The first time Thomas married, it was after a terrible humiliation in London. His plan to save him and his sister had ended in disaster, with investors laughing behind his heels. Only freshly out of boarding school, he had little but sketches in a notebook, the product of childish imagination and pitiful hopes.
Just a year prior, he had freed Lucille from that awful institution. He saw the abuse they had struck upon her over the years. Her health had suffered, both mentally and physically, her bones peeking from her skin, her eyes dull. He had hugged her tightly and promised to nurse her back to her former brave self.
He could not do that if he could not even put food on the table. Could not even warm her in the winters, as she huddled inside the covers, frozen. The family had gone through their last supply of coal.
They had already pawned off most of what they could. Father's rifles. Mother's collection. But everything they had was old. No one cared for old things in an era of engines and steam. Thomas had hoped he could turn his talents into something that would fit into the new world, that he could go from designing toys to the machines that people adored so much. That he could produce something of value, anything at all.
The rain soaked mercilessly into his clothes, into the pages of his notebook. By then, it shouldn't have mattered. They were worthless anyway.
Pamela Upton, then thirty-five, had just closed up shop when she saw Thomas sitting miserably on the curb. Despite his finely tailored clothes and good shoes, he had not enough money to afford an umbrella, much less a coach. In good nature, she took him in for tea.
It was an odd experience. The young lad was well-mannered and charming, but also ill-adjusted to the city. Curious, but sometimes utterly ignorant of common sense. It was as if some other-worldly prince or magician's doll had just dropped onto her doorstep.
He had the most beautiful blue eyes. They would shine with delight, and she had a way with humor that lit him up again and again, until he laughed, and she laughed, and the dreary grey weather was all but forgotten.
Thomas was unnaturally handsome. He was seventeen. Pamela could not fit into his biggest of shirts, could not fit into any clothes of fine society without the buttons ballooning around her middle. Yet, it did not stop her from rechecking the mirror, from putting pins in her hair. It did not stop her from being warmed with the bubbliest joy whenever Thomas cheerfully complimented her on those same pins.
A doomed love, Pamela knew.
But nothing, if not genuine.
Thomas liked her. If he did not, he would not return to her shop day after day, he would not have such eagerness in his eyes as he spoke to her, he would not run her errands or inquire of her thoughts. He would not reveal to her the secrets of his notebook, or glow at her praise, or listen so intensely to her advice.
"If you're going to go into business," she had told him, "you have to know how to sell. Pick a product and stick with it."
In her, Thomas saw a friend, a mentor, perhaps even a lost mother. But he did not desire her the way she did him.
That was the reality Pamela had been given. And that was the reality she had accepted.
At least, until the day before Thomas's departure, when he dropped by her shop one last time. He had held onto his hat, regarding her with a solemn expression, far too serious and mature for his age. Pamela had lowered her tea tray, unsure of what he was asking of her.
Come with him to Cumberland?
Then she saw the ring.
His sister needed coal. Thomas had promised he would not return until he brought her food and a warm bath. He had promised he would find something to sell.
But everything they had was old. Even the ring he had dug from his mother's grave, the jeweler had taken one look before shaking his head.
The tea tray fell.
Pamela had tears in her eyes, as she rushed toward him.
Everything they had was old. Everything, except Thomas himself.
He was young. His eyes shined brighter than any jewel. If he was as worthless as the investors said, then why did people turn their heads on the street, why did their eyes linger on him as he passed.
No, Thomas still had something of value.
And if it also brought his dear Pamela happiness, then he could be happy too.
.
It was a macabre dance Thomas had started on that night of 1886, a pas de trois that once started cannot ever stop, even as his arms tremble and his feet bleed. He will play his role as lead, his body given as support to one lady by day and another by night. He will do whatever he must to keep them joyous, blind, spinning and spinning.
With grace.
With dignity.
Should he perform well, the heat will return to their home, the food to their table. The walls will straighten, the colors will return. In the place of dust and decay were fine crochet and treasured tea cups, the kitchen always glowing with warmth and light. Not all gestures had to be scripted, not all feelings had to be forced.
His ill and hysterical sister slowly hushed, risen to her feet. The life within her returned alongside the house, a reward that alone justified every cost.
But while the sister flourished, the wife wilted, whited and thinned until her clothes floated around her, until she became too weak to walk. In the fading years, doctors would come and go, trays of breakfast and tea brought faithfully to her side every morning. The house found itself an elevator, built to help his dear Pamela move, the devotion he showed that only made her sicker.
Sicker and sicker, the walls beginning to twist once more. The walls, then her neck, a final pull and snap before her fingers twitched no more.
It was a macabre dance Thomas had chosen, lovely in its perfection and only its perfection, for even a single slip, a single falter will shatter this careful illusion he had created. For the participants to awaken. For the teacup to fall.
When he found his wife, her ears were deaf and her finger ringless. No matter how he pled, no call would awaken her.
From behind came the looming shadow of his sister.
He closed his eyes. She did not need to do this. She may not have, had he only held her more tightly in the night, whispered the right spell in her ear.
"It's okay, there is no need to pretend anymore."
He fought back a flinch when she touched his face.
It was okay. He did not need to lie to himself anymore. Delude himself into believing he was in love when he was not, because the truth was too shameful to admit. How he prostituted himself for a few pieces of bread and coal.
Hush, it's okay. She's not mad. She's not disgusted. To her, what he did was brave. What he did saved her life, and now she came to save his.
Pamela's favorite tea ran red along the floor tiles. Rope hung silently off the wheelchair. In the center of the room, the sister cradled the brother in her arms, two children who had saved each other.
The first time Thomas married, he was seventeen and trembling, beautiful and doomed. Pamela had on her finest hair pins when he carried her to the basement, when he watched her face submerge into the clay.
Clay that, in time, would sink them too.
And so, on to the next note, the next key. Another city, another chance. It would be up to him to catch the next lady's fall, and the one after that, and the one after that. It would be up to him to balance them properly this time, keep them enchanted, provide as a proper husband should, as a proper man should.
An eternal nightmare disguised as a dream, the promise of a happy ending within reach, if only he reached far enough.
If only he were better, he could save them all, prevent another skull from being cracked against the ground.
Let me be better. Let me be better, so I may fix our home and restore our name. Provide you the wealth to indulge in fashions and fancies alongside the other blissful ladies. Then you will be content, and none will be harmed, and all will be well.
In Edinburgh, with designs of a clay machine. Margaret McDermott, who taught him his numbers.
In Milan, with rolls of blueprints and formulas. Enola Sciotti, who showed him her gears.
In Buffalo, with a box, and inside that box, a working model, visible proof that this could work, that this would work, if he were only given a chance, one more chance—
Edith Cushing.
In the past fourteen years, Thomas Sharpe had transformed himself into a magnificent dancer, and Edith was too entranced by his eyes to notice his feet, the streaks of blood he painted across the floor.
Between them was a candle flame that despite all his fatigue, Thomas kept alight, kept alight as he swore to himself once more that this would be the last.
This time, he would catch her. In this dance with no end, he must catch her.
Or die trying.
.
There was no thought, just a desire, when Thomas pulled in front of her. Edith felt the impact through him not a second after, a heavy force that pushed them both into freefall.
The next moment, Edith was dizzyingly looking up from the floor, her head and body cradled in Thomas's arms. Thomas.
She had no time to worry for him. A scream. Edith rolled away but not fast enough, another hand on hers, on the gun in her grip. Her finger jerked against the trigger.
Another shot echoed, the recoil causing both women to fall back. Something exploded in the distance.
Everything was a blur. Where did the bullets go? Was she wounded? Was Lucille? Thomas?
Edith could not feel anything, could not see anything except the fight before her. A breath escaped her lungs when her back slammed into the painful edge of a console. She returned with a knock of Lucille against the adjacent wall, rattling paintings that dangled all the more precariously.
Throughout the struggle, their hands remained interlocked in a twisted tango, neither willing to release the firearm, their fingernails clawing into one another for control. Edith could not let Lucille gain possession.
"Help me!" she cried.
Another blow, a pull across the hall. Lucille, wild black hair hiding wilder eyes, ones that screamed for Edith's demise. Lucille had ended all those other women, and she would end this one. She would end this one, if it was the last thing she did.
"Thomas can't interfere twice!" she spat venomously, her strength renewed. Edith found herself twisted onto her weaker leg. She held on.
"I wasn't..." Her hand strained. "...talking to Thomas!"
Lucille's eyes widened.
Edith was prepared, Lucille not, when gravity slammed onto them both. Their hands collapsed to the ground by a force unseen, and their bodies followed. Before Lucille could recover, the pistol had been snatched from her grip, the cold metal stricken full force against her head.
As blackness claimed her, a cry rang through her ears.
The cry of a dying baby.
Her baby.
.
Light filtered through the kitchen windows. Passing through his vision were movements, the wisps of gold.
Thomas found himself smiling at the sight of her face. She looked even more magnificent than in his memories, infallible in her new, bolder wardrobe. The air around her trailed in self-possession.
"You came back," he croaked. If a dream, it was not one he wished to awake. He willed himself to move, to meet her hand with his. A torrid of pain ran through him, and his fingers fell short.
She grabbed them in time.
"I said I would."
His smile widened, then grew weak. Swallowing, he dared himself to look down. Unlike her, he was a sore sight, shameful to be even held in association. At least his clothes had been changed, strips of bandages faintly visible through the linen.
"You took a bad hit," Edith explained softly. "I fear your ribs are broken."
"And you?"
"Not any worse for wear."
Thomas exhaled in relief until another thought passed him, one that shadowed his expression. He spoke nothing of it, knowing it was not his place to ask.
She answered for him regardless.
"You sister is upstairs. I'm sure you'll be hearing of her when she awakens."
For Edith, his reaction reaffirmed that her choice had been the right one, if not the more difficult. Despite what Lucille claimed, Edith was not her. She was not so lost as to believe killing family members, no matter how troubling, was an adequate solution to their problems.
Kneeling beside Thomas, she brought a wet towel back to his temple, where he had taken a particularly harsh collusion against the floors. He winced but then calmed, leaning into the contact.
Their time apart had been necessary. Edith needed space to think, time to decide. And she had, as she stared deeper into his eyes, into him.
There, a single moment appeared to have frozen for an eternity, ignorant of space and time, past and future.
She wanted to smile. He had made it through. He had waited for her.
And just as how he could understand her heart, she was slowing coming to understand his. Of what he wanted. Of what he dreamed. She was willing to help him get there, if he let her. Together, they can navigate through this darkness.
"I know you love her," she finally said. A truth once taboo, no more. Just as how the ghosts of Allerdale Hall frightened her no more, neither did this reality. Edith was coming to an understanding, and she held no desire to destroy the things he held precious. Neither would she let them destroy him. "I leave it to you. If you want to save her, I shall lend you my strength."
His eyes widened.
A dream that was not a dream. What he dared not wish, offered before him. After all Lucille had done, after all he had done, she was still offering it to him.
A chance.
A real, fighting chance.
Against the strains of his body, Thomas sprung from his chair, capturing Edith in an embrace. A broken embrace. She held him tightly through his tremors.
"Whenever you are ready. Whatever you wish to reveal."
His mouth opened.
"What do you want?" he asked. His eyes implored her for answers. Everything in his expression spoke of his willingness to please, even if he had yet to know how.
What had he even left to offer? he realized with sadness.
Himself perhaps. It was what his sister and all his previous wives wanted. It would be what he'd give Edith, who had found him charming enough back then, enough to accept his proposal. Though battered now, the ugly colors on him would fade, any imperfections hidden. He could be a true husband to her, an escort she would find proud in both the public and private domain, a man in every way she desired.
But as his heart pounded at the thought, Thomas saw with increasing confusion and fear that he may be conflating her fantasies with his own.
He wanted Edith to have him. He wanted her to have him in ways he did not want anyone else to.
But…
A part of him crumpled at her silence. Did she want him… still?
The two of them, they were so close, no more than a hair away. If she so wished, he would not resist her. He would not shy away or make excuses.
Yet, she made no effort to collapse the final distance between them. She did not pull to him like that day in his workshop, when her lips took his and refused to part.
She was staring so deeply into him, enough to cause aches in his soul, but there was no flame within her to mirror his.
I know you love her, she had said.
Not, I love you.
Only a fool would believe there would still be a place for words like those after everything he had done, after everything she had seen. Whatever passions she may have once held for him were irrelevant. What mattered were her feelings now, and whether or not he had become a passing fancy was not something Thomas had the courage to find out.
Edith rose, left to prepare a meal for two. He was still emaciated, and she herself famished.
"I want to eat something that's not poisoned."
A switch to a light-hearted tone, a different beat and melody.
Thomas complied, forcing a smile that concealed the extent of his devastation.
Of his unspoken heartbreak.