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[bibibiyu]

Dove Part 3: Like Mother, Like Son

After John’s death and as he prepares to leave for America, Michael meets a young Indian girl learning the art of healing. 

Part1  Part2

Michael was back at home but no longer confined to his bed. This was satisfying enough for him, at the moment, at least.

Finn had stopped by to see him earlier, to talk about what he’d overheard among the men. A boy like Finn, being treated like a man so soon yet somehow still so out of the loop.

He’d come to confirm that Michael would be leaving for America.

And it had been confirmed. Polly hadn’t broached the subject with him but Michael knew he’d be having to prepare for it soon.

Somehow, he could sense a sort of impatience in Polly and Michael figured this was one decision by Tommy she cold wholeheartedly approve. Getting him out of London, out of the line of fire.

Nonetheless, Michael kept his mind off it, as best as he could and told Finn as much as he thought was necessary before sending him on a trip to find him some whiskey. Finn said he’d be bringing him some of Tommy’s new gin but he’d shown up empty handed and looking a little red in the cheeks.

Haima hadn’t been back to see him that morning, even though Polly had confirmed the afternoon prior that she’d be seeing him daily.

Michael had been thinking about her a lot.  Haima.

He didn’t know why. But he’d dreamt of her the night prior. Her praying again. This time, he’d felt it going all through his body. A warmness.

Was she putting a spell on him?

Michael rolled his eyes. He didn’t believe in all the gypsy talk like his mother.

He sobered though, at the fact that Haima had made him feel better than any of the doctors he’d been seeing had made him feel in the last couple of weeks.  

Maybe a spell wasn’t so unrealistic.

At that thought, Finn burst into his room and quickly closed the door behind him.

He sat across from Michael and pulled the bottle from inside his coat.

“That’s the stuff,” Michael nodded and Finn smirked.

They were quiet for a moment.

“Where the glasses?” Michael asked.

Finn slouched in his chair in realization. He looked at Michael with wide eyes. “Oh shit I forgot.”

“It’s fine. I’ll call the maid.” Michael started moving but Finn shook his head aggressively.

“No! She’ll tell Aunt Polly and she told me I can’t let you get a hold of any of this stuff!”

“You were down there, how could you forget the bloody glasses?”

“Your house is so fucking confusing, it’s a miracle I even found my way back up here again.” Finn responded. “Just take it from the bottle.”

Michael immediately grabbed it and took a swig. Finn had just brought the bottle up to his mouth when the door opened and he quickly dropped It into his lap.

Ada waltzed in, searching for them. She saw them at the table and immediately eyed them suspiciously. Her eyes especially lingered on Finn.

“Michael, someone is here to see you,” She stepped further into the room, letting someone come in.

It was Haima, wearing the same clothes as the day before, toting her bag.

Michael didn’t move but watched as she went past Ada, avoiding eye contact.

“Finn, what are you doing here?” Ada asked.

“I’m here to see my cousin.” Finn looked like he was trying to keep from rolling his eyes. He seemed to have forgotten there was a bottle of alcohol between his legs.

“Your cousin’s about to get treated so let’s go outside.” To Ada, Finn must still have looked like he was ten years old. Finn, though familiar with this, hadn’t resigned to it yet.

“Why?”

Ada, raising her eyebrows, looked at him head on.

“Because unless you want to see Michael naked, I think it’d be a good idea to step out.”

Finn glanced over at Michael and all Michael did was smirk. He did want Finn to leave but only so he could be alone with Haima. So he shook his head at him and Finn reluctantly got up, placing the bottle on the table.

Ada saw it and gave an annoyed chuckle. “I’m sure Polly would love to hear about how you’re boozing Michael up.”

They stepped out and closed the door behind them but Michael could still hear them bickering through it.

His attention was immediately drawn to Haima. She looked a lot more uncomfortable in his home than she had in the hospital.

Michael cleared the stuff from the table and motioned for her to put her things down.

She walked over quickly, immediately starting to pull things out of her bag.

“Hey, sit down for a bit.”

She gave him a surprised look, laced with a sort of poorly concealed exasperation.  

“Go on, I just ate so let me get to digesting first before you start pushing down on me.”

She sat down in front of him, slowly, not moving the bag from in front of them, somewhat blocking the view in between them.

So Michael reached forward and moved the bag  a few inches to the side.

She was silent as Michael lit a cigarette. Michael debated whether staring her down, unabashedly like he did other girls, would work but his gut was already whispering that it wouldn’t. She was a total different kind of girl.

So he talked.

“You said it’s customary to pray when treating your first patient.” He said. “I’m your first patient?”

“Yes.” She responded simply. She paused, wanting to leave it at that but then added. “ I just started.”

“Really?” He was surprised. “You’ve done me a lot of good for someone that just started.”

She shifted in her seat and Michael noticed the blouse was looking a little tight on her, as if tailored for someone else. “I’ve just been watching for a while, observing and learning. My teacher said it was time for me to try my hand.”

“Well.. you did a great job.”

She nodded, silent. Then, awkwardly, thoroughly unsure if it was appropriate, but not fearful somehow,  she said “thank you.”

“Where are you from?”

“India.”

Michael had known as much and heard of it. An exotic place with spicy food. A poor country. “Its a big nation, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where in India are you from?”

“It’s a very small village. No one would know where it is.”

He didn’t relent. “How old were you when you came here?”

“Nine.”

“How old are you now?”

“Eighteen.”

9 years in England.

“Was it like you thought it would be?”

She paused a lot longer before answering this question, “I never thought of England.”

“Then why did you come here?”

Her hands were in her lap and she back was fully against the back of the chair, as far away from the table as possible. As if hating the idea that if she put her hands on the table, they would be up for inspection.

She was quiet for so long Michael thought she wasn’t going to answer.

But then plainly, she stated, “When the British Army massacred my father and all the men in my village, my mother, somehow, couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

She said it flatly, almost as if to say, “didn’t want to mention it but you asked.”

And he had. Asked.

“I’m sorry.” The words felt strange in his mouth but he said then anyway.

“That’s war.”

“The nurses, what did they say to you?”

At the change in topic, or perhaps because Michael had chosen this particular topic, she slipped down a bit into her chair, relaxing just an inch. But even this change, deceptively presented as small, was dramatic. She reached forward to grab onto a small piece of leather on her handbag, twisting it slowly in her fingers.

Not being able to immediately get to her work was revealing her, like ice slowly melting, leaving her nothing to hide behind, like the sheer focus he realized she’d been using as a mask.

Michael sensed that by him just asking, taking interest, she had gauged that he didn’t lie on the wrong side of the spectrum she’d been carefully using to weigh his worthiness. But he was sure that she still didn’t know what to make of him. That was fine. He’d succeeded in getting her to drop the first wall.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” she replied and Michael thought he saw a light sparking in the recesses of her eyes. Her dark eyes.

“I probably haven’t.”

She smiled, a small pulling at the corners of her lips, as if amused with the way the leather bag was sitting there, on his table. Her first smile.

“If they were backwards, I could speak to the head.”

She looked up at him, seeming even more amused. It was a wholly different side of her, the total opposite of what she’d been like when she’d walked in. The power dynamics had shifted. Something had been revealed.

“Why?”

He hesitated, not sure if he could answer her question.

“Why would you do that?”

“Well… because if they were acting in any type of way, they shouldn’t really be treating patients and the like, should they?”

“They first asked me if I was the help, as my kinds of people often come in and clean lavatories and the like. Mind you, wearing these bloody clothes, on purpose, somehow you’d think I’d be suited for more than just mopping up bodily fluids. One of them, a young one, then asked me if I was a witch once I explained to them the kind of work I do. Didn’t seem too pleased I’d stepped in the hos-“

“Are you?”

“What?”

“A witch.”

“Hardly. Not everything that one doesn’t understand is witchcraft.”

Michael nodded, taking another draw from his cigarette.

“Your mother.” She initiated.

“What about her?”

“She said she’d like to be present for these sessions.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Yet somehow, she’s nowhere to be found at precisely these moments.”

“Your mother is special,” she said and Michael, thought not liking where the conversation had gone, was curious. It was the first bit of information or original thought Haima had volunteered herself.

“How so?”

“She has a strong spirit. You can hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. It’s something very respected in my community. Very few people have it.”

“What about me? Did I inherit it?” He asked seriously.

She smirked. “Not even a bit.”

Ada then, swiftly came through the door again and seeing Michael and Haima just sitting there, observed for a few seconds.  

“Yes, Ada?” Michael asked.

Ada seemed amused. She was in so many ways, like his own mother.

“Why are you just sitting there? Polly said you didn’t have to wait for her. That she’d be in time to catch her on the way out for any details.”  

“Oh good. Haima was just asking me if we should wait for her. I suppose now that’s it’s been cleared up we should,” Micheal used both his hands to grab his chair’s armrests and brace himself up onto his feet with a stiff slowness “get to it.”

….

“I heard your weddings are three weeks long.”

“I heard people die of alcohol poisoning at yours.”

Michael laughed. “Indian people don’t drink?”

“Not like that,” her hands rubbed over his stomach. Michael was just now realizing that her hands were somewhat rough, the only conclusions he could come up with being that she worked a lot. He was lying down on his bed, his shirt off again, the window slightly open to let a breeze in that ticked his shoulders.

“Have you ever drank?” He asked, suspicious she wasn’t the type.

“No.” Her response was so curt he smirked.

“I recommend whiskey.”

“I like tea,” she offered.

“How English of you,”

And she smiled, that closed-mouth sort of smile. But it was still a smile.

“You work?” He asked, noting how a strand of her hair had slipped out of her braid and was hovering close to her face. She couldn’t push it back without getting the medicine all in her hair. So she let it hang, shaking her head backwards every now and then to get it out of her range of view.

“That’s what I’m doing,” she responded.

“I mean, most girls your age don’t have a job,”.

She eyed him carefully for a moment. “Most girls don’t find themselves in my situation. But, it depends on the kind of girls you know, I suppose. Many of my friends have been working since they were children.”

Michael brought his right arm up, placing his hand under his head, in a pensive pose. He wanted to ask what her situation was.

“I’ve worked since I got here.” Her massaging was a little more intense now, Michael assuming that since she was now aware the pain had lessened, she could be more aggressive with her treatment.

“My world is very different,” she added softly but she didn’t have to. Michael had concluded this on his own.  

“What about school?”

She shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant.

“If you could be anything, what would you be?”

It was a question he’d asked himself, back on the farm. And it was actually one he hadn’t thought about in a while, as strange as it was, remembering how that question had occupied his every moment back then. How it had poured out of him like sweat.

“A doctor,” she answered but she didn’t sound sincere.

Michael dropped the subject though and watched her strand of hair dangle.  

“You’ve heard of the peaky blinders?”

He’d been debating mentioning it. Up until then, until meeting her, he’d had no problem discussing his affiliations. But he’d become wary as of recently, skirting the topic and this was irking him.

A small voice inside him, as pressure in his chest that was at the same time alive at the back of his mind, only said one thing: Haima.

He hated himself, truly, he thought. To let a girl he’d met days ago, whom he knew practically nothing about, make him question everything he’d been sure about for years. It was idiotic. He felt a tinge of embarrassment also come alive but he ignored it, watching her hair glint in the sunlight streaming in from his window.

Or, he thought, maybe it was just the place he was now occupying within the organization. His destiny, his inevitable slow separation and isolation from the group. He was now having time to think about things, clear-headed, without Arthur’s or Tommy’s orders in his ears.  

Maybe even the fact that he’d almost died, had to do with it.

But looking at that dark hair, the sudden shining of light on black thickness, he saw moonlight over a lake. And he saw doves.

“I have,” she responded and her jaw was somewhat tense.

He felt like there was a lot he wanted to say about this but he didn’t, something telling him it wasn’t the moment.

She was almost done, rubbing the last of the salve on his chest now.

He smirked, “Why up so high now?”

She ignored him and closed her eyes, beads of sweat at the crest of her forehead.

Without thinking, Michael hooked the strand hanging from her face behind her ear.

She opened her eyes, stopping her meditation, surprised.

Michael had already quickly closed his eyes, as if attempting to enter a deep sleep.

She slowly continued her meditation. When she was done, she asked him to sit up, which he reluctantly did complaining he was too comfortable, and began to wrap him up tightly.

This she had to do with her head to his chest, arms maneuvering the gauze in front and behind him, as if giving and redacting a hug in a continuous dance.

Closer, Michael knew it was cinnamon that she smelled like.

“So you’re coming every day?” He asked, looking down at her head.

“If I can,” she responded.

“What do you mean, if you can? Isn’t my mother paying you ten billion notes?”

“If she were to pay me that, you would never see me again.”

She had jokes. Even if she tried to make them sound like anything else.

“So how do you and your teacher split it?”

“We split it.” She said.

She was all done and was gathering her supplies, moving fast.

“Busy day?”

“Yes.”  

Oh the coldness was back.

Wait.

“Am I your only patient?”

As she headed for the door, she smirked. “You’re not that special.”

As she left, Ada stepped in, her eyes following Haima, amused. She’d heard the last little exchange.

She turned to Michael, who was still smiling, not caring she had. Ada raised an eyebrow, smiling.

“Like Mother, like son,”

[bibibiyu]

Dove Part 2: Round Two

After John’s death and as he prepares to leave for America, Michael meets a young Indian girl learning the art of healing. 

Part1 Part3

His fingers were trapped. So tightly.

A rat trap? He tried to wiggle his fingers but the trap grew tighter.

But it was strange. Trapped but he felt….

Different.

Like he was swathed in the smoothest warmest blanket. Whereas the past few weeks, he’d had a dark hole in the pit of his stomach and an iron fist pressing into the back of his shoulders, right at the center, he felt alright right now. The pain, it was numbed.

“Michael?”

He opened his eyes, his mother’s face near his.

He was back in the very same hospital room he’d initially been recovering in before his mother had uprooted and recreated it back in their own home.

She’d been crying.

“Michael!”

She gripped his hand tighter so he brought his other one up to his face and rubbed at his eyes.

He wanted to ask why he was there but before he did, he thought back to what had been happening right before he’d gone into the best sleep he’d had in weeks.

The girl. Her chanting. Her salve. Her brute teacher. The pain.

“I’m sorry I took you there, Michael.” Polly said and her sorry was so thick in her voice.

He felt so strange. So light. He thought he recognized this feeling.

“Am I drugged?” He asked, looking around his bedside. The room was empty except for the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d gone to see the healer.

Polly, watching him carefully, shook her head. Worrying, she placed a hand on his cheek, “Do you feel strange?”

There was only one thing that had changed. And for a moment, it had felt like the worst pain since he’d been shot.

“Do you feel bad, Michael? Do you want me to call the doctor?”

“No.. I.. I feel fine.”

“Are you sure? I can call the nurse and she can try and find the doctor,” Polly stood up so fast Michael barely had time to squeeze her hand, holding her back.

The strength he had stopped her and he could see she seemed a little bit surprised.

“I’m fine, mum. I …” he looked down at his feet, covered in the white bleached covers tightly fixed around the bed. Polly had probably fixed them herself. “I feel alright.”

Polly slowly sat back down again. “What do you mean?”

“The pain, it’s a lot less.” He confessed, pushing himself higher up into the bed, so he was better seated. This was accomplished a lot easier than it usually was.

“Are you saying the healer helped?”

“That’s the only difference.”

Polly was quiet for only a moment, her eyebrows furrowed.

“You’ve been out the whole day, Michael. It’s practically midnight.” She said, then quietly told herself  “the pain was so bad.”

“I conked out?”

“By the time i got back in the room your eyes were rolled to the back of your head. You were bleeding so much when I got you here they had to change your gauze four times. I asked them not to give you anything because you said you didn’t trust it. But for a moment there I was truly tempted.”

Michael mulled this over quietly, as Polly watched him.

She looked confused. He noticed.

“Mum, I thought this was what you wanted,” he laughed softly.

“Of course this is what I wanted. It just didn’t seem like I was going to get it for a moment there.” She began rummaging in her purse for what could only be a cigarette. “I think this means we have to call her in again. Though I’m not leaving the fucking room this time, no matter what that man says.”

Michael didn’t interject. In a way, he was relieved. Something had finally worked. Something had finally emerged that could bring his mother a sense of accomplishment, of advancement, of improvement.

He only smiled and asked for a drag.

….

Michael woke to the sound of hollow wood hitting on hollow wood. He’d been ignoring the sun’s heat on his face for a good half hour and had been doing well in his dreams, enjoying the first bouts of restful sleep he’d gotten in ages, until the sounds of medicine containters being put down on the table, now moved next to him, brought him back to his hospital room.

His eyes opened stickily and he saw the girl, from the day before, her back to him. He knew it was her because of her braid.

She was moving slowly, not necessarily worried about being quiet.

“Back for round two?”

She turned quickly, one of her small wooden bowls in her hand.

“I didn’t mean to wake you, Mr. Gray.”

She wasn’t dressed in her shawl attire but in a simple white long sleeved button up tucked into a dark calf length skirt. Very English.

Michael just nodded and she turned back to her bowl. She had a bag on one of the chairs and pulled more stuff out.

He couldn’t see what she was doing so he just sat there.

He was wondering if her teacher was coming and he sure hoped he didn’t. He reached for his bedside table, looking for his cigarettes. He found them and put one between his lips. His lighter was missing

“Do you have a light?”

She turned to him and her eyes landed on his lips.

He was surprised he could tell she disapproved. It was hard for her to hide how she truly felt, he was noticing. Her panic had been palpable the day before.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t.” she responded.

“Then what about the candle?”

“I don’t have a candle today.”

Michael watched her silently for a moment. She was hesitating, unsure of what to do.

Instead of teasing her, he just took the cigarette from his lips and put it back.

“Where’s your teacher?” He asked.

She turned back to her stuff and unbuttoned the cuffs of her sleeves, pushing both of them back up to her elbows. “Ms.Gray asked that he not come. I was sent instead.”

Michael nodded and watched as she rounded the table to the other side. She grabbed a larger bowl and began to pour the contents of certain glass bottles into it, not taking any time to look at the labels, which Michael could see were in a language he didn’t understand.

“And he was alright with that?” The thought of the man being asked to not hover over the poor girl for a single treatment made Michael want to chuckle. There was no way that man had said yes the first time.

“Ms. Grey offered twice the price.”

Of course.

“How do you know what you're pouring in?” he asked.

She slowed, looking up at him. “I’m the one that organizes these.”

“Your teacher was real intense there, huh?”

He was making conversation with her but the tension he felt emanating off of her was strong. He was sure she’d heard the stories. About them, the Shelbys. About him.

“He’s a good teacher,” she responded quietly.

“I won’t tell him, you know.” Michael pulled at the covers, realizing how tight they were. The sun above him was making him hot and stiff.

She only continued what she was doing, as if she hadn’t heard him.

Interestingly, Polly was nowhere to be found.

“Do you know where Ms. Gray went?”

“For breakfast, the nurses said.”

In that moment, a blond nurse around his mother’s age came in, a roll of clean gauze in her hand. She greeted Michael with a good morning and completely ignored the girl.

“I’ve brought clean gauze, Mr. Gray. Ring us if you need anything.” She placed it on the table, as far away from the girl as she could get and left without a word.

Michael watched all this quietly, noticing how the girl stopped making her medicine for a moment when the nurse first came in and then continued once the nurse had chosen not to greet her. She picked up her normal speed again, quite fast it seemed, when the nurse had left the room.

“Not fond of conventional medicine?”

She hesitated before responding, “I.. it’s them that aren’t fond of me.”

“Oh really?” Michael tried pushing his covers down again, an effort from both his legs and arms. It was the first thing she’d said with some sort of personality and his curiosity was piqued.

Seeing what he was trying to do, she came over to him and roughly pulled the covers out from under the mattress on his right side. Easily enough.

Her treatment hadn’t completely made him recover his old self.

“Thank you.” he said. “Why aren’t they fond of you?”

She only shrugged and it made her seem so young.

“Well, I feel a lot better.” He stated.

She walked back over to him, one single bowl in her left hand and placed it on his bedside table.

“Please sit up, Mr. Gray.” Softly, she waited.

He did so, noticing how he mentally tensed for the pain this would have caused him, well, the day before, actually. The pain didn’t announce itself.

She pushed the covers back all the way down to his knees and asked, “Do you need help removing your shirt?”

“I can do it,” he replied, and unbuttoned it, slipping it off his shoulders. She took it from him and gently placed it on the armchair his mother had had brought in, already.

It was only a generic sleeping shirt, the kind the hospital equipped all the patients with but she didn’t seem to know that. She was aware of his wealth but not of standard hospital procedure.

He lay down again after removing his gauze and told him he could, and soon enough, her hands were wet with her medicine, a dark green paste that smelled like grass.

She was quiet, though.

“You’re not going to sing this time?” He asked, smirking. Up close, Michael’s eyes were fixated on her cheekbones. They were high, round things that stood out from her face, like bulges under her eyes. He’d never seem cheekbones like that. Her lashes were long too, shiny like her braid.

He’d never seen people like her, if he was honest. At least not up close, like now. Michael, coming from the country like he had, Isiah was the first colored person he’d met.

She was a different colored, though. Totally foreign. She functioned in a way different from him, the nurses. She was so out of place.

She looked good in her English dress, though. She could look uncomfortable in the hospital, as if she didn’t belong, but the way she wore those clothes, it wasn’t the same. She wore them different but right, all the same. Maybe that’s why the nurses hadn’t liked her. As if she’d been making fun of them.

“I was praying,” she said.

That thought, her praying for him, was strange. Polly had been the one who he’d woken up to from his quasi-sleep, various random times at night, no one else. Of course, they’d all come to see him regularly, but Polly had been the only one he’d witnessed pray for him.

And now this girl.

“It worked. It doesn’t hurt like it did.”

She continued to massage him.

“Will it work again if you don’t pray?”

The paste had traveled up her hands, onto her forearm and Michael thought it looked like she’d been rolling in grass, like he’d often done growing up. Or when he’d helped his mom in the garden.

“It’s tradition to pray the first time you attempt to heal someone,” she stated.

She seemed to be done, her movements having slowed. She hadn’t taken long but Michael was feeling comfortable again, as if he could drift off. She placed both of her hands, next to each other, on his stomach and closed her eyes.

She was like this for five seconds and then she wiped her hands off with a small towel. She asked him to sit up and then grabbed the gauze.

“You’re not going to wash this off?” He asked, surprised.

“No, it’s best you let it sit. You can wash it off tonight.”

He wanted to say it smelled weird but it wouldn’t sound as appreciative as he really was so he didn’t.

She wrapped him up tightly, much tighter than the nurses and went to wash her hands.

As she did, Michael began to think about the fact that it had been a couple of weeks since he’d been shot. He knew the recovery for people like him was long or maybe never. The fact that this girl, with her paste, had been able to do so much in a day, it was strange. Maybe he was going to be alright.

It was a dangerous thought.

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

It was too simple.

She packed up quickly, buttoned her sleeves back up and was putting on her coat when he suddenly remembered.

“What’s your name?”

She hesitated again, sticking her hands in the pockets of her long coat.

She looked at him, in the eye, for the first time. Truly looked. And Michael didn’t falter. She was looking for something there, with a subdued viciousness.

When she didn’t find it, she responded softly, “Haima.”

“Haima,” he repeated it. “What does it mean?”

“I don't know.” She noticed she’d left a bottle on the bedside table and reached over for it quickly with her left hand, and as she pulled it out of her pocket, something flew out with it and slid across the floor towards Michael.

Michael looked down and smirked.

Matches.

He didn’t say anything though, as she quickly picked them up, her bottle and her bag and left the room.

Polly came in as she was leaving, acknowledging the girl when she greeted her quickly. She gave Michael a curious extensive look.

“You alright?” She asked him, placing two brown bags on the table Haima had cleared out. “I went out for some breakfast. I didn’t think she’d be here this early.”

“I’m great.” He answered, smiling. “Is she coming again?”

[bibibiyu]

Dove Part 1: The Girl

After John’s death and as he prepares to leave for America, Michael meets a young Indian girl learning the art of healing.

Part2 Part3

The first time Michael met her was when his mother had found the sixth healer that month. This one, she was sure, could fix him. 

Polly had not tired in her pursuit of health. Interestingly though, her distrust of general doctors was incredibly strong and since her break, Michael had noted in her a stronger emphasis on help of other kinds. Spiritual, particularly.

That morning, she’d burst into his room with a fierce rapid energy, pulling his clothes out of the closets and drawers.

This one was a good one, she’d heard.

He would have argued any other morning but he was tired. Every day the pain didn’t seem to relent and he thought his bones had begun to absorb it.

He let her dress him and feed him, lead him down into the car.

They’d traveled in silence, Polly reaching over for his hand. Michael had let her hold him but inside, something in him was itching. Squirming. The chauffeur had driven for what seemed like half an hour, crossing into territory that was dirty and smoggy.

He wanted to doze off and had begun to when he felt the air change. There was more chatter and the smells in the air became more pungent, in a way that didn’t have anything to do with horse dung.

He looked over through his window and noted.

The people were different. Thin, brown. Hustling amidst the sharp sounds of foreign languages. 

 Indian, he thought.

Like their colonizer ancestors, Polly had crossed into new territory. Their territory.

The chauffeur stopped in front of what looked like a hut, an old wooden thing. It could have been a larger carnival booth, more private but with the same flimsy and compact feeling.

“Come on, Michael,” Polly, eyes straight forward and fixated.

Inside, there were a few people, lined up at a desk barricading a wall crammed with little disorganized wooden drawers. The place was dark, barely lit, the only lamp behind the desk, and even then it was flickering.

The rest of the room was occupied by a modest waiting area, a bare discolored table with three wire chairs.

Behind the desk was a man, thin and balding. He was speaking to the customers waiting in a different language, loud and rapid.

When they door jingled close behind them, he looked up, saw Polly, and immediately pointed to the back of the room, where a curtain covered a bare doorway.

Polly and Michael took three steps and she led him through it.

Inside was a cot, hovering a foot above the wooden floor and a single chair facing away from a small desk.

Polly let him sit on the cot before sitting across from him, placing her purse on her lap.

Michael watched as she nervously tapped her foot against the wooden floor, looking so inappropriate for the place, with her designer and tailored clothes.  

He was reminded, suddenly, of his childhood. A time he hadn’t thought of much in the last few years. Growing up the way he had, on a farm, in the middle of miles and miles of pasture and cows and nothing, he’d always daydreamed about getting away.

What he had always particularly imagined was meeting a woman so regal, so elegant, so ethereal. A swan.

A dove.  

He’d very rarely seen women like these. That dressed like it was a religion, an extension of themselves, of their souls. Once when he’d been to London with his mom for his fever. A woman that had walked into the doctor’s waiting office, floated in, her blonde curly hair pinned under her green velvet hat. She had been so beautiful, carefully removing her white satin gloves from her hands, to place in her lap. Those gloves, the way her delicate fingers had moved. Watching her, reminded of the doves that he sometimes saw in the mornings, drinking from his mother’s fountain. He’d felt better in an instant. By the time he got in to see the doctor, he was looking so good the doctor was convinced his mom had gone in to waste his time.

He could believe that time had been a supernatural healing. Ha.

Now, he realized, that woman had dressed like his mother.

He couldn’t help but smirk and she immediately caught sight of that, turning to him, leaning forward slightly.

“What?” She asked quietly, her mouth already instinctively mirroring his out of curiosity.

“You look so out of place,” he said, slightly shaking his head. He slowly leaned back, reclining on the wall behind him.

Polly watched him intently, reading his face for any sign of pain.

When he was settled, she pulled a long thin cigarette out of her silk bag and lit it quickly. She took a drag and set her hand against her crossed knees, the cigarette dangling between her index and middle finger.

“I’ve heard great things about this place,” she reiterated, her eyes running over the whole room, no embarrassment or shame, like often came over people determined to prove something. Polly was always sure.

He was about to ask for a cigarette when the man from behind the counter stepped in quickly. His arms were full of bottles and boxes so he muttered something and a girl came out from behind him, moving the small table closer to Michael.

She didn’t look up at him but moved back when the table was right at his knees. The man began to put the items down on it, all the while speaking to the girl in their language.

Michael looked over at Polly quietly but her eyes were glued to the products. She had stood up and looked ready to begin her onslaught of questions.

The man, seeing her mouth begin to open, snapped quickly “No questions.”

He then turned back to the girl, speaking even faster and Michael, who hadn’t paid her much attention, did so now.

She was small, a shade or two of brown lighter than the man, who was as dark as Jeremiah, perhaps even darker. While the man was dressed plainly in the face of the summer heat wave they had been suffering through, she was covered in what seemed to be a long dark purple shawl. She was also barefoot, which he was surprised to see. But what was more interesting to him was her long thick braid, reaching so far down her back, it seemed halfway down her buttocks. He saw it for the first time when the man, waving his skinny knuckly fingers out the doorway, commanded her out of the room. She walked out quickly, the braid swinging behind her and came back just as fast, a small bucket in her hand. At that moment, she met Michael’s eyes and he didn’t even have time to register what the bucket could possibly be for.

She set it down by his feet and stepped back, seemingly to stand by Polly. But the man waved her forward, irritated, and snapped something else. She looked up at him quickly, her eyes wide.

The man, quiet for the first time since he had walked in, looked up at her once he was done arranging the products and lighting a candle, waiting for her to respond.

When she didn’t and the room was filled with an unusual silence, he repeated what he had said, firmer now.

Michael watched the girl and it seemed like her brain had paused, frozen in the middle of a thousand thoughts running through her head.

When she finally opened her mouth and responded, the man responded to her for quite a length of time, and loudly enough, that she stepped forward to stand in front of Michael.

She met Michael’s eyes again when she finally spoke, “He needs you to take your shirt off.”

Michael hesitated and immediately, Polly jumped in.

“The whole thing? Can he not just pop open the couple of buttons?”

The girl immediately translated but before she was done, the man shook his head quickly and waved his hand dismissively.

“He needs the whole thing off.”

“Well, alright but it’s a pain to get back on.” Polly stepped forward and the girl seemed to move back but the man began to bark again.  

Polly turned to him, dismay on her face. She then turned to the girl.

“He says you have to leave the room.”

“What the bloody for?”

“He says it can only be the healer and the patient.”

“You’re here!”

“I’m his assistant.”

“The rooms so fuckin’ small, stepping two inches to the right, outside this stupid curtain won’t do much of a difference!!”

“Mom, it’s fine,” Michael interjected, and Polly looked him over, her mouth ready to begin again. The stare he was giving her was set enough that she waited a couple of silent beats before she picked up her bag and walked past the curtains. He knew she was right at the doorway.

She would do anything these sorts of people asked of her without as much as a second of hesitation, unless it required leaving him alone with them.

He turned back to the man and the girl, sitting up slowly. He pulled at his coat and it came off easily. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly and just as he had done the last one, the girl came forward and she finished the rest off, pulling the shirt off when he, surprised, stretched his arms out to either side.

Hovering over him, she moved fast but gently. She smelled like cinnamon and he guessed she’d been tending to something in a kitchen just before she had been called in to help with his treatment.

She stepped back with his shirt and placed it over the back of the chair Polly had just been occupying.

The man had been whipping up something in a brown wooden bowl and the girl watched as he did so, her hands folded neatly in front of her.

That was when he understood. She was his apprentice, too.

Her eyebrows furrowed, she seemed to be trying to memorize his quick instructions.

Then, once the man was done grinding the something in the bowl, he thrust it at her and she took it, without looking down at it. The next instructions he gave her were with direct eye contact and Michael saw her swallow nervously.

“This is the first part of the treatment. I have to rub this salve into your wounds.”

Michael wasn't sure how to feel about the insecurity in her voice. She stepped forward, her hand already dipping into the salve.

“It would be easier if you lied down, Mr…” realizing she didn’t know his name, she trailed off.

“Gray.” He immediately responded. “It’s hurts quite a bit when I lie down. You can’t do it with me like this?”

She hesitated before turning back to the man. He immediately shook his head when she translated and pointed at the bed aggressively.

“I’m afraid not. The medicine works best when lying down.”

Michael needed for this to be over as soon as possible so he began the process of slowly laying back into the dingy bed. It squeaked dramatically when he did so. The girl stepped forward and placed a warm hand under his back, as if to let him down softly.

As soon as he was set, she set the bowl right by his stomach and slowly rubbed her hands together. The man came to stand behind her and having the both of them looking down on him with such concentration made Michael ten levels of uncomfortable and awkward.

The man said something to her, his voice lower and the girl placed her hands right over the bandages wrapped over his lower abdomen.  

The touch immediately made him erupt in dull pain but he closed his eyes and breathed slowly.

The pain had decreased progressively the first couple of days but it had then quickly plateaued and remained the same. The doctors, whom at first were optimistic for him, had begun to look grimmer and grimmer. He’d heard them telling Polly that the speed of his healing had slowed down quite a bit and that their worry was this could lead to infection. Of the serious kind. He’d been given a round of antibiotics twice already because his wounds were starting to look funny.

The girls hands disappeared for a little bit but he quickly heard the metal sliding of scissors and she quickly cut his gauze open.

Michael grit his teeth as she peeled it off but welcomed the cool air that hit his moist skin.

Her hands came back, softly touching the area around the stitching.

Michael refused to open his eyes.

Then, she rubbed a cool paste onto his abdomen, all the way up to his stomach. She began to chant something softly, so quietly he wasn’t sure of it at first, if she was saying anything at all.

The man wasn’t satisfied and immediately began firing his demands at her, so close to her from the back that she looked like she’d sprouted a second head and neck.

Her hands hesitated on his wounds but Michael didn’t open his eyes. He felt nervous.

As soon as her hands began to press harder, Michael guessing at the demand of her teacher, his lower body tightened with painful tension.

He felt he could handle it if she kept the pressure the same but the words were leaving her teacher more insistently and Michael knew what was next.

He didn’t know a lot about healing but he somehow guessed that before you felt better, there had to be some level of unbearable agony.

So he held on, his hands fisting on either side of his body, the light from the candlelight feeling strong. Or maybe it was just the heat of his body, generated by his pain. Stifling, overwhelming.

He’d been having nightmares of that day. He’d been left alone for the first time a week after John had died. That was when he’d gotten the courage to look at himself in the mirror. He hadn’t been sure what he’d see staring back at him but the purple bruises under his eye, the war wounds he’d been left with after he’d lost every battle with his insomnia at night, were like finally seeing an old friend for the first time.

The urgent panicked care his mother was giving him, that was another pain. A different kind of pain.

The way she’d grip his hands when she thought he’d fallen asleep the first couple of times he’d come to visit her. The truth was, he’d pretended to be unconscious for a bit longer than he truly was due to his injuries, just because he wasn’t sure he could handle Polly’s fierce protectiveness. Her fierce over-compensation.

All those forms of pain, they were worse than the one he was feeling now.

So he ignored the words of the man and instead focused on the feeling of the girl’s hands, the instances where she refused to press as hard as he was sure that her teacher was insisting.

Her fingers, they tensed in the way hands often did when they tried to pretend they were stressing them as much as they could be but in reality, were holding deeply back.

She’d run her hands over him a few times when the teacher snapped and Michael knew she had been pushed because her hands came down so hard on him, so roughly and crudely, he had to scream.

His eyes burst open for only a moment, barely able to catch sight of her face near his, surprised and stressed, her hands burning into him, before he lost consciousness.

[bibibiyu]

The Night Train - Part 2

Lilian Turner, a horror novelist, wakes up one stormy night to find a bleeding man in her train compartment. Thomas Shelby is on the run.

PART 1

My head pivoted from him, to the door and back. He sprang for his coat, digging in the inside pockets. He pulled out a gun and I felt my eyes bulging.

We heard the click of the door being unlocked.

I couldn't think of anything but the gun and its purpose.

It must have driven me to temporary insanity because as the door swung open, I lunged at him, landing in his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and devouring his mouth with my own.

I felt the momentary shock that paralyzed him, before he brought his hands up to my back, as if to unbutton my dress. His mouth began to move against mine as the attendant swung the door open.

We both turned our heads towards the door but my shoulders somewhat blocked his face from view.

It was the attendant and he sprung back, as if shocked by a lightning rod, when he saw us and what we were doing. I met his eye, looking as confused as I could muster in spite of the embarrassment that was eating me up.

“I’m so sorry, Ms.Turner.” the attendant said, turning his back to us.

I didn't move off of Thomas, speaking to the back of the attendant’s head

“Oh dear. How embarrassing.” It truly was. “Is there something wrong?”

“Another passenger said he heard commotion in this compartment and with the news of the man on the loose, I was instructed to make sure everything was alright with you. My sincerest apologies.”

The back of his neck was scarlet red. I avoided turning to Thomas, even at the mention of the man on the loose, feeling his quiet and even breath against my neck.

“I’m quite alright.” I paused, unsure of what else to say. “I … thank you so much for checking in.”

“Of course, Ms. Turner. My apologies, again. Have a good night.” He closed the compartment door as swiftly as possible and was gone.

I let out a heavy breath, eyes rolling towards the ceiling. What was wrong with me? What was I doing?

I felt him shift underneath me, as if in pain, and I immediately got off of him.

“Are you the man on the run?”

He re-adjusted himself, looking unperturbed. But I saw that my lipstick had stained his lips, part of his chin, and the area around his mouth a dark maroon.

And in that moment, I really couldn't help it. The panic, mixed in with the trepidation and discomfort. I laughed. I bent over my knees, in my seat, placing my face in my hands and laughed.

“He could come back.”

“I doubt he’d want to catch another glimpse of the atrocity he just witnessed.” I leaned back, plopping my hands into my lap. “Poor boy.”

And we were silent again, but this time, looking at each other.

I’d just kissed this man. Not knowing his name, where he was from, or who he was running from.

As if reading my mind, “Ms. Turner?” he asked.

“Lilian.” I responded. I remembered the gun. My eyes instinctively went to it and his followed mine.

He grabbed it, weighing it in his hand, before putting it back In the inner pocket of his coat.

“I saved you,” I quietly voiced my thoughts. “I don't know from what. Or why.”

He was a little tense, but as if hiding it, as if attempting to sense where I was going next.

I pushed my shoulders back, serious. “I’d like to know your name.”

He waited a moment before saying “Thomas Shelby.”

The name didn’t mean anything to me but the fact that he had withheld it said something. And that he was now telling me said something else.

I opened my mouth again but he spoke first, “The rest isn’t as important.”

So I didn’t ask any more questions. But how hard it was.

I handed him my own handkerchief, for him to wipe off my lipstick. He took it and removed most of it but some of it remained on the corner of his mouth.

“You still have some right here,” I smiled, pointing at the corner of my own mouth.

He tried again, a swiping motion, but he missed once more. I took the handkerchief from his hand and removed it myself.

“There,” I began to sit back when his hand caught my wrist. I looked down at him, my mind flashing with thoughts of the worst.

But he only held me there, running his eyes over my face.

I waited, not saying anything.

He was searching. And it seemed, not finding what he was looking for.

“Are you married?”

I raised my eyebrows at the question, involuntarily. “No.”

Still holding my hand to him. “Good.”

His hand moved from my wrist to my face, cupping my cheek in the area where neck and jaw joined.

My breath hitched but I was trapped, suspended. Waiting.

His other hand grabbed my waist and brought me closer. My legs bumped into his knees but he kept pulling, bringing me back into his lap.

I finally had to say something “Wha-“

Before I could finish, he kissed me again. I didn't object at the feeling of his mouth or his wet trousers on my legs.

His hands moved up into my chiffon, unpinning it. My hair fell onto my shoulders.

He reached to the back of my dress, feeling for the buttons. When he found them, he clicked them open and a cool breeze travelled down my spine.

He was gentle, inquisitive. But sure. No hesitation.

I let him, feeling a subdued urgency in his body, tasting it in his mouth. As if unconsciously telling me one thing: he needed this.

When my dress was at his feet, he stopped to look at me. I didn’t squirm, not this time.

His left hand moved from my back to my collarbone, feeling the soft skin there. He looked entranced.

“Grace,” he said so softly, I barely heard it. For a moment I was confused, thinking he wanted me to say grace. But then, like a violent waking up, I felt my stomach churn.

His wife?

I stiffened, guilt raking me. A spark of anger beneath it as well.

“Thomas,” I said quietly, bringing my hands up to his shoulders. He was still holding me tight with his other arm and I pushed against him softly, trying to move off him.

He looked up at my face suddenly, his eyes seeing but I avoided his gaze. I managed to get one leg on the floor but his arm was still tight.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head and pushed at his arm again. “This isn’t a good idea.”

He looked about to argue but he loosened his arm and I reached for my dress, pulling it over me as fast as I could. I sat across from him again, this time truly feeling like I could never direct a word to him again. Wanting to, never again.

How terrible this night had been. I should have never boarded the train. I would have never boarded this train if I had known this was going to happen.

“I ruined your night,” he stated simply, again, seeing into my mind.

Still not looking up, arms crossed over my stomach, “Grace.”

He didn’t move or make an attempt to explain.

I also didn't know how to explain my thoughts or what I felt regarding this turn of events. So all I said was, “I’m not Grace.”

He continued on in his silence and I, exhausted, decided I needed to sleep.

“What a nightmare,” I said, without thinking, barely audible.

Somehow though, he’d heard it. “No. This isn’t.”

Moving my stuff off of my seat I looked up at him. His face saying that I knew nothing about nightmares. Challenging me. Any other day, I would have asked what his face meant. What his words were trying to tell me. But not tonight. I’d had enough of games.

Growing angrier, I resolved to go to sleep. “I’m exhausted. You have a good night, Mr. Shelby.”

So I turned in my long booth-like seat, lying down and facing the compartment wall. I didn't fall asleep for another half hour but in that half hour, I steadfastly refused to turn and see what Thomas was doing. Even though now I can admit there was nothing more that I had wanted to do than that.

When I woke in the morning, the train at the station, he was gone.

A note. A sheet of paper ripped from my notebook, trapped in the windowsill, folded in half.

I plucked it and saw my name written.

Inside it read:

Ms. Turner,

You made me believe, last night.

It was real.

For saving me, making me a character in your story:

Thank you,

Tommy

And it was true. Looking back on it now, years later, even though I never saw Tommy Shelby again and never knew what he was running from, he told me a lot in those moments he let me into his world. In those moments that our mouths had met. In the spaces between the words he had left me. I know for a fact, he was my greatest story.

[bibibiyu]

The Night Train - Part 1

Lilian Turner, a horror novelist, wakes up one stormy night to find a bleeding man in her train compartment. Thomas Shelby is on the run. 

PART 2

When I opened my eyes, Thomas Shelby was there, staring at me. Seated across from me in my train compartment, hair stuck to his forehead, clothes dark from the wetness the rain had harassed him with.

At the time, of course, I didn't know his name was Thomas Shelby. All I knew was a man was watching me as I tried to keep myself from dozing away.

I was on my way to the coasts of Russia, meaning to visit the family of a friend who I was told would be more than willing to give me room and board.

It was night and the combination of the sound of the raindrops on my window and the move of the train against the tracks was so soothing, I was easily forgetting all about what I’d been meant to write that night.

I’d been having trouble sleeping, my inability to write haunting me. Debilitating.

My publisher had recommended I take a trip to Europe. Russia’s snowy coasts had coaxed some of his favorite writer’s into relaxation. Many even into inspiration. The kind that often bred masterpieces.

I was waiting for mine.

When I opened my eyes, I didn't know then, but I had found it.

I stared at him silently, for a moment so utterly shocked a man was in my compartment that the words (as they had the habit of doing these days) left me.

But even then, somehow, I wasn't afraid. I reflect on this often, unsure of what it means. I didn't question it then but it’s remarkable to me even now. Thomas Shelby had surprised me, but no, not scared me.

He stared at me evenly, not uncomfortable by my gaze.

The silence was thick, I unaware of who should break it first. The longer time went on, the more I realized this man didn’t mean to shake it. 

He pulled out a cigarette case from the inside of his coat pocket and lit one with a lighter he confiscated from his pants pocket.

My mind, in spite of its prior sleepy sluggishness, was already moving fast. I was sure I’d booked the compartment for myself only. None of the attendants had said anything about anybody else joining me. There were few that had boarded the train at midnight, as I had. I’d thought I’d seen them all. And we hadn’t stopped at any station yet.

Where had he come from?

The click of the lighter as it opened and closed was subdued by the rain. But it, like a grandfather clock, kept the time.

I shifted in my seat, neck aching from the awkward angle I’d had it in. His eyes flashed to me and that was when I decided that I didn't want to say anything and wasn’t going to.

The smell of his cigarette had already dispersed through the whole train compartment.

I placed my hands in my lap, debating whether to reach for my book and read. That could keep my mind preoccupied.

A flash of lightning illuminated the window we were seated against and with its light, I saw a gash at the top of his head. Seconds later, thunder cracked so loudly, I felt it flutter in my chest.

The shock of the lightning and thunder must have ignited something in me because before I knew it, I had asked, “Are you alright, sir?”

The strange man, as I’d thought of him by then, remained still, eyes on me.

A quick flash of thought through my mind; could he not hear me?

Suddenly, he was up and opening the train compartment door, peeking from one end of the hall to the other.

I’d sat up, trying to discern what was going on but without moving much for fear he’d be spooked by me.

He was listening for  any movement coming from the hallways, concentrated. When it seemed nothing was there, he slid the door closed again and locked it.

This was when I began to get nervous.

“Sir, are you alright?”

He turned back to me then and viewed me as if he’d forgotten about me and was just remembered.

The cigarette was still in his hand and he brought it up to his lips again.

“Never been better,” a gruff voice, as if released from deep below.

He sat back down and I watched him, this time not worrying about him noting me doing so.

I eyed the gash on top of his head then looked at him again, noticing his noticing.

“Are you hurt?”

He took another draw from his cigarette, slowly untensing his body and leaning his head back against the seat, lost in his thoughts, eyeing the compartment ceiling.

He was as unresponsive as a corpse. So, I , glancing one more time at the locked compartment door, decided it best to do what I had wanted do since the man had made me uncomfortable, and reached for my book and notebook. I opened the notebook and flipped to my notes from earlier in the day. I pretended to read them after my mind refused to register the words, my eyes having run over them four times already with no luck.  

I couldn’t stop thinking about his wound. I was sure I had some disinfectant ointment and gauze in my bag. I was a clumsy person and travel could be tough. I believed in preparation. And tonight, this belief hadn’t failed me.

 I put my books aside and stood up, turning my back to him to reach for the overhead compartments over my seat. I found my bag and inside of it, what I was looking for.

His eyes were already on me, when I explained, “I have gauze and ointment for your wound. I can help you, if you’d like.”

A look came over him briefly, lingering long enough for me to notice it but not long enough for me to decipher it before he hid it.

“Are you a doctor?”

This was a little surprising. No one had thought I was a doctor before. A nurse? Always.

“Not at all. Just prepared.”

He shook his head, “I’m alright.” He pulled a handkerchief from his inside pocket and wiped at his head, missing. I stepped forward to show him where it was but his body jerked and he held up a hand.

Was he … afraid of me? That was… odd.

Embarrassed and feeling my face growing warm, I turned away.

I put the things back in the bag and sat back down, avoiding his gaze as calmly as I could.

I was already filling with dread at the thought that the train ride was to consist of such awkward silence, a torture, when he spoke again.

This time his tone was different enough that I noticed it. “Are you from New York?”

I shifted in my seat, “No, I’m from Texas.”

He was pocketing his handkerchief. “I’ve heard of it…. lots of land. Rich.”

His tone was awkward. As if small talk were a foreign language.

“Yes.” I said. “And beautiful.”

“Better than New York?”

“Oh definitely. New York is cramped, dirty, poor. A tough place for tough people. Texas is… it’s open. It’s honest. And…” I couldn't find the right word.

“Wild.”

“Yes! Wild.”

He was lighting another cigarette.

“And you… are from London?”

“Birmingham.”

“We have a Birmingham as well. Alabama.”

He nodded, taking a draw. “I’ve heard.”

“Have you ever been to America?”

“Yes.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I was there on business.”

I nodded, acknowledging what he’d said while debating whether it was polite to ask what kind of business.

“Are you a writer?”

The question threw me off guard. Being a woman, no one hardly assumed i was anything other than alive. And barely. But I suppose he’d shown a knack for a different kind of thinking, considering he’d asked if I was a doctor.

“How did you know?”

He motioned at my notebook with his head, “looks handwritten.”

“People write in journals all the time.”

“Not like that.”

The notebook was worn, pages loose, stuffed with additional ones with scribbles all over them.

“What do you write about?”

“Nothing scholarly.”

“Good.” He leaned forward in his seat to place the cigarette in the holder, reaching back to remove his soaked coat. “I’m not much of a scholar.”

He threw the coat onto the seat next to him and leaned back, his white shirt sticking to him.

I couldn’t help but note this, the see-through state of it revealing a dark circular shadow on the left side of his chest. A tattoo?

He saw me staring, picking up his cigarette again.

I swallowed, suddenly remembering the situation he had put me in. My eyes involuntarily flashed to the locked compartment door.

“Have I made you uncomfortable?”

Such a strange question, even after it all. Especially after the fact that I had, at one point throughout this whole ordeal, been sure I had, him.

“I …” my hesitation was unfamiliar and increasingly embarrassing. “Not at all Mr….”

I could have sworn a smirk briefly outlined his lips, behind his cigarette. He didn’t respond.

My mouth somehow, kept on moving. “Your clothes are drenched. You’ll catch a cold.”

Why I cared, I had no idea.

“Would you like me to remove them?”

I froze. The depth of my stomach suddenly felt turbulent, wiry, anxious beyond reason. My face felt warm again and my breath hitched. My mind was in a panic. 

I’m embarrassed to admit, that my mouth was probably slightly open, suspended in shock.

I was taking too long to respond, unable to form a sentence despite my affinity for words. No one had ever done this to me before.

This man. This wet bleeding man. Smoking his cigarettes. Even now, as I write this, I feel the words alive in ways I never thought they could be. In particular ways they’d never shined on a page before.

Mr. Noname had redefined all of it in a matter of minutes. My relationship to strangers, to my body, to my words.

That is what I meant by a masterpiece. A great story can change your whole point of view, the way you relate to yourself.

Thomas Shelby had done this to me. Within minutes.

I swallowed, and forced my throat to produce sound. “If that’s how you’d feel the most comfortable, I cant object.”

I, of course, wished to object but if he was truly on the brink of sickness, it didn’t really matter what I wanted. At the same time, I had truly doubted, as I said that, that he would go through with his suggestion.

But he began to unbutton his shirt, pushing his suspenders off of his shoulders.  I wanted to turn away but in a moment of resolve, I refused. I’d had enough timidity for a day. Or night. Or, at least, looking timid.

The shirt peeled off of him heavily and he hung it over the windowsill, trapping the shirt collar under the tightly sealed window pane.

I was worried he’d take off his pants as well but he stopped there, sitting with his knees widely apart.

As if unconsciously horrified, I brought my own knees more tightly together.

“What sorts of writing do you do?”

I still had my notebook open in my hands. I looked down at it, as if it were an alien object.

I cleared my throat. “I’m a horror novelist.”

He nodded, mulling it over. The skin over his abdomen was taut, somewhat scarred. What I had assumed was a tattoo through its blurry outline, definitely was a tattoo. It looked like a sun, with radiant rays. But in dark ink.

“A horror novelist.” He repeated.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

I really was, at that time. I’d been obsessed with anything supernatural, macabre, mysterious. Not only because it brought some sort of drama and excitement to my dull life but because there was truth in horror. So much more than in regular old fiction. There was a lot you could learn about a person from what they feared. And everyone feared something.

“You make up stories?” he asked.

“Yes. But I gather inspiration from daily life.”

“Lots of horror there.”

He sounded cheeky. A thoroughly subdued and subtle cheeky. I thought it over briefly. “Yes, there is.”

“For others more than for you, no?”

I paused. “Everyone has their insecurities. Their fears.”

“Some people’s seem more real.”

“Well, that's hard to discern.”

“How?”

“Well, we can’t ever truly know what the other is feeling. Experiencing. Therefore, we can’t truly  judge it and determine if it’s more real or not. It’s real for them and for every individual.”

“What about nightmares?”

“....what about them?”

“Are those real?”

“In what sense?”

He paused to re-light his cigarette. By God, he was going through them, puffing along like a chimney.

“Are nightmares real?” He repeated.

I didn't understand his question. “Well, they're real in that they occur. But if you’re asking about  the content of your nightmares, th-“

“Are they real if they happen when you’re not asleep?”

I watched him then, his detached look. Amused? No. Jesting? No.

Serious.

“Are those not hallucinations?” I asked, carefully. His stare was so unbroken, so concentrated, I was again unsure of what was transpiring.

After a long moment of that, suspended, he looked away, out his window where there was only pitch blackness. 

I too, watched. But I watched him.

There was knock on the compartment door and we both turned to it sharply.

The talking must have woken someone up. My eyes involuntarily ran over his naked upper body and I began to panic once again. His eyes met mine and he also seemed to be debating his current situation.

I could open the door wide enough so that it was only me that was seen. I could block him from view.

I looked at him again, re evaluating his wound. How I’d woken up to him watching me. How he refused to tell me his name. How he’d locked the door. How he was a complete stranger.

Somehow, he seemed to catch this running through my mind, by the look in my eye.

He moved suddenly, grasping me by the arms. I almost gasped in surprise but he put his face close to mine.

“I’m not here.” He said evenly.

What had missed me when I first woke up to the sight of him, hit me now. This man couldn’t be safe. He couldn’t be stable.

He must have seen the panic in my eyes because he loosened his grip and sat back a little, but still close enough that I could see the blue of his eyes, clearly, like the depths of concentrated coral reefs.

There was another knock. This time someone called, “Ms. Turner?”

“Who are you?” I asked the stranger before me, my voice trembling.

“I'm not going to hurt you.”

I was silent and this seemed to worry him more.

“I would have already done it.”

This was true and I registered it, but only beneath the growing unease his reaction to the knock on the door had caused.

“I only boarded this train because some people are after me. Bad people. As soon as it stations, you’ll never see me again.”

Another knock.

I was calculating, dissecting his face. Beneath his stoicism, practiced, I could sense fear.

And that fear, it could only reveal and confirm truth.

I took a breath. “Alright I’l-“

We heard as a key was being inserted into the lock.

[bibibiyu]

Mia Chapter 6: Choices

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Tommy called Curly into the stable and he came running, still clutching the shovel in his hand.

“Yes, Tommy!” His enthusiasm bursting through the smile on the lower half of his face.

Mia knew now. The intonation of his voice, they way every thought and emotion was exposed on his face. He was a slow man, a child.

“Curly, I need a saddle.” Tommy asked, the tone in his voice already different. Softer. Maybe not warmer but definitely not as distrustful or mechanical as it tended to sound with everyone else.

This was a man Tommy cared about, Mia thought to herself.

But Curly, slack-jawed, was watching Mia still running her hand all over the horse’s crest and back.

“Tommy, she got the old yellow to come alive?” The excitement in his voice became even more loud.

“Curly,” Tommy repeated. “I need a saddle.”

“Are you going to let her choose that one?” Curly stepped toward her quickly. “He’s a sad one, ever since we had to lock him in because of all the wolves and foxes out in the fields these days. Joseph, from on down the road warned us. He lost two of his best mares to them wolves last month.”

Mia only nodded, eyes flicking towards Tommy. The annoyance wasn’t showing in his face, but his stance was starting to become tense with it.

“Curly,” Tommy grabbed the man’s arm and took the shovel away from him. “I need a saddle.”

“Is she going to ride him?” Curly asked quietly, smiling, not even aware that Tommy was irritably demanding something.

“Yes,” Tommy emphasized. “But we need a saddle so she doesn’t fall off.”

“Right, right.” Curly nodded, trying to look more serious. Mia felt a smile pulling at her lips but she knocked it off.

“Can you get me one?” Tommy asked again.

“Right, right. Yes, Tommy!” Curly sped out of the stable, disappearing.

It took him less than a minute to come speeding back in. He handed it to Tommy and Mia thought Tommy looked funny in his suit, holding the saddle. Curly came up to Mia, reaching for the slides on the stall door.

He swung the door open, stepping inside to guide the horse out into the larger stable. It stepped out gracefully and as Curly passed by Mia, who had moved aside to make room for both Curly and the horse, he whispered to her, “This one’s a wild one.”

Mia thought as much.

Curly took the saddle back from Tommy and swung it over the horse’s back, freezing to observe the horse’s response, before quickly continuing once he saw it wasn’t going to react in any type of way. As soon as he’d secured the saddle, he went to find the stirrups.

“We don’t put reins on this one, haven’t managed to since Tommy got it from the gypsy woman.”

“I hope you’re strong,” Curly added, eyes quickly flashing to Mia again before focusing back in on the horse. “Or else Tommy’s going to have to ride with you. It’s a good sign the yellow one chose you.”

Curly led the horse out of the stable, one hand on its neck.

Tommy followed behind closely.

Mia hesitated, mind fixated on the fact that, like Curly had said, the yellow one had chosen her. This gave her a heat, a warmness, in her chest.

It was that sort of thing, that feeling that comes over when one is told they’re special. Particularly when one’s life, like Mia’s, has been replete with statements and actions denoting the opposite. To be chosen by a horse, the only kind of creature on the planet that as of that point in her life Mia had come to understand and appreciate, it clouded the rest of the afternoon’s experience with a light air. A careful and somehow still and full, happiness.

Once outside, the sky looking extra overcast, a soft drizzle began sticking to Mia’s cheeks. Tommy and Curly had their caps to shield them from it, meanwhile her eyelashes were already catching specks of rain at the tips. She had to keep blinking to get rid of the bubbles in view.

“Good day, eh?” Curly said to the horse, who was looking and standing quite attentive, seemingly surprised it had been let out. “Get to leave your stable. But don’t get used to it. We have a visitor today, is all. Her name is…” he turned to her quickly.

“Mia,” she said, this time letting herself smile. Curly was funny. 

“Right, Mia.” Curly chuckled, seeming to remember she’d introduced herself earlier.

Tommy was looking up at the sky, “It’s gonna rain. Let’s fit her today and tomorrow we can do the rest.”

“Yes, Tommy.” Curly smiled at Mia and gestured her over.

“Those stirrups look too long,Curly. You don’t have any others?”

“No, all of them are this length.” Curly immediately responded.

Tommy was thinking. “She’s already too small for these, just looking at them.”

“I can ride bareback,” Mia offered, seeing as how that was how she had learned. 

“Not with this one,” Tommy responded. He walked off into the stable, leaving her with Curly.

Which was fine with her, she liked him. She neared him and the horse.

“What’s his name? Yellow?” Mia asked, hooking her right arm under the horse’s long neck, giving it a one armed hug, placing her cheek against it. It’s mane was long, the coarseness of it scratching at her soft skin.

“Oh, Tommy hasn’t named this one.” Curly shook his head. “I call him Old Yellow.”

“Is he old?” She asked.

“Oh no, not really. He just acts kind of old, especially when he’s inside the stables. Tired. Quiet.”

Mia nodded, eyes flicking towards the stable doors. Tommy wasn’t coming back yet.

“Tommy is great at riding horses.” Curly added. “He’ll teach you how to ride them amazing.”

“Tommy races horses?” She asked quietly.

“Yes and they always win.” He paused. “Except when he wants them to lose.”

Of course.

“Tommy is a good man. The best. He brought me to London.”

“Where are you from?”

“Small Heath.” A swell of pride painted his voice. “Where are you from?”

Mia thought about it. “I’m from here.” There was no better answer than that.

“Yes, you look like you’re from here.” He nodded.

A first time for everything.

“Really?” She smirked. “Everyone tells me the opposite.”

“Yes, you look like you belong here.”

“Thank you, Curly.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tommy came back empty-handed. “Curly, we’ll just have to prop her up.”

Curly immediately nodded and Mia let go of the horse. He stepped in between them and bent so he was crouching, lacing his hands for her to step on.

She looked down at her boots, noting how muddy they were, and paused.

“Go on,” Curly said. “I don't mind a little mud.”

She placed both hands on the horse’s back, spreading them far enough so as to use the span of her arms in bracing herself, and with as much momentum as she could attain from forcefully throwing herself up and forwards, attempting not step down too hard on Curly’s hands, she tried pushing herself onto Old Yellow.

For a moment, it seemed to work but because of the weather, the horse’s back was slippery with a light layer of rain water and Mia’s arms lost their locked steadiness. Scarily, for a moment, she started falling back and down again but then she felt two hands come around her waist, pushing her up again, holding her there long enough for her to swing her right leg over the horse.

She did easily enough with that boost and then there she was, on top of the horse.

Tommy, stepped back, running his eyes over the whole picture that was Mia on Old Yellow.

And Mia was smiling, she couldn’t help it.

She dug her hands into Old Yellow’s blonde mane before running her hands down it's warm flanks. The horse responded to this by shaking its mane out, and walking forward a little.

Once Curly had stepped back to stand next to Tommy, looking extremely concentrated, as if bracing himself for danger, Mia edged the horse, by the mane, to the left so it was facing Curly and Tommy and not the stable door it had come out of.

It responded easily enough, shifting onto its back legs while it gave a couple of steps with its two front legs, as if testing them out, before standing still.

Curly smiled.

“Looks like you’ve been chosen,” Tommy said.

 ….

Mia got back to the house early enough, feeling like her heart was racing. She had barely gotten through the front door before Peter had rushed her back into the closed off dining room to finish cleaning and organizing the silverware. 

Mia had stayed there until it was time for bed, for once not even minding how endless the stream of silverware and china was. Her mind was too busy replaying the day’s events, so much so that when the sun had set, without Mia’s knowledge, Mrs. Penny had had to pop in to say that everyone else had finished cleaning up and it was time for bed.

It wasn’t until she’d been lying down in bed for thirty minutes, Harriet already snoring next to her, that she realized she was hungry and hadn’t ate anything since noon.

She sat up and the creaking of her bed woke Harriet up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m hungry. I’m gonna go to the kitchen.”

This caught Harriet’s attention. By the time Mia had come up to their room, Harriet had already been asleep so Mia hadn’t even had time to explain any of what had gone on that day.

They both made their way into the kitchen, not daring to turn on any of the lights. The street lights shining in through the windows halfway illuminated the kitchen anyway.

“Where did you go?” Harriet immediately asked, sitting down at the wooden counter.

Mia pulled the bread out from its usual spot and began slowly lifting pot lids to see what had been left over from dinner.

“You remember that man I told you about? The one that brought me back here that other night?” Mia had found potato soup.

She sat across from Harriet, chewing on the piece of bread she’d cut herself.

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s working for Madam.”

“Oh wow.”

Mia nodded, taking in a spoonful.

“And what does that have to do with you?”

“Yesterday when I was called in to speak to Madam, he was there. Madam and him have some sort of deal.”

Harriet’s shock resided in her eyebrows. It always found them cozy. “What kind of deal?”

“I don't know. But it involves horses.” Mia took another bite of her bread. “One horse.”

And as she told her the rest, Harriet didn’t interrupt not once, which Mia noted quickly enough and appreciated. Oftentimes, when Mia tried to tell Lena and her any sort of gossip or news, she’d be interrupted so much that they’d forgot why they were even gathered all around whispering in the first place.

As Mia was nearing the end of her day’s summary, they both heard a sort of muted clang from inside one of the pantry doors.

They both froze, panicked.

Harriet eyed Mia and Mia eyed her.

Mia had already been standing, in the middle of depositing her now-empty bowl of soup in the sink. With Harriet’s eyes begging her to, Mia took a step towards the door, and Lena came barreling out of the pantry.

Mia held her back her gasp and closed her eyes, her hands coming to her chest.

 Harriet had let out a squeak followed by an exaggeratedly annoyed sigh.

 “Lena, what on earth?”

 “What are you two doing?” Lena’s voice was halfway muffled because she was chewing on something.

 “Mia was hungry.” Harriet was squinting at Lena, trying to figure out what she was eating. “What are you chewing on?”

 Lena froze, then smirked. “Peach tart.”

 “Didn’t your mom say to stay away from those?”

 “She set some aside for me. And you two. She always does.” Lena rounded the counter to sit on Harriet’s side.

 Mia sat back down.

 “Except, she says I can only have one every other day.” Lena continued. “And I’m not rather fond of that rule.”

 “They’re gonna have to re-adjust your dresses again if you keep at it.”

 Lena ignored Harriet, taking another bite of a peach tart she quickly brandished from inside the pocket of the sweater she’d draped over her nightgown.

 “What were you talking about?”

 Harriet and Mia exchanged a glance and Lena pretended not to see it.

She waited so Mia told her what she’d learned about that day, leaving out what had happened to her the other night.

When she was done, Lena asked, “what’s his name?”

“Well, his name is Thomas Shelby a-“

“THOMAS SHELBY?!” If a whisper could be loud, it was Lena’s. Her face was contorted in a mixture of awe and horror.

She put her tin of water down on the wooden table and Harriet and Mia could see the thoughts running through her blonde head.

“I take it you’ve heard of him,” Harriet rolled her eyes. Her and Lena had a rocky relationship. They were always arguing. Lena’s enthusiasm was tiring to Harriet. She also thought Lena daydreamed too much. But at the end of the day, they were still best of friends in their own weird way.

Mia knew because Harriet told her all of this.

“All of London has.” Lena leaned forward, her nightgown slipping down dangerously but she didn’t pay it any mind. Her white bosom was blinding, even in candlelight.

Mia eyed it warily. Mia hardly had a chest, very much less like Lena’s, who often had to have her dresses pulled out at the top.

Mia often had to have her skirts enhanced though.

“Madam said something like that. About how he’s very tale-“

“He’s a gangster.” Lena added, clasping her hands in front of her. “From Birmingham. His gang is the Peaky Blinders. Lads that sew razors to the peaks of their caps and blind anyone who gets in their way.”

As if she’d been pinched, Lena suddenly went quiet and Harriet and Mia watched her carefully.

Just as suddenly, Lena looked up at them, eyes wide, “My mom can’t know about this. That the house has these sorts of relations. She’d pull me out in a second.”

Mia could see that happening. She’d never see Lena again. And that would make her very sad, no matter how Mrs. Penny felt about her.

Mia, for one, when thinking fully on the man that was Thomas Shelby, truly examining his character, trying to decipher it in terms of what she’d come to know of him, was utterly confused.  

She’d been deathly afraid of him and now that terror had somehow become a cool apprehension. The truth was, she didn’t know him all too well.

She thought back to the way he’d spoken to Curly, a cautious patient voice.

She’d heard about gangsters in the stories Harriet liked to tell but in those stories, the men were brutal, cruel. Monsters.

They didn’t own horses or bring simple-minded men with them to London.  

Curly seemed to think Thomas Shelby was the greatest man alive.

They were quiet, as if all meditating on this reality.

Then Lena said, “Is he handsome?”

[bibibiyu]

Mia Chapter 5 - Yellow

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4  Part 6

She’d been waiting for half an hour, her cold chin in her right palm, elbow set on her knee, the steps that led up to the back doorway still moist on her butt from the early morning dew.

Peter had told her not to leave the foyer, on Madam’s orders but everyone had been running around the house like chickens without their heads for a week now that she didn’t think they’d notice she wasn’t there.

Mia had become so disinterested in the house’s mediocre happenings as of late.

No, that wasn’t the truth.

She’d been too busy trying to predict her future.

Peter had sent Harriet that morning to tell her that Mr. Shelby was supposed to pick her up at around noon. She had to wear her riding boots and a coat.  

Harriet had watched her with quiet curiosity after imparting the news and Mia was surprised that she hadn’t already demanded all of the details.

She’d have to tell Harriet all of it later.

After the first fifteen minutes of waiting, her nerves had eased.

What could he really do? There was a deal in the mix. He had to follow Madam’s orders, just like she did.

It was to his benefit.

He was still an awkward person to be around, nonetheless. She was wary but there was no going around it.  

Up late the night before, Mia had been asked to polish all of the silverware. Loads, she figured the house was hosting an event. Judging by the silverware, important people would be attending. For what? She didn’t know. Soon, was all she could gather.

Harriet and Lena had been washing linen and Mrs. Polly had been doing an inventory of all of their kitchenware, to see if there were any practicalities, any weakness, any flaw.

So, in the dark unmolested dining room, Mia had sat at the table and worked at each spoon and fork and butter knife with a clean damp rag.

She’d finished the first half at midnight, her elbows raw from leaning against the table, and had gone straight up to bed, not bothering to remove more than her shoes. Harriet had been asleep by then.

She’d fallen asleep fast and had begun to dream of that fat kid, the one that had called her a gypsy. She couldn’t help but find it disturbing how he was one of the only things her mind could always remember with extreme clarity. 

In her dreams, he’d be standing next to her, hovering, watching her make chicken soup, with Peter’s cane in his right hand. He’d be jabbing it at her side, criticizing every move she made. No, not enough water. No, not enough salt. No, not enough hea-

Behind her, a throat cleared.

She spun her head quickly and was met with dark pant legs. She looked up, the cap hovering over blue eyes, shrouding them in partial shadow, all the indication she needed.

She stood up quickly, running her hands over the front of her coat, patting it down. Her foot slipped on the moist concrete and she felt herself leaning backwards off the steps but she righted herself quickly.

“Mr. Shelby,” she said, hardly hearing her voice in her own ears.

“The car is out front,” he said and her mind, for a brief tenth of a second, flashed to the car from the night of her kidnapping.

That hadn’t been his car.

She didn’t even mention how madam had asked him not to park out front. Maybe it was his way of rebelling. He didn’t seem like the type of man to care much about what anyone had to say.

She stepped forward but he walked past her, down the stairs and into the garden. She followed him through it and around the house to the front.

There was no one out on the street yet since it was lunchtime. Mia knew this because her stomach was rumbling. She’d ate that morning but her body tended to digest fast. 

He hopped into the car quickly and she got into the other side, closing the door behind her.

Her skirt got stuck in the door and she watched it, unsure of what to do about it but she was partially relieved the dilemma was keeping her eyes away from him.

He began driving and as he drove, he didn’t speak.

Mia also found this relieving at first but after ten minutes or so had progressed, she started feeling incredibly stiff.

Her breathing felt loud, annoying. Every squeak of her leather boots made her internally cringe.

He was driving fast, the roads flashing by quickly. People were disappearing from the scenery, the buildings of London regressing in size and quality.

The roads then turned unpaved and the car began to lurch around, like it was being shaken. He seemed unperturbed, his hands steady on the wheel and his sight forward.

She adjusted in her seat and placed her hands in her lap, clasping them tightly. She couldn’t move much for fear her skirt would tear. She gritted her teeth, unknowingly.

They were in the countryside now, the crusts of the road leading onto grass, shrubbery and far-off wood.

The last time she’d seen the outskirts of London was when she’d first been brought to it, three years prior. It had felt completely unfamiliar then, alien.

The way the land was, it had felt like a piece of a different puzzle. This was when she had begun to think, perhaps imagine, that she was from an arid land, a dry land full of cacti and lizards and dirt. She’d heard about that kind of place from Peter, who called it barbaric.

Maybe that’s why she loved it so much.

But looking at the green go by, a feeling came over and like tended to happen to her, flashes of images flashed through her mind, like pages in a book flipping violently.

Combing a horse’s hair, the smell of something earthy and thick, the feeling of sun on forearms and the bright flickers of sunlight in a bed of wide blue sky.

The memory of that smell though, lingered the most and as she worked in a kitchen practically all day, she began to mull over what in their kitchen gave off an earthy fragrance like that.

Tommy stopped so suddenly, Mia was snapped back into the grayish reality of England.

She thought, there was no way she could be from anywhere near where she currently resided. She didn’t think that anywhere in England, could the place from her memories, a place she completely knew that she had known her whole life, her past life, possibly exist.

He slammed the door closed and rounded to her side and for a moment she thought he was going to open the door for her. But he walked past her, starting up a dirt road that looked like was leading to a stable.

From where Mia was, she had to squint to make out the overalled figure that was standing at the stable gates.

Mia pushed the door open and hopped out, walking fast.

“Tommy!” the older balding man, more warm looking - and sounding - than Peter, called from up the hill, holding a shovel in front of the wagon full of what, from a distance, looked like manure.

Tommy neared him quickly, speaking low.

In the past few days, she’d thought of Peter so much, she’d begun to make herself sick.

To Mia, Peter had somehow become her main point of reference when it came to men. So anyone different, was already a fascinating improvement. Like the man at the top of the hill. And she was meeting more men in the past few days than she had in her whole life.

Mia, her skirt catching in her boots, trudged up the hill, her calves burning.

By the time she got up to where the wagon was, the large wooden gates of the stable, Tommy had already disappeared inside and she was met with the curious eyes of the overalled man.

Mia stood in front of him for a moment, debating. “Hello sir, I’m Mia.”

“Curly,” he responded slowly and Mia thought he looked a little different. From outside she heard Tommy’s voice so she excused herself and quickly walked past, following, into the shadows of the stable.

It was a spacious stable, made up of five individual stalls, generous in their space, three of which had actual horses in them. Tommy, with his stoic concentration, was looking each of the horses over, from outside of the latch doors holding them in.

She stood at the doorway, not nearing him.

The horses. Two of them were dark, one of them a sandy blonde. They stood calmly, free of any stirrups or saddle, at attention whenever Tommy neared them.

“Come here,” he said, suddenly.

Mia wasn’t sure he was speaking to her but as he was near enough to the horses, she had to assume. So she walked over quickly, standing a couple of feet to his right.

He pulled a cigarette out and lit it quickly, placing the other hand in his pocket. He was still thinking about the horse in front of him, calculating something. So Mia waited.

“One of these is yours.” He said plainly.

The sandy horse was the only horse that had turned away from them, having lost interest the quickest.

Outside, Curly’s shovel was smacking against the wooden edges of the wagon, as he shoveled manure onto the ground.

“Which one do you think it is?”

Mia looked them over, confused. “Do you…” she swallowed, afraid of saying something stupid. “want me to pick one?”

“No.” he responded, patting the black one on the crest.

“Are these yours?” She asked, not liking how the silence lingered, saturating so much more in the countryside than it did in the city, where cars and pedestrians always managed to drive it away or just never really let it settle.

“I race horses.” He provided.

Gambling. Often went hand-in-hand with violence.

“These aren’t racing horses, though. These are just mine.”

Until now, it seemed.

She couldn’t help but be perplexed at what sort of relationships Madam had suddenly decided to foster. Tommy didn’t resemble any of the men that had been close to Madam’s husband.

But then again, looks could be deceiving and it’s not like Mia had been engaging in conversation with this men so what she had known about them had been limited to what Harriet or Lena could tell her. Or what she’d eavesdropped from the other house workers’ gossip sessions.

“Do you know what to do?” He asked.

Mia looked at him, hoping he was about to tell her. Mia never knew what her role was. That was just the space she occupied in this world. She could follow orders better than anyone though, that was for sure.

“One of these horses is yours. I have to train it for you.” The idea, with Tommy’s tone and phrasing, sounded twisted.

Mia swallowed, already overwhelmed. She hadn’t been on a horse in two years, since Madam had barred her from going out into their larger countryside estate, a trip she’d made with some of the maids, to make sure everything was running well.

 Mia had made the trip once a week, with Lena and Harriet of course, since the place was only forty-five minutes out. It had been where Madam and her husband had liked to throw his bigger parties. There the girls had polished what had already been polished, watered what had already been watered and stored what had just been brought out. It was a way, Mia had often thought, to keep them busy and tired. But what Madam hadn’t known at first, was that it was Mia’s favorite day of the week.

She’d befriended a Black man, one they’d hired to tend to the horses and that Mia wasn’t even sure that Madam knew was on her property or else she would have gotten rid of him for sure. He couldn’t speak much English and Mia didn’t know where he was from, but somehow, as soon as he’d seen her the day she’d ventured out into the stables, he’d recognized her as one of his own. He’d let her in and there was where she’d always go, at the end of their day out in the country, when Lena and Harriet had already disappeared into the main study, where the only turntable and its records in the house were.

 Mia had always picked the horses, even over music.

After a couple of weeks, he’d shown her how to ride them bareback and she’d do it, at night, only ever really around the little stable, never venturing too far out. But on these horses, the thought of how easy it would be to disappear, ride off into the wild, had regularly hijacked her mind and she’d become anxious that the thought would also take over her body.

Sometimes too, hearing the horse’s airy breaths, ringing from their nostrils in dry open exhales, she found they were very familiar. Their own song.

Of course, Madam had found out. The next thing Mia knew, the staff had been instructed that only Lena and Harriet would make that once-a-week trip. It had been like this for a year. And when Mia had asked Harriet about the stable man, she said he’d been replaced by a younger ginger man.

So, Mia, seeing these horses again, she was overwhelmed. But she was also suspended in a subdued excitement, an awareness.

Mia slowly stepped forward, the sandy horse the nearest to her. It was still facing away, out of the side doors that had been left partially open and where the bleak sun was somewhat shining in.

Mia wasn’t tall so the stall door reached her chest, her head peering over. The horse noticed her and looked at her lazily before turning back to the stable doors.

“He wants to go out,” she said to herself quietly.

She reached her hand out, tutting her tongue softly. The horse didn’t turn so she stood on her tiptoes, reaching her arm out further. The other horses had turned to her in their quiet curiosity.

Sandy, a word she’d learned when Lena had taken to teasing Harriet with it, filled her head. This was Sandy.

The horse, looking over at Mia again, watched as she climbed onto a particularly large pile of manure at the door, elevating herself at least a couple of inches.

To train a horse, Tommy had said. Her horse. 

This one was the one she wanted.

“Hola,” she said. She watched it, willing it to make eye contact with her. It did and she continued, “outside?” She jutted her head in the direction of the door and it’s ears flicked.

Mia waved her hand at it again, smoothly and carefully, not making any sudden movements.

It shifted its body towards her and Mia smiled. They were going somewhere.

She’d forgotten all about the man standing behind her, watching her quietly, intensely.

Mia pulled her hand back, resting her elbows against the edge of the stall door, placing her chin in her hands.

She waited quietly, watching the horse watch her.

Slowly, it stepped forward, trotting softly in the man-made mud that filled his stall, seemingly to give the animal the illusion that he wasn’t locked up. By the way he’d been looking out the door, where the wind rustled the leaves of the trees that circled the stable, it obviously, wasn’t working.

It was her and Sandy.

It stopped right in front of her, its muzzle in her face, nostrils undulating as it sniffed the air around her. Mia placed her hand on its long face, right in between its eyes and rubbed it up and down slowly.

The horse’s head leaned into her hand, lifting it to lick her palm quickly before letting it rest against it again.

“I choose this one,” she said aloud, so Tommy could hear.

A pause.

“Let’s see if he chooses you.”

For the first moment since she’d been told Tommy and her had to work together, she didn’t think it would be so bad.

[bibibiyu]

Mia  Chapter 4 - The Business Meeting

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5 Part 6

The Next Day

“What the bloody fuck happened to you?!”

Mia jumped, dropping the bottle of alcohol disinfectant into the bathtub. She scrambled forward to catch it, able to stand it upright before more than half had spilled.

She had washed her hair and her body and had been in the middle of rubbing alcohol on her scraped knees, her back turned to the door that led into hers and Harriet’s room.

Mia tried to come up with something fast but she knew Harriet would know she was lying. Harriet always knew. Mia thought it was because she was such a good liar herself.

She could tell Harriet had been in the middle of mopping the floors down. Her blonde hair was wispy around her face, which was pink. It was always pink because everything caused her strain. She also knew she was in the middle of mopping down because she was wearing her old apron, the one that salvaged her dresses.

But looking at her now, in the doorway, with a forehead twisted in confusion, Mia told her.

Mia liked Harriet better than Lena not because she disliked Lena or thought she was bad. It was Lena’s mother, Mrs. Penny. They were well enough nice to her but Mia knew Lena was warned about getting too close to her. And Mia also knew Harriet had overheard these conversations and though Harriet often lived for scandal and excitement, she’d always remained mute when it came to the strange dynamic Mia had with Lena and her mother. She probably figured it would make things too awkward, to comment.

Harriet sat on the edge of the bathtub, green eyes practically bulging out. Mia knew she had ate the story right up.

“You must be bloody idiotic, that’s it,” she finally whispered after a few seconds of silence, the mop in her left hand.

Mia looked down at her knees, sitting down beside her. They weren’t too bad, her knees. They probably wouldn’t even scar. But they sure stung. So she reached for the gauze and began to wrap them slowly, remaining wary about leaving them too bulky. 

“Why you would ever think that’s a rational idea, Mia?!” Harriet continued, eyes forward, mouth ajar. She had a habit for the exaggeration.

Mia watched her from the upper corner of her eyes.

And yes, Harriet was right. There was really no explanation for why she’d gone out. By herself. At night. At that hour. So she said nothing, shame in her throat.

“You could have died. You could have been taken. All sorts could have happened to you,” she let her right hand fall on her knee, still talking in the direction of the toilet. It was like she was seeing the night before, projected against the brown wall of the restroom, flash through her mind.

“Maybe it was the rum cake but Jesus,” Harriet suddenly turned to her and Mia flinched.

Harriet ignored this, running her eyes over Mia, as if searching for anything wrong.  

“Are you alright?” She said softer.

Mia nodded, “yes, I’m fine.”

And she was.

….

Harriet helped her get rid of the nightgown, face slightly green rather than pink when she took it from Mia and threw it in the furnace. They watched it burn up, the soft cotton, in seconds.

“London isn’t nice, Mia.” Harriet, mop still in hand, watched the fire, her hair shining in the firelight. “Especially to foreigners.”

It was the first time Harriet had called her that. Mia remembered the sounds the boys had made when the shot one had said she was mulatto.

Was she?

“Come on, we have to clean the place up. Peter says we have visitors.”

….

PRESENT

Mia wanted to throw up at the sight of him.

No one besides Harriet had known what had happened. She could hardly remember the rest of the night anyway, especially how she had found her way back up to her room.

So when she saw him and his eyes met hers, her heart jumped, her stomach shook and she had no fucking idea what to do.

Peter was in the hallway leading to the parlor, hands folded neatly in front of him. He was more put-together than usual and she couldn’t understand what about the gun-sporting man could make him that important.

He looked at her. Tommy, his name had been. But only for a very brief second, in which she saw nothing in his eyes as he followed behind Peter.

They disappeared down the hallway and Mia stood there, hands already shaking.  

She knew it was ridiculous, but she imagined him telling them she’d been out at night, roaming the streets, wandering.

She’d be kicked out for sure. Her relationships with most of them were already sort of strained. Peter probably wanted her gone the most. Mainly because he felt she wasn’t doing enough work despite the fact that she was the only one out of the girls who did some sort of work outside that didn’t involve the vegetable garden. She was also the one that, because she had no family to go home to or visit, didn’t get any sort of vacation and stayed behind to pick the slack up from when Harriet and Lena and her mother did go home for holidays.

In her three years of life, Peter had been her devil. 

He would probably rejoice in her tragedy.

But the madam. What would she think?

Somewhere in Mia’s head she was aware she should just be grateful for being alive. The thought of her fate at the hands of those boys had kept her up a couple of nights. Or the thought of a stray bullet hitting her.

But after life came its affairs and those were often as terrifying as the prospect of death.

And she had to face them.

She walked down the hall, her hands in the pockets of her apron.

Mia rarely saw her anymore but when she walked in, she was there, sitting on her armchair. Legs crossed, in all black.

She’d always been a strange woman. At least, to Mia. Even before her husband, their boss, had died, she’d mostly kept to herself, rarely inviting anyone over. When her husband had had his lavish parties, she’d always remained upstairs, either reading, knitting or sleeping.

But that wasn’t necessarily what made her strange. She was a woman of great standing, from a long lineage of rich people, probably nobility.

It was the way she’d treated Mia. Mia had been adopted by her, in a sense, but she was not a child that was pampered by her or her now deceased husband. She’d been put to work.

Any sort of conversation they’d had, was of utmost formality and had only been regarding Mia’s work.

And then there was the horse-riding, one of the many things that Mia had been restricted from. Talking to others outside of the house was one of them. Studying was another.

And to that date, Mia still had no idea why she’d been taken in, or how.

Tommy was standing by the fireplace, facing the madam and Mia, right hand over his left, in front of him. He hadn’t taken off his hat.

The madam’s back was towards Mia, her veiled head peeking over the top of the armchair.

“Mia,” she said, her voice thick. Not due to any emotion, Mia didn’t think she had any, but because that was the way the madam’s voice had always been. Heavy, slow, full. Thick.

At the sound of her name, which was rarely vocalized, Mia rounded the armchair and stood before her, blocking Tommy.

“Yes, M-,” Mia was cut off by the wave of the Madam’s hand, annoyance on her face.

“I was speaking with Mr.Shelby,”

Mia moved quickly out of the way, resting four or five feet to the right of him.

Mia had lied. The madam did have one emotion or state of being: annoyed.

“As I was saying, he’s asked me to enlist your particular assistance,” the madam’s Spanish accent had not diminished one bit.

“I can provide you one of the girl’s who works here as your aide. She should be the most beneficial and if you come to find she is not, which I truly doubt, let me know as soon as is possible,”

Mia’s heart sank into deeper, quieter panic.

“Oh, I don't think that is necessary,” he stated.

There was silence.

“Why do you think?” The madam, who had been shaking her foot, was now completely still.

“A child would hardly sway anyone in my favo-“

“She is not a child. She is nineteen years old. And having her by your si-“

“My line of work, Mrs. Sanchez, I’m sure you’re well aware of…”

Mia could have been surprised by the fact that someone had interrupted the madam but she was more stuck on the fact that she now knew her own age. Anything else being said was fading, becoming gibberish.

It was ridiculous, that her party had just been thrown, that she had been celebrated without anyone having the slightest idea how old she was. Most of the people in the kitchen had said she was 15. And Mia could see it.

In the mornings, looking at herself in the small mirror above the bathroom sink, she could see that her face was rounder, her cheeks softer than those of Harriet or Lena’s. She was shorter and smaller framed. She looked younger than them.

Lena’s mother had once, when they had first started working for Madam, attempted to ask her how old Mia was.

It had not gone over well. Thinking back on it, maybe that was when Lena’s mother had come up with the idea to remain at a distance from her. It made sense. Madam hadn’t taken well to the question.

Nineteen. She was older than Harriet.

“This is charity, Mr. Shelby,” madam said, clippedly. She tilted her head slowly and slightly to the right, her eyes fixed.

She was a dark woman. A flat woman.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of what such a feat entails bu-“

“I’m to train a horse,” he said, arms still folded in front of him. Mia’s eyes flashed to his hat. He hadn’t removed it. This made her very nervous.

“Shelby,” Madam said louder, a tone that she hardly ever used. The skin around her lips tighter. “We’d hardly want someone of your line of work to be spotted handling a horse of this kind of household. Charity is a field best left un-pursued by the ever ambitious Shelby clan.”

“I’d hardly call your aim charity,” he responded just as quickly, instinctively.

And Madam smirked. Mia, who had been looking down, saw this rarity through raised eyes and was transfixed.

“Yours either. We are compensating you in the exact way you have asked for, Mr. Shelby,” she leaned back crossing one leg over the other. Her heel was black as well.

“So… you do as I say.”

Mia didn’t dare look at him, she’d have to turn her head and also she was scared of him, but in his silence, she could tell he had made his decision.

Madam, lifting the glass of wine that had been left to her right, “This is Mia. She’s the best at the horses.”

“A natural,” she added, not looking at her.

Mia didn’t move, looking down at a spot in the carpet in front of her.

“She’ll meet you three times a week t-“

“I’m a busy man,” he said.

“And I’m buying your time,” she responded immediately. She continued. “ She doesn’t know much but the affinity is there. As long as you’re able to show her enough to pass off as knowledgeable and responsible, that’s all I ask.”

There was a short silence before Madam finished “This is a very important job, though of a very different kind for a man like Thomas Shelby. But I trust that it’s too good of a deal to overlook and that your skills are as unprecedented as the whole of London has had the pleasure of hearing.”

….

Mia left the room feeling as stiff as stone.

What on earth was Madam up to?

She knew what sort of work the Shelby man did, that was made clear.

But a horse? Mia? Charity?

She walked past the kitchen and up the stairs to her room, as if in a daze.

When she got to her room, she sat on her bed, breath labored, staring at the wall, for a long time.

[bibibiyu]

Mia Chapter 3 - The Kidnapping Part 2

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

The Other Night Cont’d

“Tommy!”

The other man shouted but his voice was lost in the noise.

The rich man dragging her away was tall so his legs could cover a faster distance than her. She was being strung along like a dog, flashes of street passing them by.

She could hardly breathe, since the initial sound of gunshots had shoved all of the air out of her. She wanted to speak but the sounds kept getting hitched in her throat. What she did do, was start to cry.

The other man had been calling out for him, Tommy he’d said.

But Tommy could hear nothing but the pops and screeches.

She leaned back, as if to turn, but at that, he yanked her forward harder and she held back a sob.

It was ridiculous. Running before knowing what it is they were running from.

She realized they were avoiding main roads, dipping in and out of alleyways that stunk of shit and trash. She felt mud and its counterparts splash up her legs, all the way to her knees in speckles of brown goo. Her nightgown was slipping off of her shoulders, her shawl long forgotten.

She didn’t dare say a word, though.

She was sure her legs were about to tear, fall apart, when he suddenly stopped and she barely managed to keep herself from falling on her knees.

It was the first moment the sounds had relented and they both looked up; they saw a dozen streams of light, like thin streamers being propelled up into the night sky, like the kind Harriet and Lena had made for her birthday and put up around her bed as she’d slept. She’d woken up to them hanging over her, all the colors of the rainbow and she’d thought them the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

These were similar but on a larger scale. Larger in size, stage and beauty.

They sizzled up the night sky like thin snakes, their tales evaporating with graceful clarity.

The heads, as if carefully aimed, reached the center of the sky before them and exploded into a crowns of colorful light.

Fireworks.

She looked up at the man who she knew had been fearing for his life. Sweat dripped down the sides of his face, his jaw clenched as tight as the hand around her arm. He looked like he was in another world.

She debated how far running would take her.

“Fucking fireworks,” he said.

The gypsies.

He let go of her suddenly and she immediately re-adjusted her nightgown, eyes fixed on him. He turned to her, brushing his hand over his face, wiping the sweat on his pants.

The action was weird in terms of his attire. Most men like him had a handkerchief expressly for that.

“Get out of here,” he said, looking around, not focused on her at all anymore.

She spun around, sprinting off down the alleyway, in the direction of the light at the mouth. Just as she was reaching the end, two men covered the exit and she screamed.

Big men, pasty with sores on their faces. Dressed in fine suits, like Tommy.

Their eyes landed on her in confusion, but only for a moment. One of them grabbed her roughly by the arm and the other one moved past her, pulling a gun from the inside of his coat.

He shot at the man she’d left behind, Tommy. She couldn’t see what became of him because she was being dragged out of the alleyway.

There was a car waiting on the road, running, filled with more men who looked out at her coldly.

She screamed, louder than she’d ever had before. She was going to die on her birthday. London was a cold city, full of dirty people who hurt others, her mind thought frantically.

She saw their horse, her favorite, that had died on their way to London. She’d watched on as they stopped on a pebble road, early morning, and the men had moved the horse onto the grass on the side of the road. She’d heard them debate whether to leave it lying there, to rot under the sun, the salty ugly wind. Peter had wanted to, the laziness, the aloofness in his voice spicy in the back of Mia’s throat. Where anger lived.

It was the only time she’d liked the madam, for demanding the horse be buried.

It took two hours: one to dig the grave large enough for the animal and another to move the horse in, the way madam wanted it.

It wouldn’t take a third as long for Mia, if the men in the car decided to even give her that honor.

The man holding her just shoved her towards the car and Mia tried her best to dig her heels in. A couple of more shots sounded from the alleyway and she knew the man named Tommy was dead.

A boy’s name for a man.

One who looked like a ghoul.

“Please!” she turned to the man holding her, looking up at him.

“Get her in the fuckin car!” one of them shouted from behind her.

“She’s throwing a fit!” he shoved her harder towards the car and she tripped, falling onto her elbows.

“Is she negro?” another voice called.

She had mud on her face now, in her mouth. The man kneeled down next to her, pushing her hair away from her face.

He was ugly, his eyes vapid and firey.

He smirked, “I think she is. Mulatto, I bet.”

Whistles from the car and her face contorted in panic.

A shot rang out and the man screamed in pain, falling forward onto her. A bullet ripped through his left arm and the blood splashed onto her face.

Tommy pointed his gun at the man’s head, Mia pinned underkneath him.

“Get off,” he said, cocking the revolver.

The man skittered off, falling onto his back next to her.

Tommy’s eyes only briefly flashed over her, before turning to the car. His aim didn’t move off of the wounded.

“I’ll kill him,” he stated firmly when the men in the car began to make noise, fixing as if to move out of the car. At this, they froze, unsure of what to do. She’d thought they looked like men but now, she realized they were about her age. The suits and hats they were wearing were meant to disguise this.

“Get up,” Tommy stepped forward, kicking at the man.

In the light of the streetlamps hanging high above them, Mia could see Tommy’s hands were a faint red, as if they’d been wiped of death.

No, wiped in death.

“You want to act like men?” he shouted, kicking again. The boy was slumped over, onto his stomach, as if to crawl towards the car.

Tommy shot at the guy again, the back of his left leg. There was commotion from the car but they managed to get it together, sure now that Tommy would kill them if they tried anything.

She didn’t dare move, in case he turned on her.

But he fixed his eyes on her, making her feel as if he had been ignoring her gaze before. He gave her a look that was unreadable, the sounds of the crying boy loud in her ear.

He was a ghoul, alright.

“Hey!”

Everyone’s head swiveled down the road, the figures of two policemen visible.

Mia found relief in their shapes for only a second before she realized what this meant.

But the initial sight of them, it still gave her relief. There would be no more murder, not hers.

The car sped off, in screeches and shouts, Tommy calmly pocketing the gun again. Mia’s eyes were still fixated on the policemen, who hadn’t seemed to move.

The three of them, Mia, Tommy and the man were in the reach of the faint streetlight, so this meant the policemen could see them. Tommy, knowing this, turned in the direction of the officers.

“Is everything alright?” one of them called, and there was something in his voice Mia instantly recognized, frustration settling in her chest; trepidation.

“We’re alright, just a little disagreement,” Tommy called slowly, the calm in his voice bewildering her.

A man who had just shot someone. Twice. Unafraid of the police.

There was a moment in which she felt the police were about to near them, seeing as two of them were on the ground, with a man standing over them. It only made sense. It was obvious no one in good health would dare lie about on the disgusting ground.

Mia turned to the coppers, searching for their eyes. She couldn’t see them, their faces shrouded in darkness. They looked like cut-out gingerbread men, only dark figures.

But she knew they could see her, could see the blood splattered all over her, painting her face.

She didn’t dare speak but she knew that they’d step forward, she knew they’d take her home.

The dark figures neared each other, turning back to where they’d come from, heads bent together. They were deliberating.

She couldn’t imagine what for.

Suddenly, they turned back to them.

“Have a good night.”

And they were gone.

The kid that had been shot, let out a groan. The blood coming out of him was dripping down the cobble-stone, towards the drain. It was making Mia’s nightgown stick to her, making her sick to her stomach.

Tommy took a step towards the boy and Mia made a noise.

Tommy turned to her briefly. He was interpreting her noise as disagreement, as protest. She was unsure of where it had come from, but maybe it HAD been that. She didn’t want anymore violence. She couldn’t take it.

He turned back to the boy, and she could see him thinking, debating. After a couple of seconds, he turned away from the boy again and she took this as defeat.

She expected for Tommy to just walk away but he neared her.

She looked up at him, her elbows sore from being used to lean up, away from the hard ground. He reached his hand out, and Mia hesitated. She wanted to see how the boy was doing but she somehow felt that this would only frustrate Tommy.

She remembered the boy and his friends had just been about to do something terrible to her. 

Still. The thought of a murder, especially being a witness to one... well, it was unthinkable.

So she shook her head softly, eyes peering up from red blood.

“If you stay here, there’s no telling what’s going to happen to you,” Tommy said.

She waited stoically and he added, a hint of frustration in his voice, “A couple of minutes ago, this idiot and his friends were going to drag you away and do whatever they wanted with you,”

He was right.

They’d jeered at her, had asked what she was, had been waiting for her in the car. The panic she’d felt in that moment came back to her and she closed her eyes, as if unaware of Tommy anymore.

She felt, in her, that somehow, she’d experienced this level of fear one time before. But those memories, as if because of their sheer strength, were locked away, tighter. Always at the brink but never really there at all.

She opened her eyes and he was still staring at her, waiting for her to get up. What was to happen to her after she got up, she wasn’t sure.

But she pushed herself forward into a seated position, her abdomen aching, and used her hands to bring herself to a standing position. Her blood rushed to her head and she swayed a little bit, feeling faint.

She steadied herself and turned to the boy.

He was silent, on his stomach, unconscious.

“They’ll come back for him,” Tommy said.

They stood there for a little bit, the two of them, almost unaware of what to do next.

She could go home, sneak back in, but she was lost. The road she was on, barely illuminated, looked completely unfamiliar. Pub music and loud voices were the only muted sound she heard, but even those sounded aways.

“Come on,” he started walking down the road. She followed him, noticing his hand was placed tightly on his left side, beneath his open coat.

She eyed this carefully, remembering they’d left a dead man in the alleyway, but one who had managed to shoot a couple of times.

Her face felt tight, the mud and blood already drying. She swiped at it with her hand, cleaning it on her nightgown.

When they reached the corner of the road, he told her to wait there and he disappeared.

She didn’t think of running away, anymore. She didn’t know these streets. She didn’t know anyone except the murderer, the man who had dragged her along.

So she waited and minutes later, a car sped down the opposite side of the road and stopped in front of her. She knew it was him.

She got into the passenger side and as he began to drive, she began to cry.

He didn’t say anything to her the whole ride, except to ask where she lived. She told him but it was like her voice was someone else’s.

He stopped a block from where she lived, knowing better than to enter the neighborhood. Here, where the upper class lived, there were coppers everywhere. He hadn’t taken her for the kind to live in an area like this. He figured she was an in-house maid.

“Alright,” he stated, watching her. She was holding her head in her hands, tightly, as if to shut the whole world out. “Your house is down the block.”

The shock was hitting her now and she couldn’t hear him.

“Hey,” he said, firmer but she was too busy examining the blood on her arms, her nightgown.

The smell was strong, her hair tangled and matted. She felt disgusting and disgusted.

“Hey!” he said again, grabbing her shoulder. She turned to him, afraid.

She must have looked so completely terrified that he took his hand off of her and leaned back against the car door on his side, quiet.

He couldn’t send her in like that, he realized. Not only for the issues that would cause him but the trauma that would further inflict on her.

It had been a long night, so spontaneous and draining. A young girl had gotten in the crossfire. There was the potential for so much more damage, so much more mess. Especially if this really was the area of town she lived in. He didn’t need that sort of attention. Not now.

 She was covered in blood but he didn’t think she was hurt.

He reached inside his coat, pulling out his handkerchief.

He put it in her hand and she quieted, staring at it as if it were a bug, a specimen.

She was in too much of a shock. And even though she was terrified of him, he took the handkerchief back and began to wipe at her face and arms.

She was small, colored. A shade or two darker than Isiah.

When her face was relatively clean, he debated passing the handkerchief over her hair but looking at it, mud stained and tangled, he gave the thought up.

Her night gown was sticking to her, unsalvagaeble. He hesitated for a moment, before looking over the back of the seat. There was nothing.

But he could tell the sight of the blood was exasperating her, because any time her eyes landed on her abdomen, where her dress looked like it’d been tie-dyed crimson, she swallowed hard and looked like she wanted to cry again.

So he reached back and took his coat off, pushing it towards her.

“Put this on,” he said, and she looked over, her eyes wary.

“Take that off and put the coat on,” he repeated, opened the car door and stepped out, back to her. He was left in his white button-up and suspenders. The sleeves of his shirt though, were also stained. He touched at his forehead, and  it singed. That’s when he suddenly remembered and looked down at this left side. There was blood and he felt at it, waiting for the unbearable pain to come. But when the pain was average, he popped open a button and saw that it was only a graze.

Less work, he thought.

That’s when he remembered Arthur. He’d shouted at him amongst the sound of what he thought had been bullets. What a fucking idiot he’d been. He’d pulled a  a WhizzBang.

They’d been in the middle of prying information when the girl had shown up. That was what had initially thrown him off. A girl in the streets, at that hour.

He hoped Arthur had disposed of the man.

But he never knew with Arthur. Especially these days.

He heard the door on the other side of the car open and he turned, the sight of the girl in his coat practically insanely comedic.

But he didn’t laugh.

She had her nightgown in her hand.

He rounded the car he’d stolen. He looked down both sides of the road.

“Don’t be out at night for the next few days. Ever again, if you can avoid it. Those boys know what you look like now,” he said.

“Throw that away, burn it if you can and,” he paused, watching the tears build up again in her eyes. The confusion, the terror, the helplessness.

What a tragedy life could be.

“I hope I never see you again,”

He rounded the car again quickly, to the driver’s side, got in, slammed the door and drove off. He didn’t look back to see if she’d started walking home. She was on her own now.

And he hadn’t been lying. He really did hope he never had to see her again.

It was only until he’d made it back to his bed, avoiding any talk with Polly or anyone else after he’d confirmed with Arthur the man they’d been harassing had been disposed of, and had been lying there for an hour, the look on the girl’s face, the sight of her covered in mud and blood replaying in his head, confusing him, did he realize something.

After Grace had left, the shoveling had come back. The sounds of the metal against dirt walls, jails of soil, ringing, falling short and hard. It played in his mind, like a constant fucking fly, inhabiting his ear.  Always there. Always reminding him, keeping him in France.

The moment he’d stepped out of that shadow in the alleyway she’d stumbled onto, when he met her eyes, it had stopped.

Just like that.

[bibibiyu]

Mia Chapter 2 - The Kidnapping

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

The other night

Mia had been born three years ago.

So she had been waiting to do this since she was born.

Her birthday had been celebrated like any other time; a new dress and a cake. A dress she’d never wear and a cake she’d hardly taken a bite out of. Mia wasn’t a sweets person.

But, Mrs. Penny, wishing to commemorate what she thought was a new era in Mia’s life, had made her a rum cake. Later on, thinking back on this moment, Mia would realize how intuitive Mrs. Penny really was. 

She had sensed something even Mia had not really even the slightest idea about.

The day had gone by like any other, attending to her daily chores, hanging around the kitchen in case she was needed.

The mediocrity no longer dreadful; just numbing.

When night came, Mia finished turning out the candles, doing her rounds. She’d been assigned them for a year and a half now, since Lena had broken her ankle (the second bone she’d broken) while doing them. She didn’t mind them because she was able to be alone while she did these, something she usually never was.

Oftentimes, she was sleepy while she did them. But even half-asleep, Mia had never broken an ankle.

When she passed by the kitchen, she could hear the laughter and clinking glasses.

A birthday celebration without the birthday girl, she thought.

After all, Mia could not provide them much. She didn’t even have the slightest idea how old she was. So, her birthday celebration had become an excuse for mingling.

Since the passing of the man of the house, the help was more lax. The madam wasn’t herself lately and they were perfectly fine with that.

The only form of grief the madam had shown was dressing in all black. Mia knew that the madam was undergoing emotional change not because of this fact but because Peter’s orders had stopped coming at the regular aggressively fast speed they usually did. Even Peter was on a sort of break.

Mia’s rum cake hadn’t done much besides make her feel queasy but as she passed by the door that served as the back entrance, turning out the candles hanging off the wall leading to it, she wondered if she wasn’t a little off the end.

The door was perfectly ajar, the night air still and filling. 

She looked out, the sound of London as loud at night as it was during the day. The back entrance faced a small vegetable garden that on occasion provided them onions or tomatoes. Every house on their block had one, though Mia was surprised to note that madam’s had been growing the best. All thanks to Harriet.

The madam had often talked about moving away from the noise, the smell, the dirt and soot.

Mia, who was never left to herself, was of a different mind.

The door, open, exposing the city night.

She was sure it was a message.

The kids of madam’s friends had often whispered that she was the daughter of savages.

They’d made fun of lots of things, to be exact. Her hair, her skin, the way she spoke English, which had been hardly, three years ago. She was the pinnacle of all their jokes, of all their gossip.

But one kid, a fat kid who was the son of Madam’s knitting partner, had looked at her and smiled.

“You’re a gypsy, ain’t ya?”

She had been unsure of two things at the time; what a gypsy was and what about her made her one.

The kid quickly added, ”You hear what others don’t. The supernatural.”

Before she could ask anything he’d kept on, “You can even talk to ghosts and see the future. You hear it.”

“Hear what?” She’d asked.

The fat kid had just smirked, jokingly shrugged and ran away to continue harassing Peter over his bejeweled cane.

That night though, of Mia‘s birthday, she’d thought she’d heard it.

….

She hadn’t stopped for much besides a pair of boots. Mia had left the door open as it was and she’d snuck upstairs, to the room she shared with Harriet. The maids quarters were on the second floor, in between the family quarters and the kitchen. 

Harriet was already asleep by then, drool pooling on her pillow. They’d tried to fix this habit quite a few times to no avail. 

In their joint closet, Mia had more clothes. Harriet’s family, who lived in the countryside, often tried to send Harriet coats and other winter gear. They’d heard winters were harsher in London. The only reason Mia had more clothes was because the madam passed anything she didn’t like down to her. And the madam often didn’t like her purchases.

Her boots, untouched since she’d been practically banned from the horses, were at the very back of her side of the closet.

She’d been terrified of the horses, a faint memory of a stampede one of her only childhood memories. But even that memory had made everything besides the thunder of hundreds of hooves against dry hard ground,the earth rumbling beneath her, the smell of dust in her nostrils, and the heat on her entire body, completely indecipherable.

It was okay; Mia was used to having nothing.

And, in turn, being nothing.

Tonight, that was the best birthday present she could have ever asked for.

The boots were ugly, the soles starting to feel flimsy. But they would do against the slippery stone of London’s streets.

Once Mia had gotten over her fear, she’d felt like being on a horse was like a bone. Something in her body, molten.

And, of course, once the Madam had seen that, she’d limited her hours out in the stables, out in her countryside estate.

She was a woman that found no time for indulgences, Mia had come to learn. Especially if they were someone else’s.

But that night wasn’t for contemplating.

It was for indulging.

Harriet had told her that the gypsies would be celebrating. A holiday Harriet hadn’t taken the time or effort to memorize.

Mia, having never seen them, was prepared. Or as prepared as one could be when they’d decided, last minute, they’d be sneaking out.

They wouldn’t look like her, she thought as she sped-walk through the streets. She’d never seen them in the dark. 

The streets were empty so far, Mia’s residence was a little a ways from the town center. She lived among the richer people and a random copper or two could be seen making their rounds.

When she noticed the first one, she kept her face down and gave him a wide berth.

He didn’t notice her, a tall man of almost 7 feet, she presumed.

She didn’t hover much above five.

Her trip felt long but her mind was moving faster than her legs.  

She didn’t think the gypsies would look like her because if that were the case, she’d been handed over, disposed of, long ago.

No, she was sure she’d find no one among them who knew anything about her. But that wasn’t the point.

The thing was, the more someone said you were something, the more someone said you looked exactly like something, the more you wanted to see it, to feel it, to experience it. If only just to see if then you’d be able to see yourself, as from afar, truthfully.

Water was dripping from the shillings of houses and because Mia had been so busy with the chores, she hadn’t realized it was because it had rained earlier.

Her feet slipped a couple of times and while at first she had tried to keep the ends of her dress above the dirty sewer water that lined the London streets, she no longer remembered to do so.

She could hear it; the sound of what she’d heard at the door hadn’t ceased.

That’s when she had known Harriet was right.

It was the steady beat of a drum. Dull and deep, quiet yet completely encompassing. Muted but louder than everything else, her rapid breath and pulse included.  It was closer than it had been at the door, accompanied by light music and cheerful voices.

She didn’t like London. Not since they’d moved to it permanently a year prior.

But that night, London felt alive.

Steady. Deep. Firm.

Like it was her compass, she followed it.

….

The one thing Mia was allowed to do out in the city was fetch the bread. This she did every Wednesday and Saturday.

Her path was straight-forward. She had been ordered to speak to no one on the way there (she didn’t think she could, even if she wanted to), give her madam’s name, take the bread, and come immediately back home.

She was thinking about these cold dark walks in the morning, when mostly everyone seemed asleep, much like it was now. She wondered what time it was.

Was it true she’d be moving to America, now that he had died?

They’d only come to London for the doctors. He’d been sick for a while but he’d had strength and life in him, somehow. He’d looked like his illness was an afterthought.

That had been until a year ago.

His illness had become him and now the whole house was sick.

Mia had a flash of rows and rows of single beds, sheets once white now soiled with bodily processes, fill her mind.

She often did this. Remembered little things that weren’t really anything. Little things that were just enough to remind her that she had no idea who she was, where she had come from or how she had gotten here. Microscopic pieces of a much larger evasive picture

She had been moving so fast that she’d had no time to slow down when she’d rounded the corner into the entrance of an alley.

Her boots splashed and sunk in mud, but her eyes focused on the scene before her.

Three men; one hunched over on all fours, two standing above him. They were facing her and when her boots hit the water, the two looked up.

She could only see their heads turn in her direction, their faces and eyes were shrouded in darkness.  

Harriet had told her stories about ghouls that haunted London’s streets. How they could eat you up, not leaving any hair or bone behind. But what was worse, is that, according to Harriet, they looked just like anybody else.

There was quick quiet muttering before one stepped towards her. The other reached down to the man on all fours and yanked him in the opposite direction. She finally realized what was going on.

She, with her luck (or lack of it), had just infringed on a beating.

She took one step backwards, her mind frozen in panic.

That feeling, it was like all of the blood north of the legs was draining to the pit of the stomach.

She imagined that was what the pigs at the butcher’s felt like, hanging above the buckets collecting their insides.

It was a slow walk, the figure unperturbed. A shadow whose feet against the pavement of the streets made slow, hollow, clacking sounds.

The drum was still beating but Mia had forgotten about that, for the moment. Mia didn’t often cry but her eyes were beginning to sting. The level of fear and hyper-awareness she was experiencing, were keeping the tears at bay.

At the edge of the light, where shadow disappears before it, emerged the brightest pair of blue eyes she had ever seen.

At once, the drum stopped.

The silence was heavier.

Mia swallowed, unsure of whether she should look the man in the face. She did, in the end, wondering what a ghoul could look like.

His face was cold, cheekbones jagged and high. she thought him of stone. He was wearing a gray cap, perched over his left eye.

His right hand was in his pocket and Mia remembered Peter’s revolver, the one he sometimes liked to swing around when he was a little drunk.

Mia felt him look her over, an assessment. Similar to the way Madam would look at her. Weighing. Calculating.

“It’s late,” he spoke, sooner than she had been expecting him to.

His voice was deep. A faint accent. Different from the baker’s, from the other very few people she’d met in London. Different from Lena’s and Harriet’s.

She was a quiet person but never usually at a loss for words.

But firm hesitation was weighing her tongue down like molasses.

“Very few girls out here at this time,” he added, a sort of implication in his voice that Mia didn’t fully catch.

He began to move the hand in his pocket and Mia swallowed.

But he only pulled out a lighter, which he used to light the cigarette in his other hand.

In the moonlight, she could see he wasn’t dressed like a common man, the kind that labored in the metal shops.

He was a rich man.

This felt stranger to her. She had never liked the men that frequented Madam’s house. Men of higher standing. They were closed. Scary.

There was an anguished scream from the back where the other man was and Mia jumped, her eyes flicking over the rich man’s shoulder.

“I wouldn’t do that,”

Mia’s face felt hot and cold all at the same time.

Why had she ever thought this was a good idea? Lena had told her the Jack the Ripper stories. She hadn’t been able to sleep for three nights straight.

“You should head home,” he added, breathing smoke out through his nostrils. 

She stood there, her face frozen.

She felt at the brink of another memory, the fear that was devouring her from the inside, the catalyst.

She decided to trust him and was starting to turn around when a loud crack above them made her duck her head and bring her arms over it.

It was fast; loud pops and cracks, high above them but loud enough that they resounded in her ears.

She was too shocked to do anything for a couple of seconds, waiting in anguish for any sort of pain.

She’d heard gunshots before, at the races. And she knew that they were what was happening now.

Incessantly.  

Suddenly, rough hands were on her shoulder and she was dragged in a direction she couldn’t make out. Her hair was in her eyes and everything was spinning.

Maybe she had been shot.

The smell of tobacco was the one difference she noticed about her and she looked up, saw that the rich man was leading her away, sweat on his forehead.

The look in his eyes, she would always remember.

Her feet were stumbling, dragging along, she’d dropped her shawl and her right arm was screaming out in pain from where his hand was clawed around it like pincers but she knew that the one thing she’d remember about that night were his eyes.

Memory had never been her strong suit, as far as her shitty memory itself could remind her, but she’d remember those eyes.

[bibibiyu]

Mia  Chapter 1 - Mr. Thomas Shelby

 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

The maids were all huddled in one corner of the kitchen when she came in, whispering.

Mia saw this and immediately neared them, the need to know what was going on more urgent than the pot of broth aggressively boiling on the stove.

When the maids had news, they always discussed it as they made breakfast, chopping and cutting, skinning and boiling.

Very rarely with their bodies pressed up against each other and their voices below a whisper.

It was Lena, Harriet and Mrs. Penny, who Mia was surprised to see as she never engaged in any sort of gossip.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him, to be honest.” Harriet was still holding half an onion in her right hand, her cheeks red from what Mia assumed was the stress of chopping onions so early in the morning.

“I reckon I have. He’s not much, I don’t think,” Lena said without much thought, like she had the habit of doing.

But Mrs. Penny seemed to be more focused on something else, the lines between her eyebrows hyper-pronounced.

Worrisome, Mia thought the word was.

“He’s traveled far. From America, I heard.” Harriet added, glancing skittishly back, catching sight of Mia. She quickly grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her into the circle.

“What do you reckon for?” said Lena.

“Do you think she could be headed to America now that he’s passed?” Mrs. Penny finally spoke, taking notice of Mia.

Mia expected Mrs. Penny’s usual reserved politeness, the one she always saved just for Mia, to make its appearance but Mrs. Penny’s expression hardly changed at all. Mia thought that was strange.

“I don’t think so,” Harriet shook her head. “Well… I hope not.”

Mia examined Mrs. Penny closely. The look in Mrs. Penny’s eyes revealed the anxiety that was brewing inside of her. It was bizarre occasion for Mia and Harriet.  Mrs. Penny hardly let on she had any sort of problems consuming her life. It was a rare emotion. Or, at least, it was rare of her to show it.

“I think he’s just visiting, mum. To provide her company,” Lena placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “ He’s only supposed to be staying for a couple of weeks.”

Before they could continue their conversation, Peter entered the kitchen and they dispersed like cockroaches.

Mia headed directly to the sink, which was where she was always stationed, the stack of dishes looking foreboding but at least better looking than Peter.

But he called her back.

“Madam wants to see you,” he said. He was a tall man, looming and judging. He was balding, the hair around the outer edges of his scalp a light brown, struggling for their sad survival. Mia often imagined him as a younger guy, sometimes even as a child, with the same head of hair - or lack of.

He was a gross one. There was no one Mia disliked in the house more than Peter. Because he was nasty in his dealings, nasty in his words, and nasty in his intentions.

He was their boss though. The one in charge of all of the maids, butlers, gardeners. He ran the house when the Madam couldn’t be bothered.

Mia didn’t reply (or look at him, really) but just headed for the kitchen door. She could feel the girls’ gazes on the back of her head as she walked out but her mind was already running through the countless things she could have done wrong.

The house was dark, as it often happened to be. It wasn’t to save gas or coal but because the madam preferred darkness. Peter said it was because of her sensitive eyes but Mia quietly disagreed. The madam never came down to the kitchens. In addition, it was important to have as much light as possible where the maids and cooks used knives and heat. Knife-scarred fingers made up Mia’s dish-worn hands.

She was rounding the corner at the end of the dark hallway that led to the staircase to the rest of the house but caught sight of someone standing at the back door, through which delivery workers usually entered and left the house and maids threw the bin or cleaning water out.

It was a man, leaning against the open door-frame, cigarette in between the fingers of his right hand.

He was looking pensively out the open doorway, smoke flowing upwards from his mouth.

Her feet stuttered and she stopped.

She had never seen this man before and she was almost shocked at his presence, standing so still and quiet in her home.

She wasn’t one for confrontation or humoring her curiosities (or, at least, that’s what she thought) but before she realized, her mouth was getting ready to say something and before she could, he turned suddenly to her and she locked onto his blue eyes.

Despite it all, all the years of struggle and hatred she had built up about her mind, Mia remembered. She remembered him. Practically instantly.

The man who had kidnapped her the other night.

“She will meet you upstairs, Mr. Shelby.”