11 July 1938

The gutter-gleaners, as those suited pontificators from The Times are called in Oaktun Heath, never visited its infamous mutt pits. It wasn't softness of belly that kept them away – many a leering scribbler crossed oceans to compose screeds about massacres revolutionary and counter-revolutionary – but because the pits were more grey than blood-crimson. Their environs were constituted of three elements: ancient, ever-crumbling brickwork; endless smog from the northeastern tyre factories; and a mob of John Bull's lecherous, eternally debt-ridden nephews, for whom the sight of dogs tearing each other apart provided amusing reprieve from the mortal coil.

Tom Marvolo Riddle was among the youngest of the pit attendees that late grey summer afternoon; he was undoubtedly the youngest who punted. The bookkeeper, Playwright Ben, had no qualms taking his money; was in fact familiar with Tom, the abnormally large sums of money he proffered for was so shabbily small a boy; and the eerie precision with which he chose winning mutts. The Playwright got his moniker as a university man who fell on hard times during The Slump and cited Aeschylus and Apollonius Rhodius in the course of the job that fate had confirmed upon him – commentator of illegal dog fights. The derision heaped on him was more jest than venom, but it pricked his pride enough for him to recourse to the quieter, financial side of criminality. Over time, Ben found himself rubbing elbows with the sorts his folks would have scoffed at; he told himself that Oaktunian imbecility was the true face of humanity. Tom learned this not from the currents of local gossip, but – quite literally – by reading Playwright Ben's mind. Indeed; Tom Riddle could glean the thoughts of men through their eyes – one among many frightfully useful things the Devil in him could do.

"Two quid ten and half a crown from Thomas Riddle on Wilhelm at a tidy 2.3."

Wilhelm, a bull terrier thirty-six inches long and the hue of spoilt milk spotted with salt, was a feeble proposition before Caliban, a smaller black pitbull much fuller of sinew. Most punters bet on Caliban, and it was from their commonsensical avarice that Tom profited. His play was to back the feebler dog, and have the Devil in him to cripple its obviously superior counterpart. The feebler dog – never exactly feeble as such – would complete Tom's work; and Tom would revel in the sight of the cadaver of the mutt whose soul he had covertly cleaved.

Tom made sure his bets were never too large. He cast a dice to determine how many bets he would wait before deliberately taking a loss. That was how he earned most of his money – the rest came from a bit of pickpocketing here and shoplifting there. The Devil in him made it all very easy.

Wilhelm the bull terrier was to kill in Caliban the pitbull. Caliban would be the holiest of dogs Tom had done in; for his death would complete the £1000 for the only human being, the only living creature, whose livingness he loved.

Mary Melusina Riddle.

Tom's twin sister from whom he was cruelly severed before he had ever stolen a single pound, or perhaps spoken a single word. There was no picture in her entry in Mrs. Cole's yellowing account-book (1926-1930), which had only her elementary biological characteristics, and the pithiest yet most beautiful of descriptions, written in Mrs. Cole's tremulously alcoholic hand, 'pale of complexion, black of eye and hair, 6lbs8oz'. Tom's own entry, of course, was almost identical in this book. In the (1930-1935) account-book, Mary had disappeared, and Tom evolved into a 'concerning, solitary' figure, while from the latest book he is omitted entirely, having instead an unlabelled manilla folder wherein a flattering 1937 report, produced by a certain 'Dr. Sig Gladman' of the British Psychological Society, attributed to a '9-year-old boy of Anglo-Nordic facial and cranial proportions with curiously Ibero-Hibernian pilary characteristics', a 'prematurely antisocial inclination to solitude', a 'highly pathological belligerence', and 'precocity of verbal and arithmetic reasoning in the 99th percentile' among other flattering qualities.

Tom extrapolated from the pale, black-haired 6lbs8oz infant girl a female counterpart of himself, likewise intelligent, beautiful, and disdainful of the masses of children and men who assaulted her senses daily by merely existing. Tom imagined giving her the £1000, wordlessly but with an expression at once affable and superior; and Mary, with a pale Venusian physiognomy, would smile a sultry, saturnine smile to tell him that, indeed, we are halves of a divine, demonic whole.

Roused to motivation, Tom twisted his right hand concealed under the breast of his coat, and broke Caliban's right hind-leg.

"Would 'e look at that?! Old Willy's turning back the clock – maybe feeling the nerves takin' on a dark-coated mutt. And there goes its neck! Proper fierce, ain't 'e?"

"Someone's nobbled Caliban! 'E's wobblin' all over like 'e's peaky. Oi Playwright – fight's a stitch-up – I want me money back."

"A loser's always gonna look peaky. We all know that."

"No – somethin' ain't kosher."

"No refunds, mate. Keep your chin up."

"Keep me chin up? I'll show you a chin up!"

Playwright Ben flinched as the angry punter brandished his fist, but two scrunch-faced, hulking men in cheap tweed jackets impeded him and threw him on his back.

Tom sidestepped the commotion to get to the Playwright before the other punters, most of whom were producing in equal parts spittle and loudly yelled obscenities at the sight of the laws of both nature and physics seemingly defying themselves. Wilhelm was sinking his teeth into Caliban's hind leg while the latter thrashed from head to tail like a fish convulsing for water, or an unattended infant in its cot. Playwright Ben bent down and spoke quietly in Tom's ear, "You nobble dogs, don't you, boy?"

"My winnings, Benjamin."

"Well, well. Look who's not denying it."

Tom said nothing; the Playwright often jostled him, but always eventually paid out.

"Don't worry. I won't grass you up. Just between us archons of the squalid, eh? Wouldn't want word getting out that an orphan's fleecing the mutt pits. Here's your cut, as usual, Thomas," Playwright Ben discreetly handed Tom a few pound notes and a handful of loose change. Then he straightened up to watch the end of the fight. Caliban was dying, his rear leg a bloody pulp, while Wilhelm gluttonised upon a hunk of liver his handler had thrown before him.

Tom counted the money in his pocket and scowled. He snatched the hem of the Playwright's checkered jacket.

"What?" Playwright Ben hissed. Tom pointed at his palm. Playwright Ben scowled and dug in his pockets for more money. He slapped it into Tom's hand with such force that it fell to the ground. Tom quickly scooped it up and counted it again. Five quid and eight shillings. Tom tucked the money in his jacket, gave the Playwright a glare of farewell, and left. The sun was setting as Tom scampered through the back alleys and shanty huts that made up his locale.

The most common setting of Tom's dreams was Hell. His unerring memory and an entire life hitherto passed in Oaktun Heath had fed his subconscious enough material to produce dreams in such a locus. Fortunately he had, since his ninth year, played increasingly the part of a tormenting demon than the tormented sinner.

Tom rarely had nice dreams, but when he did – a few times a year, often during the beginning of spring – they were what Father Culihan would have called, 'beatific', or in slightly less theological parlance, 'heavenly'. These dreams, always the same, were not of sitting atop clouds and basking in the aura of harp-stringing angels, but rather visions of union with one particular angel-demon – Mary. Not the mother of God, but the twin sister of Thomas. The settings of these blissful dreams included what Tom imagined Salisbury (Mary's location, per 'Adoptive Family Details' in her account-book entry) to be, a prosperous but haunted little village wherein every house was covered by the shadow of a hulking cathedral, an even larger St. Paul's with outgrowths of black towers and parapets like sprouts out of a rotting potato; various localities of London itself; and infinite suchlike mirages derived from Tom's imagination working upon that which he had read about, but never seen. In these dreams he gave her the money; they played; shared garlic sausages and liquorice together; swam through the Thames like a pair of jubilant mermaids; and employed the Devils in them to violently mischievous ends upon the rest of the human race.

To ease Mrs. Cole's conscience for severing twins, Mary's adoptive father had given her £500 to pass on to Tom. Tom was surprised that Mrs. Cole hadn't just sunk the whole lot; Mary's existence, the £500 that could have kept her in rotgut for three years. Tom hadn't touched a penny of it. If Mary's pretend father thought £500 would square things, he was as self-sabotagingly proud as Caliban the pitbull. And one day, Tom would have the Devil in him to kill that man, just as he killed Caliban the pitbull.

In less than two months, Tom would be in Salisbury – a trip he had planned for over a year, for which he already had the requisite provisions and itinerarial objects. He had enough experience with the police to know how to avoid them; and once he found his twin sister, they would each forever eschew their evil guardians, and live as Nephilim on earth through the employments of the Devils in them. For Tom knew beyond a doubt, that if there was a Devil in him, there was also a Devil in Mary Melusina.

6 August 1938

"Edward, she is a bore."

In the third-floor bedroom of a pseudo-Italianate villa on the finest street of Salisbury – the bedroom of a sensitive, erudite girl, replete with bookshelves, perfume bottles in varying states of depletion, world maps inscribed in three languages, a Steinway Model D grand piano, and a full-body mirror adorned with a twining silver frame strung with silk flowers – Mary Melusina Annett felt herself sinking further and further into a gloom. Edward Algernon Annett, her older brother and the light of her life, reclined upon her four-poster bed, ignoring her perfectly sensible commentaries. He was impervious to all external stimuli, lost as he was in the labyrinth of his own thoughts – this Mary knew quite literally, for she could read his mind.

Through his cogitative aquamarine eyes, Mary perceived the contents of Edward's thoughts flitting about like turgid little goldfish in a tank, the water slightly filthy yet fundamentally translucent. His mind dwelled on Barbara Stratley, on the soft curves of her body and how intensely he wished to imprint himself upon it, of how such a union would somehow make the rest of his life 'phenomenologically' richer. Mary, of course, was not scandalised by the sex. As both the daughter of a doctor and a heiress whose family was full of adulterers, and a mind-reader, she was quite familiar with the unspoken instincts of nature. But that her brother, whom she saw only for a month and a half each year, neglected to lavish upon her his usual affection in favour of indulging in bacchanalian imaginings of a rather mediocre girl, was intolerable.

"Suppose Babs is a 'bore'," that brother nonetheless mused, his tone that of a priest admonishing a penitent child over charming trivialities. "She would provide me the much-needed counterbalance to your endless activity."

"'Babs' is not merely ennuyante, but also grossière, wearing all those horrid colours – I thought you hated ostentation?" Mary asked in a tone playful-scathing, sinking into a huge armchair cloaked in dark green velvet. At her feet, Philipp Emmanuel, a 17-month-old Siamese kitten, nibbled on her fraying silk slippers.

Edward sighed; his sister had been subjected to Barbara Stratley's presence for a total of twenty minutes. "Mary Melusina, you are being quite unreasonable."

Mary punctured once more the surface of Edward's mind, the familiar process taking about half a minute – shorter than with strangers, yet still long enough for Edward to gaze bemusedly as she intensely scrutinised him. She saw that he was anxious about dinner at Southampton that night; the possibility that Mary might forestall Stratley from coming home with him weighed rather heavily on him (and indeed, Mary had considered such a move, dismissing it only because Edward might not forgive her for several days if she did).

"She thinks me a child, Eddie," Mary lamented, rising from the armchair to pounce upon Edward, nestling her face into his lean chest and savouring his eau de parfum.

"That is rather unavoidable, isn't it?" Edward replied, his fingers threading through Mary's profuse black hair. He shifted to allow her to settle comfortably in the space between his legs; Philipp Emmanuel purred indignantly as Mary kicked her slippers into the air, one landing on the Steinway, the other on an art deco electric fan with four blades in different iridescent colours. "Barbara is six years your senior – it stands to reason that she views you thus. But she thinks you charming nonetheless –"

"Charming?"

"– and she is very much taken with my charms too; I do hope you will play gracious hostess with her," Edward concluded, punctuating his words with a kiss to Mary's forehead.

Edward's bright eyes crystallised, along with his resolve; Mary saw that he accepted she might not like Barbara Stratley, but he would have her try; and if she tried, she may just find that she liked her after all. Mary huffed. Edward's mind, like those of all well-constituted English boys, was so utterly trite.

"Fine, I shall play the part of a rake's sister-accomplice tonight."

Edward beamed down at her. "Thank you, Mary; t'es ma soeur préférée."

"I am your only sister, abruti."

"Then you are by default ma soeur préférée."

Though Edward's good humour always contagiously affected Mary, it did not dispel her gloom. He did not realise that, sans his unconditional affection, Mary's summer would be ruined. No one else in the house was of good humour. Not father, who was rarely home anyhow, and who had been a reticent, pensive man since all he had undergone in the Great War as a field doctor; nor mother, whose glooms were prolonged and manifested in bouts of bedriddenness for days wherein the servants brought meals to her bedside.

The gloom of both parties of the Annett couple – whose marriage in 1909 was attended by Consuelo Vanderbilt and reported on by The Times – owed not merely to the war and its aftereffects. There was also Isobel – a daughter born in 1923, who was taken by influenza in 1924; the first and last bout of that infection in Salisbury in three decades.

On more than one occasion Julia Annett, in a drunken or opiated haze, would talk to Mary of Isobel, and vow that she would never love Mary a fraction she loved her late biological daughter. Julia would expostulate with diabolical clarity how Mary's fortuitousness – her adoption into such an esteemed family as the Annetts – was predicated on the death of a real Annett, even if a very small one.

Thus at times, Mary found herself submerged in glooms far surpassing the capricious melancholies of ordinary daughters of the English peerage aged between nine and twelve. Particularly during the nights of late autumn and winter, she perceived creation in its entirety as a fundamentally cold void, her existence a cosmic jest. She would weep in the sumptuous yet unconsoling confines of her bed. But inevitably, the sun would rise, and Mary – the most beautiful and clever girl of Godolphin School, and perhaps all of Salisbury (as attested by her latest report card: 'she is preeminent in all subjects; a prodigious, miraculous talent the likes of which our institution has never witnessed before') – would thrum with industriousness and optimism.

Indeed, during the day, Mary played the piano with virtuosic skill; attended and mastered soirées with the daughters of the Annetts' eminent friends; corresponded with Edward about anything and everything; and read prolifically in English, French, and German. All these activities were facilitated by her 'Anomalies,' as her father had whimsically dubbed them some years prior ("Oh dear, Mary – more anomalies in the bedroom?"). When no one was looking, she used her Anomalies to flip piano scores without physical contact; to rectify errors in letters without resorting to unsightly strikethroughs; to ensure that tea pastries remained perfectly warm during her soirées. By most measures, life was agreeable for Mary Annett. But the arrival of Barbara Stratley that summer cast a strangely disproportionate pall over her spirits; never before had her nocturnal glooms seeped into the day.

That evening Edward escorted three of his most cherished beings – his mother, his adoptive sister, and the increasingly significant Barbara Stratley – to Southampton for dinner at the Langham hotel. Edward's Cadillac, with its dark blue finish and powerful motor, was to Mary's knowledge the best automobile in Salisbury by both pecuniary and aesthetic criteria. She was contented that she dressed better than Stratley, whose pink Bolero dress – with its gauzy sleeves and plunging neckline – seemed designed purely to draw Edward's eyes to her décolletage. Mary's own outfit was a neo-Edwardian black tea dress with silver brooches adorning the hem of her collar, and a matching headband that held back her long black hair.

Nonetheless Stratley extended her customary flattery to Mary, exclaiming, "But you are so striking! One might take you for a Romanov princess in exile!"

Mary, used to compliments to her presentation, coolly smiled back and bore into Stratley's vapidly warm brown eyes, seeking evidence of duplicity. But to Mary's surprise and irritation, Stratley was genuine. Nonetheless Mary continued her espionage; Stratley's inner monologue consisted mostly of banal self-assurances, and Mary could glean no profound insights about her character; however, she discerned some pertinent facts: Stratley harboured a desperate desire to secure Edward's hand in marriage, and believed that she stood a strong chance of doing so; she also held Mary in high regard and hoped to win her favour. Mary decided that she would offer Stratley a half measure of her benevolence.

"Thank you," Mary responded, mustering a smile. "I too like your suit; it is so... vibrant."

Mary did not like Stratley's attire, but she did not hate the girl either. Stratley's motivations, though supercilious, were transparent; Mary had expected to find malice, not merely vanity. There are far worse girls Edward could sleep with, Mary thought.

Stratley beamed, clasping Mary's hand in hers, a gentle squeeze passing between them. "It's Chanel, you know. My father sends it from Brussels. Perhaps when you're older, we might shop together – I'm certain I can find something divine for you."

"I should like that. I think we might be friends."

Barbara Stratley released Mary's hand. "Now that is a relief – Edward was concerned that you didn't like me!"

Stratley then engaged Mary's mother in light banter concerning Salisbury's lack of fashionable restaurants. Mary tuned them out to luxuriate in the passing countryside beneath the sunset.

Mary watched Stratley through dinner; she was a vivacious albeit boring conversationalist. To her, the universe was a stretch of land going from London to Cambridge, and the entirety of philosophy, subordinate to securing a good husband. Quite absurdly, Edward, who had excelled at Eton and corresponded with grown men of letters when he was fourteen, did not mind Stratley's philistinism; found it quaintly charming even. She was indeed a counterbalance to Mary's 'endless activity', because she was too stupid to act according to any volition other than that of her socially inherited values.

Upon returning home, Stratley and Edward retired to his bedroom with a bottle of cognac to continue their merrymaking. Mary retired to her bedroom to read Chekhov, feeling a strange mix of contentment, growing gloominess, and – dare she admit it? – envy. Immense, immense envy. One day, she, too, would share a bottle with cognac with a boy she loved, in his bedroom, whereupon they would together satisfy their unspoken instincts – but this boy would not be her brother – and somehow, this was terribly unjust. Of course such a thought was horrid and unnatural; but what did Mary care? Even the psychologist would becoming quaint; who cared for the priest? Yet of course she had no means of unburdening it from her mind; anyone she told would regard her as a monster. No longer in the mood for reading, Mary decided to sleep early, or at least attempt such.

She woke to Edward's footsteps outside her bedroom; glancing at the grandfather clock by her piano, she deduced that it was close to midnight. Philipp Emmanuel stirred at her feet. Edward entered the room, unsteadily ambulating; he had spared little of that cognac.

"Hello Eddie," said Mary. "I knew you would come."

Edward sat on his sister's bed. "Bloom-lighted orchard-apples… and thicket and thorp are Mary –"

Mary shifted to let her brother to lay down beside her. "When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple, bloom lights the orchard-apple. Did you have a good time?"

Edward's answer was redundant; Mary was already peering into his thoughts, and beheld skepticism at Mary's correction of his Hopkins (Mary knew her memory was better than his, and most people's), as well as Stratley's naked form atop his own. "Yes. Barbara has returned to her aunt's."

"She's alright, I suppose."

"Oh?" Edward whispered, wrapping his arm around Mary's shoulders. "What changed your tune?"

"She loves you Eddie. Very much. She thinks herself worthy of your hand in marriage. You will marry her, won't you Eddie?"

"I didn't take you for one to play matchmaker," Edward laughed.

"Eddie? Don't marry her."

Edward grew silent, and Mary, trying to peer into his thoughts, found that his eyes were closed – he was falling asleep.

"Don't marry her, Eddie," Mary repeated. Philipp Emmanuel hissed as Mary prodded him with her foot, and he leapt from to slink off into the corridor. Edward continued to quietly heave.

Mary was suddenly overcome with fury; she violently extricated herself from Edward's embrace. "Eddie, are you not listening to me? I do not want you to marry her!"

"Mary, sleep," Edward, ever the platonically perfect big brother, murmured serenely, attempting to pull Mary back to him. "I'll listen to you in the morning, c'est promis."

Mary was seized by panic, her mind a tumult of unspoken thoughts and emotions, thrashing through her like a summer storm. These feelings had lingered not just in these recent hours but had shadowed her all summer long – the strange jealousy she harboured for Stratley, her mounting anxiety over leaving for Oxford, where she would join the youngest girls at Headington, a general sense of fate violently imposing itself upon her will. For weeks, a premonition of something dreadful had loomed over her, beyond these immediate worries, and now it had come to pass. Tears welled up in Mary's eyes as she struggled to articulate a semblance of her distress. "Eddie, I don't want you to leave me!"

Edward, now fully awake, pulled his sister into his arms. "Mary, dearest – what's wrong?"

Mary had not cried in her brother's presence since she was eight and he, sixteen. She felt ashamed yet curiously elated. "Eddie, please don't marry her. Please. I beg you."

"I don't understand..." Edward began, but Mary interrupted.

Mary wiped her eyes so she could more clearly look into Edward's; she gleaned in them a violent disturbance – a guilt he could not explain to himself wracked his nerves. The pleasantness of the evening was fast-dissipating. Confusion flickered within him, as she had expected, and Mary resolved to dispel it once and for all.

"Eddie, I can hear people's thoughts."

Edward stiffened at this; Mary feared that she had crossed a line, but pressed on; Edward was recalling everything Anomalous he had seen Mary done; he did not think her confession impossible, though not any less frightening on that account.

"I know what Barbara Stratley thinks – I can hear her thoughts Eddie, and I can hear yours too. And Eddie, I love you, and I don't want you to marry Barbara Stratley because she does not love you like I do."

Edward's shame deepened; Mary had quickly displaced Stratley in Edward's affections, and he was now plagued with remorse and self-disgust.

"I know you are angry with me, but please don't be – I only wish to be loved, Eddie," Mary implored, her voice a delicate tremor. "I can't bear it when you are away – I am so alone, mother despises me, and I don't know who I am or who my birth parents are, and I am terrified, Eddie. I am so scared, because it feels as though there is an emptiness inside me that no music, no literature, no fêtes at Mildred's, nor any of the things I cherish can fill. I am losing my mind, for sometimes I think I can control things with my mind, Eddie – I can summon Philipp Emmanuel to me without so much as a gesture, and I believe I can move things too. I am so scared, Eddie, because it feels as though I am becoming something monstrous."

Edward placed his hands on Mary's shoulders, pushing her slightly away from him so he could look her in the eyes. "Hush, hush. Mary, you must calm yourself. You are my sister; I love you dearly, and I will always be here for you. Do you understand?"

Mary nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.

"And you must never tell anyone else of this," Edward continued. "Do you understand? Only our parents know of your powers, but you must never share this with another soul."

Mary saw that Edward was reconsidering Stratley's position in his life. It appeared that his immediate need for her was significantly diminished by the fact she had slaked his carnal urges just a few minutes prior. But his position was unambiguous; Edward was not ready to leave Mary yet, because to abandon her was to abandon their childhood. Nonetheless he did not reveal the wholeness and decisiveness of his convictions; Edward did not like to make declarations of complex affection explicitly, and Mary gleaned that he felt some pride in the fact that he could hide so much from her.

"I won't tell anyone," said Mary, cathartically relieved, as though she had just played the entirety of two Chopin études without a single misplaced note.

"Good. Now Mary, I implore you to sleep. I shall stay with you and you can cuddle me all you like, and we can talk about Barbara Stratley and your Anomalies tomorrow – we shall have a picnic au bord de la vallée. How does that sound?"

"Perfect."