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 always held to the principle that no single infant should be privileged above another. In their turn, the infants knew that screeching and wailing were effective means of gaining the attention and affection of the nurses, even if they had to persist in their squalling for hours. Thus, as though from a hellhouse, screams resonated through Wool's Orphanage every hour of every day. All its residents—the orphans and their attendants alike—had long learned to live with this endless symphony of infant 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 guided them through to the morning. One night, a new 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—the one of the gypsy twins. They were called Tom Marvolo and Mary Metis, and their family name was 'Riddle'. The young nurse found them as strange, if not as somehow dreadful, 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, and the young nurse was 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 wailing, in a vacant cot in a corner of the room. Telling herself that she had done him some good, she left the room.
However, not long after she left, the nurse felt a lurching sense of wrong in her stomach. Something was terribly amiss. It had become quiet. The nursery was never this quiet—it was never quiet at all. Slowly, as though forced at gunpoint, the nurse put down her canteen of hot water, and quietly rose to return to the nursery, hearing nothing but the wild throbbing of her heart.
With a quivering hand she opened the door, wincing as the creaking hinges screeched with a loudness that seemed to accuse her. Armed with nothing more than her lamp, she went in.
In his new cot, the infant Tom stood upright and completely still, holding the rails, his head turned at an impossible angle to face the door—exactly where the young nurse stood—his silhouette cast like a gothic effigy left 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 a knife was burrowing through it. She started panting … it was becoming hard to breathe through the nose … she'd never had a headache so awful … so 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 with unconditional possessiveness. Were it not for the time and place and the souls involved, this reconciliation would have perhaps been endearing. But at any rate, the nurse did not see it; her headache had suddenly cleared and, taking advantage of this little mercy, she fled the orphanage in the dead of the night, never to come back.
Throughout England, March–April, 1933
The orphans were at a tame country 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 long 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, though within it was neither food nor drink, but a curious assortment of inedible things. Unnaturally round stones, a dozen leaves from different trees, dried flowers of various colours and odours, and the shards of a smashed beer bottle they 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—that 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 their hiding spots!"
"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. Father'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," said Tom.
So they continued their scavenging, hand in hand. Down at the beach, they procured seashells to hold to their ears and hear the unconscious murmurs 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 a stepping-stone. The twins 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. A snake! A very small snake, its elongated body swayed left and right like the stem of an overgrown flower in a field of wild grass. No longer than an adult's forearm and no wider than Tom's thumb, 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 curiously.
"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 carefully placed the creature in their basket, among the round stones and dried flowers. Indeed, it went with the twins back to London, and both of them were brazen before the other orphans with it. A girl-snake, she was given the name Metis, Mary's enigmatic middle name. Mary liked to have Metis coil around her arm; Tom, around his neck.
Metis thrived in London. Where in the country she was condemned to compete with greater reptiles for the same prey, all the while slithering 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—hardly a bird of prey.
It rained plentifully during autumn, and after showers, rainbows would appear in the sky and slugs would abound on the wet pathway of the orphanage's street. For Metis, slugs were a delicacy, and for the twins, capturing as many of these 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 until the twins' birthday, everything came to an end.
It began before lunch. The twins, with Metis draped over Tom's neck, arrived at the table. They sought their customary leftmost seats 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 an asymmetrical 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 'bout you. I believe 'em, but only to an extent. 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, already anticipating an escalation of the enmity between the boys, took Metis off Tom's shoulders.
"Ssit elssewhere …" Metis suggested.
None of the boys surrounding Booth understood snake-speech, and so, 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?"
"For you," said Tom.
"But I s'pose you don't care—they say you've got the devil's blood in you."
"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—striking 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 miraculously spurred life back into it—only for it to slide and spring out the room like a flying fish.
"METIS!" Mary shouted, before running after her pet in pursuit.
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. Damn you! Tom thought as heat and rage rose to his head. Damn 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 hatred of a starved feral dog.
Booth screamed with all of his lungs, but reacted quickly—instinctively—he at once unloaded a punch squarely into Tom's face. 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 winter, ice was thankfully easy to attain, and ice Tom had to regularly apply to his bruises to prevent swelling. He was told that he had left a terrific mark on Booth's arm, and that some of the orphans upon beholding it had conjured a rumour that he must have been a vampire. But Tom was unable to behold any of his work, for his victim thoroughly bandaged his shame with a grey cloth. Tom did not mind his wounds, which 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 privately uncertain. "We fed her."
"She's dead. Dead!" Mary insisted between cries. "In a gutter somewhere, or on the road, squashed flat by a car!"
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, although the truth was that he had become 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 still 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; Metis' skin made its skin (Metis shed her skin five times since her coming to London; the twins kept each of her wilts 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' little shared 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 usual hospitality, and indeed for the past two weeks, it had come to familiarise itself with the touch of their human hands—they had stroked and even held 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.
Tom's wide curious eyes followed the form of his sister, who stalked her prey slowly and patiently, 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 the whetstone in the kitchen.
Then, she struck. With 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 engulf them with blood, and painted 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. 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 came downstairs, and all the outside ones came 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 beholders 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 compared with the lower half of his body. His legs, from thighs downward, were squashed, like half-mashed pumpkin in a mortar for a pie, sprinkled with bloodied red-brown debris like clove and cinnamon.
Even the senior nurses, who were familiar with the canyons of human suffering and beheld sights that most adults would not have believed, broke into hysterical screams upon beholding the paranormal gore before them. 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.
In the back of the crowd stood the Riddle twins, whose notoriety would rise to new dark heights in the weeks to come. There, behind the shocked, numb faces of a dozen 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. This look would become, for the rest of Tom's life, one of his most cherished memories.