Chapter 1. 108 Bowery Street; Monday, July 29nd, 1912

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Once upon a time there was a girl raised in a tower. She didn't have overly long hair nor a wicked stepmother holding her hostage, though she did have a mother who very much did not like her, and a wicked father, which was how she came to be alone in the tower. Attended to by the finest tutors in literature, mathematics and politics, the girl was given all she could possibly want, save for the thing she longed for most...which was love. So, despite all the attention showered upon her, she was very lonely and after many years began to let her tutors know exactly how she felt. Frightened by her tantrums, one by one the tutors refused to come, leaving the girl ever more alone with only her drawings and singing and books to keep her company. And then, one day after she'd lost nearly all hope, a man fell into her life.

As my pen stilled the faintest zephyr wafted through the open window, rustling threadbare white curtains, turning yellow page corners upon the blotter as it kissed the damp sides of my neck. For a moment I closed my eyes in silent reverie, hovering over Booker's old wooden desk, reveling in cool relief. When again I opened my eyes the ink on page had dulled, and worse my words seeming thoughtless. Any memoires I could write would never capture the horror that far off, terrible place called Columbia. And if even I wrote them, wrote out our story for the whole of this world to see, would anyone even care, here in this foreign land…a land of so many stories…one as incomprehensible as anything ever I'd known?

I'd never really Columbia, either…only the ornate walls of my gilded prison. Of course I'd had my books…the vista of a fantasy from windswept heights…but like Booker had said, this place he called the Bowery was now our home.

And Columbia had never even existed.

In quiet moments I'd see him peering from the window, worried face fearful of something out there in the hustle and bustle. I hadn't the heart to tell him I didn't like the dresses, and even now the white ruffled blouse he'd bought with his last coins made me feel like a peacock. Its 'matching' skirt hung rather heavily upon my lap, and in the heat was just shy of miserable.

I placed the pen into the inkwell and stood, gazing out the window much as he did, feeling the perspiration unrelenting beneath the cloth. With the green skirt heavy I pressed my palms upon the sill...felt the roughness of the wood. The breeze caressed my face and again I closed my eyes, feeling it tease my hair on a warm and blue New York City afternoon. As my eyelids opened, I could see automobiles trundling by on the street below, some glinting black in the morning light, others dingy, their engines puttering, horns honking as they negotiated the ancient brick valley Booker. So many of them, and people of all sorts coursed beside them, multitudes moving north and south in a crush beneath the tracks of the El, crying and shouting. All along the ruddy frontages, above the rainbow of awnings, laundry hung out to dry, white sheets and pants and unmentionables wafting in the wind. I'd never questioned how such things were done…particularly since my laundry had always come from a dumbwaiter. It seemed an awful lot of work.

Upon the raised tracks outside a train approached at eye level, cyclopean eye brilliant, five cars racing by such that they rattled the walls and jostled Booker's shadow box, jiggled the jewelry case and my inkwell. Planting the toe of my boot firmly to brace myself, I drew the windowpane down with my hands and cut off the cacophony. Even now I could see Cornelius Slate's terrified face, the hand of his mechanical monstrosity clinging to the Prophet's railing as the airship exploded and fell. Joshua too, his men and the Prophet's alike. I closed my eyes to tears, wishing I could have done something to save them. They'd been such good men, and the world needed good men. Why had they had to die?

With Booker out I'd been bored. Fearful of other memories and having failed at prose, I paced the apartment in frustration. He didn't have any books and the ones I'd managed to find on the history of this city and America from the nearby tenements I'd already devoured, leaving me alone with those stilted words upon old, yellowing paper. I wiped wetness away and made for the broom, sweeping anew his floorboards of dust for the umpteenth time and pondering if cages did indeed have their advantages. Studying these papered walls I'd seen so many times before yet really never seen, I wondered how any of what we'd been through was possible.

My finger twinged.

My eyes cast upon it like the devil, though it was a sensation I'd lived with nearly my whole life. Neither cradle nor rub nor even shake would lend relief. Yet shake it I did as one would to clear a thermometer. What would help it, I knew, was to open a tear. I tried...only to find nothing. Nothing. And, of course, I knew why.

I'd tried not to look since Booker had shown it the first time. It made me anxious knowing it was so near, as if I was squeamish and perhaps, I was. I began to hum and sweep in order to distract myself. Then, for the first time since Columbia, added words to my wistful melody. They were words I didn't yet know, coming to me like a dream, Italian whose meaning tugged at me yet eluded my waking mind.

Housekeeping was not my forte, and with my eyes turning to my mother's antique jewelry box, I set the broom aside and gave in. Her name had been Annabelle, and he'd said I looked like her. At that thought I felt ill, realizing where my thoughts were leading...and perhaps why I couldn't write any more. Throughout the horrors of that city he'd been at my side…risked his life to save me. Why was it wrong that I'd hoped for something more?

Opening the lowest drawer, I found the little ceramic case and opened it to reveal the tiniest tip of a withered finger, so small next to mine. Drawing the thimble from my finger was never a pleasant experience, but I was familiar enough with the sight of my nub to avoid any upset. For years it had been something I'd kept studiously clean lest infection trouble...a stub that had, until late, had the power to move worlds. Following a forlorn study, I placed the thing back inside the drawer and carefully closed the chest, turning back to my writings, knowing the bitterest pill...that even though the girl was rescued, there would never be hope for her and her hero. They would never be together, for there was no universe wherein she both was and was not his daughter. I sat and lent brow to hand, only to hear footsteps approaching from outside in the passageway.

108 Bowery was not the quietest of buildings, nor the best kempt, and every time a person passed down the hall the boards creaked and groaned and everyone on the floor knew it. Outside the boards creaked and strained as if the whole enterprise might collapse, and for a moment I thought it must be him. My heart began to peak and I couldn't help but smile, looking hastily into the faded mirror to fix the strays of my brown hair. Blue eyes flashed and my smile was unquenchable...at least until the footsteps stopped at the door and I saw through its frosted glass that there were two of them. I saw one of them raise his hand, speaking quietly to his companion in muffled words I also realized to be Italian. Briskly his hand came to pounding on the door. "Mr. DeWitt...Mr. DEWITT! We know you in there, for we see your window open from street! We hear singing! Open the door...we have business to discuss!"

Again, came the pounding, those same words, louder and more excitedly. I'd been frightened before, but somehow I knew by their intensity that the door would open one way or another. "Please, just a moment." I said against my better judgement. I'd no idea of who these men were but hoped a more cooperative response might make the inevitable lie to come more palatable. When I turned the knob two men stood before me in long coats, gray suit and tie beneath.

"May I help you, uh, gentlemen?" I asked, looking upward and feeling small. A glance down the hall confirmed we were uncomfortably alone, and that there would be no mobile turrets barging through shimmering tears to protect me. I had to choose my words carefully.

The first of them adjusted his collar and smiled, which was a mistake on his part. Though handsome in a well-dressed, clean cut way, his teeth were not a pleasant site. "We are looking for Mr. DeWitt, young lady." He said with an offhand glance to his fellow. Unlike his dapper friend, this one had an odd head rather like a potato, with an overly large nose and downturned lips that evoked the worst aspects of a Largemouth Bass. His ears bowed outward like an elephant's. I did my best not to notice.

"Mr. DeWitt?" I said, brow furrowing. "I don't believe I'm...oh, wait...would that be the fellow Mrs. Neary informed me of?"

"Inform you of?" The dentally challenged one said with a brush of dark hair, doing his best to keep his lips over teeth.

"She said that he moved out in some haste several days ago...left the apartment abandoned. My brother and I were lucky enough to happen upon it at a good rent. With prices these days one can hardly afford to pass up a bargain, don't you think?" They simply stared at me and I felt terribly uneasy, clasping arms half consciously about my waist. "I'm afraid I've no idea where the man has gotten off to, though I must say that from my own luck and the anecdotes I've heard from the other tenants, he mustn't have been a very savory or responsible sort. If you'd like to talk with my brother, I'm certain he shall return shortly."

"And you are?"

I swallowed uncomfortably and brightened my smile. "Elizabeth. Elizabeth, uh, Comstock."

"Elizabeth...Comstock?"

"Yes." I said, heart pounding. "I've moved in here, with, uh, my brother Zachary only but recently. And you gentlemen are?"

"Nicholas Terranova." He said with a sly smile and slither of eyes down my figure. I'd not been drunk in by a man before New York City, indeed hardly even known what that meant. In my few trips on Booker's arm into the great outside, by now I'd had more than enough of it. "This is my brother, Ciro. It is unusual to find such a refined lady in this neighborhood. And of such sublime loveliness."

At his words his 'brother' smiled, and Nicholas drew closer. Even as I drew away he turned the back of his hand to my cheek, and I could feel his breath warm upon my neck. "Indeed...so lovely. This brother of yours, Zachary, you say...why would he leave such a young thing as yourself here alone?" Down the hall a door opened, and Mrs. Donlietti emerged, her four sons whining and punching one another. I'd seen them before, the children often alone and up to marvelous mischief I'd in a short week come to dread. Today I thought them to be the most blessed thing in the world. With her glance down the corridor and hellions' approach, Nicholas and Ciro seemed to lose their interest, perhaps from her mother's eyes or the chastisement of the prominent brass cross upon her chest.

"Well, dear lady, if Mr. DeWitt happen to wander this way, please...tell him that hour is passed…Mr. Crookshanks looks for his money." At the family's passage he smiled, eyes following before turning back to tip my chin with a bony finger. "Maybe there will be reward in it for you."

From his touch I withdrew, trying hard to conceal my quaking heart. They chuckled at my expense, departing with a considered turn down the hall, drifting downstairs through a mote speckled sunbeam pouring in from the stairwell window. A sigh escaped my lips, and silently I prayed thanks they'd gone. After a moment's hesitation, I followed them outside, watching askance from the tenement alcove to ensure they were not laying some sort of trap for Booker.

Tarrying there upon the stoop, the sunlight hit me full force and I raised a closed hand to shield myself. To the south I spied Mrs. Donlietti whipping her boys into line, yanking one of them back as a racing automobile nearly mowed him down. I winced, hearing the curses of the driver, wondering whether they'd make it back alive. Perhaps she'd at one time had more than four. To the north below the elevated railway the Terranovas merged with the sidewalk crowd in its striated shadows.

These were the men Booker had warned me of all the way back in Columbia, back in the flight up from Battleship Bay where I'd first railed against the true nature of a world I'd only thought I'd known. A world that had enslaved me as no better than a battery. And yet these men were somehow worse. Comstock had his reasons, fould though they'd been. These…these were petty killers who murdered for money and had this city in their thrall. They would not fall for a girl's dissimulation a second time.

After a time, I realized my hand was upon my chest and I could feel the perspiration trickling uncomfortably down the back of my corset, pooling at the small of my back. How different this city was from Columbia, hot and humid, unpleasant in ways I had never considered possible. Yet as I looked up and about, its architecture reminded me of home, the skyscrapers to the south in the Financial Districts and uptown, towers and airships visible over the eaves of buildings as they had been in Columbia. Perhaps, I thought, that despite all reason, I was homesick.

Sweltering might have been a good word for what I felt just then, and perhaps nausea. As I stood there the thought of Booker's breezy loft and creaky old ceiling fan beckoned. I turned back, but as I placed my hand upon 108's doorknob the strangest feeling struck me, one that electrified every nerve in my body. Slowly I turned, hand still within the ruffles of my now damp blouse, gazing eastward as the sun beat down upon hair and contorted brow.

Rubbing my finger, I knew what it was, for I'd known this feeling my whole life. Out there, somewhere across this place they called New York…I felt a tear.