he bundles Joe up and they leave through the front door. I know it is to explain to the little boy what has happened. I stay where I am for a moment longer, but I know what I must do. There are three people I need to find: Inspector Walter Andrews, Luke Dawes, and my sister. I don’t expect Inspector Andrews to believe anything I have to say but I will have to try to make him understand that Emme’s killing was a foreshadowing of more terrible things to come. As for Luke and Rose…I only know that I am angry, angry enough to force a confrontation. I will grieve later.
“I’m coming with you,” Israel murmurs when I unwrap myself from his arms. His eyes are still closed but he is fully awake. Energy courses through his body and nearly gives off sparks whenever I touch him.
“You won’t like where I’m going,” I answer.
“I never do, but I’m coming anyway.”
“Get your coat then.” I soon as I say it I realize just what I’ve said and an almost hysterical laugh nearly bursts out of me. He can’t take his coat, as Emme’s body is still wrapped inside it.
“Bea,” Israel goes over to the couch. “Bea, I know you’ll want some time alone with your daughter. I’m going to send a cab for Prue and she can help you with dressing Emme. She’ll know what to do. Wait for her, alright?”
Bea nods and though I am reluctant to do so, we leave her. It is a sleeting, chilly morning, a bad time to be without a coat, but it only motivates us to move faster. Israel gives everything in his pocket to a driver and sends him to collect Prue.
“I wouldn’t want Bea to see all that blood on her dress,” he explains softly. “Prue is better suited to take care of everything.”
I nod wordlessly and swallowing back the tears my body wants to spill, I tell him of my first meeting with Inspector Andrews.
“Do you think he’ll listen? There’s no way to explain how we know anything that makes any sense.”
“I know,” I agree. “But we have to try.”
“Maybe a letter then. I don’t want him locking you up in a loony bin.”
“Ha ha. Alright, a letter. Dad can write one; he’s the historian. Maybe he can remember another victim’s name or something more helpful.”
“There are thousands of prostitutes in London, especially the Whitechapel district. I don’t think we’re going to change history, Sonnet. I don’t think we can, as much as you want to.”
“Speaking of being crazy, what do you know about Bedlam?” I change the subject. “You’re a doctor, have you studied the history of one of the oldest hospitals in the world?”
“I know that the inmates don’t like to be called crazy and the proper name is Bethlem Royal Hospital,” he deadpans.
“Sorry. How bad do you think Rose had it there?”
“Depends on the time period she was there, I guess. It’s been around for a long, long time. If she was there during the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth centuries, it would have been horrendous. Not much better after, although at least they stopped manacling them to the walls or floors. In the early eighteen hundreds, just a few decades ago, they would let the patients out at night for dancing in the ballroom.”
“That sounds bizarre and maybe a little scary. All those poor people dancing their cares away all night?” I think of Rose sipping her imaginary tea and suddenly I can picture her dancing in her red dress and bare feet in a dusty, old ballroom with the other mad patients; twirling and spinning. A crazy snapshot. Somehow the picture fits very well with what I know of my sister. “She said she danced there.”
“Is that where we’re going?” Israel asks.
“Bedlam? No. No, I want to talk to Rose. I want to know,” I falter. “I want to know why. Why she hates me so. And I also want to know how she does it. Manipulates time, I mean. I want out of here,” my last words are spoken viciously and I realize suddenly how true it is. How bad I do want out of London, this place of cold and death.
“I doubt she knows herself,” he replies. “She must be capable of some kind of power, but I wonder if she knows how to harness it.”
“Well, then maybe Luke will know. Obviously, he’s Lost too and has been keeping all sorts of secrets.” I can’t