toxic_fairie

Miss Barton's footfalls were not immediately apparent behind me, as she was rather light on her feet and anyway, I was not exactly paying attention. I heard her coming only a fraction of a second before she had knelt down beside me and laid her delicate hand upon my back.

She was an awful lot of crinoline and heavy, fancy fabrics, and so her dress spilled over my foot and came to a drift that reached nearly to my thigh. I looked up and was instantly arrested by the look on her face. Her eyes were a warm brown, nothing at all like the ethereal black of the lady from the cellars, but all the more comfortable to look at for it. A concerned look melted into a smile as our eyes met, and I found myself helpless but to smile back.

"Pardon me, Miss Barton," I said, though my voice sounded tremulous and tiny in the corridor.

"No need to ask pardon," she replied. "The opera is frightfully dull, I can't say as I blame you for leaving so quickly."

And just like that, she had alleviated the tension. She didn't expect me to explain myself, and I was so relieved I nearly fainted.

"Shall we walk?" she asked as she rose, and she took my arm as though I were some aristocratic dandy like Montagu. I smiled, and nodded, and we began to head down the corridor away from the private box. "I never used to come to any of these things," she said, once we had put some distance between us and the box. "Uncle Isaac does not typically frequent the opera either, but more and more it seems that our acquaintances seem to be the types to flock here in droves. It makes me actually miss the boredom of days at home, punctuated only by the rowdiness of the coffee-houses." She paused, and I glanced up to see a faraway glint in her eye. Just as quickly as it had come, she banished it.

"But I can hardly imagine that your father approves of the opera either," she continued. She had a way of taking slow but long steps, and it made her hips sway with a swish of fabric from her crinoline. It was clear that she was quite conscious of this movement, though perhaps not of how seductive it was, and for whatever reason, I found that dichotomy bewitching. I almost forgot to answer her.

"Oh, he disapproves of it entirely," I replied. "What with all the dancing and singing and men dressing up in women's clothing."

Miss Barton burst into giggles, which made me laugh in turn. "How serious!" she managed to get out between giggles. "You Calvinists take exception to the oddest things. Their transvestitism is all in good fun. I doubt they mean to offend the Lord's sensibilities."

This statement seemed blasphemous on at least four different ways, which struck me as both strange and brilliant. "Well I don't know if they mean to offend the Lord," I replied, "but they certainly excel at offending my father!"

Miss Barton laughed again, and so did I, and I am certain that if there had been anyone save us in the corridor they would have thought us utterly mad. To laugh so unguardedly in a public place with a pretty girl on my arm seemed to me then to be just about the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me, and I made up my mind to do it as often as possible.

"Uncle Isaac had told me that you are a solemn child. I daresay I'm seeing another side of you entirely."

I grinned crookedly, and blushed a little. "It's my reckoning that I haven't laughed this much in a long while. Maybe my entire life!"

"Well then," she replied, "I guess that I'll refrain from insulting his judgment of character. And you ought to smile more. I can't imagine what it is that has you seeming so serious."

I decided not to mention that I had no idea what made her so jocular, and only smiled back.

My musings regarding Miss Barton's station in life were cut short, however, when the lights in the house began to go down. As one by one the lanthorns were extinguished, the temperature dropped steadily, and the relief it brought was perceptible as a vague tremor through the crowd.

I had never been to the opera, or to the theatre. The closest I had come was when at age seven my father had brought me to protest a bear-baiting and hand out libels. Needless to say, this was quite a different experience. When the theatre manager took the stage to say a few words about the opera, I was shocked that he did not speak in the fevered tones of the ringmaster, and rather with the sort of decent enthusiasm one might expect from someone who was tasked to look after such a show.

To signify that this was a High Class Event, he spoke a few words about the production. Or at least that was what I assumed, as I knew from overheard conversation that it was rare for any of the shows at the Dove or the Apple to have any sort of preamble to their shows. I remember thinking that whatever he was saying must be important in order to necessitate a monologue, but all the information therein has since fled to the recesses of my brain reserved for mathematical logic and color theory. Anyroad, he didn't talk long before the remaining lanthorns were dimmed and the music from the pit came to a frenzied crescendo.

Children do not normally enjoy opera, or so I am told. Perhaps I was a product of my environment. It was singly the most visual and aural stimulation I had ever experienced. The sets towered above the elaborately dressed actors, every gesture a perfectly choreographed dance that seemed to build upon the last until dancers were left leaping across the stage in a frantic ballet--and above it all, music. Such music I had never heard, and it reminded me of only one thing, of one voice alone and plaintive in my father's cellars.

And then I saw her. I was shocked that my eyes picked her out before my ears, but her voice seemed a simple and innocuous thing before it built and carried away all else. One moment, the lady's pale moony face floated into my vision, and the next all I could hear was the sound of her voice, joined with the orchestra like some strange and exotic instrument.

I could have lost consciousness then, were I not keenly aware of Newton's eyes on the back of my head. It seemed then that he saw my eyes on the lady on the stage, and he hated me for it. Somewhere in the back of my head, I hated him too. I hated him because he knew this lady, he possessed her, I understood then. I understood what he had meant those two years ago when he had spoken of a treasured possession of his that my father was looking in on. Perhaps I had always understood. The realization formed like a knot in my stomach and tossed back and forth there like a ship on a troubled sea. I felt as though I would be suddenly, violently ill, and I turned my back on the stage--on the entire box--and fled into the corridor with my hands pressed hard over my face.

"I should like to introduce you to My Lord Halifax," Newton continued, and gestured toward Montagu. "Also, my niece, Miss Catherine Barton."

"We are acquainted," said my father, nodding at the pair.

"Yes, but they have not yet met your son. How fortunate that you brought him along. There are some that would say that the opera is not a place for young men, but undoubtedly it shall prove an enriching experience for him."

Hearing myself discussed as though I were not present brought a flush to my face and the prickling of embarrassment to my sinuses. My only consolation came in the form of a warm and slightly apologetic smile from Miss Barton. It seemed that she was not unused to her uncle's rudenesses.

"Funny, I think that I'm hearing in your tone a suggestion on how to raise my own child," my father replied calmly, no emotion whatsoever crept into his face or laced his words. Newton seemed about to retort, but when Miss Barton managed to catch his eye, he held his tongue. I was at once mystified by the lady, and the power she seemed to wield over all the men in the box. They each seemed captivated by her every movement. Their behavior was fascinating.

"I am delighted," said Miss Barton, "to meet your son, Mr. Kuerten. Pray, what is your name, child?"

I gave Miss Barton my name without hesitation. She was a female, and therefore unknown to me, but there was something in her demeanor that was reassuring. She impressed upon me almost immediately the feeling that whatever I confided in her would be safe between us. I was a sense that I found profoundly disturbing.

As I spoke my name, she brightened. "Oh, I have heard of you from my uncle! He says that you have already shown your mathematical ability to rival that of some of the scholars at Trinity!"

I blushed again, or perhaps I hadn't ever stopped. "I have some small skill with figures," I mumbled.

"Please, Miss Barton, you will only add whimsy to a fanciful mind," said my father. "There is no need to fill his head with idle praise."

"Both of you show heartwarming devotion to the boy," said Newton, "but I still find his very presence a mystery. Why is he here?"

Mr. Newton's inquiry cut me quickly down to size, but even I had to admit that his question was valid.

"I could hardly leave him unattended. His governess was indisposed."

My "governess" had been "indisposed" for several years. Her name had been Isela Zorilla y Armandez de la Peña, and she had died of the French Pox four years hence. She'd been one of the kindest people I'd ever known; of course, she'd also been quite mad for some time.

"Governess?" Newton responded. "Do I pay you enough to employ a governess? I do not remember any women in the laboratories."

"It is only in the last few years that my son has been old enough to stay at the laboratories full time, and only in the last few months that you seem to have taken such an interest in his studies."

Again, they talked as if I were not myself present, and again I felt seized by embarrassment.

"Gentlemen," said Miss Barton firmly, and her eye caught mine. She smiled at me then, an almost subversive gesture, and I couldn't help but grin back. "If you are so intent on talking of our guests as though they were not present, perhaps we should turn our conversation on gossip of My Lord Halifax. Have you not heard that he wishes to reform the treasury to mirror that of Rome, all the better for when he leads the Pope himself into Whitehall and hands over whatever passes for our government these days."

Montagu was now chuckling, and Newton was rolling his eyes, and by all appearances I seemed to have been saved. "It is somewhat amusing that a committed Whig such as myself would be suspected of some elicit Popish scheme. I suppose that the conspirators of Parliament are running out of scandal and have resorted to throwing names, political parties, and scandalous events into a hat and withdrawing several at random simply to keep their private councils filled with excitement."

Miss Barton burst into giggles, and gave Montagu's shoulder a bit of a playful shove. So encouraged, the Privy Councillor continued. "Next we'll be hearing that the libels of Ned Ward stem from an elaborate conspiracy between the Tories and the Leprechauns to bring dissent to the Juncto."

"Such phant'sy ought be plaistered over the walls at Jonathan's. It would be no more ridiculous than half the soap-boxing that occurs there before breakfast," said Miss Barton, in a way that made my eyes grow wide. None of the men present chastised her. It was clear that in this respect Miss Barton was fully and completely within her element, and that alone was enough to make me quite curious about Miss Barton indeed.

I'm finally done with INATS and I can return anyone who cares to your regularly scheduled fictional babble. The show was pretty slow this year, but I did get to do some fun stuff like getting my aura photographed and a consultation with an Angel Reader. Still not exactly sure what THAT was all about, but it was an interesting experience.

Today is my day off, then I go back for two days, then the holiday weekend. Thank Gods. I know I will be enjoying my rest this weekend.

Oh! And in two weeks I get to go to Texas! WOOP WOOP!!

The next three days passed more or less in bland tranquility. That was well with me, as in one day I had experienced enough moving about and shifting of emotion to last me a lifetime. If my father seemed more anxious than usual, it barely registered. My own anxiety had settled in my gut in the form of a bezoar which grew every hour and crowded my stomach so that I did not eat more than a couple of mouthfuls of bread.

I still didn't understand what was happening, and I dared not ask my father. He hadn't brought any of it up to me since we'd left Holly and the mysterious woman back at the labs, and I had no illusions that he intended to explain anything else. He had shown me what he had out of necessity, because he feared that his own life would end. For my own part, I spent the next three days wondering what would become of me, should my father meet his end. I devised a set of possible scenarios, each with outcomes more unfavorable than the last. More than anything, I prayed as I never had before.

The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden was a somewhat spectacular building, though not nearly so sensational as Newgate Prison. It's facade was an absurdly large and white structure that towered over us as we drew nearer. Outside, knots of aristocrats had gathered, and a miasma of French perfume and body odor hung over the group like gathering rain clouds.

My father and I were, as always, dressed head to toe in black. We were undoubtedly the odd ones here, among the fops and dandies in their cascading wigs and expensive shoe buckles.

There were not many children present. In fact, it would be fair to say that I was the only one; in the somber garb of a Nonconformist it hardly semed strange that I attracted many confused looks.

"Make eye contact with no one," my father instructed me. It was unnecessary. Since our arrival, my eyes had not left the ground beneath my feet. I practically had to be dragged through the doors of the opera house, since my consciousness seemed to have separated itself from my body, floating around ten paces behind the rest of me.

From the outside, the building had seemed huge and impressive. Once inside its size was considerably diminished, but it didn't make it any less daunting. The atmosphere was heavier still than it had been outside, and the combination of the odor and the angles of the aisles and seats leading to the vanishing point of the proscenium arch inspired in me a powerful vertigo.

My father led me through a series of winding corridors until we emerged above the auditorium in one of the private boxes. I was barely able to suppress a gasp when I recognized the box's other inhabitants.

They were not the sorts of people with whom I would normally have occasioned to socialize. A man whom I recognized from wood-cuttings on Ned Ward's libels as a Privy Counciller by the name of Charles Montagu sat with a pleasant-faced young lady at his side. There were two gentlemen I had difficulty recognizing simply because I had never seen them wearing anything but red alchemist's robes. Of course, none of them really even registered as soon as I laid eyes on the white and drawn face of Isaac Newton.

"Good evening," said Newton, turning his philosopher's eyes upon my father and myself. An involuntary chill shot down my spine.

"That, too, is something I will leave to counsel not my own."

The lady's eyes leveled on mine then, and I felt as though she were trying to tell me something. Whatever her purpose, I felt her sorrow then. It tore through me, a cold wind in a dark place, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to leave. My father, seeming to sense my discomfort, turned back toward me. His eyes reflected the feeling in my own soul.

"Everything is in place," he continued, turning his empty gaze once more upon the woman on the bench. "Are you ready?"

Her sigh was a great and terrible thing. "I doubt that I shall ever be 'ready,' but I am more weary of waiting than I am fearful of whatever the future holds."

"All that is well enough," my father said, and made for the door. I bolted to his side. "The tide is changing."

"Turning like mad angels," replied the lady, her voice calm and flat as a windless sea. "I will see you in three days." Whether this last was directed at my father or myself or the both of us is as irrelevant as it was unknown to me.

Not another word was spoken. We turned and headed back to the carriage, then London, then home.

At those words, the lady's face twitched with something like emotion, and once again she seated herself upon the bench in the corner. She drew her knees up and rested her chained feet before her. Her plain white chemise formed a complicated series of folds around her toes. She rested her arms on her knees and her chin on her arms.

"I have no intention of debating with you the existence of God," my father said. I resented him for filling the silence.

"Nor do I," said the lady. "It is not my place. But I do think it fortunate that your son so resembles you."

I felt my face go hot and my head go light. "Yes," my father said. "It is fortunate."

"Why did you bring me here?" I interrupted, and at once had two pairs of sharp eyes on me. I should not have asked it; but the words flew out unbidden, dark birds spreading sinister wings, flexing their spectral feathers. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, the longest moment I had heretofore experienced.

"I brought you here," said my father, finally, "because one day this will be your responsibility."

The lady did not speak, only blinked her wide black eyes. The motion was impossibly drawn out. It was an event.

The silence as I glanced back and forth between the two of them was a real thing, immense and substantial. "What do you mean?" I asked finally, and the words fell flat against the stone at my feet.

"This." My father gestured toward the woman, still hugging her knees on the bench with a golden chain dropping from her foot to the floor, shining like a waterfall.

"'This,'" she repeated softly. "I am not even a woman to you."

For half a moment, my father's face grew hard, and I thought he would strike her. Just as quickly it passed, but he did not answer her statement. "What you choose to do is your business," he told me, "and I do not presume to tell you which path to take. But it will be you--not Isaac Newton--who decides her fate."

An involuntary chill shot through my body, and apparently the woman felt a similar sensation. She trembled then, and strangely it was in this unconscious expression of fear that I saw in her how regal she must have once been.

"I still don't understand."

"Why don't you tell him?" said the lady. "Tell him everything."

Even as a child, I understood that there was some subtext here, some unspoken communication that elicited something similar to the discomfort I had felt when Newton had offered me schooling. Anything else in the air might have been lost on me, but I knew at least that.

In those moments, as we drew nearer to the door where the women sat, where I became increasingly certain was our destination, I became very conscious of things like my breath and heartbeat. I suppose this is because I would have fallen unconscious quite easily, and my sudden awareness of my own biology was my brain's way of keeping me awake. Even so, I was dizzy. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, I was tempted to cling to my father and make him carry me through this ordeal.

When we came to the door, outside of which I had huddled and listened to a caged woman's melancholy song not so long ago, I did not feel surprise. Instead I felt a sort of numb shock, coupled with a dread that manifested itself in a tingling of my scalp. What if he knew, what if he had known all along and was drawing out the reveal as a sort of punishment?

My father sorted through the various keys on a huge and heavy ring for what seemed like an eternity. I was willing to let this time pass slowly. Finally, he found the one for which he had been searching and inserted it into the door. It made a sound that spoke of want of use, twisted, and the door creaked open.

What I remember first are the feathers. They were everywhere; huge, black feathers in piles and scattered across the floor like lilies in a pond. After that strange sight had sunk in entirely, I noticed something glittering on the floor which upon closer examination was revealed to be a thin golden chain. This chain was extraordinarily long, and resembled jewelry more than the chains of a gaol, and I followed its twists and turns until my eyes came to its source. In the rear corner of the cell sat someone shrouded in darkness. I could barely make out the shape of a body tucked up on a low bench.

She had, apparently, been hugging her knees to her chest. Her feet left the shadow first, as her legs touched the floor the shadows melted from them to reveal her white feet. In one fluid motion she stood, and the shape that had just seemed hazy and indistinct now coalesced into the obvious form of a woman. The golden chain whispered on the ground as she stepped forward, into the pathetic light provided by the tiny grate of a window over our heads.

She did not look how I had imagined her. She was even more perfect and beautiful than I could have dreamed. Her hair was the black of crows' feathers, it iridesced under the dim light. Her skin was so pale I almost thought it illusion. Her body was at once delicate and strong, it was something that even then awakened something like need in mine.

I had a hard time meeting her eyes. They seemed to me to be depthless and full of secrets, but I could not bring myself to look into them. It was as though I were looking on something as private as her sex; but that is a poor comparison. I would have been able to view that with clinical detachment. Days spent indoors with physicians' books prepared me for that sort of thing--nothing could prepare me for this. I squeezed my own eyes shut and held my breath, as if by this process I could force myself to wake from a dream made terrible by its beauty.

"Hello," she said, reminding me that I was awake. Her voice was so calm, so measured, it was almost painful to listen to. It was also undoubtedly the voice I had heard on the other side of the door two years before.

"Milady," said my father, and I opened my eyes in time to see him leaving my side, and kneeling at hers. He took her hand in his and pressed his lips to her knuckles in an unprecedented gesture of respect. Had the day not already been the strangest one I had ever experienced, this might have seemed to me more bizarre. As it was, I took it quite in stride.

"You came back," she said. She did not sound surprised, more similar to my tutor pointing out facts than anything else.

Her eyes fell on me then; black, infinite, and alien, and it was as though I had been struck in the stomach. The air left my lungs for an agonizing moment, and I knew that she had recognized me. Then, the moment had passed, and I realized that she would not tell my father. The thought that she and I now willingly shared a secret was to me the most precious thing in the world.

"I want to introduce you to my son," said my father, and her eyes seemed to sparkle at those words. The corner of her mouth twitched up into half a smile.

"He is handsome," she said. I felt as though a crow had made itself a nest in my ribcage, and that at any moment it might burst forth and end my life in a shower of gore and viscera. The thought did not bother me nearly as much as it ought to have.

"He looks much like his mother," said my father, and those words actually broke enough of the spell that I looked back toward him. "He is adopted." This last part was as much to me as to the lady in the cell, and for good reason. I was shocked.

"And yet he resembles you. Perhaps a part of the soul is transferred through love, after all," said the lady. Her voice was distant to me now, the only thing that existed was the knowledge that the man I had known as my father for twelve years was no such thing.

"You may be correct. I hope that there is something of me in his eyes, for it would be the light of God."

Holly, it was decided, would be staying in my father's old rooms at the labs. He obviously couldn't be seen anywhere else, as he was technically still a resident of Newgate and a known murderer and pirate. We escorted him to his prison-away-from-prison, gave him some fresh linens and the like, and then my father led me back down into the bowels of the compound, the cellars.

I did not speak. I was uneasy and filled with a new sense of rebellion. I wanted to demand various answers from my father. How he could call himself a Christian, for example. What he had been about every night for my entire life leading up to that moment. Everything became suspect, from the cleanliness of his crisp white undershirts to the tips of his gloved fingers.

After a few long silent moments had plodded by, my father finally spoke. So deep in thought I had dropped that his words actually startled me, though save for a rather swift inhalation I did not show it. "You are wondering why I brought you to Newgate." It was not a question.

I paused and considered this statement briefly. "Among other things," I conceded.

He sighed then, and it was not a put-upon sigh, or an exasperated sigh. It was a sound of resignation.

"I brought you with me today," he said, "because I cannot keep hiding everything from you. You've plenty of exposure to figures, and in the arenas of Natural Philosophy you have more knowledge of this world's workings at the age of twelve than I have amassed in my entire life. Don't look baffled, you must know by now that you are of abnormal intelligence."

I realized that I was gaping, and returned my mouth to a straight line and pointed my eyes ahead once more.

"But as much as you understand about Science, you know absolutely nothing about men and their nature. What can you tell me about Jim Holly, for example?"

"He is a criminal."

He shook his head. "You know that he is a criminal because we found him at Newgate. Tell me something you may have deduced from his mien."

I paused for a long moment and considered what he meant by that. "Well, he is crass and vulgar in his language, so I suppose that should mean that he comes from poverty."

"There are plenty of vulgar fools flitting about the upper classes, but what you are trying to say is correct. He is uneducated. What else?"

"He is gripped by advanced stages of syphilis."

My father actually laughed at that, and I thought as the laughter transformed his face that the wicked instruments of torture I'd seen hung from his wall like tack in a stable must have been a dream. "He is, at that. How could you tell?"

"I have read in the physicians' texts what gummae look like. Also, his nose seemed to have lost quite a bit of its structure."

"You talk like a physician," said my father, but his voice was lighter than I had heard it in some time, and I laughed with him. "You are correct. The pirate Holly is one of the few unfortunates whose syphilis didn't drive him to utter madness before doing its ugly work upon his body."

"He seemed mad to me," I answered.

"He has always been mad, even before the syphilis."

"Have you known him long, then?" The question seemed impertinent to me even as it left my lips, but my father did not even spare a disapproving look.

"Longer than you've been alive," he replied. "Much longer than I would have cared to. But, and you will surely learn this in time, madmen often prove themselves invaluable assets."

I considered those words as we continued along the dim corridors. We had again entered the cellars via the normal route, and so I was not wholly familiar with the path as we continued, but I felt a strange sense of deja vous. That, coupled with my father's unusually forthcoming banter, made the entire experience feel like a strange but somehow comfortable dream. I did not answer this last statement of his, but filed the information away in some dark place in my brain to be pulled forth when I finally understood it. It was the same sort of feeling as reading Herr Leibniz's Calculus when I had been only ten years old.

Thinking back upon that paper instantly put my deja vous to rest, as I unlocked the year of 1699 in my memories. Now I realized why everything seemed so familiar. It was a corridor I had been in only twice, many years ago, but it had imprinted itself upon me like a tariff stamp. I nearly gasped as I made the realization, but remembered in time that as far as my father knew I had no idea what lay behind those doors.

My father glared at me with mild disapproval in his eyes. "Could you have not done that outside?" he asked, and at once I was filled with a shame that pushed aside my revulsion as though it had been childish phant'sy, though I knew even then which was the more mature emotion.

"I beg your pardon, sir," I replied in a tiny voice.

A moment passed in which my father continued to stare at me, and I continued to blush, until finally said, "Well? Clean it up!"

Horrified, I cast my eyes around the room looking for something to use to sop up the vomit. Holly let go a sick and wheezing laugh behind me as my father briefly rummaged through a cupboard near his desk and produced a wad of scarlet fabric. He tossed it in my direction, and I unfolded to find that it was a red alchemists' robe. I was meant to use it to clean up vomit. Even raised as I was with an inherent scorn for alchemists, I found this use of the garment offensive, practically sacriligious.

I fell to my knees and began, if not precisely cleaning up the mess, then at least pushing it around enough that it created the illusion of labor. Meanwhile, my father continued to speak to Holly. "Newton rarely leaves Mint Tower, and to attack him there would be greatest folly."

"I s'pose this is when you reveal the twist of the plot that brings him away from his little fortress."

"Indeed it is. There are very few things that can draw him out of the Tower, save civic duty and the hangings of goldsmiths."

I looked up from my work in time to see Holly flash a toothless grin, and immediately returned my attention to the floor. "I happen to know there ain't another hanging day for some three weeks," said the criminal.

No emotion crossed my father's face. "You are correct. I have created for us a scenario to draw Mr. Newton out of the Tower, in only two days' time."

"Very convenient."

"Not particularly. If you should fail, things are likely to get rather messy for me here."

"How's that?"

"It's not your concern." My father paused, and I dared to look up again. My eyes treasonously fell not on his face but beyond it, to that space on the wall where his instruments of torture hung neatly on their wooden pegs. I imagined a spike being driven through my own tongue. I have always been far too imaginative for my own good. "The event is an opera to be performed at Dorset Gardens."

"Didn' take Saint Newton to be much of a patron o' the arts."

"He is not. He is simply lending one of his most valuable assets to the company due to a premeditated indiscretion on my part."

"Doesn' he suspect something?"

"Of course he suspects something. Even if he were not predisposed to suspicion, I have worked for him for many years and have never been indiscreet. Even now, it is dubious that I will even live to see this opera." A beat passed without words before he continued. "This I expect and await, and perhaps I shall die and pass on to the next world, whatever that may be."

"S'that your fancy Puritan way of sayin' I'll see you in Hell?"

"Something like that."

Ordinarily, at this time of afternoon the place would have been bustling with activity. There would have been a knot of gentlemen just inside the gate, wearing red robes and talking about planets and/or metals with some ambiguity. Windows would have borne faces and the serpentine paths would have been cluttered with errand boys and particularly absent-minded alchemists. Today, there was no one.

"Where are they all?" I asked, more to the air than to my father. It was just the sort of idle question that he discouraged; but, to my surprise, he answered it.

"Gresham's College, I would expect."

I had been to Gresham's College before, and I was aware that it was home to the Royal Society. Therefore, this statement piqued my interest. "Gresham!" I might have shouted if I'd been a different sort of child, but the word left my mouth in a shocked gasp.

"All wanting to be closer to Mr. Newton," my father added.

Jim Holly made a disgusting noise, and spat onto the cobbles at our feet. "Nice o' them t' clear the place out fer us," he replied, and began limping toward the gate.

The compound was not entirely deserted, but it was close enough. Holly's mask had been replaced, and if anyone thought it odd that my father and I were escorting an obvious syphilitic into the bowels of the laboratories, they exhibited no outward sign of it. It became clearer to me as we descended into the cellars (via the traditional way, this time) that this sort of thing was rather ordinary in my father's life. It was a realization that settled in my gut like the sediments of a riverbank, and filled me with dread.

We came to a workshop that was far more austere than most of the others I had seen. There were no rows of ornate glassware, no star charts or mash-ups of alchemical symbols tacked to the walls. It took me some small amount of time to figure out that this had once been my father's office.

What disturbed me more than anything that day so far had were the implements that hung from tidy hooks in one corner. I had seen nothing like them before. Wicked spikes and hooks, hammers and chains, and I somehow knew instantly their purpose, despite my naivete. That realization, piled on top of the day's other revelations, Holly's stench, and a life that had until that moment ill-prepared me for any of it, caused a wave of nausea to finally overcome me. My stomach heaved and the contents of my gut emptied onto the packed dirt floor.

After reading this article today, I have to say I'm feeling sort of depressed. I think this kind of thought is not going to save literature, or even make people interested in reading a book. We're declaring dead an artform that has flourished for centuries. I am not willing to sit back and let the novel die. In fact, I think I've got some book shopping to do.

Also, I feel like I'm the only person I know that still loves poetry. Do you love poetry? Tell me yes, validate my existence!

I had never known before that day how easy it was to just walk someone out of Newgate, and I think that if I had it would have inspired in me a sort of abstract terror that the surreality of our present situation was sufficient to diffuse entirely. When we left, it was with Jim Holly in tow, a silver mask over his face to hide the most visible symptoms of his syphilis.

We climbed into a nondescript carriage when we left. I remember wondering where it had come from, since we had walked from our flat to Newgate. Once the door was shut, Holly took the mask off and clawed away some of the linen underneath. His face had clearly not been attractive in anyone's recent memory, but now it was a mess of sores. I was thankful that he did not remove more of the gauze, because the shape of his nose beneath it suggested something I did not want to see. My father passed him a bottle of brandy, and the criminal drank from it greedily.

The clatter of our wheels on the cobbles barely drowned out the tattoo of my heart, let alone the questions that flooded my brain. The sight of this decaying man in front of me was a terrible thing, but far more terrible were my father's words that still rang in my head.

I want you to kill Isaac Newton.

Why on earth would my father want such a thing? He warned me of lakes of fire, reminded me of my commandments. Of all the men in the world, in my mind he was most holy. Now he talked of murder. And what had Holly said to him about violence--was my father a violent man? I suppose that everyone reaches a place eventually where they begin to question their parents' choices, and for me it was quite specifically sitting on a carriage seat across from a syphilitic felon, putting space between us and Newgate Prison.

After a few long moments of silence punctuated by road noises and Holly's slurping at the bottle, the criminal saw fit to speak. "You talk, boy?" he asked me, as if suddenly becoming aware of my presence.

"You will not speak to him," said my father before the man's question had time to even register. Only an hour ago I would have been grateful to him for saving me, but now I felt resentment settling into my stomach like cold stones in the bed of a river.

"I only talk when I've reason to," I snapped back impertinently, and raised my eyes to meet Holly's.

My father tensed beside me, and the horrible face of Jim Holly spread into a grin that was more horrible still. "An' have you reason enough now?"

"What ought I to say to a criminal like you?"

"Could argue you ought t' be polite t' criminals. Or d'you fancy the thought of gettin' gutted fer yer insolence?"

"Do you have a habit of threatening children, Mr. Holly?" my father interrupted, but quickly turned his hard eyes on me. "Enough," he said, and there was enough finality in his tone that I did not press the issue, though it did nothing to pacify my growing bile. I sat silently for the remainder of our ride, and I was only moderately surprised when the carriage let us out in front of our old home. The laboratories of the Esoteric Brotherhood.

After the bomb I dropped in the story yesterday, I think that I'm going to let the story germinate over the weekend on account of anything I say now would probably just ruin it. Hopefully if I let it sit for a little while I'll come up with something brilliant to do next.

Writing in this sort of format is almost like writing a tv show. I have to pay attention to things like continuity as they come up, rather than just tying everything together once I've got all my elements laid out. When I'm writing a novel or a short story, if I discover something then that doesn't make sense I can write my way around it. Short of going back and editing old posts (which I am not willing to do, despite a couple of historical errors made) this lj is sort of just a growing finished product. This has its good and bad sides, but I've found I have to use a lot more ingenuity to escape the corners I've painted myself into.

This, generally speaking, is a Good Thing, because I am a fanciful writer and I tend to just say whatever the hell I want, whenever I want to. In my currently hibernating novel, I have written countless scenes that upon editing will have to be thrown away because either they don't add anything to the story (usually the case) or they add contrary information to the story.

This brings me to a few notes about the "MS" that is this lj-beast that I seem to have gotten myself into.

1.) The "story" in which we are currently involved officially starts with this post. There are other blurbs before that from the same character's point of view, but we are starting from the "beginning" and this is it. Anything after that can be assumed to follow the same linear timeline unless otherwise noted.

2.)Roy G. Biv's musing on cryptology, found here, is a part of the bigger story but should not be considered a part of the same narrative. That was, for lack of a better explanation, me taking a break.

3.) In this post Isaac Newton is referred to as "Sir Isaac" and that is an error on my part. The year when this scene takes place is 1699 and Isaac Newton was not knighted until 1705. Oops. Later references to him should not make this mistake.

4.) The Esoteric Brotherhood of Alchemists that I write about is wholly fictional, but it is based loosely upon several different orders of that time. Newton, however, is known to have practiced alchemy and was accused of Rosicrucianism (as were many in the Royal Society).

5.) I'm trying to address my more glaring historical errors but obviously there are anachronisms everywhere, not the least of which being that Avialle is definitely not a period name. This is mainly because I named the character in a flight of phant'sy and then, well, that was her name and I couldn't change it.

The way my father spoke of death chilled me. I have heard fishwives discuss inclement weather with greater passion. Anyroad, Holly gave a small sigh then, a mixture of resignation and exasperation, and replied, "Just get me out of Newgate. I'll do th' rest."

My father cleared his throat, gave the skirt of his dusky-colored vest a tug, and said, "You have not yet heard my proposal."

"Mayhap not, but I'm guessin' it be bloody work, else y' wouldn'a come looking for me specifically. Course, I 'aven't known you to shy away from a bit o' violence here an' there, so it's likely messy on some differen' level t'which I remain mostly oblivious."

"Your hypotheses are valid," my father replied. I had never heard him talk like this, never heard him negotiate with anyone. In fact, if anyone had asked me a week back, I wouldn't have believed that my father even knew the definition of the word "hypothesis."

He seemed to read something in Holly that told him to go on, despite that his face remained hidden beneath layers of spotted gauze. For half a second, something showed in his eyes akin to fear, and that terrified me more than anything else ever could have. After what seemed like a century, he announced what was possibly the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard in my life.

"I want you to kill Isaac Newton."

I had seen Newgate Prison countless times from the outside in my youth. It is by far one of the more fascinating buildings in London to a young boy, and thinking of the pirates, thieves, and black-hearted killers inside had always given my heart a bit of a frightened jump. It was the kind of fear one cultivates for the thrill, the sort of simultanous terror and comfort offered by a captured boar.

When one morning my father roused me and informed me that Newgate would be our destination for the day, it sent a sick thrill of anticipation through my stomach. I dressed quickly and followed him through London's labyrinthine streets until we came to the the city's greatest prison.

Words and perhaps money changed hands, and one of the gaolers took up an enormous key-ring and led my father and I into the bowels of Newgate. Being a young man of twelve now, I did not tremble or try to fit my hand into that of my father. I held up my head and tried quite hard to meet the eyes of the prisoners who stared out at us. I had heard that the fearsome pirate William Kidd was somewhere in this prison, and if there was one good thing to take from this experience, I should have liked to see his face before he met his end. We reached the end of our trek at a rather unimpressive wooden door, into which the gaoler fit one of his keys. He opened up this room for us, and then turned to go, leaving us alone with whomever it was inside.

Almost instantaneously upon the door's opening, we were washed in the scent of decay. My stomach turned but I swallowed hard and managed to banish the nausea. Once that initial wave had passed, I began to notice other scents beneath that of rot; Parisian perfume, tangy sweat, and something metallic that my nose could not identify. It was wholly the most disgusting thing I had ever experienced, and my eyes began immediately to water.

Tucked into the corner of the room, as if by afterthought, was what had probably once been a man. Now, the criminal resembled more than anything a wounded animal, curled in upon himself like an earthworm in the sun. His face was swathed in gauze dampened by open sores. The only exposed flesh was that of his hands, which were dotted with gummae that indicated advanced syphilis. On the floor by his side was a half-drained glass vial of quicksilver.

"Good morning, Mr. Holly," said my father. I remember thinking him practically invincible in that moment, to be so unphased by this man's state of illness and decay.

"Ge' th' fuck ou'," said the pile of rags in the corner that was apparently Holly. "Can' you vultures le' me go peacefully to me grave, at least?"

"I'm sure you are aware by now that the answer is no," said my father, and closed the door behind us. Silence descended upon us, heavy as saturn and quick as mercury.

A long moment passed in which the two men seemed to be daring each other to speak, until my father said, "I have a job for you."

Holly made a sound that would have probably sounded derisive if he hadn't been quite so phlegmatic. Again, my stomach threatened to rebel. "I'm rather occupied wi' dyin' in prison at the moment, thanks."

"You should know as well as anyone that my employer has far more efficacious remedies for your ailment than whatever they're sneaking into your cell for you."

Holly leaned back, and his head slammed into the wall so hard that I feared for a moment that he had brained himself and ended the conversation rather abruptly and dramatically, but that fear was laid to rest when he spoke again. "I don' wan' a cure, I wan' to die," he said.

For half a second my father looked uncomfortable, then said, "That too can be arranged."

((To be continued, omg!!!))

Knowing what I did then made the days seem almost unbearable. I could not meet my father's eye, I could not speak to him without thinking of him in that small subterranean chamber with her. I wondered what they might have to talk about. I wondered if they thought of me behind that closed door. This is perhaps selfish, but in the time since I had found that little door with the lady behind it, I had perhaps become more of a selfish person. She inspired a feeling of territoriality that sent its spikes and barbs through my blood and dug itself in deep when it came to my heart.

I did not hold audience again with Isaac Newton for some time. This is not because the man had miraculously lost interest in me, but because he was simply too involved in his own work to trifle over the concerns of a child. What he did do was appoint me a tutor who spent most of our days with me in a study, teaching me Descartes, Spinoza, Galileo, all until my head spun. I had been entrenched in knowledge already, or so I had thought, but the things that I learned in those days made me feel that until then I had been like a country servant; blissfully ignorant and empty-headed to all that did not directly affect me.

A few months later, Isaac Newton left behind his apartments in our home and took up full-time residence at Mint Tower. This meant that my father and I were summarily ejected from the Esoteric Brotherhood's headquarters and relocated to the city proper, though whether this was because Newton required my father's services or simply did not trust him I still do not know. The workings of his mind were as much a mystery as the paths of the stars, perhaps more so.

In any event, the next months passed together in a blurry haze, and the next thing I knew, two years had passed.