“Your sister has a delicate constitution, Lillian.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“You’ve tired her out, playing too long, that’s all. You should know better. She needs her rest.”
Rebecca coughs harder, her eyes running with tears. Mama pulls her away, the pretty redheaded doll forgotten by the hearth. I pick up the doll, study her perfect features. The urge to toss her into the fire overtakes me. My anger and resentment at my mother’s favoritism and coddling simmer beneath the surface. Instead, I lay the doll carefully on Papa’s chair near the hearth and steal three cookies from the tray Siobhan left on the sideboard. There are benefits to being invisible.
A Vampire’s Diary
Denise
I watched them discover her last night, slumped like a rag doll in a heap of silk brocade, her lovely face frozen in the same expression of shock she wore when I first stepped out of the shadows. My second conquest. Denise.
The coroner arrived after the officers, that great artifact of a doctor. I smiled in amusement as he lifted her limp wrist, as he checked for a pulse that ceased beating hours ago. He only shook his head, covered her with a shroud, and whispered his concerns to Sergeant Wesley. Wesley was excited, though he hid it behind his stoic expression.
I’ve given him something new, beyond chasing slaves after curfew and corralling belligerent drunks. Something novel. And I’ve only just begun.
Sally was an easier conquest than Denise, by comparison, but Denise’s naivete made her fertile ground for my manipulations. Most gently bred girls are innocent, sheltered as they are from the world’s wickedness. I’d been priming her for months, plying her with my impeccable manners, with flattery and sincere compliments. Shewas an accomplished pianist with a lovely alto voice. We spoke often of our favorite composers. She admired my knowledge of music and grew to trust me—enough to confess her deepest secret: She had a lover. A young man her family would never approve of. A grocer’s son. With some coaxing, I learned his name. I offered to pass her letters to him, and his to her. The rest was pitiably easy. I sent a note to her, copying his untidy scrawl. Bade her meet him near his home on Judith Street. A young woman’s romantic fantasies are an apt playground for seduction. She was most surprised to see me there, instead, but her trust in me was implicit. All it took was a lie. He’d fallen ill, and could not meet her, but I would carry whatever message she wished to his sickbed. She embraced me in gratitude, and this was when I pulled her into the shadows to complete my grim, but necessary, task.
Soon, all my work, my patience, will be rewarded. I already have my next conquest planned. Young, sweet Marjorie, whose husband recently expired from dropsy. She’s in need of a listening ear. Gentle company. Yes, Marjorie will be next. But I will give it the time it requires. These things must be planned. Must be carefully designed.
Six
I wake to a cacophony of voices, my eyes snapping open, the remnants of my dream fading like fog. The sun accosts my eyes, too bright. I spring to my feet, just as the owner of the fruit stall arrives. He swats at me with his meaty hands, landing a glancing blow on my right ear. “Out with you, boy! You’ll steal naught from me!”
I flee, hiding my face from the crowds queuing in front of the stalls. I ignore the pangs of hunger that the freshly caught fish and hearty boules of bread stir as I rush from the market. I’ve slept much too late. The wharves are swarming with sailors from every far-flung corner of the globe, humming with languages both foreign and familiar. They pay me no mind as they go about their work, but at this late hour, finding a solitary skiff to take me to the marshes will prove challenging.
I’m nearly to Fitzsimon’s Wharf when I hear a shred of conversation that stops me in place. A longshoreman, with skin as dark as a storm and the kind of broad shoulders his work imparts, holds court like a king, leaning against a stanchion with several young men gathered around him. “They found another girl last night,” he says. “Over on Judith. Not a drop of blood in her body. A wealthy one this time. My Minnie is scared. But it seems he’s going after white women, and you all know what that means.” The longshoreman shakes his head. “Sergeant Wesley was asking all sorts of questions this morning. If you’re a free man, make sure you have your papers on you. Stay quiet and keep yourhead down. After your work is done, go straight home, well before the curfew bells ring. If you’re a slave, be even more mindful.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd of Negroes, their voices low. Papa told me how often the finger of blame lands on men just like these—whether free or enslaved—whose every move is scrutinized, cataloged, and viewed with suspicion, simply because of the color of their skin. The sense of vigilant wariness I feel now is something these men deal with every single day.
Two murders. In less than a fortnight. Both bodies drained of blood. This is no coincidence. It’s a pattern. For once, I’m not thinking of being captured, or of going back to jail. I’m thinking about the predator haunting these streets. A killer who might be anyone. Anywhere.
I pat my pockets, reassured by the weight of the coins there. I have money. My jewelry. The knife tied to my thigh, beneath my breeches. After buying a bottle of ale, some dried venison, and apples from the market, I find a dock with skiffs bobbing hopefully in the water and a sign tacked to the wooden post:Boats for Hire, with various landings and their tolls listed below. I approach an ancient man leaning against the railing, his sun-bronzed forearms knotted with muscle. “Hello, are you for hire? Can you take me across the river?”
“Yep.” He gestures wordlessly at one of the skiffs, and I lower myself into the shallow-berthed boat. He unties the skiff and joins me, taking up his oars. “Where to?”
“Hog Island, please.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Ain’t nothing there, boy.”
“I know.”
He merely grunts and shoves off, sweeping the oars steadily against the current. I’m grateful he doesn’t ask me questions for which I don’t have answers.
The crossing is choppy and tedious with a single oarsman. Mid-channel, a miserable, spitting rain kicks up. It frightens me, being out on the water in such a small boat. I’ve never learned how to swim. My mind goes dire with a thousand tragic fantasies. It would be the ultimateirony for me to survive my own execution and premature burial only to drown in the Cooper. I huddle in the bow of the boat and cover my head with my cloak, convincing myself that the constant rocking is a comfort rather than something to be frightened of.
We make portage on a sand spit spiked with spartina, and after running the skiff aground, the boatman helps me out. I’m still shaking as my boots sink into the pluff mud. I pay him generously for his trouble and help him to shove off again.
And then I am alone.
I turn slowly, taking in the marsh’s unfettered wildness. The wind cuts across the desolate scrap of beach, frigid on my skin. Over the river, I can see the city’s many steeples and, farther out, the shallow profile of Fort Sumter, which brings William to mind. I wonder whether he’s there, patrolling its battlements. Whether he was disappointed that he didn’t get to see me hanged. He loved Rebecca fiercely. Everyone did. And who could blame them? She was beautiful. Charming. Everything I was not. Arabella had been right about one thing: Iwasjealous. Were it not for Rebecca, I’d be a married woman—an officer’s wife—with children of my own. And if she hadn’t died, even if she married William, at least I’d be a governess by now, teaching wealthy children how to read.
It’s futile to think about what might have been. I push aside my resentment and trudge across the beach, shells crunching underfoot, and make my way to solid ground, where a stand of sycamore and pine promises shelter from the rain. I shiver beneath my cloak, hunger clawing at my belly. Once I reach the copse of trees, I sit on a fallen log and eat an apple, savoring its sweetness on my tongue. I chew down to the core and toss it into the underbrush. My provisions won’t last long, even with rationing. I’ll have to learn how to hunt out here. How to forage and fish. My life has become a game of survival, my existence now at the mercy of this desolate place and whatever sustenance nature provides. Once more, I’m struck by everything I’ve lost.
My life was easy, before prison. And while my time in jail hardened me, and made me resilient, it did not equip me for a life in thewilderness. I’m ill-prepared. Afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows. The streets of the city were at least familiar to me.
As if taunting me, the distant bells of Saint Philip’s ring out the hour—nine o’clock—and the other church bells follow, the wind carrying their chorus to me. Mother will be rising about now. Has her routine changed at all, since Papa’s passing? Will she dress in her mourning clothes and entertain callers? Before Papa’s antislavery sentiments were discovered, she was one of the most celebrated hostesses in the city. Now Mother is an outcast among them. Their ostracism was her punishment for being a fallen daughter of the planter aristocracy. The wife of an abolitionist. I wonder, briefly, if she’ll go back to buying slaves to prove herself worthy of the chivalry’s good graces. I wouldn’t be surprised. She and Papa were at odds over the matter of slavery, and she resented him for giving her lifelong lady’s maid her freedom papers. Mother was ever doing her best to maintain the status quo.
