steadied herself and spoke sombrely. 'He believes that this is just a temporary reprieve. The cancers are malignant, widespread and multifarious.'
Then she told me the matters that most surprised me: that Borden, or more accurately one of the Borden twins, had died, and that his notebook had come into my, our, possession.
I was astounded to hear these things. For instance, I learned that Borden had died only three days after my failed attempt on his life; the two events seemed to me inevitably connected. Julia said it was thought he had suffered a heart attack; I wondered if this could have been brought on by the fear I instilled in him? I remembered his terrible noises of anguish, his laboured breathing, and his general appearance of fatigue and ill-health. I knew that heart seizures could be caused by stress, but until this moment I had supposed that after my departure Borden regained his senses and would eventually have returned to normal.
I confessed my story to Julia, but she seemed to think the two events were unconnected.
Even more of interest was the news about Borden's notebook. Julia told me she had read some of it, and that most of Borden's magic was described within its pages. I asked her if I, my prestige, had any plans about what to do with it, but she said that the illness had interrupted everything. She mentioned that she shared some of the contrition I felt towards Borden, and that my prestige was of much the same mind.
I said, 'Where is he? We must be together.'
'He will be waking soon,' Julia replied.
My reunion with myself must be one of the most unusual in history! He and I were perfect complements to each other. Everything I lacked was in him; everything I had he had lost. Of course we were the same, closer to each other than identical twins.
When either of us spoke, the other could easily finish the sentence. We moved in the same way, had the same gestures and mannerisms, came to the same thought in the same moment. I knew everything about him, and he knew the same of me. All we lacked between ourselves was our separate experiences of the last few months, but once we had described these to each other even that difference was eliminated. He trembled at my description of my attempt on Borden's life, and I suffered at second hand some of the pain and wretchedness of his disease.
Once we were together there was nothing that would make us separate again. I asked Hutton to make up a second bed in the garden room, so that the two halves of myself could be together the whole time.
None of this could be kept from the rest of the household, and soon I was reunited with my children, with Adam and Gertrude Wilson, as well as Mrs Hutton, the housekeeper. Everyone exclaimed about the uncanny double effect we created. I dread to think what effect this revelation of their father will have on my children in the future, but both parts of me, and Julia, agreed that the truth was better than yet another lie.
It was not long before the chilling fact of the cancers lent an urgency to the time we spent together, and we realized that if there was anything remaining to be done, now was the time.
From the beginning of April until the middle of May we worked together on the revision of Borden's notebook, preparing it for the publisher. My twin brother (for so it became convenient to think of my prestige) was soon ill again, and although he had done much of the initial work on the book it was I who completed the work, and negotiated with the publisher.
And I, using his identity, maintained the journal for him until his demise. So it was, yesterday, that our double life came to an end, and with it comes the end of my own short life story. Now there is only me, and I live beyond death once more.
#############
8th July 1904
This morning I went with Wilson down to the cellar, where we inspected the Tesla apparatus. It was in full working order, but because it was a long time since I had used it I went through Mr Alley's notes to check that everything was in place. I had always enjoyed the sense of collaborating with the far distant Mr Alley. His meticulous notes were a pleasure to work with.
Wilson asked me if we should dismantle the device.
I thought briefly, then said, 'Let's leave it until after the funeral.'
The ceremony is planned for tomorrow at midday.
After Wilson had left, and I had locked the access door to the cellar, I powered up the device and used it to transmit more gold coins. I was thinking of the future, of my son the 15th Earl, of my wife the dowager lady. All these were responsibilities I could not fully address. Once again I felt the crushing weight of my own ineffectuality holding back not only me but my innocent family.
I had not counted the wealth we had created with the device, but my prestige had shown me the hoard he had made, kept in a closed and locked compartment in the darkest recess of the cellar. I removed what I estimated to be two thousand pounds’ worth, for Julia's immediate requirements, then I added my few new coins to what was left, thinking that no matter how much we forged there would never be enough.
However, I would see to it that the Tesla device remained intact. Alley's instructions would be kept with it. One day, Edward will find this journal and realize what the apparatus can best be used for.
Later
I have only a few hours left before the funeral, and cannot spend too much of that time writing in these pages. Therefore let me note the following.
It is eight in the evening, and I am in the garden room I shared with my prestige before he died. A beautiful sunset is making gold the heights of Curbar Edge, and although this room faces away from the setting sun I can see amber tendrils of cloud overhead. A few minutes ago I walked softly around the grounds of the house, breathing the summer scents, listening to the quiet sounds of this moorland country I loved so much during my childhood.
It is a fine warm evening in which to plan the end, the very end.
I am a vestige of myself. Life has become literally not worth living. All that I love is forbidden to me by the state I am in. My family accepts me. They know who I am and what I am, and that my circumstances are not of my own making. Even so, the man they loved is dead, and I cannot replace him. Better for them that I depart, so that they might at last start to grieve fully and freely for the man who died. In the expression of grief lies recovery from grief itself.
Nor have I any legal existence: Rupert Angier the magician is dead and buried, the 14th Earl of Colderdale will be interred tomorrow.
I have no practical being. I cannot live except in squalid half life. I cannot travel safely without either assuming an unconvincing disguise, or scaring people half to death and putting myself in peril. My only expectation of life is as a ghost of myself, forever hovering on the fringes of my family's real lives, forever haunting my own past and their future.
So now it must end, and I shall die.
But the curse of life also clings to me! I have already found how fierce the spirit of life burns in me, and that not only is murder ethically beyond me but suicide too is an impossibility for me. When once before I wished myself dead, the wish was not strong enough. I can make myself die only by convincing myself that there is also a hope I shall not succeed.
As soon as I have completed these notes I will conceal this journal, and the earlier volumes of it, somewhere amongst the prestiges which lie in the vault. Then I will unlock the compartment in the cellar, leaving the gold for my son or his son eventually to find. This journal must not be discovered while the gold is yet to be spent, for it amounts to a confession of the forgery I have committed.
With all this completed I will charge up the Tesla device again and use it for the last time.
Alone, in secret, I will transmit myself across the aether for the most sensational manifestation of my career.
I have spent the last hour measuring and checking the coordinates, preparing myself, rehearsing as if an audience of thousands will be watching. But this act of magic must take place while I am alone, because I shall project myself into the deceased body of my prestige, and there my end will come!
I shall arrive there; of this there is no doubt, because the Tesla apparatus has never faltered yet in its accuracy. But what will be the result of this morbid union?
