“Why was she chewing your leg?”
“Animal magnetism. I’m a dangerous chap around the women.” His upper lip wobbled.
“They can’t seem to control themselves around me. You’re too young to understand my dear. But let me tell you, I’m cursed with a terrible affliction.”
“Delusion?”
“No,” he continues unabashed. “Sexual magnetism.”
I actually feel sorry for him so I fling him out of the window. He screams and lands safely in a dust cart ambling off into the shadows.
“What the blazes?” he yells.
I remove the blades from my boots and extend them as if they were wings.
It is like a dance. I can feel the limbs fly off as I spin. I can hear the screaming and the running. I can smell them: it’s sweat, human shit and semen. Fear between their legs; in their throats vomit. Heads spin off my blades. It’s a beautiful dance. I can see the butterfly in my head, I can hear Mr Angelcakes laughing and clapping. Chop chop, spin spin.
Chop
chop
chop
Silence. I am standing in a heap of body parts. The Professor is watching me from the corner of the room, eyes like dark pools. He’s excited by me but he also fears me.
He takes the emperor moths and we get into the coach and drive back home. Into the darkness; into the deep, beautiful darkness.
Fourteen
That is how old I am. I have an insatiable desire to kill. It’s like a fever running inside me. I lie on my bed and put my hands between my legs.
Mr Angelcakes says I have surpassed what he thought was possible. He runs his finger up and down my thigh. The skin suit he is wearing is beginning to rot. I have sucked so much power out of him. He is just a voice now and a sack of skin. But I follow his commands. I am stronger than Mr Angelcakes. I am stronger than the Professor. Why don’t I kill them both? Because then I will be alone.
Mr Angelcakes speaks to me, his rotting green tongue lolling inside his mouth. “My little weapon.” He strokes my face.
I am going mad.
Melting into the floorboards.
Pedrock Grows up, 1899
Sailing
The lake today is full of silvery threads and spirals of colour. Insects dart over the surface, deeply in love with their reflections. I have returned to the village of Darkwound and borrowed Grandpa’s boat. I have returned for my little sister’s wedding. I haven’t seen her in ten years. He has kept her locked away. The little boat glides gently over the water, like a leaf. Gliding without any particular purpose. I can see the edge of the woods, the edge of the world.
I work as a clerk in the ship-building firm of Winkhood & Son in London and have lodgings near St Martin’s. I am courting a hat maker’s daughter, a Miss Penny Seashell, with hair the colour of white honeycomb beaches and eyes as green as algae.
Much has happened over the last ten years. Mrs Charm’s Medieval Horrors were published and a phenomenal success; she is currently writing her seventh book, The Wicked Monk of Winchester, which again explores the notion of demonic possession in the clergy. I have read and enjoyed them all. She misses Mr Loveheart terribly and dedicates all her books to him, hoping secretly that he is somewhere safe, reading them, and not dead as everyone believes. Cornelius, who is now twenty-six, has sadly become an opium addict and is cared for by his mother at home. He has also become fascinated with turnips, which, I have been informed by the village apothecary, Mr Pinhole, is a side effect of the drug usage, although Mrs Charm tells me this is complete nonsense and Mr Pinhole has been obviously self-prescribing himself laudanum. Grandpa is still with us, at the ripe age of ninety, but Guardian the dog died after a night of howling at Boo Boo’s window and is buried under a rose bush in the garden. His ghost, I am sure, watches over her. He will forever be her Guardian.
Prunella and Estelle, now twenty, are plump, pretty and blonde, with the sole intention of marrying Horatio Beetle, who is still unmarried, although has broken a string of hearts according to village gossip, and has by all accounts several bastard children in the village. Mr Grubweed was never found and Mrs Grubweed has still not yet uttered a word. Whether she has chosen never to speak or is simply unable to remains a mystery.
Mr Wormhole, the vicar, will be performing the wedding service for my sister next Saturday. He remains still paranoid that he will join the other “missing”.
The sun is starting to set, an orange ball sinking; the moon, as white as baby teeth, emerging. My little boat floats on under this new moonlight, sweaty glinting water ripples. It moves forward, it must keep moving forward.
Above in the black sky, a comet tail blazes and explodes. Ribbons of gold and shocking phosphorescence dazzle. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and yet it is
the
death
of
a
star.
The butterflies in the house
of Hummingbird
are shaking on the walls.
The glass is cracking