Chapter 20
It was nice enough weather, considering the season.
Passengers waved with white handkerchiefs to relatives on the docks as the Monumental made its interminable slip into the Atlantic.
Miriam Richter, who had no relatives, leaned against the railing and pretended to sip an old-fashioned.
The breeze ruffled her black curls and pulled threateningly at the lace flower pinned to her suit jacket.
She watched the docks of Southampton grow smaller, then disappear.
Tiring of her drink, she tossed the glass out into the water. A pair of young women on deck turned to gawp at her, clutching their hats to prevent their theft by the wind.
‘Well, I never,’ one of them squawked. ‘You can’t do that.’
Miriam raised a brow at her. ‘Why not?’
‘You ought to take it back to the bar!’
‘I have somewhere to be. I’m sure they have more glasses.’
The ladies traded scandalised looks. ‘Look here,’ the taller one said, ‘I don’t know where you’re from, but in New York, you’ll be expected to act civilised.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Miriam replied. ‘I don’t intend on visiting anytime soon.’
Then she tipped her hat to the two women, and she strode into the bowels of the Monumental.
Miriam was nearly out of time. Twenty-two years, eleven months and twenty-six days this version of Harding had been alive: she knew that much.
She had felt the power that was released when her soul had returned, a meteor strike of heat, a brand pressed upon the earth.
Miriam had been in the midst of amusing herself with a platoon of soldiers in Bengal, whom she’d lured into the jungle and beset with tiger-shaped shadows.
She hadn’t even been hungry; it was simply something to do.
But the moment she felt that burning brightness, she’d lost all interest in games.
At first, Miriam had purposefully kept her distance.
Triggering Harding’s memories too early would be disastrous—what had happened with Esther was proof enough of that.
With three souls, three lifetimes of experience, this version of her would be exceptionally powerful.
The fewer risks Miriam took, the better.
Still, by the time Harding was in her twenties, Miriam’s resolve had already started to crack.
Surely, she could come to her as a crow once more, and see what sort of life her love was living?
Surely, that would be enough to assuage this ache inside her, this itch of longing?
And so, she had reached out to the shadows, ordering them to bring her to Harding once more.
The shadows hadn’t replied.
How Harding had remained hidden from the darkness, Miriam didn’t know.
She’d sometimes wondered if she’d died again, through sickness or an accident; but Miriam would have realised if that were the case, surely.
She would have felt it. They were so aligned, now, magnets brought together—whether a push or pull, she still couldn’t tell—but the force was there.
The force should have been there. When Miriam wanted to find someone, she found them.
And yet, until the Monumental, Harding had been nothing.
An absence, a ghost, a whisper. A memory made unreal.
Miriam didn’t panic—it wasn’t in her nature—but she did grow angry.
Never before had the subject of a deal gone missing, and she wasn’t certain what would happen if she couldn’t find her.
Maybe Harding’s soul would detach itself from her body and find Miriam on its own initiative, leaving only a shell behind.
What a Pyrrhic victory that would be: to be served that light on a platter, without the glory of the hunt.
It wouldn’t be worthy of the love they’d shared.
When Harding was to die, it would be in Miriam’s arms, just as she had two times before. That was only right.
And so, every day, Miriam had searched for her.
She had asked shadows in the winding midnight alleys of Quebec and Cairo and Shanghai, enquired with those cast by the harsh sun across temple ruins in Delphi—even the darkest corners of the darkest caverns in the diamond mines of Kimberley.
Harding wasn’t likely to be in any of these places, of course, but Miriam asked regardless.
Her frustration had made her reckless. And in England, the place she was most likely to find her, each day of searching led to bloody hands and gnashing teeth, as others paid the price for Harding’s insolence.
Miriam tore through deals, pushing her powers to the limit, until she was so engorged with souls, so sensitive to their light, that all she could hear was the shadows screaming at her, all she could see was the furious blaze of millions of people converging in the streets of London like schools of fish, colliding, shimmering, scattering—
Miriam had never been sane, of course, but surely this was some form of going mad.
And then, that morning, something had changed.
She had appeared in Suffolk as dawn broke.
The Hall was gone. The village was now a town, the town had motorcars lining the streets, and Miriam stood in front of the old church.
It had been rebuilt with white plaster, a war memorial with a long list of martyrs facing it from across the road.
An electric lamp stood on the corner of the pavement, illuminating an advertising board that read, Celebrate the Season with Tilly’s Christmas Gift Boxes!
Price three shillings from all leading grocers.
In the distance, Miriam could see the Saxon mounds the villagers had once danced around, the low hills presiding over the scene in their eternal silence, immutable and unaffected.
She had closed her eyes and remembered that night, the night they met: the dirt and the darkness, the wind and Cybil streaked with mud.
But in Miriam’s fantasies it wasn’t just Cybil.
It was Esther, too, both of them an amalgam.
Miriam imagined Harding as she was, as she would be—and if she could have, Miriam would have merged the image with the third version of her, too, the one hiding someplace out there that Miriam couldn’t find.
She pictured her with the shorter hairstyle the women of this era favoured, eyebrows drawn into delicate arches, fingernails lacquered ruby red.
Her voice would be the same—it always was, that petal-wilting tone, high to low.
Miriam, she heard her say. It’s you.
Miriam. Come find me.
She had started from her reverie, eyes flying open. That voice—that wasn’t her imagination. It was real.
Miriam. Don’t you want me still?
‘Yes,’ Miriam hissed. ‘Yes—’ And then she was calling the shadows to her, almost crowing in her excitement. The darkness seethed forward with such enthusiasm, it swallowed the light of the streetlamp, and the bulb burst with a pop.
‘Take me to her,’ she’d told them—and then she’d found herself here, on the RMS Monumental, iron grating ringing beneath her feet.
Miriam had paused when she’d realised she was on a ship. She’d avoided ships, of course, because of the ocean—the salt, the lack of shadows, the reminder of her birth. She was surrounded by salt, in a way: a circle as vast as the Atlantic itself.
Why sail when she could simply step from one landmass to another?
This was a novelty, and novelty was a rare thing to her, maybe even precious—but that didn’t make it any less risky.
She’d thought of the way salt stung her skin, the way it burnt and ached.
It was the only thing that had ever given her pain. Apart from Harding, of course.
Miriam knew how difficult it was to fly over salt water. She had never tried to travel by shadows, either, in the middle of an ocean. Staying here was a risk. It was a risk she would be a fool to take.
And then she thought of Harding smiling, eyes molten gold, soul light dripping down her cheeks—and it didn’t matter, after all. Miriam was decided.
She wouldn’t lose her again.
Miriam had summoned herself a drink to celebrate.
She hadn’t drunk it, but she’d pantomimed, simply to amuse herself, perhaps in a show of flippancy: she was not so much in a rush to see Harding, after all, that she couldn’t have a little fun.
But all she had thought of, as she had rolled the glass in her hands, was Harding and how achingly near she was—so the drink had gone overboard, and it was time to get to work.
The engines were bellowing, the walls thrumming with their power.
A push, a pull, a force undeniable: she was here.
After twenty-two years of darkness, Miriam had found her.
She’s here, Miriam thought, and her pace increased.
She’s finally here.
Meanwhile, in the bedroom of a first-class cabin, Rosamund was flinging evening dresses through the air. Hovering nervously at the door was the startled-looking maid who’d been assigned to help her unpack, calf-eyed and shifting from foot to foot.
‘Can I do something for you, ma’am?’ the maid asked uncertainly. But Rosamund was too agitated to even look at her. She tossed away a peach-coloured feather boa, and it soared towards the dressing table.
‘No!’ she said, voice high with nervous excitement. ‘No, I’m perfectly fine.’
Where was it? She knew she’d packed it—she knew she had—and yet now, with her desperate fingers slipping on silks and velvets and strands of pearls, it suddenly seemed possible she hadn’t. And if she hadn’t, then everything she’d been planning for the past few years might—
Rosamund felt leather and paper beneath her hands, deep in the confines of her trunk, and she sighed in relief.
‘Well, all right,’ said the maid, wringing her hands. ‘Let me know if you need anything, Mrs Jennings.’
‘Of course,’ Rosamund said. ‘Thank you.’
The maid took that as her cue to leave. She backed away, the door shut, and Rosamund was finally alone.