Ripper. Part 17

I glanced back, through the darkness, at Simon's ivory face-so perfect, with only a few blond locks escaping across his forehead.

"But it has not had the desired effect?" he asked, though I knew he already knew the answer.

I smiled. Shook my head.

"Why are you returning tonight?" he asked. It was a baited question.

"William sent me a note. He is cleaning the pharmacy and requested my help."

At the mention of William's name, Simon's expression veiled.

I felt oddly exposed, and I blushed.

Gracefully, Simon changed the topic to discuss the hospital. "Dr. Buck and Dr. Bartlett left London today. They are giving a joint lecture at Oxford on Monday. They'll be back on Wednesday, but in the meantime, some of us are working extra hours."

As we walked into the hospital, Simon told me that he would be working on the first floor. I knew that the first floor was overwhelmed, particularly the nursery. Two days earlier, I had witnessed a set of twins born to a fifteen-year-old mother. Miraculously, the twins and the mother lived, though the infants required round-the-clock care and a supplemental wet nurse.

"Do you need my help?" I asked Simon as he prepared to make his rounds.

"No, go ahead, the pharmacy is in very poor order."

I paused, thinking I might be more useful on the first floor.

"William is waiting." Simon nodded toward the stairs.

I did not miss the hint of discord in Simon's voice.

I ascended the dark stairs, not seeing any light past the second floor. When I stepped onto the fourth floor I was shrouded in darkness except for a single stream of light coming from the laboratory at the end of the hallway. I heard bottles rattling and crashing amidst mild curses. I prepared myself for William's intensity. Although he attracted me, he was always a force I had to brace myself for.

He was on his knees in the dust and dirt when I found him. He wore a pair of reading spectacles. A box lay before him, filled with empty and near-empty gla.s.s bottles. The large closet had been lit by several candles set on various shelves.

It was evident that the pharmacy had not been cleaned or organized in ages. The bottles were sloppily arranged on the shelves, some so near the shelves' edges that they looked as if they could fall over at any moment.

"I will never understand," William said, pulling more bottles off the shelves, clattering them loudly in the process, "why so many nurses insist on returning empty bottles to the shelves."

He held up an empty gla.s.s bottle for me to see. "I mean, what good will this do for anyone?"

I noticed, in the candlelight of the pharmacy, that even though William was still unspeakably handsome, he seemed paler than before. Even rage could not darken his cheeks. I guessed his poor coloring resulted from some sort of exhaustion. Perhaps he had been working too many hours.

"Sometimes I feel as if Josephine and Mary are the only competent nurses left in this hospital."

His eyes flashed toward me. "Sorry, Abbie. I do not think of you as a nurse, so I'm not implying that you are incompetent. You are more of an honorary physician."

I said nothing. It was impossible to respond when he was in such a mood. Taking a nearby broom into my hands, I began sweeping the floor.

He thrust some strips of paper at me and a jar of glue. "Please ignore the floor for now and glue these strips to the bottles. We need to put new labels on everything."

He continued to curse and complain as I began putting on the new labels. I wondered if he had quarreled with Christina. But his mood was getting under my skin, so I stopped what I was doing and glared at him. It was my turn to be angry.

When he saw my expression, he stopped and ran his fingers through his sweat-drenched curls. "I'm sorry. It's just ... "

"Why did you ask me to come here?"

I knew now, intuitively, that he had not just asked me here to help with the pharmacy.

After a moment of indecision, his brows furrowed, William kicked a box of empty medicine bottles aside. He glanced around the laboratory and quietly shut the pharmacy door, closing us inside. He lowered his voice to a near whisper.

"Abbie, I wanted to see you tonight, but there are things that I cannot tell you."

"What?"

He ran his fingers through his curls again. "I cannot tell you some things because I cannot understand them all myself. There is a large, looming puzzle that needs solving."

My heartbeat quickened. William's words seemed to mimic my own recent thoughts. Had he also noticed the chalice symbol and inscription, not only here at the hospital but on the fountain, and perhaps in other places? Did he have knowledge or evidence about the murders? Part of me wanted to tell him everything. Perhaps if I told him of the visions, about Max's tattoo, about my research, we could piece together these clues. But I still feared confiding in anyone about the visions; I still felt terrified of looking insane. Also, William had not told me nearly enough for me to a.s.sume that his anxieties and questions were remotely related to my own.

In that second, I cleared my mind and decided that William was still too much of an enigma for me to confide in him. I would keep my thoughts to myself.

"You're not making any sense," I said.

William's face brimmed in frustration. "I know." He closed his eyes and paced a few feet. "I want to tell you more, but I do not want to loop you into any mess that you would be safer staying excluded from. Please don't ask any questions."

His eyes were pleading, so I nodded.

"I cannot tell you much, but some information has arisen ... " His voice trailed off.

My heart quickened again, and I wanted desperately to know what was going on.

He continued his agitated pace. "The bottom line is that I must go abroad to look into some things."

My mind swirled with questions: For how long?

Where exactly?

Why?

The last question I thought might burst out of me: Will you miss me?

"Here is what I can tell you." He stepped forward. The pharmacy had become warm; the candles' heat had no vent, no outlet. And some of the bottles, I thought vaguely, might be flammable. We would have to open the door soon. William whispered so softly in my ear that I could barely hear him.

"There are dangers here in London, even in this hospital, for us. You need to be careful."

He had to be talking about the Ripper murders. I felt dizzied, as if I were on a cliff, about to plunge forward. William's closeness to me also brought about a thunderbolt of feelings, new and indecipherable.

A candle singed the fourth finger of my right hand.

"Ouch!"

William jumped back a little.

"It's fine," I said quickly. The tip was only reddened. "This has to do with the Ripper murders, doesn't it?"

"I said to not ask me questions." William stepped forward again.

"You cannot expect ... " I whispered. We were both speaking in whispers now. "You cannot expect to drop such information on me-that I'm in 'danger' and that you are leaving-and then forbid me to ask anything."

He sighed and relented a bit. "Yes, it is about the murders. But I cannot tell you more. For your own safety. You have to trust me. And, like I said, I don't understand everything myself. When I get back, I should be able to tell you everything."

The air was heavy with questions-not only about William's mysterious journey, but now, I sensed, the invisible questions about us. What did we mean to each other? I felt as if I stood on the cliff's edge again, and I still feared the fall.

I heard my voice crack as I asked, "How long will you be gone? You can at least tell me that."

"I don't know exactly. Maybe a few weeks. But the reason I'm telling you all of this is to warn you to be careful. You must trust me about that."

Did I trust him?

Did I love him?

I felt such confused feelings; hot tears stung my eyes. Ashamed, I turned away, facing the shelves of freshly filled bottles, their new labels inches from my nose.

"Abbie ... " William's finger pushed aside some loose strands of hair around my temples. He stood directly behind me, stroking my ear with his fingertip. My lobe tingled. I felt my chest heave. "I have to leave. But, truthfully, my biggest drawback, my biggest weight, is going to be leaving you here, knowing some of what I know."

Then why wouldn't he b.l.o.o.d.y tell me what he knew?

I turned to face him. "Will you be safe abroad? Aren't you in danger also?"

He ignored my question. "Will you just believe me and be careful?"

The air had become intolerably hot. I felt a drop of sweat slide down my forehead.

"Yes, yes."

William's eyes burned into mine for a few seconds before he relaxed. It seemed he felt that he had communicated to me a little of the seriousness of my situation.

"We won't talk about this again ... at least not tonight," he whispered. "From the moment I open this door, we must not speak of anything that I have said. I have simply told Dr. Bartlett that I have an ill relative I need to be with on the Continent. I told him that I hope to return before too long."

His expression changed, and I thought for a second that he might laugh. I did not know what was so funny.

William explained. "We had better open this door before we burn ourselves to death in here. And it does not look good to have ourselves shut in here for so long. Sister Josephine would be quite put out."

He opened the door, effectively sealing our conversation in the pharmacy.

Then he took the box of empty bottles into the utility room in the adjoining laboratory. I heard the bottles being thrust around in the sink. As I glued labels to the jars and relabeled the bottles, tears slid down my face and my hands trembled. I felt deeply affected by something. But I could not sort out my feelings. I felt fearful, for him and for myself. Confused about what was going on, and if I was doing the right thing by not telling him about the visions. But then again, he was withholding information from me.

I tried to dry my face with my ap.r.o.n. I took a few deep breaths. William had not returned to the pharmacy. I did not want him to see me crying.

"Abbie."

It was too late.

He set the box of dripping bottles down.

"Don't cry." He said this in a voice he had never used with me before. It was a voice he reserved for hushing infants in the nursery. I had heard him use the tone with his aunt a few times, that evening when I had visited.

I turned around, past the point of caring if William saw me cry. He wiped the tears from my cheek. His finger brushed the tears away as he would remove a gnat, an eyelash. Before I knew what I was doing, I kissed his finger.

"Oh G.o.d," I gasped. The cliff again. I had fallen.

William jumped back, jolted, and stumbled a little against the shelves. At that point, a bottle from the rows of herbal medicines crashed to the floor.

"I'm sorry." Overwhelmed with embarra.s.sment, I knelt and began wiping the strong-smelling herbs and gla.s.s fragments into my hands. I hardly knew what to do with the irrational surges of emotion coursing through me.

Then came a horrible moment where we both looked at each other. William, who was always so transparent, became closed off. A sealed book. I felt terrible that my action might have caused him to react in that way. So I returned my focus to scooping up the particles on the floor, and William remained still, frozen, with his back against the shelves.

"These herbs are certainly contaminated now. I am sorry to have wasted them." My voice cracked.

William said nothing as he knelt beside me to help scoop up the pieces, and I was afraid to look at his face.

The situation began to feel a bit ridiculous, and I laughed a little amidst tears.

He established eye contact with me, and smiled.

"Don't worry, Abbie. I was the one who knocked the bottle to the floor." He laughed a little.

There was a moment of awkwardness, neither one of us knowing how to move on from what had just happened. But slowly, tediously, we meandered back into small talk and the immediate tasks at hand. We worked late into the night. William was thorough and meticulous. The hours ticked away. The pharmacy closet gradually returned to order.

By the time Mary showed up at the pharmacy door, it was well after midnight. She seemed a bit hurried. In her hands she clutched a piece of paper that she thrust at William. I knew she was still a little angry at him for locking us in the closet during the riot. I made a mental note to ask her about how Scribby was doing when I got the chance.

"Dr. St. John needs these medicines. Soon if possible."

"Does he need my help?" I asked.

She eyed William and then me. "He might. If you can pull yourself away from Dr. Siddal."

William merely smiled at Mary's sarcasm. "I'll be fine here. Abbie, go see if you can give Simon a hand."

After Mary left, William put Simon's requested medicine bottles in a small box for me.

I began to descend the dark stairs with the box of bottles in my arms. My time with William had been emotional and puzzling. I felt a rising fear, and I wondered about the web in which we were caught up. I also worried that my feelings for William were too strong. I blushed as I thought of my actions in the pharmacy-to act as I had was unlike me.

I had almost reached the second floor landing when the vision struck me. I clutched the banister to keep from falling and dropped the box, shattering the bottles upon the stairs.

In my vision, Liz Stride laughed near a streetlamp in a small courtyard somewhere. I saw the long shadows of a wrought-iron fence pa.s.s across her face in the lamplight. A figure, shrouded in a black cape and wearing a tall dark hat, gave her small bag. She ate from the bag. She laughed and stroked her hair. A bright red carnation had been pinned to her greasy dress lapel.

She was about to die.

I had to move. Fast.

I felt my way down the staircase. The vision stayed with me, pulsating up and down within my consciousness of my immediate surroundings.