Chapter Eight #2
Kehinde turned a corner into a wider corridor, one that curved along a gravel path.
Red lanterns hung from doorways along the street, and women wandered beneath them, leaning against walls and smoking cigarettes.
They twirled their gowns as Kehinde and Elswyth walked by, blowing kisses or playing with their hair.
Each wore different flowers, signifying their unique offerings.
A girl a few years younger than Elswyth sat behind the glass window of her brothel wearing a crown of white roses.
Elswyth didn’t need a book of floriography to know what was being sold.
Finally, they came to a small gap between the buildings marked by a red lantern and a street sign: LIME ALLEY.
“This is it,” Kehinde said.
“The place the last body was found?” Elswyth said.
Kehinde nodded. “Not a place I would expect Persephone to be,” he said, looking about the street.
To their right, a few men lingered outside of what might have been an opium den.
A thin smoke leaked from the windows, smelling of tar and sweet, dark fruit.
“You really believe this Reaper business has something to do with your sister?”
Elswyth frowned, examining the cramped alley. “You guessed my reasons for coming here, so the thought occurred to you as well.”
He shrugged. “I may have noticed the newspaper clippings in your desk drawer while I tidied up. That does not mean I believe it.”
Elswyth frowned. She made a mental note to hide her research more thoroughly. “Five women were murdered in the span of months. Persephone goes missing at the same time, in the lone month where a body was not discovered. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“Yes, but the Reaper’s victims have been… a different sort of woman.”
“Prostitutes, you mean.”
“Yes. Living and working here, in the Rows. Persephone was out shopping the day she vanished, preparing for a ball. Not quite the same thing.”
“And Mrs. Rose has taken me to every modiste and haberdashery that Persephone would have frequented. Not one of them saw her that day.”
“What is your theory, then? That she was in the Rows, for an unknown reason, and was abducted by the Reaper? I might not have known her well, but that does not seem like your sister.”
“Everyone has their secrets,” Elswyth said.
She thought of the bouquet in her sister’s room with its coded message.
Could Persephone have had a lover? Could she have been meeting him here, far from the prying eyes of society?
And if she’d rejected that lover—if he was, perhaps, beneath her station—would he have been angry enough to murder her?
“Perhaps,” Kehinde said. “Although, as far as I saw, she did little except shop, gossip, and attend balls. She almost never left the house unsupervised. She, unlike some houseguests, never made a habit of sneaking out.”
The sound of ringing metal interrupted them. They stood still as the clocktower tolled again and again.
“Twelfth bell,” Elswyth said. “Curfew’s begun.”
Kehinde nodded. “Be quick then. Best not to tarry in such a place.”
Elswyth removed her commonplace book and read through her notes. “The body was found in an alley just off this street. Up here, I think.”
Elswyth moved on without waiting for him.
She walked forward as though descending into the throat of a giant.
The buildings seemed to teeter around her, the soot-stained bricks of the walls arching over the cobblestone path.
There were no gas lamps anymore, and the darkness settled thick between the walls.
The only sounds were the occasional distant cough and the drip-drip of water leaking from broken gutters.
No one lingered on the street, either, but Elswyth heard the sound of locks clicking as they walked by and saw the flicker of eyes as they vanished behind drawn curtains. Soon they were completely alone.
Under an archway of old stones to her right was an even smaller alley.
The walls loomed closely enough that she could touch either side if she wished.
Old barrels lay abandoned here and there, and the cramped corridor smelled of wetness and rot.
Elswyth checked her notes again. She’d clipped the sketch of the last victim and held up the page to the alley.
“It was here,” she said. The barrels, the broken stones—it was all the same.
Hazel Fairburn’s body had lain in the center of the small corridor, far from view.
Why had the Reaper killed her here? Why had he stolen her organs and grown flowers in their place?
Perhaps there was no assigning logic to the methods of a madman.
Or, perhaps, there was some perverse logic that Elswyth could not see.
Elswyth crouched and touched the stones where Hazel Fairburn had died. Had Persephone met the same fate? The thought made bile rise in her throat. But no—Persephone’s body had not been dumped in an alley, mutilated or otherwise. Why, if all the other women had?
Elswyth stared at a wall, lost in thought. And then she realized the wall was staring back at her.
A pair of eyes peered out from between the two barrels.
It took her a moment to make out the faint outline of a soot-stained face and then the silhouette of a small child.
The girl—if it was indeed a girl—sat curled against the brick wall.
A tattered stretch of burlap formed a makeshift shelter, and another formed a floor.
She clutched a filthy blanket to her chest.
The girl watched her warily, staying very still.
“Hello,” Elswyth said carefully.
The girl said nothing. Her eyes darted to the opening of the alley, over Elswyth’s shoulder. Kehinde started toward them, examining the makeshift shelter, but Elswyth stopped him with a look.
“We won’t hurt you,” Elswyth said.
The little girl retreated farther into the hovel.
Elswyth frowned and then extended a hand.
She summoned a stem from the veins in her wrist. It sprouted white flowers, which quickly closed and began to swell into fruit.
In a moment, the bud became a small green apple.
It ripened to red, and she offered it to the girl.
“Would you like something to eat?”
The girl’s eyes widened. Hesitantly, she crawled from her shelter and into the meager light. She took the apple and retreated again, but not so far as to vanish. She bit into the fruit and chewed.
“Is it good?” Elswyth asked, in the gentlest voice she could manage.
The girl nodded. Her face was nearly black with soot, and her clothes were stained beyond repair. An old scar wrapped around her throat, red even beneath the black dust. Elswyth’s heart sank when she saw it.
“You’ve got a scar,” Elswyth said.
The girl paused with her mouth around the apple. Then she nodded.
“I’ve got one, too,” Elswyth said. She pointed to the left side of her face, where her own scar twisted over her cheek.
The girl said nothing. Instead, she finished the meat of the apple and moved to the core. It was gone in two bites, seeds and all.
“May I… have another?” the girl said. She had a Scottish accent, rough but lilting. A coarseness lingered behind her voice, and Elswyth again noted the girl’s throat.
Elswyth smiled. “Of course. You are very polite. What is your name?” Elswyth fabricated another apple into the palm of her hand and offered it to the girl.
“Gillie,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Gillie. I’m Elswyth,” she said.
Gillie said nothing. She looked warily between Elswyth and Kehinde.
“This is my friend, Kehinde. We’re here looking for someone. Do you think you could help us?”
Gillie looked between them, suddenly suspicious. Elswyth had the impression that apples would keep the girl interested for only so long. Her eyes flickered to the exits of the alleyway again. Her soot-stained fingers twitched.
Elswyth reached into her reticule and produced a silver coin. Gillie’s eyes flashed again.
“If you help us, I will give you another apple, and I will give you this coin. Then I will walk you to the nearest orphanage and pay for your lodging.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Gillie flinched, inching back toward her shelter. “They don’t want me,” Gillie said, “an’ I don’t want them.” Perhaps unconsciously, Gillie’s hand rubbed the scar around her throat.
Elswyth reached into her purse again. “Two coins, then.” She wouldn’t leave the girl there unless there was no other choice, but neither did she want to scare the child away.
Gillie looked more skittish by the moment.
Her second apple was gone. Elswyth summoned a third apple to her hand and offered it to her. The girl took it and began to eat.
“Gillie, a few weeks ago a body was found here. A woman. In this alley.”
Gillie paused but then nodded.
“Did you see her?”
Gillie nodded again.
“Did you see what happened to her?”
Gillie wiped apple juice from her lips. “You a peeler?”
“A what?”
“Police,” Kehinde said from behind her.
Elswyth shook her head. “No. I am looking for my sister. She is lost. I think whoever killed the woman in this alley might have hurt her.”
This seemed to quell Gillie. Her eyes no longer flickered to the exit.
“Did you see who killed the woman in this alley?”
Gillie shook her head. “No.”
Elswyth had hoped, if the girl had lived in the alley, that perhaps she would have seen something.
To her surprise, Gillie kept talking. “But other people did. They saw him. The Reaper.”
Elswyth’s pulse quickened. She wanted to shout, but she kept her voice slow and calm. “Did they see his face?”
Gillie shook her head. “He hasn’t got a face.”
A chill settled over Elswyth. “What do you mean?”
“That’s what they say. Where his face should be, it’s all shadows. Shadows like leaves. They say he’s an eldren. Like from the stories.”