· Web view22.05.2018 · Iron bars bisect two of the three windows, ... His use of the word . me. ... “Bloody lot of good that’ll do here

Writers: Well, this is it—the final submission for my novel, “Burn, Beautiful Soul.” These are the last two so-called “London chapters,” a parallel narrative to Basil’s story. As a reminder, each of these chapters is a dream that Basil—the seven-foot-tall, coal-black demon who now lives in Beak, Neb.—has while he sleeps.

These chapters, which are meant to suggest Basil’s origin, follow Emmitt Wells, an Englishman who moved from the English countryside to London in the 1770s in search of something more. In the last submission, Emmitt was failing to make his way in London and deeply regretful of his decisions. He met a young prostitute named Alice, and things happened between them. Many of you mentioned Emmitt was too woeful and suggested that if he was having such a tough time, why wouldn’t he just leave? I have toned down much of his regret, and I also revised so he knows his failings means he will return to his hometown of Berwick.

A note: You’ll see references to a character named Old Billy. This is the name I chose for the “Beast of London Bridge” that has been terrorizing London since Emmitt’s arrival. (Thank you for the suggestion, Kevin, of giving this character more of an identity, a la Jack the Ripper or Spring-Heeled Jack.) I chose Old Billy for two reasons: One, Old Harry is an English nickname for the devil; and two, Billy seemed vaguely sinister, given the goat-y reference.

Backstory on Old Billy: A wealthy haberdasher named William Diggle got put to the gallows for choking the life from some unwilling toms (prostitutes)—as many as a dozen—though he swore innocence up until the moment the rope snapped his neck. Diggle used his last breath, right after they looped the noose over his head, to curse all of London. The creature allegedly made its London debut the day after. Hence, Old Billy.

One final note: Thanks to each of you for your time and suggestions with this novel. Your insight helped me through some of the pinch points I had along the way, and several of you made excellent suggestions that helped me get to the finish line.

As always, your thoughtful criticism would be appreciated. Thank you kindly.

W.J. Donahue, “Burn, Beautiful Soul,” May 22, 2018

WJD

##

Chapter 26: Ashes

Thunder rumbles in the distance. The first drops of rain lick my face.

Let the rains come, so I can wash the stink from my body, wash the

bad luck from my life. Doubt riddles every choice I have ever made as I

wander from the wreckage of the blacksmith’s on Monument Bridge.

My right foot throbs, likely broken, a casualty of my carelessness, or

perhaps a symbol of stubbornly poor luck. My stomach stirs, having

done away with the bread from this morning. My savings, swallowed up

by the fire. The rains soak me to the bone. I wander, pitiful. Broken.

Failed. London has beaten me.

I retreat to a dry place beneath an awning. Pools of rainwater

drench my feet. A figure approaches, and I recognize the same

constable who had kicked me—in the same foot that now likely bears a

broken bone. If I face one more quandary, no matter how slight, I will

leap from the balustrade and become one with the Thames. I step out

from beneath the awning and walk as hurriedly as I can. I check over

my shoulder to see if the constable has followed.

“I am alone,” I say.

My window has closed, even if I wish to return home to Berwick, I

can no longer afford the trip. Hours pass, my mind swimming in regret.

2


It’s dark by the time my feet return to the brick of the bridge. The

shell of the blacksmith’s looms smolders. I must pick through charred

timber and stone, to see if I can salvage something—anything. The

rains have extinguished the fire, though plumes of white smoke rise

from the pile. I step into the thick of it, pushing timbers, toppling stone.

My skin turns black with wet ash, but I find nothing. Either the whole

place has already been picked clean, or the fire burned so hot the

metal turned to liquid and rejoined the earth.

The cool dusk air seeps through my wet clothes. My teeth chatter. I

hug myself, trying to stay warm, but I am doomed to shiver. After a

few hours of shuteye in a dry and quiet place, in the light of a new day,

perhaps my prospects will look brighter.

The steeple of Saint Botolph’s Church at Owlsditch appears through

the murk. Candles burn yellow in a second-floor window.

I follow the street and turn left at the corner.

Away from the light, I skulk toward the church. The stone feels

grainy against my fingertips. Three small windows line the bottom

floor, where the building meets the earth. Iron bars bisect two of the

three windows, but the third is unguarded—the iron bars pried back. As

my fingertips touch the rain-slicked glass, the window gives way.

Imagine my surprise! It will be a tight fit, but there’s enough room to

slide through, into the cellar. I check the streets for witnesses who

might betray me and slip my feet through the opening. My legs slip

3


through, but my hands lose their grip, and I tumble to the cellar floor.

The window slams shut behind me.

I crouch on the floor and wait for a response. None comes. I am

safe, someplace dry. I waste no time stripping the clothes from my

chilled skin.

The air has its own weight, its own scent—nothing like what I’d

expect of a church cellar. It smells like the surety of all things turning

to dust. Standing naked in the darkness, all my bits exposed, I imagine

malevolent things as bunkmates: behemoth rats, bats clutching the

walls, weevils stirring up dust on the floor.

Lightning illuminates the rain-streaked windows. Only then do I see

my surroundings. Several wooden tables. A slab, carved from marble

or some other heavy stone. Chairs stacked from floor to ceiling. A stack

of neatly folded linens.

I place a bed sheet on top of a wooden table and heave myself onto

its surface. My feet peel from the clammy floor, and I curl into a ball,

pulling the linens atop me. I know my sleep will be fitful, but at least it

will be sleep.

***

4


My eyes open at the first suggestion of daylight. It’s almost dawn. I

have slept, dreamlessly, all night. My skin prickles, alerting me to

unseen danger. First the smell, a combination of sweat and dead meat.

Then the sounds of scraping, slithering. The flash of movement in the

lifting dark. The impossible weight atop me. Coarse hair and cool

scales caressing my skin. Knife blades against my throat.

Old Billy has found me.

“I watch,” says the gravelly voice. “I find.”

Old Billy speaks! He speaks in the language of kings!

A claw traces the skin of my throat, my naked belly, points farther

south, teasingly, and then back up again.

“Let me go,” I beg him. “Please.”

“What you seek?”

“Nothing. I seek nothing.” Words spill from my mouth in yelps.

“Stop hunting,” Old Billy says. “Stalking me.”

His use of the word me chills the marrow in my bones.

“Anything,” I say. “Anything you say.”

Old Billy slips off the table, pulling me along with him. Before I know

it I’m dangling, Old Billy holding me aloft by an ankle. Instinct does its

work, and my urine wets my chest and face, to puddle on the floor.

A heavy reptilian tail makes S-curves in the air. Old Billy reaches

down with a free claw and grabs me by the throat. The upside-down

world goes right side up.

5


“Home,” Old Billy says, beating his chest.

“I … I don’t understand,” I gasp, choking.

“Leave.”

“As soon as you release me, I’m gone.”

“Go far. No Lundy. Lundy mine.”

I wait to respond, thinking it through.

“Leave London?” I ask. “I will! I will!”

“You stay? Next time you burn, too,” he tells me. “Like blacksmith-

y.”

His words puzzle me. Seconds pass before his meaning penetrates

the mucus of my crippled brain: The creature started the fire. The

creature burned down the blacksmith’s. The creature destroyed my

savings, dooming me.

I strike Old Billy across the face. My hand bones break.

Old Billy’s fingers close around my throat, and he tosses me

backward as if I were an empty sack. My skull takes the brunt of my

fall. Bones crack and crunch. I look up, in the dim light, and see Old

Billy in full for the first time. His face is almost human. Horns spike

toward the ceiling, and immense fangs fill his hideous mouth. He has

hooves where feet should be. He stands taller than any man I have

ever met. Such a thing should not exist beneath God’s heaven, yet

here it is, made flesh.

6


“Come back, you burn good,” he tells me. “Come back, you burn

forever.”

Old Billy retreats into a darkened corner and disappears beneath

one of the tables. I wait there, sprawled on the floor, expecting him to

return and tear out my throat. But I see nothing, hear nothing but

pebbles falling, though the carnivore stench lingers like the London

fog. As sunlight paints the windows, I see what I did not the night

before: a gaping tear in the wall, just big enough for Old Billy to slither

through and sleep off a night of murder and mayhem. Outside I hear

wagon traffic, and I realize I have survived an encounter with a flesh-

and-blood devil.

I had spent a full day looking for Old Billy, every instinct wrong.

Dumb luck had led me right into his lair: the cellar of a church at the

foot of Monument Bridge.

My eyes remain fixed on the hole in the wall as I fumble for my

clothes, still as wet as they were when I removed them. I could go out

the way I came in, through the window, but I won’t risk disturbing Old

Billy. Instead I wander the room in search of a proper exit. I find it in a

door, blocked by a heavy oak bookcase. With all the care I can muster,

I slide the bookcase away from the door and slip out, then ease the

door closed behind me.

“Breathe,” I tell myself.

7


My legs tremble as I walk up a small staircase, only four to five

steps, leading to the belly of the church. I’m too numb from the run-in

with Old Billy to consider a way out. As I slip through the back room, a

gray-haired priest greets me. We startle each other. He wastes no time

arming himself with a bronze staff, intent on braining me.

“We have nothing for you here,” he says. “Back to the streets,

cadger!”

“Forgive me,” I try to explain. “I’ve lost my way.”

I hold up my hands, surprised to see one of them holding my

makeshift spear.

“You mean to rob us again,” the priest insists. He waves his staff

like a weapon. “You’ll hang!”

I should explain I have no intention of robbing him. Instead I back

up and spill through another door. Imagine my surprise when I trip on

the carpet at the foot of the altar, the whole church opening up in front

of me. My spear goes flying. I stumble to my feet, fall off the riser and

sprint down the empty aisle toward the exit. A jolt of pain stings my

foot with each step. I slam into the big, oak doors and tumble down a

stone staircase, into the mud-drenched street.

The sun hangs low in the sky, not a solitary cloud on the horizon. I

nearly cry at the sight of it. I turn back to the church, fully expecting to

see Old Billy clawing at one of the cellar windows. For moment I

wonder if I dreamt it all. I know better.

8


Monsters do exist.

I wander down the bridge, away from Saint Botolph’s, back toward

the baker’s. Perhaps I’ll go back in an hour, take the constable with

me, and venture into the cellar to show him where Old Billy sleeps.

That alone should be good for something—if not the full twenty

pounds, then at least half. His last words to me—“You burn forever”—

chill my plans.

My belly voices its concern, again. It’s as empty as my pockets, as

barren as my hopes for the future. I have only one option.

I limp back to Alice’s apartment, only to find the exterior door

locked. She gave me a soft place to land—so soft—and I crave touch of

her young bosom against mine. I wait outside an hour, two hours, as I

have no place else to go. The only thing I have left to offer is my time.

Perhaps I should make a life with Alice, this ambitious, resourceful

teenager with the magic tongue. My bride in Berwick is a world away

from here, and I am a new man here. I can become someone else

entirely. I can start over. I would have a place to rest my weary head. I

would have a roof, protection from the elements—and shelter from Old

Billy. I’ll just never again leave the house once the sun goes down.

For now I will do what I have done, simply wander, my belly empty

and head free of the ridiculous idea to tame a demon even the lawmen

cannot deter.

9


I must stay, no matter what I promised Old Billy. Just one riddle to

solve: Do I stay the same man?

My feet guide me back to Monument Bridge, past the burnt shell of

the blacksmith’s, past the bakery and the public house, within sight of

Saint Botolph’s at Owlsditch. My mind feeds me memories of Alice’s

warmth beside me, her sour breath on my neck.

“Emmitt!”

The voice. I know the voice, my love from Berwick. It cannot be, my

polluted mind playing tricks on me now.

“Emmitt!”

Closer now.

I turn and see her walking toward me.

My bride.

From Berwick.

From a world away.

Another illusion, I know. I rub my eyes, as they continue to lie.

London’s poison has infected every part of me.

Her face is a blur.

Then, she’s upon me, her arms around my neck.

“You’re real,” I say.

I melt into her. Her nails find sore spots on my back. I sink until my

knees buckle and take me to the cobblestone. She joins me, and her

tears flow into mine. She must think our reunion has overwhelmed me.

10


No, each tear represents a sin against her, the salt of my guilt. At once

I am mourning the death of the man I once was and the one I know I

will never be.

“Emmitt,” she says, cradling me. “What’s … what’s become of

you?”

Her excitement regresses to worry, as it should, because I want to

do myself in right there, in the middle of Monument Bridge. No merciful

god will come to take me away, I realize, so my thoughts naturally turn

to a baser concern: Can she smell the day-old sweetness of Alice’s

cunny on my breath, in the whiskers of my beard?

“Is there somewhere we can go?” she asks.

I manage only tears.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come!” she squeals. “I have come all this

way only to find … this? Say something! Emmitt!”

“It’s just,” I tell her calmly, quietly, “I’m so delighted to see you, my

dear.”

“Have you gone mad?”

“I have never seen a better day, darling.”

“Oh, Emmitt. Are you all right?”

“It’s been so long, and … ”

“Emmitt, I’m quite weary. I didn’t expect my journey to take quite

so long, to be quite so difficult. Is there somewhere we can go?

Somewhere away from this … this noise and stink?”

11


“How did you find me?”

“I aimed for London Bridge. I ended up here. Call it fate.”

My mind races.

“You’ve come all this way,” I remind her. “You have much to see.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for that. I’d rather rest. Where can we

go?”

Where indeed.

“Emmitt, I have some news.”

“Your mum. Yes, dearest, a pity. I regret you had to send her off

without me.”

“No. Not that. I didn’t come here alone.”

She moves her hands to her belly.

“You’re … ?”

I cannot bear to finish the sentence.

Apparently neither can she, because she only nods.

“I’d like to remove myself from this filthy street. Now where can we

go, dear? Where is home?”

Where indeed. I am caught.

I get to my feet, wondering how many coins rattle around in my

pockets. I have none, I remember, my savings destroyed by Old Billy

and his spiteful fire.

12


Alice. She has that place all to herself. I can sneak back, choke the

life from her, dump her body into the Thames. Everything that’s hers

becomes mine. Becomes ours.

No.

But if not that, then what? Rat out Old Billy in hopes of reclaiming a

small fortune? Memories of my encounter with him—his rancid breath,

his claws around my throat, the taste of my own urine—lay bare the

folly of my plan. I imagine leading a pair of constables into the church

cellar to wake up Old Billy, and the cranky bastard murdering us all.

No constable would believe me anyway.

“Let’s get you something to tuck into,” I tell my bride.

“Emmitt, I’d like to lie down.”

“In time, my dear. First a bite, and then … ”

Again, I don’t finish the sentence, only because I have no clue how

to end it. I walk her to the door of the pub and fish for any coins that

might have fallen into my pockets. She places a gloved hand on my

chest.

“I have money, Emmitt,” she says. “A little, anyway.”

“I’ll be back soon,” I tell her.

“But we’ve just found each other.”

“I have to … I have to arrange for transportation home. You must be

exhausted. I wouldn’t dare ask you to take another step.”

13


She smiles, her tension easing. I check the sky, figuring I have five

hours until nightfall. I bend toward her and peck her on the cheek.

“Have a bite, dear. I’ll return before you have a chance to miss me.”

I walk away from my bride and the child budding inside her, holding

my gaze until the sea of Londoners consumes her.

14


Chapter 32: The Fall

I scan the exodus for a familiar face, for someone who might help me

in my darkest hour. Filthy ditch diggers and pickmen shamble past,

along the clay-lined channel dimpled with hoof prints. Coal dust and

dirt coat the bare shoulders of men and boys alike, the patina broken

only by rivulets of their own sweat.

My eyes dart from one face to another, searching for the only man I

think might show me some kindness. Henry. I wish I knew his last

name.

My spirit rises as I see Henry bring up the rear. A fresh scab has

browned on the side of his face. He eyes me as he climbs out of the

channel, scurrying up a mud-caked timber like a man much younger

than his years.

“Where in hell you been?” he asks me.

“Trying to keep the whole ball of yarn from unraveling. … Listen,

Henry—”

“Can’t do it.”

He barely knows me, though well enough, it seems, to know what’s

coming.

“I’m not asking for money,” I insist.

“Whatever it is, I don’t have.”

“A place to room. An overnight.”

“You’d rather wander, you said.”

15


“Not for me. For my wife.”

“Didn’t realize you were hitched up.”

I have erred again, for he knows not a whit about me, or I about

him.

“Put her to work,” he tells me. “Have her take up a trade. There’s

money to be had for people ain’t afraid to work.”

I let the insult pass, the insinuation that I wouldn’t have such

bothers if I had been digging in the dirt beside him all this time. He

knows I can outwork him. To his mind, a man’s no longer a man if he

misses a day’s work.

“She ran an apiary before,” I tell him. “She kept bees.”

“Bloody lot of good that’ll do here. Can she whore?”

“She’s my wife!”

“So what?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“From whoring?”

“Say that again and I’ll brain you.”

“Calm down, lad, before you hurt yourself. I’d help if I could, but I

don’t have the room to give.”

“She’s with child!”

“We can’t very well put that in a pot and cook it, can we? What

would you have me do?”

“Show mercy.”

16


“I told you: We’re full up.”

“I’ll pay you.”

Henry pauses to consider my offer.

“How much?”

“I don’t have much to give.”

“I’ll take half.”

“Pardon?”

“Half your wages. Half for each night you take up the wee bit of

space somebody else ain’t already claimed as theirs. That’s just for the

floor to lay on and the roof to keep the wet out.”

“Be sensible.”

“Half. Or hitch it back to Berwick.”

“She’s come all this way. She’ll never forgive me.”

“We’ve all got our ditches to dig.”

Henry plucks a cigarette from the mouth of a fellow pickman and

sucks on the tip until the ember glows red. He looks past me and

extends the cigarette, pointing. As I turn, my eyes settling on the spire

of a church near the entrance to London Bridge, Henry tells me this:

“You want mercy? Get it from God.”

He passes me, nearly clips me with the mud-caked pick slung over

his shoulder.

The sky darkens.

And that’s when the lightning bolt hits. I know what I must do.

17


* * *

The sun has nearly set as I arrive at the steps of Saint Botolph’s

Church. No sign of Old Billy. Parishioners come and go through the

massive oak doors. They seek the same thing I seek—aid, relief,

sanctuary from the storm—though our similarities end there. I have

come here not to ask but to take.

I stand in shadow, an eye out for anyone who might suspect my

treachery. The cellar windows are dark. I expect to see Old Billy slither

through the unbarred window and blend into the night. Still no sign of

him after an hour. Either he’s long gone or he remains dead to the

world, asleep in the cellar wall.

Given my predicament, I have no choice but to risk an encounter

with him. The way I see it, my life is on the line either way. Still, his

words linger in my thoughts.

I wonder what she’s doing now, my bride. Alone in a city she does

not know, the darkness climbing around her.

I must hurry.

My feet slide along slippery cobblestones and lead me down the

alley toward the back of the church. I hesitate at the window well and

test it with my foot. The window yawns open. I wait for a claw to latch

onto to ankle and pull me inside, to my demise. I then crouch down

18


and slip inside, careful not to end up face first on the floor this time.

The cellar looks the same, but I cannot linger. The same musty smell

surrounds me. My eyes instinctively move toward the hole in the wall,

and for the briefest of moments I imagine two yellow eyes peering out.

I make haste for the exit and push through the door, entering the

church proper. It’s quiet, still, and I must be the same. I remove my

boots to muffle my footsteps. My bare feet move down the corridor. I

stop at a half-open door. I poke my head through, pleased to find the

room empty.

I place my boots just inside the door. My hands overturn the

contents of every unlocked drawer. I find only papers and nicely folded

pieces of cloth and ampoules of sacred oil.

The sound of a clicking lock echoes from somewhere close by,

followed by the approach of footsteps. I duck behind a large wooden

desk and wait for the footsteps to pass.

No such luck.

A priest enters the room, struggling with a wicker basket. We have

met once before, the same man who accused me of being a robber

and chased me from the church with his bronze staff. Turns out he was

right about me all along—prescient, in fact.

The priest moves to the far end of the room, past the drawers I

already raided, and kneels before a waist-high cabinet. He swings open

the door to reveal an ancient strongbox. He works the lock, opens the

19


latch and pours in the contents of the basket. Coins join a deep sea of

others, based on the ruckus they make. The plume of coins slows to a

trickle as the priest diverts his attention. He leaves the basket by the

strongbox and moves toward the exit. He sees something.

My boots.

He picks up one boot, studies it. He tests the sopping fabric

between his fingers. His gaze falls to the floor, no doubt seeing my wet

footprints, drawing a line straight toward my hiding spot behind the

desk.

“Hello?” he says. “Someone there?”

My boot falls to the floor. The priest takes a few cautious steps

toward the desk.

I eye the open lid of the strongbox.

“I said, is someone there?”

I am had.

My bride needs me, and I need every penny in that strongbox to

make things right. I rise from my hiding spot. The priest’s eyes grow

wide.

“You again,” he says.

“I’m not here to cause a bother.”

I step toward him, and he darts from the room.

“Coward,” I whisper, thankfully.

20


Before I know it, I’m kneeling by the strongbox, taking shillings and

pennies by the handful and dropping them into the wicker basket. I am

rich. A few loose coins bounce off the lip of the basket and skitter onto

the plank floor.

A heavy blow to my back drives me forward, onto the basket. The

woven fibers crunch beneath my weight. I turn to see the priest,

wielding his bronze staff as if it were a truncheon.

“You devil,” he says.

“I’ll take only what I need,” I tell him. My back burns from his

assault.

“God decides what we need. Leave now and repent, while you still

can.”

“I want no trouble from you, Father.”

“And yet you’ve found it,” he gasps. “Return every coin and you’ll

be forgiven. God hasn’t damned you yet.”

The bronze staff looks heavy in his weathered hands. He’s an old

man, weak and tired, though I am a young man, weak and tired. I

remind myself he deserves no ill will from the likes of me, but I didn’t

ask for my troubles either.

He’s a man of God, allegedly, but for now he’s an obstacle to be

overcome. I return to the strongbox and grab a handful of coins.

A fist strikes my cheek. The blow deadens the side of my face, from

my temple down to my chin. I turn and see the pain on the priest’s

21


face, horrified by what he has done. His outstretched hands quake—

with fear, with rage, with regret, all the same feelings that consume

me.

“God has a plan for you, son,” he tells me. “This thievery cannot be

part of it.”

Without thinking, I cuff the priest on the side of the head. He drops

like a dead horse. His staff clanks to the floor. I kick him once in the

gut and move to deliver a second, but I stop myself. I have more

important battles to fight.

Yet the priest refuses to go peacefully.

He grabs onto my leg, swatting at my shins with his feeble fists. I

bend down to teach him a lesson, and his fist connects with my chin.

When I come to, I’m on my arse and the priest is straddling me. His

fingers grind away at my Adam’s apple.

“You … devil!” he says. “You … fiend!”

His hands tighten around my throat.

I reach up and return the favor, squeezing with all my strength. His

grip loosens, though his hands find a new target. Fingernails claw at

my wrists, and this invasion—this penetration, of his flesh into mine—

enrages me. I thrust my hips forward and pull the priest by the collar.

His face smacks into the plank floor, and he goes still. I turn him over.

He’s conscious but dazed. A low moan escapes his lips.

“Leave here, you damned devil,” he whispers.

22


The command is too much for me to bear. The beast within me

takes over. I cannot imagine I’m doing it, as my fists rain upon his head

—five, six, seven times—until his blood tints my knuckles. His moans

cease. Supine, arms at his side, his face a crimson mess, he must be

dead.

My chest heaves. The outcome of this cocked-up scheme brings

tears to my eyes. It would be a shame to spill his blood for no reason.

The strongbox.

I shovel more shillings and pennies into the ruined wicker basket—

more money than my eyes have ever seen. The priest remains

motionless on the cold floor. His blood colors the wood grain, fills the

empty spaces between planks.

I drag the basket toward the door so I can collect my soggy boots. I

toss them into the basket and hoist my take, surprised by the weight.

Coins spill through gaps between snapped wicker branches and drop to

the floor.

The half-dead priest lifts his head. He spits out a tooth.

I leave the room with my take and move down the corridor, past

open doorways, eye out for the exit. I take a left through an open door

and find three men huddled around a table, their mouths full of

porridge. I back away and keep moving, but I know they will follow.

Panic grips my chest. Coins spill from the basket in a steady stream.

I find my way into the main hall of the church and sprint past the altar.

23


My foot slips on the smooth marble and I sprawl to the hard floor. The

basket crashes to the floor and comes undone. Coins scatter like

spilled gin. I clamor to collect as many as I can. Pennies and shillings

fill my pockets.

“Stop!”

Three men stand by the altar. The priests I am robbing, I suppose.

A dozen or so parishioners watch from the pews. I feel the weight of

their revulsion.

Coins trickle from my pockets as I race down the center aisle. My

shoulder slams open the oak door, and the night chill seeps through

the widening crack. I then spill down the slick stone steps. More coins

jangle. More coins, lost. My left ankle turns. Stone rises up to smash

my right kneecap.

“Thief!”

I try to run, but my crippled legs reduce my gait to a limp.

The rains have stopped, the skies clear. The streets have gone

empty.

There may still be hope. If I can drag myself into the shadows, I can

hobble back to my lonely bride with enough for a few nights off the

streets.

I can buy time, if nothing else.

Something hard as stone cracks the back of my skull. My vision

goes white, and I collapse. More coins roll away and settle in the

24


unseen cracks between sunken stones. Time passes, but I have no

good way of knowing how much. I feel poisoned. The haze clears to

show me the constable and his eager truncheon, well equipped to

brain me. It seems he already has.

“That’s him,” says a fat, gray-haired man, likely one of the priests

from Saint Botolph’s. “That’s the bugger.”

“His crime?” the constable asks.

“He’s killed and burgled,” the priest says.

“Murdered, did he?”

“Close enough to it,” the priest insists. “Father Edward has a hole in

the head he didn’t ask for, thanks to this dirty bugger, now he’s

swimming in a pool of his own blood. This one here, he burgled his way

in and swiped every blessed coin from God’s coffers. Every penny.

Likely this one’s the same godless reprobate who’s been defacing the

church grounds, streaking the windows with his waste.”

A crowd surrounds me.

“Let him dangle from the gallows,” someone shouts.

“Cut him up feed him to the dogs,” says another, a female voice.

A boot connects with my gut. Then comes another, taking my wind.

I shield my head and curl myself into a ball, but the blows keep

coming, too many for my body to know which parts hurt and which do

not.

25


The constable tries to quell the crowd. There are too many, their

thirst for my blood too intense. Finally, he gives up and lets the crowd

have its way.

They tear at my clothes, making sure not a single coin remains.

“Pitch him into the Thames!”

Cheers of assent fill the night air.

My body passes from grip to grip. A fist clubs my testicles. Fingers

pinch the skin of every extremity. Hands yank tufts of hair from my

tender scalp. My pleas for clemency go unanswered.

I don’t dare ask God to intervene.

They drag me toward the balustrade, punching and kicking along

the way. Inky darkness hides the Thames, but I can hear the river

passing below. Its wretchedness fills my nostrils. As I look up, toward

the silhouette of Saint Botolph’s Church at Owlsditch, my eyes serve

only to deceive. Old Billy, the Beast of London Bridge, dangles playfully

from the church spire, an audience to my demise. One hideous claw

and snakelike tail hold fast to the Christian cross, supposedly pointing

the way toward heaven. The light of the moon outlines his fur-slicked

body. He raises a claw to offer the slightest wave, as if to say, “Fare

thee well.”

My hands fight for purchase on the coat sleeves, the caps, the ears

of these goons—anything to keep me rooted to the earth. A blow to the

jaw dazes me.

26


And a good night to you, Old Billy.

The crowd heaves me. I am aloft, tumbling through the blackness.

In the seconds before I hit, I picture my pregnant bride, sitting alone in

a cold and hopeless part of the world, wondering when I will return.

My shoulders land first. My head snaps against the stone-hard

surface.

Slowly I sink toward a lightless bottom, somewhere on the plane

between consciousness and oblivion.

Frigid water numbs my flesh.

Darkness blinds me.

My lungs burn.

Then, all at once, everything goes silent.

[END]

27

Documents

· Web view22.05.2018 · Iron bars bisect two of the three windows, ... His use of the word . me. ... “Bloody lot of good that’ll do here