Chapter Eight
Damien had walked until daylight had streaked the sky, until his stride went from staggering and circular to slow, scraping steps, and he eventually found a quiet doorway to lean against, to rest his head, and close his eyes.
She awaited him in the gentle darkness behind his eyelids – her muffled voice pressed against the lapel of his coat.
He couldn’t remember the last time someone had put their arms around him.
The last time someone had held him. And then she’d stepped back, her pale eyelashes spiked and wet, and he’d felt something stutter in his chest. For she was beautiful. She was more than beautiful, she was …
Dangerous.
He turned, scrunching his eyes together, trying to will himself to sleep, despite the cold stone beneath him, the ache spreading upwards, into his spine.
Her white-blonde hair loose now, flowing over her shoulders like a river of moonlight.
Is that what scares you? she said, in that lilting accent of hers, as soft and musical as the wind. That you will remember, and it will not bring you peace?
She held out her hand to him, her fist clenched around something, streaking her knuckles white.
‘What if you have been wrong, all these years?’
She loosened each finger, one by one, revealing a slimy trail of weeds tangled in her palm, and he felt himself lurch, felt as though he were falling.
There was a voice at his ear, then – a real one – and a real hand upon his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to see a man in a black cap, a pipe clamped between his teeth.
‘Get away from me,’ said Damien, reaching to shove the man away, but finding nothing but air.
‘Easy, easy,’ said the figure – not a man at all, but a woman, her scratching voice quiet, her cropped black hair slicked back beneath a fraying flat cap. ‘I just wanna talk.’
Damien hauled himself to his feet, placing a steadying hand against the cool brick beside him. A headache had begun to simmer behind his eyes, and his jaw was throbbing in time with his thundering heart. He reached up to thread a finger along the graze there, wincing a little.
‘Well I don’t,’ he said. ‘So why don’t you wander back where you came from.’
The woman frowned at him, digging in her pockets for something. He heard the fizzle-flare of a match, smelled the sharp scent of tobacco as it filled the air. ‘You don’t sound like you’re from ‘ere.’
‘Neither do you,’ murmured Damien. ‘Let me guess … London?’
The woman nodded, blowing a thin thread of smoke between her teeth. ‘You went to see that woman, dint ya? The one from the posters?’
Damien’s gaze slid to her, his eyebrows furrowing. ‘You followed me?’
‘I observed,’ the woman corrected, puffing a ring of smoke towards his face. ‘Following suggests some connotations I’d rather not entertain. But observing? Now, that’s perfectly legal. Above board. And as I happened to be walking down Park Lane, I observed you waiting outside her door.’
‘How very timely,’ said Damien, pushing himself away from the brick, and stepping onto the street. It was early enough that only the milkman was out, a single horse-drawn cart rattling down the road, the metal pails of milk clanging together. ‘What else did you observe?’
‘Some conversing, between the two of you,’ said the woman. ‘Then she went back inside, and you walked towards the docks.’
Damien cursed his own foolishness under his breath. He should have noticed if someone had followed him. He should have been more careful – but he’d been distracted.
And that was dangerous.
‘Why don’t we forgo the semantics,’ Damien said, his voice cold now. ‘And cut straight to the part where you tell me why you’ve been following me?’
The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘’Cause I know someone who’d like to give you a job. You interested?’
Damien’s dark eyebrows lifted. ‘What kind of job?’
‘That’s for Miss Lillian to say,’ said the woman, tucking her hands back into her pockets, and turning on her heel. ‘Come on. It’ll be decent coin.’
Damien frowned, puzzled.
And then he followed.
The woman led Damien to Williamson Square, and into one of the white-stone buildings that flanked it.
The sign above read The Penny Farthing Theatre, though the paint had begun to chip from some of the words, so that Damien’s mind had first read it as The Enny Thing Theatre, and wondered what devilish kinds of shows would be on display here.
‘Don’t mention Miss Lillian’s cane,’ the woman muttered, pulling him up the few stone steps and through the creaking oak door. ‘Don’t ask why she has it, don’t ask if it hurts – in fact, best to pretend you don’t even see it.’
‘Splendid,’ said Damien. ‘Now all I shall want to do is ask.’
‘Let’s see if you feel that way once you meet the one carrying it,’ said the woman, beckoning Damien through a doorway at the far end of the lobby, down twisting corridors and up two flights of stairs until they reached the very top floor of the theatre.
Morning light filtered through the high windows in neat circles, and Damien counted each one as they walked.
‘Wait here,’ the woman said, pushing open the door at the far end, and pointing to the rather uncomfortable-looking wooden chair on one side of the desk.
‘Miss Lillian will be up in just a moment.’
Damien looked around, his eyes wide. He had never seen so many bird cages, never seen so many birds, although none of the fluttering wings behind the cages looked exotic.
This “Miss Lillian” kept pigeons aplenty – white ones, black ones, mean-looking grey ones – as well as a jackdaw, which was hopping up and down the breadth of its perch, chittering noisily.
But it was the magpie that made him grip the back of the rickety wooden chair and lean a little closer.
For the magpie wasn’t moving at all, it was just sitting there, watching Damien, and for a moment Damien stood and watched it back, wondering idly if it was entirely normal for a bird to focus its attention quite so wholly upon a person, and to stand quite so still.
The magpie cocked its head to one side, as though proving it was, in fact, a normal bird, and Damien straightened, turning his attention to the room instead.
Against one wall was the fireplace, and a mantlepiece stuffed with brass clocks that all showed slightly different times.
On the other was a bookshelf laden with yellowing books and brown-black boxes – some with paper spilling from their lids, some with string wrapped around to try and keep it all contained.
He reached towards the nearest one, and the magpie began to chitter, quietly at first, and then more urgently, flapping its wings so rapidly it sounded as though there were a hundred birds sat inside its cage, and not just one.
And then they all began. The deep coo of the pigeons, the sharp squark of the jackdaw, and the harsh chakker-chak of the magpie, its dark eyes fixed upon Damien now, the discordant screeching rising to a heinous crescendo until Damien withdrew his hand, and sat down, as a single sound began to cut through the din.
Clack. Clack.
‘My my,’ said a red-haired woman as she hobbled inside, easing past him and sinking into the velvet chair on the other side of the desk. ‘My little ones don’t usually dislike someone this quickly.’
She had a faint trace of an accent – one she’d clearly worked hard to bury.
Damien’s eyes slid immediately to the cane, its ivory handle carved into an elegant wing, though the hand that clutched it wasn’t age-spotted and wrinkled as he’d expected.
The woman looked only a decade or so older than him, heavy golden earrings matching the adornment of pendants that dipped at increasingly bold angles down the front of her tight, black corset.
‘Perhaps they are singing my praises,’ Damien said. ‘Unfortunately I do not speak “bird”, otherwise—’
‘Well I do speak bird,’ said the woman, opening the magpie’s cage. The bird hopped out of it, walking languidly up her arm until it could come to rest upon her shoulder, and stare at Damien all the harder.
‘They are excellent judges of character, Mr—?’
‘Damien,’ said Damien.
The woman’s auburn eyebrows raised. ‘There is usually a reason why people avoid using their family name,’ she said. ‘And that reason is not usually good.’
‘Oh, I’ve no issue with mine,’ Damien replied nonchalantly. ‘It is just a preference.’
‘A preference that causes you to waste five minutes of breath explaining it,’ said the woman, her dark eyes glittering now.
‘But one I understand, nonetheless. I don’t use my family name either – so you will call me Miss Lillian.
Now then, Damien …’ The magpie fluttered its iridescent wings upon her shoulder.
‘Tell me what you were doing on Miss Adams’ doorstep. ’
Damien sat back in his chair. ‘I wanted to know if she could do it,’ he said, not looking away – though holding the woman’s gaze felt like stepping into inky, icy waves. ‘If she could find lost memories.’
He watched her slide a cigarette from a golden box, tapping it against the leather cover on her desk.
‘Do you believe she can? Do you believe she can reach into your mind and pluck forth the things that are hidden there?’ Her smile sank into a smirk as the sharp scent of tobacco filled the room.
‘You think she has that kind of power, hmm?’
Now Damien looked away, his gaze upon one of the brass cages instead, and the small grey and white bird digging its beak through the fine down of its feathers. ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ he said.
‘Well, I shall tell you what she believes,’ said Miss Lillian. ‘She believes her gift is gone. Lost.’
‘She lost her confidence,’ said the black-haired woman. ‘Right up there, on the stage. Froze, she did. And ran off. And now—’
‘Now she’s retired,’ Damien murmured – thinking back on what she’d said.
‘Yes, thank you Bertie,’ said Miss Lillian, affixing the black-haired woman with a sizzling glare. ‘Which is where you come in. Because you, Damien, will help her find it again. You’ll ready her for the stage – and when the time is right, I will have her back as the star of my show.’
‘Will I?’
‘I want information, too,’ said Miss Lillian. ‘Like what she was really doing in Edinburgh. Why she chose this precise moment to come back.’
‘Just as the Royal is reopening,’ supplemented Bertie.
‘Just as the Royal is reopening,’ agreed Lillian.
Damien put his hands into his pockets. ‘She already told me she doesn’t do it anymore. What makes you think she’ll change her mind for me?’
‘Because you’ll make her change her mind,’ said Lillian.
‘How?’
Lillian looked at him – her dark eyes scratching the length of him, from his boots, to his hat. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. ‘I think you’ll find a way.’
‘Let’s say I do,’ Damien agreed, fidgeting a little in the chair now. ‘Perhaps the reason I walked away last night was because I didn’t want her holding all my memories up to the light.’
‘Then you make something up,’ said Miss Lillian, her gaze still on the ceiling, and the circular pattern plastered into it.
‘A beloved childhood pet. Some long-forgotten aunt you want to remember. Something small, but meaningful.’ Her gaze settled on the graze upon his jaw.
‘From the looks of you, I assume that might be a welcome respite?’
Damien resisted the urge to reach up and touch the sore skin where the man’s rings had cut him. ‘I want you to cover all the costs,’ he said. ‘As well as a weekly stipend. And room and board.’
Miss Lillian tilted her head towards him. ‘A small weekly stipend. To cover food and coal.’
‘A good weekly stipend,’ said Damien firmly. ‘So that when this is all over, I board a ship to New York, and I do not look back.’
She narrowed her eyes, tapping one long fingernail upon the desk. ‘Then you report back to me each week.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And you’ll bring me information I can use. Or else your stipend will decrease.’
Damien held out his hand. ‘And when the information is especially good, you pay me a bonus.’
‘Deal.’ Miss Lillian gripped his outstretched hand. ‘Now, let’s talk about how you’ll convince her, shall we?’