Epilogue
London, 1882
The Springton Home for Children is the brightest spot on the quiet Pimlico street it occupies. When it first opened, neighbors objected, saying this well-heeled neighborhood wasn’t fit for such things. But then Mr. Springton, who can be very persuasive by all accounts, stopped round for tea one day, and each objector was charmed into changing their minds. Now, the ten children under fourteen who make the neatly furnished flats their home are the most beloved sight as the kindly Mrs. Springton walks them to the local primary school that opened in St. Gabriel’s Church right off Cumberland Street. Most mornings, Mr. Springton walks with them.
“GET YOUR PAPERS! MORNING papers! Hear the horrors of the Spring-Heeled Jack! Now sighted in Pimlico!”
Polly finishes dropping off the little ones who live in the lower floors of our home. Truth be told, I don’t mind having them about. They stay away from me, and I stay away from them—except for the littlest one, Kate, with her badly burned legs and clubbed foot, and Charlie, the littlest lad, with his twisted foot that turns in at the ankle. Something about the agony of always having special footwear has made them my particular pets. I often get the paper and read it aloud to the older ones, but Kate and Charlie are the only ones who would dare to sit upon my knee.
“Jack!” Polly comes back from the doors of the school, a paper in her hand and her hat clutched to her head. “Jack, look at the photograph.”
I look at the grainy photograph on the sheet of newsprint, my jaw immediately locking closed over a fit of oaths that wouldn’t go over well in front of St. Gabriel’s.
It’s me. From the white streaks in my hair to the smirk on my face and the beautiful blonde I’m carrying—it’s me.
“Look at the building. Oh, Jack.” Polly is almost in tears. “It’s our home.”
“I know who took this picture. That squinty little rail of an amateur photographer, Wilson Waterford, who lives across the way. I scared him properly when he came sniffing around Hildy.” Hildy being fourteen and looking like she’s seventeen, and having the gentlest nature—she reminds me of Polly. Waterford reminds me of Bunson.
“Well, he’s getting back, isn’t he? He’s been watching the house, and now... Oh, God. Jack. They’ll come to investigate, won’t they? And those people who lived in the house before—before you made it yours,” she stammers, skipping over the grisly details that made the place mine. “What will they think? What will they find out about the old tenants?”
Normally, I wouldn’t care. Let the investigators come, and let me feed. “I should have eaten Waterford,” I grumble.
“You mustn’t eat the neighbors, Jack,” Polly sighs. “That’s part of the problem now, isn’t it?”
“To be fair, they weren’t neighbors originally,” I point out.
Polly groans. “What’ll we do? What if they take the children? What if they arrest us? Who will take care of Kate? And Charlie? The rest are almost old enough to find work, but they’re only five and six.”
I walk along in silence for a minute, my cloak blowing out behind me in the stiff March breeze. “Artie and Martha are coming to tea on Sunday, aren’t they?”
“Yes, and I expect that Martha will ask me to be godmother.”
“Excellent.” I nod as I think about one of the oldest boys at Bunson’s, now a strapping lad of eighteen and wed to Martha, who is a few years older than him. She was put out of her job as a maid when her pregnancy was discovered (silly humans, punishing people for making more of their own species!) and they’ve been struggling along on Artie’s salary as a laborer at the docks. “Go to Martha. Tell her that we’re leaving them in charge of the home as matron and headmaster, or whatever you call it. Artie’s a good boy. He railed against Eric and whipped the others into shape—and I’m fairly certain he’s the one who convinced the others to lie to the police and say Eric Bunson ran off with all the money and legged it to Spain.”
“He is, not that the children were hard to convince,” Polly says faintly, clutching my arm.
If we hadn’t come the next day to sort things out, he would have kept the place going. He’ll manage the new home. There’s certainly enough money to keep it running for a few more years until all but the youngest are out on their own.”
“Where will we go?”
“Somewhere... Somewhere where my kind are allowed to exist. There’s a town that I’ve heard of. Dr. Ellsworth, the specialist I’ve been taking Kate to see—he’s leaving for Pine Ridge, New York, so he can have a chance at a proper life, even with his mutation. He’s heard that paranormal creatures and humans live in peace there. Innocents are protected. Evil beings are hunted and removed.”
Polly gives me a sidelong look, and I purse my lips. “I’m a reformed evil being. I only hunt evil things... at the moment.”
“Jack Springton!”
I wince. Polly only uses both names when she’s truly put out. It’s happened only once in the year we’ve been married, and that was when I killed the Christmas goose in front of Hildy and Henry (who oddly enough didn’t seem to notice). “I mean, I only hunt evil things because my family is in no danger. But I’ve got to get you and the children away from Waterford or anyone else he sets on us.”
“But... But you said Martha and Arthur could—”
“I meant Kate and Charlie,” I say, blinking in surprise as the words leave my lips. “They... They have new procedures in America. Ellsworth will be leaving soon, and his mutation process has been refined. He tells me small doses could regrow Kate’s skin and tissue. She might be able to walk without pain one day. And Charlie! There are surgeries for clubbed feet and all sorts of lameness. Ellsworth told me of a children’s hospital in Boston. That’s on the eastern coast of America, the same as New York.”
“You would... You would take Kate and Charlie with us?” Polly whispers. “As our children?”
I nod, firmly.
“As our family? Or as mere wards?” Her eyes burn into mine, and I know there is much more to this question than simple logistics.
“It would be easiest to get them across as our son and daughter.”
“Oh. It’s just a matter of ease. It’s not about wanting a family or anything like that?” she murmurs.
My lips brush her ear as I bend towards her. “Do you think... Do you think perhaps they’d ever call me father?”
“It depends on if you’d allow it, Jack. I know Kate would in a second! But the true question is, do you want to be a father?”
A father to just any scruffy, miserable human? No. To Kate and Charlie, and even the older ones, if pushed? To a child made with Polly?
The thoughts that fill my head are not exactly paternal, but they could lead there—if I wasn’t what I am.
I walk along, pushing her in front of me while my lips whisper wicked words in her ear. “Tell me again how often I’ve been seeding that tight little quim of yours? Tell me how often I hold your hips up when you’re full of me, so that my cock strikes your womb and my seed flows straight to the place it should take hold? Of course I wish my wife would carry my child, but I know it might never—”
“I think it’s worked. You’ve been so busy taking Kate to her appointments and trying to help some of the older ones find apprenticeships with joiners and seamstresses and whatnot, that you haven’t noticed. Your monthly feed didn’t come this month.” Polly’s fingers dig into my arm, and she spins me to face her under the small trees that line Cumberland Street. They’re just beginning to bud, tight green pops of color on full brown branches.
Like my Polly. In bloom. “Are you certain?”
“Not yet. But I’m beginning to think it’s not just being a little late. Four weeks gone,” she says faintly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you’d notice.”
“But when I didn’t...”
“I thought you might be a bit upset. Things will change, Jack. They’ll have to.”
I laugh and hug her to me. “Things have been changing since I met you, Polly. It turns out—I like being your hero and your husband. But! This means more than ever we need to leave. Get Martha and Arthur over today, then pack. I’ll book a steamer to New York by the end of this week.”
Polly nods. She’s used to things moving fast. Between us, they always have.
“No child of mine will live in fear of some nosy neighbor and his camera,” I vow, a hand on Polly’s middle. “Pine Ridge is a little town, a peaceful place in the mountains, that’s what Ellsworth says. Quiet streets without crime and papers, without the evils of London,” I pledge, smiling crookedly, for I am one of those evils, and perhaps legends of some “Spring-Heeled Jack” flying above the roofs will live on long after I’m gone. “I’ll make a home for us, Polly.”
Her eyes shine. They are the only light in me, and she gives it so freely, lends it to me always. “Jack, you already have.”
I throw out my arms. “Well... A better one! The Springtons of Pine Ridge. It sounds quite nice.”
“Ever so respectable.”
Polly’s eyes have regained their happy sparkle so quickly. My resilient, unbeatable, unstoppable bride. My heart flips inside my chest. “Polly?”
“What?”
“It doesn’t hurt the baby when we have our little games?” I whisper, one finger tracing over the smile I’ve come to love so well.
“He’s built of sturdy stuff, like his father.”
Like his father. I’m going to be a father. I’ll be the first Flameheel ever to know my own child. Raise it. Watch him grow into a man, and what a fine man he’ll be. Something better than me, thanks to his mother.
“None of this would have happened if I hadn’t come to London,” I murmur, awed.
Polly stands on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “I’m so very glad you did.”