, it was the size of a large baby with an exceptionally small head, but with exceptionally many hairs in many exceptionally strange places.
It would be a day of ceremony. On the windowsill, beneath the clear blue sky, was a small mound of breadcrumbs, like a tiny anthill. It was the first point in a trail of crumbs, which went deep into the Riddles' room. The same unassuming pigeon which dined there every morning had no cause to suspect that his hosts would show anything less than their complete hospitality, and indeed for the past two weeks, it had come to familiarise itself with the touch of their human hands—they stroked and even held it, and it came to learn that they would do no harm to it.
Like two sides of an ancient, broken marble archway, the twins towered over the pigeon from either side and watched it approach The Lamb.
And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
Tom's wide curious eyes followed the form of his sister, who stalked slowly and patiently her prey, moving with such quietness and gentleness that it seemed time itself had slowed down. In her hand was a screwdriver which had been sharpened with a butcher's whetstone.
Then, she struck. With cold, unhesitating force Mary impaled the pigeon's neck from nape through throat. She carved a great bloody aperture through its back in one motion for good measure. Then, she dipped her fingers into the corpse to paint them with blood, and drew a red circle around The Lamb.
The twins stood up in synchrony to behold their work. Mary gestured her bloody hand at Tom to complete the last step of their ceremony.
"You'll do it," Tom told his sister. "Metis was closer to you."
Mary gave a single nod. Then, she stepped forward, raised her right foot and, with all the rage and energy she could muster, stomped down at The Lamb to flatten it to the ground.
At once a piercing shriek resounded through the orphanage, one that in fact resounded to every Londoner that lived on the street of the orphanage—but it stopped as soon as it came. Then came the clamour of rushed footsteps and murmurs; something had happened, everyone wanted to see. All the upstairs orphans went downstairs, and all the outside orphans went inside. Tom and Mary followed the throng.
There, on the leftmost end of the table, was a horrific sight that would scar many of its beholding orphans for life. Like a puppet violently thrown against asphalt, Isaac Booth lay disfigured on the floor, covered in blood and splinters from the chair upon which he was previously seated and which appeared smashed into hundreds of pieces. Blood covered his face and blood flowed from the inexplicable ruptures in his clothes; but all of this was nothing—nothing—compared with the lower half of his body. His legs, from thighs downward, were completely squashed, like pumpkin in a mortar for a pie. In place of them was the bloodied wood of the floor-planks, discoloured like a tree who survived the decimation of his forest, cursed with bearing the blood of all its kindred.
Even the senior nurses that rushed to the scene broke into hysterical screams upon beholding the ghastly sight. They sounded like the infants of their nursery; without hope, without moderation, primal and despairing. And who could blame them? None of them had ever seen anything like this. None of them had thought it possible.
Far from them in the back of the crowd stood the Riddle twins, whose notoriety rose to new dark heights in the weeks to come. There, behind the dozen shocked, numb faces of terrified orphans, a little smile curled on Mary's face, and her dark, delicate eyes glimmered with a joy that would have, in any other place and time, appeared innocent and deeply endearing. She looked as though she was lightly amused by something only a small child would find funny. It was this little expression, the seat of which was her mirthful, dark eyes, that Tom regarded with a full heart, and it would be these eyes which, in years to come, would utterly enthral many a boy to dreamfully imagine her as kind, intelligent, loving, maternal, angelic, and it was so tantalisingly charming, and even true, that they would forget who she truly was—a Riddle, more powerful and pitiless than they could possibly conceive.
A/N: As of the 15th of April, this fic will update every 1-2 weeks.