The Chemickal Marriage

Four Catacomb

It had not been her intention to act rashly. But the impulse to snatch up the red ball was a spark of clarity within the riot she had felt since Chang had been recovered. Her delight at his survival, an unexpected flood of joy, had been immediately displaced by a host of clamouring thoughts and images – and none of that turmoil touched the man himself. In the tunnels, on the train, even when Chang held her hand, the distance between them was agony. A sea of feeling lay within his heart, she knew, as she knew it held her only hope of peace – yet he remained, as ever, untouchable and withheld.

And so she had entered the red sphere. A frightening energy suffused Miss Temple’s mind, as if the glass were reacting to her – measuring … examining. This was not the brutal plunder of a blue glass book, with a victim’s mind drained whole. In the red sphere Miss Temple felt her mind being explored like a stretch of uncharted coastline. Unfortunately, the Comte’s knowledge provided no more detail beyond another glimpse of the painting, the apple in the Groom’s black hand. She was sure this examination was but a first step of its function, a preface to some larger task, like a wall being scrubbed before receiving new paint.

And then, quite suddenly, the spell was broken, its work unravelled. This was the flaw in the glass. At once the foul tide in her rose, and her mouth formed words, a last memory. The Comte had whispered in her ear … no, not to her, but to Lydia Vandaariff, as his alchemical poisons remade her body. The young woman had been terrified – that had given him pleasure – such fear had seemed appropriate …

‘I do not like her,’ said a small rasping voice. ‘I should prefer to let her die. She let Eloise die. Eloise loved me. She did nothing. The Contessa did not say she would come, or him. Just you. We ought to leave them here.’

‘You must let me work …’ muttered Doctor Svenson.

‘Why is her mouth black? Has she drunk ink? What is she trying to say?’

A damp cloth cooled Miss Temple’s face. She rolled her head to the side. The red mist dimmed. Three words congealed inside her mind.

‘Flesh of dreams,’ Miss Temple croaked. The Doctor wiped her mouth and then held her hair away as she coughed. She saw the mattress, Svenson on his knees, and, behind him, legs dangling from the worktop, an unkempt little girl. Francesca Trapping bore the bitter expression a hungry cat might bestow upon a duck too large to acknowledge its authority.

‘Where is Chang?’ Miss Temple managed.

‘Just behind you,’ said Svenson. ‘He came to his senses two hours ago – now he sleeps.’

‘Two hours? Is he safe? Is he whole?’

‘He is – we have been more worried by you.’

‘I am perfectly fine.’

‘You are not. Celeste, my lord, between Chang’s wound and your own reckless –’

‘What did he see? What did he tell you?’

‘Nothing. We did not speak. He did not want to speak. Once the danger passed –’

‘It was cracked,’ said the girl, as if this fact was proof of their collective stupidity. ‘Of course he woke up.’

Svenson helped Miss Temple to sit. ‘I will not chide you. You live, and that is all that matters.’

She looked past him. Chang lay stretched on the floor, hands folded like a statue on an old king’s sarcophagus.

‘You said something as you woke,’ said Svenson.

‘The red glass ball was nothing the Comte had made before.’ Miss Temple hiccupped wetly. ‘But “flesh of dreams” was something he said to Lydia – it came to me now for a reason.’

Svenson sighed. His face was haggard. ‘Alchemy is about equivalents – balancing one element with another, transformation through incremental change. The nearest analogy would be symbolic mathematics. The Comte of course transposes chemical compounds with living bodies. But the language operates like a code – and so a phrase like “flesh of dreams” will have an equivalent, opposite concept –’

‘The flesh of life,’ said Francesca, chewing a thumbnail with her teeth.

‘Exactly,’ said Svenson. ‘And that tells us how he thinks – that the opposite of life is not, as most would have it, death, but dream.’

Miss Temple frowned with distaste. ‘Lydia’s pregnancy. The flesh of dreams is born from the ashes of the flesh of life.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘Paradise.’

Svenson snorted. ‘And what can that word mean to that man?’

Miss Temple was aware of Francesca watching her. How many hours had she been left alone? Francesca’s arms were marked with smears of soot … or were they bruises? Miss Temple felt a pinch in her throat.

‘Is there someplace I might … spit?’

‘A chamberpot, here – and somewhere is a bit of food, and water –’ The Doctor’s voice dropped off, in sympathy, as she bent over the chamberpot and let fly.

‘There isn’t time.’ The child’s voice was a whine. ‘We were waiting for her. Now we have to go.’

Miss Temple met Francesca’s disapproving gaze and held it until the girl turned away. She waited for the girl to look back. When Francesca did so, pressing her lips together at being caught, Miss Temple stared even harder.

‘I did not let Eloise die.’

‘Celeste – the child is hardly responsible –’

‘She needs to know what is right.’

Francesca Trapping muttered to herself. ‘I know perfectly well.’

The chamberpot prompted Miss Temple to notice the fullness of her bladder. The single room offered no privacy beyond a meagre half-barrier of cupboards, behind which she would have to crouch, with Svenson only a few feet away hearing all. Instead, she picked up the chamberpot and crossed to the door. On her way, she impulsively took Francesca Trapping’s arm in hers. The child squawked in protest.

‘We will return directly,’ Miss Temple called to Svenson. ‘Girls together, don’t you know.’

Svenson opened his mouth, coughed instead, and pointed vaguely to Chang.

‘Yes – while you – right –’

Miss Temple hauled the squirming girl into the corridor. She dropped the chamberpot with a clang. ‘Will you go first or me?’

‘I will not go at all.’

Feeling she must make an example, Miss Temple resentfully hiked up her dress and sat, daring the girl to say one mocking thing. But Francesca only stared. Disliking a silence broken only by the rattle of her own urine, Miss Temple cleared her throat.

‘We have been searching for you. You should know that the Doctor was very much in love with Eloise and grieves for her particularly. As do I. We also grieve for your mother, and your father, and your uncle – yes, even him, for his death no doubt has given you pain. Your brothers are safe at home.’

‘I know how my brothers are.’

‘Have you visited them?’

The girl looked away.

‘No. Do you see? You don’t know – you have been told. What else have you trusted that woman to say?’ Miss Temple stood, rearranging her petticoats, and indicated the chamberpot. Again the girl shook her head. ‘It will be a long journey,’ said Miss Temple, annoyed that she had come