The White Forest (19 page)

I
left Maddy at her carriage and made my way through the southern woods alone, as it was closer for me to walk home than take the road. I’d told her that Father owned some illustrated books of zoology, which I would page through when I arrived at Stoke Morrow, specifically searching for white primates in the area around Malta, though I suspected not to find such a creature. The way the finger moved when I touched it made me feel as though it was something more than natural.

Nathan’s journal of the war weighed heavily in my dress pocket. I wondered if he’d written about the ape finger and how he came to be in possession of it. Moreover, I began to wonder if he’d written anything about me. It occurred to me again that Nathan himself might be sending me the visions of the painted forest and his final night. What did he understand about the Red Goddess—and might I find some of that knowledge in the pages of his journal?

I was glad Maddy hadn’t asked to keep the book. She was happy enough to have the pistol, saying she’d sleep with it near her bed in case the white ape came looking for its finger. Before we parted, she asked again about my outburst in Lady Ashe’s parlor. “Are you sure you’re quite all right, Jane?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “More than fine. There were just too many bois
terous objects in there. Mary-Thomas’s Chinese tea set was likely upset due to the poor quality of the Darjeeling. It exacted its revenge upon me.”

“Your reaction in the parlor had nothing to do with Nathan’s spoon?”

“As I said before, Nathan’s possessions have been agitated as of late. It was nothing.”

“We’ll have to be more careful in the future,” Maddy said. She spoke kindly enough, but there was hesitancy in her voice. I could feel her gaze linger on me as I walked away from the carriage. Maddy was not a fool. My outburst had provoked her interest. If I became a suspect in her investigation, I knew that wouldn’t be healthy for either of us.

•   •   •

The trees around me had a doomed and blasted look, and the forest became blacker by shades until I was nearly walking in almost full dark. No amount of gazing could draw images up from the gloom, and so I was left with the images in my own head—the ape’s finger and the terrible blood-spattered face that looked, for all the world, like my mother’s own.

So many pieces, but what was the puzzle? If Nathan was at my side, I’d have asked him what to do. What research could be done? But without him, I was adrift. Walking toward Stoke Morrow, I tried to imagine Nathan alone on the Heath, sure of himself in his dark suit and high jackboots, winding his way through the grass. His hair was parted in a careful line, and the rest of him seemed equally well made. I wanted to put myself inside his thoughts—to know what he knew. I saw him pause at the women’s bathing pond in the southern clearing. The copper tip of his cane did not touch the ground. His own image was reflected in the water, and he was reminded of something his mother once told him. When she was a girl, there was a popular technique of divination known as “hydromancy” or “reading of the water.” The future could be seen on the surface of
a still pool. Nathan looked carefully at his own angular reflection. A breeze stirred the water, and his face was pulled apart, becoming something new and monstrous.

Before I could fall too deeply into my reverie, a rustling in the forest drew my attention. At the base of a large oak sat what I first took to be an animal, but I quickly realized it was Pascal Paget wearing some kind of bulky fur overcoat, one of his odd French fashions, no doubt. He was huddled in the coat as if it were midwinter rather than late spring.

“Pascal?” I said. “What are you doing out here?”

“I was waiting for you, Saint Jane,” he said.

When I’d once protested Pascal’s nickname for me, saying I wasn’t particularly good or saintly, he told me that achieving sainthood wasn’t necessarily about being good. “The old priest at my parents’ church said the saints exist beyond the everyday,” he said. “You walk one step ahead, Jane. Alexander and I can both see it. When you’re with Miss Lee and Master Nathan, it’s so clear you’re not like them. They’re a product of London and you’re . . . it’s as though I’m squinting at a mirage. At any moment, you might just ascend to your rightful Heaven.”

I approached Pascal at the oak, wondering if Maddy had decided to render him homeless by ejecting him from La Dometa. I felt as though I should offer to take him to Stoke Morrow and give him some of Miss Anne’s black Ceylon. “You look like something terrible has befallen you,” I said.

“I’m being harassed,” he replied, “by Vidocq. I’m afraid he’s going to harm me. That’s what I wanted to speak with you about.”

“Pascal, I’m sure that’s not the case. The inspector is simply—”

“In France, Vidocq is known as a ruffian, Jane,” Pascal said. “He was a common criminal before becoming a detective, you know. And he retains his criminal mind. He believes I’m withholding necessary information. He told me he expects the same sense of fraternity that Robespierre preached during the Revolution.”

“I don’t think Robespierre is much of a model for human conduct,” I said. “But why is it that you wanted to talk to me about this?”

He looked at me plainly, dark eyes wide and perhaps a bit naive. “I thought your father could protect me in some legal manner, or that even
you
could protect me, Jane.”

“Me? I have no power in the courts.”

“Not the courts.” He shook his head. “Never mind, then.”

But his request resonated. Was this his way of praying for protection? Did he take my sainthood more literally than he let on? I wasn’t sure I was comfortable assuming the role of holy protector.

“I promise you won’t be harmed,” I said. “I’ll speak to my father on your behalf.”

“Should I tell Vidocq what Nathan said about the Empyrean?” Pascal asked. “I feel that it might satisfy him.”

My skin prickled at the idea of this. “Under no circumstance is Vidocq to hear the mention of that word,” I said. “Do you understand?”

He nodded. “But you know what it is, don’t you?”

“I do,” I said.

“Will you explain it to me?”

“If the time comes when you must know, I’ll explain.”

Pascal seemed to accept this answer. He trusted me. He was perhaps the only person who fully trusted me anymore, and I loved him for that.

“I have to ask you a question now,” I said. “In Nathan’s belongings, we found what appeared to be the index finger of a white ape. Would you know anything about such a strange treasure?”

The blood drained from his cheeks. “You found that in his house?” he asked.

“Maddy and I, yes.”

“You must leave it where you found it, Jane.”

“Then you know what it is? Where it comes from?”

“Nathan brought it from Malta,” he said. “Ariston Day took an interest in it. That’s one of the reasons Nathan became such a favored Fetch. You don’t want to have any part in what interests Mr. Day. He is not a good man, Jane. Did you leave it where you found it?”

“Yes,” I replied.

He closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the tree. “At least there’s that,” he said.

“Does Ariston Day know what happened to Nathan?” I asked.

“As I told you, I was escorted from the theater before the provocation began,” he said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say yes, Ariston Day knows. He knows so many awful things.”

At that, I said good-bye and turned to leave, but Pascal called out to me, “Jane, it’s possible that Ariston Day is going to ask to speak with you soon.”

I paused, unsure if I should share the story of the letter with him. Finally I decided against it, saying only, “Is he?”

“Yes, and when he does, you mustn’t go to him, no matter what anyone says. Do you understand? You must stay away from the Temple of the Lamb. If you go, there won’t be anything left of you.” Pascal seemed to shrink inside his fur.

I thought back to Vidocq’s record of Day’s previous exploits, the mysterious disasters that surrounded his cults. What exactly did Ariston Day’s have planned for me?

“Jane, did you see Alexander at the Silver Horne?” Pascal asked.

“I did.”

“And how did he appear?”

I thought of lying, but what good would that do? “He looked burdened,” I said. “And terribly adult.”

“I don’t believe the world will ever be as it was.”

“Nor do I,” I said, moving off into the southern woods, wondering if perhaps I should purchase Pascal a ticket on a steamer back to France.

•   •   •

Nathan’s journal began to feel as though it was writhing in the pocket of my dress. Even wrapped in Maddy’s handkerchief, it irritated me. It made me think of the war and how both Maddy and I believed the hardship of it would ruin our dear Nathan.

The Crimean Conflict was referred to by our countrymen as
“The Eastern Question,” as if the whole of Britain was uncertain about our participation. Victoria aligned herself with Napoleon III, who was attempting to gain control over the Ottoman Empire—holy and strange—collapsing under its own golden weight. Napoleon had recognized the significance of the Ottomans after having a prophetic dream of a great tree that spread its roots to cover the earth. The tree was full of nightingales and bright parrots, all singing, and every leaf of the tree was shaped like a scimitar, pointing toward a milk-white moon. Louis-Napoleon’s interpreter of dreams instructed that the vision of the tree referred to the Holy East—to Byzantium—and Napoleon must acquire that land in order for his own empire to prosper.

Maddy and I detested the war, not only because it seemed built on flimsy circumstance, but also because seeing Nathan in his red uniform and buckler sword tore our hearts. She and I discussed our concerns privately in my father’s garden one placid afternoon, though the conversation quickly turned to other matters.

“Isn’t there something Lord Ashe could do?” Maddy asked. “There are plenty of men who’d make better soldiers than Nathan, I’m sure.”

“Lord Ashe won’t prevent Nathan’s leaving,” I said. “It’s an honor to serve in the Duke of Wellington’s regiment. Nathan
requested
to serve in it.”

She pretended to glance over lines of Byron in the book she held. Tall clouds glided above us, casting shadows like passing ships. “I don’t necessarily think Nathan should be allowed to make requests,” she said. “He hasn’t had his own well-being in mind as of late.”

“Are you referring to our experiments again?” I asked.

“Don’t you think it’s possible that you’re hurting him in some irreversible way, Jane?”

“Yes, Maddy, I think I’m giving him my disease.”

“That isn’t funny. You don’t know what your talent is. For all you know, it might even
be
a disease.”

I’d considered this, of course—the numbness Nathan was feeling, the way he thought his body was not his own. Perhaps pushing my
mind into his was too much for him. Or worse, perhaps the objects were finding a way to do something to him that they could not do to me.

“Do you want me to stop?” I asked.

“I do,” she said, though without any real conviction. She knew well enough that if I tried to pull away, Nathan would be more upset than if Lord Ashe tried to yank him out of the Duke of Wellington’s brigade.

“Nathan’s chosen his own path,” I said. “His time in the Crimea will have at least one positive effect—it will separate him from my talent. And when he’s there we’ll write him letters like—”

“Like what?” Maddy asked, glaring. “Good wives? We can’t both very well be his wives, Jane.”

“Like the Sisters of Mercy,” I said. “We’ll raise his spirits.”

“But I don’t want to be a nun,” she continued. “That sounds more like the kind of thing you’d enjoy. Pascal calls you Saint Jane, and I don’t know that I’d take that entirely as flattery, dear.”

•   •   •

We tried not to show our concern in front of Nathan himself; instead, Maddy and I teased him about his uniform. It was such a costume after all—that bright red wool and ridiculous sash. These were not the sort of clothes that any man could die in. We ran our fingers through the fringes on his epaulettes. I put my palm against his neck, letting him listen to the sound the epaulettes made—something like rain trickling into stone gutters.

But we secretly feared his blood pouring out onto the queen’s red. Even Nathan himself might have feared this. His grin wouldn’t save him, no one cared about loveliness in war. I could almost picture the holes in his chest—Nathan lying in some foreign field, unable to move or help himself.

I had a single conversation with Nathan about my fear of losing him to the war. We were in my father’s study, making experiments on an idol Father had purchased from a man who’d traveled in Africa.
The idol was called the Baboon of Thoth—a seated figure of a baboon, meant to represent the scribe of the underworld. The baboon was Thoth’s assistant who catalogued the dead and placed their hearts on a scale for weighing.

Sitting there across from Nathan, I felt my own heart being weighed, and its contents were heavy indeed.

The baboon was one of those uncommon objects that seemed to erupt with language when I touched it, and though I could not understand its words, Nathan became excited and claimed they
were
words, complete with pauses and inflections. He was wild about this discovery, cheeks flushed, eyes hectic with excitement. I asked him if his head ached or if his hand was numb.

“I’m fine, Jane. I think we should try to write down some of the words the monkey says—or at least copy down the sounds, and then we can see if anyone else can provide translation.”

“It’s nonsensical,” I said. “Dismal thunder.”

“But it doesn’t
sound
like dismal thunder. It sounds like the baboon is
chanting
.” Nathan studied the features of the little creature, its bulbous eyes and flaring nostrils. “How can we be sure it’s not trying to communicate—that all of them aren’t trying to communicate in their own fashion?”

I sighed. “I have been working this out in my own head far longer than you. Remember that. The talk is nothing more than babble.”

“I imagine it will be something like that in war,” he muttered. “Sound that never ceases. I’ve read that a man can go mad in the trenches just from the sound. And even when the explosions cease, there is still the sound of other men, packed tight in their ditches and praying.”