Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

to the theatre.

“You’ve kept your shoes,” said one of the women, on the right.

“I have,” said Miss Temple. It was not what she wanted to talk about. “Have any of you been in the theatre?” They shook their heads no, but said nothing more. Miss Temple indicated the restraints, the bolts, the collars. “Have you looked at this room?” They blandly nodded that they had. She became almost completely annoyed. “He has locked the door!”

“It will be fine,” said the woman who had spoken before. Miss Temple was suddenly caught up—did this voice seem familiar?

“It is merely a room,” said the woman in the middle, kicking at one of the leather restraints hanging near to her leg. “It’s not what it is used for now.”

The others nodded blankly, as if no more needed saying.

“And what exactly would that be?” demanded Miss Temple.

The woman giggled. It was a giggle she’d heard before too. It was from the coach. This was the woman who’d let the men unbutton her dress. Miss Temple looked at the other two—seeing them in such different apparel, such different light—were they the pirate and silken woman whose eyes she had poked? She had no idea. She saw that they were smiling at her too, as if her question had indeed been very foolish. Were they drunk? Miss Temple stepped forward and grasped the woman’s chin, tilting her face upwards—which she passively, strangely, allowed —and then lowered her own face to the woman’s mouth and sniffed. She well knew what alcohol—particularly rum—smelled like, and its squalid influence. The woman wore perfume—sandalwood?—but there was another odor that Miss Temple did not recognize. It was not alcohol, or indeed anything she had smelled before—nor, further, did the odor emanate from around the woman’s mouth (again occupied with giggling), but higher on her face. The odor was vaguely mechanical, almost industrial, but it wasn’t coal, nor rubber, nor lamp oil, nor ether, nor even burnt hair, though it seemed adjacent to all of these unpleasant smells joined together. She could not place it—not in her mind, nor on the woman’s body—was it around her eyes?—behind the mask? Miss Temple released her and stepped away. As if this were a signal to all three of them, they hopped off the table as one.

“Where are you going?” Miss Temple asked.

“We are going in,” said the one in the middle.

“But what have they told you? What will happen?”

“Nothing will happen,” said the woman on the right, “save everything we desire.”

“They are expecting us,” said the woman on the left, who had not yet spoken. Miss Temple was certain it was the woman who had arrived wearing the blue silk dress.

They pushed past her to the door—but there was so much more to ask them, so much more they could say! Were they invited guests? Did they know of any hotel? Miss Temple sputtered, dropping for the moment her condescending pose, crying to them all, “Wait! Wait! Where are your clothes? Where is the lady in red?”

All three erupted into stifled laughter. The one in front opened the door, and the one in the rear dismissed Miss Temple with a derisive flip of her hand. They walked out, the last closing the door behind them. There was silence.

Miss Temple looked around her at the cold, menacing room, her early confidence and pluck having quite ebbed away. Obviously, if she were bold, the path to full investigation lay up the dark ramp and into the theatre. Why else had she met the challenge of changing clothes, of formulating questions, of coming all this way? At the same time, she was not a fool, and knew enough that this room and the theatre, this party—all legitimately disquieting—could well pose a keen danger to both her virtue and her person. The outside door was locked, and the men outside that locked door horrid. The room held no cabinets or alcoves in which to crouch concealed. She pointed out to herself that the other women—who must know more than she—were unconcerned. The other women might equally be whores.

She took a breath, and chided herself for so brusque a judgment—after all the women had been finely dressed. They might be unchaste, even slatternly, they might indeed be here by way of some hotel—who knew the complications of another’s life? The true question was whether this must lead perforce to a situation beyond her skills to manage. There were great gaps in Miss Temple’s experience—which she would freely acknowledge, when pressed—that were only generally filled in with equally great swathes of inference and surmise. About many of these things she nevertheless felt she had a good idea. About others, she preferred to find pleasure in mystery. In the matter of the strange theatre, however, she was determined that no gaps, so to speak, should be filled at all.

She could at least listen at the door. With care she turned the knob and opened the door perhaps an inch. She heard nothing. She opened it a bit wider, enough to insert her head through the gap. The light looked the same as before. The other women had only just gone out—she could only have dithered for the space of a minute. Could it be that the crowd was so soon in hushed concentration? Was there already some ghastly tableau on display? She listened, but heard nothing. Peering around the corner, however, just gave her the glaring light in her eyes. She crept forward. She still heard nothing. She lowered herself to a crouch, then to her hands and knees, all the while gazing up the ramp at an uncomfortable angle. She saw and heard nothing. She stopped. She was at the point where any further movement would reveal her to the gallery—she was already fully visible from the stage, had anyone been there to see her. She shifted her gaze to the table. There was no one upon it. There was no one at all.

Miss Temple was extremely annoyed, if also relieved, and further, more than a little curious as to what had actually happened to the three women. Had they merely gone out the other side? She resolved to follow them, but happened in crossing the stage to glance up again at the blackboard, the glaring light now out of her eyes. In the same block letters, someone had inscribed, “SO THEY SHALL BE CONSUMED”. Miss Temple visibly started, as if someone had blown in her ear. The words had definitely not been there before.

She whirled around to the gallery seats again, looking for anyone hiding on their hands and knees. There was no one. Without delay she continued across to the first ramp and down it, rounding the corner to the door. It was closed. She put her head to the door and listened. She heard nothing—but this meant nothing, the doors were thick. Tired as she was of unnecessary stealth, she again turned the knob with excruciating patience and opened it just enough to peek through. She widened the opening, listened, heard nothing, and widened it again. Still nothing. Annoyance getting the best of her, Miss Temple opened the door completely, and gasped with shock.

Strewn across the floor were the tattered, savaged remains of her hooded cloak, her dress, her corset, and her undergarments—all slashed beyond repair, nearly beyond recognition. Even her new notebook had been destroyed—pages torn out and scattered like leaves, the binding snapped, the leather cover pitted and gashed. Miss Temple found herself shaking with outrage, and with fear. Obviously she had been discovered. She was in danger. She must escape. She would follow Roger another time, or she would engage professional operatives, men who knew their business—stout fellows who would not be so easily tricked. Her efforts had been ridiculous. They might well be her undoing.

She crossed to the wall of cabinets. Her own clothing was destroyed, but perhaps one of the others held something she could use to cover herself. They were all locked. She pulled with all her strength, to no avail. She looked around for anything to force the cabinet doors, to pry them open, but the room was bare. Miss Temple released a cry of guttural frustration, an unexpectedly plangent whine—which when she heard it herself, with a certain shock, made clear the true extent of her desperate position. What if she were discovered and her name made known? How could she distinguish herself from any of these other similarly clad women? How could she face Roger? She caught herself. Roger! It was exactly the thing to restore her resolve. The last thing she wanted was to be in any way subject to his scrutiny—the very thought of it filled her with rage. He filled her with rage. In that moment she despised Roger Bascombe and was newly determined to get free of this horrid predicament and then, at her leisure, dedicate herself to ruining him utterly. And yet, even in the act of imagining that ruin, and herself sneering in triumph above him, Miss Temple felt a stab of pity, of proprietary concern for what the foolish man had managed to become involved in—what depravity, what danger, what career-destroying scandal was he here so blithely courting? Was it possible he did not understand? If she were to somehow speak to him, could she apprise him of his peril? Could she at least divine his mind?

Miss Temple walked to the hallway door and opened it. The hallway seemed empty, but she craned her head out as far as she could, listening closely. One way took her back to the front, to the thick of the party and directly past—she assumed—other guests, servants, everyone. It would also take her to the coaches, if in her present costume she were able to get out of the house without being discovered, exposed,