The Taker

helplessness came crushing down upon me and I could not do the same to Adair, even though he was my tormentor. Who knew how long he might remain bound like that, before he was found and freed? It seemed too cruel a punishment, even for him.

We then wrapped Adair in his favorite sable blanket, a solitary comfort. I slipped out first so Jonathan, if he ran into one of the others and was questioned, could pass off the bundle in his arms as me. And we planned to meet in the cellar to see my plan to its end.

I rushed ahead, taking the servants’ staircase to the cellar. As I waited at the foot of the stairs, resting against the cold stone wall, I worried for Jonathan. I’d let him take all the risk of spiriting Adair out of the room. Though the others had withdrawn, shell-shocked by Uzra’s death and the confusion of Adair’s departure, it was by no means assured that Jonathan would not cross paths with one of them. He could easily be spied by a servant as well, and one glimpse could undo our plan. I waited tensely until Jonathan appeared with the limp form in his arms. “Did anyone see you?” I asked, to which he shook his head.

I led him through the twisting labyrinth to the very lowest level of the cellar, to the cavelike room where the wine was stored. Here, the cellar was most like a castle’s dungeon, sequestered from the rest of the basement rooms, thickly lined with earth and stone to keep the temperature constant for the wine. I’d found a niche in the very back, a tiny windowless cell cut into the mansion’s massive stone foundation. It appeared to be an unfinished extension of the wine room, with bricks and wood lying about. Yesterday’s deliveries of bricks and stone were piled on the floor along with a bucket of mortar draped with a moistened cloth, nearly dry now. Jonathan looked at the supplies and then at me, surmising instantly the intent of the materials, and then dumped Adair’s body on the damp dirt floor. Without a word, he stripped off his frock coat and rolled up his sleeves.

I kept Jonathan company as he closed up the small gap that served as the opening to the cell. First brick, then row upon row of stone to make the opening disappear into the deep-set wall. Jonathan set about his task silently, settling the stones into place with taps of the trowel’s handle, drawing on work he had done in childhood, while I kept watch on Adair’s dark form, a mere lump of shadow on the cell’s floor.

At the hour when Adair had been scheduled to leave, I crept upstairs and sent the livery on its way, telling the driver that the travelers had changed their minds, but wanted the baggage sent ahead to their lodgings as planned. Then I mentioned casually to Edgar that the master had departed on his trip a little ahead of schedule in order to avoid fanfare, wanting to slip away. Adair’s and Jonathan’s empty rooms seemingly verified what I’d said, and Edgar merely shrugged and went about his duties and would, I suspected, tell the others if asked.

Jonathan continued to work, pausing whenever we heard any movement that sounded like it was coming our way. For the most part, it was exceedingly quiet this deep underground and we heard few stirrings from the occupied floors, but it was unlikely that we would, with storage rooms situated between the first floor and the wine cellar. Still, I was nervous, sure that the others might come looking for me. And I wanted this horrible act behind me. The man in the cell is a monster, I kept telling myself to ease my mounting guilt. He is not the man I knew.

“Hurry, please,” I murmured from my perch on an old cask.

“There’s nothing to be done for it, Lanny,” Jonathan said over his shoulder, never breaking his rhythm. “Your poisons-”

“Not mine, surely! Not mine alone,” I cried, jumping off the cask in agitation.

“The poison will wear off, eventually. The knots may loosen and the gag come undone, but this wall must not fail. It must be as strong as we can make it.”

“Very well,” I said, wringing my hands as I paced. I knew that the potion couldn’t kill him, even if it had been poison, but hoped that it might make him sleep forever or have caused damage to his brain, so he’d never be aware of what had happened to him. Because he was not a magical being, not a demon or an angel; he could not make the knots untie themselves or fly through walls like a ghost any more than I could. Which meant that eventually he would wake in the dark and not be able to take the gag from his mouth, not be able to scream for help, and who knew how long he might remain there, buried alive.

I waited a moment on our side of the fresh stone wall to see if I felt the familiar electric arc of Adair’s presence, but I did not. It was gone. Perhaps it was gone only because Adair was so deeply sedated. Maybe I’d feel him again when he regained consciousness-and what torture that might be, to feel his agony alive in me day after day and not be able to do anything about it. I cannot tell you how many nights I’ve thought about what I did to Adair, and there have been times when I almost think I would undo what I did to him, if it were possible. But at that time, I could not let myself think about it. It was too late for pity or remorse.

Jonathan slipped out that evening while the others were away at one of their usual pastimes. I had a taste of the struggles that were to come with Jonathan when, once he had stepped outside, he turned to me and asked, “We can return to St. Andrew now, can’t we?”

I drew in a breath. “St. Andrew is the last place we can go because there, of all places, we will be most quickly discovered. We’ll never grow old, never fall ill. All those people you’d return for, they’ll come to look at you with horror. They’ll come to fear you. Is that what you want? How would we explain ourselves? We can’t, and Pastor Gilbert will have us tried as witches for sure.”

His expression clouded over as he listened, but he said nothing. “We need to disappear. We must go where no one knows us and we must be prepared to leave at any time. You must trust me, Jonathan. You must rely on me. We have only each other, now.” He made no argument but kissed my cheek, and started toward the public house where we planned to meet the following day.

The next morning, I told the others that I was leaving to join Adair and Jonathan in Philadelphia. When Tilde raised an eyebrow suspiciously, I used Adair’s own words on her, explaining that he had no patience with their accusatory glances for what he’d done to Uzra and that while they might not be able to forgive him, I had. Then I went to see Pinnerly for the list of the accounts that had been set up in Jonathan’s name. While the lawyer was reluctant to hand Adair’s private papers over to me, a session of no more than ten minutes on my knees in his back room was sufficient to get him to change his mind, and what was ten more minutes of harlotry in exchange for a secure financial future? Jonathan would forgive me, I was sure, and in any case, Jonathan would never know.

The others said nothing outright against me but were clearly skeptical and wary, and gathered in corners and on dark landings to whisper among themselves. Eventually, though, they drifted off to their rooms or about other business, clearing the way for me to creep down to the study. Jonathan and I needed money to flee, at least until we could gain access to the funds that Adair himself had set aside-for his own future use, of course.

To my surprise, Alejandro sat slumped over the table, his head in his hands. He watched indifferently, however, as I socked money from Adair’s cash box into a pouch; it would be only natural that I might carry more funds to Adair to use for his trip. But Alejandro cocked his head in curiosity when I pulled the framed charcoal drawing of Jonathan down from the wall. It was the one item I couldn’t bear to leave behind. I pried the backing from the frame and, with a piece of tissue over the drawing and a chamois beneath it, I rolled the picture into a tight cylinder and tied it with a red silk cord.

“Why are you taking the drawing?” he asked.

“There’s a painter in Philadelphia; Adair plans to introduce him to Jonathan. Jonathan will never agree to sit for his portrait again, and Adair knows it, so he wants the artist to create a painting from the sketch. It seems like a lot of bother, I agree, but you know how Adair is, once he’s decided on something…,” I said blithely.

“He’s never done anything like this,” Alejandro said, abandoning his questioning with the despair of one accepting the inevitable. “It’s very-unexpected. It is very strange. I’m at a loss to know what to do next.”

“All things come to an end,” I remarked before slipping out of the study nonchalantly.

I waited in the carriage as servants brought down my trunks, securing them to the back. Then the carriage pulled away with a lurch, and I slipped into the Boston traffic, disappearing completely into the crowds.

PART IV