Shadows Lost: Lost #3 (The Lost) Read online

  For the ribbon cutting ceremony, I wear my second best dress, the blue one that Lu found for me back in London. As usual, it’s too short, but no one here will care or even notice. In order for it to button correctly and not look odd, I have to wear a corset – my absolute least favorite invention in the world. I complain the entire time Lu is pulling it tight. Hers is already laced up and ready, and she looks like a little China doll, older in appearance really than her years, but still attractive.

  “I don’t remember it being this tight on you last time,” Lu admonishes in Chinese.

  “Thanks a lot,” I pant. “I think you just relocated my spleen.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t with baby?” She steps around from the back of me and eyes me, up and down, hands on her hips.

  I blush to the tips of my hair. “I’m sure,” I reply, firmly. “Are you really going to ask me that every day for the rest of my life? I promise if that ever happens, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Well, I don’t know what’s taking so long.” Lu looks irritated by my lack of procreation. “I’m going to talk to Ethan about this.”

  “No, you will not talk to Dr. Smythe!” I am appalled. Really, my nonexistent fertility problems are the least of everyone’s concerns. Why isn’t everyone busying themselves with bigger problems? Why is the size of my waist the only thing on Lu’s mind?

  It probably would have been easier to just come clean with the doctor and Lu about our sham of a marriage, but we worried that they would be insulted that we started our friendship and work partnership on a lie. Plus, Africa or no, this is still a Victorian time we live in at the moment. It doesn’t do well for one’s reputation to be living in sin, even if there hasn’t been much sinning.

  “Finally,” Lu grunts. “You’re done. May I fix your hair?”

  “So I can shove it under a hat? No, thanks.” I’m still miffed at her nosiness, and my tone is sharper than I had intended. “Sorry. The heat is oppressive already, and I miss my spleen, that’s all.”

  Lu rolls her eyes and mumbles something that sounds like the Chinese word for baby. Whether she’s mourning the lack of me producing one or is accusing me of being one, I don’t know.

  We head out into the sun.

  2.

  There’s a newspaper man at the ribbon cutting ceremony that I take an instant dislike to. He totes around his mammoth camera and seems to be under everyone’s feet at once. He reminds me of a little weasel. Maybe the reason I don’t like him is the camera. The last relationship I had with a photographer did not go well, and my blood boils a little at the thought of Luke. Anyway, this weasel’s name is Basil, and I’m worried about how far his audience spreads, and how he already knows all of our real names. We should have traveled with aliases, but then we’d be back to the whole insulting of Dr. Smythe and Lu again. They know us by our real names, and there’s no story ever penned that would give a plausible explanation for why we suddenly felt the need to change them. Well, there’s the story of mad sister chasing us through centuries as we travel through time, but I’ve not known that one to attract any friends.

  “I don’t want in the photo,” I practically growl. I sound like Joe imitating a tiger. “That’s final.”

  Basil, the oily thing, doesn’t take no for an answer. “But your husband has been instrumental in the building and creation of this historical hospital! This is a monumental moment, a moment your children and grandchildren will want preserved for all time!” His voice has a nasal, whining edge to it that must have driven his own mother to drink when he was a child. I can just imagine him pleading for more dessert, and her giving in to keep him quiet.

  “Why is everyone so dang obsessed with my imaginary children?” I nearly yell. “Israel, back me up on this.” I turn to him, rather desperately. “No photos.”

  “No photos,” Iz repeats, his voice hard. Basil immediately slinks off to pester someone else. I imagine him leaving behind a trail of slime, like a giant slug. I don’t usually take such an immediate dislike to people, but lately I’ve been paying better attention to my instincts. Before Rose, I believed everyone had good intentions on their minds.

  “Geez, Louise,” I mutter, and fan myself with my hat. “I hate photographers. I really do, nearly as much as corsets, and definitely more than scorpions.” I step on one savagely with my boot and hear a satisfying crunch. As I knew he would, Israel jumps backward a full foot and makes a sound like a nine-year-old Girl Scout. He hates creepy crawlies, probably even more than photographers, though it’s a tossup: his hatred of Luke Dawes runs pretty deep.

  “Ugh.” My handsome hero shivers. “That sounded like a big, squishy one.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” I sidle up and throw my arms around him. “For a kiss, that is.”

  A moment of bliss is interrupted by the flash of an old fashioned camera. I’d like to beat that Basil with his own equipment. I really would.

  ***

  The hospital here was started by an eager couple, fresh out of some sort of religious school, zealous for missionary work, and with funding to back them. They lasted a few months and were happy to let Dr. Smythe and Dr. Rhode (as everyone calls my Israel) take over. We’ll probably never know their story, but let’s just say they had their suitcases packed when we arrived and barely showed us around before they took off back to the states. The Lost are used to making do and surviving, and we don’t expect the red carpet treatment, so stepping into their spots was easy enough, though I’m not saying I’d like to stay here. No, of all the places and times I’ve called home, this doesn’t make my personal Top Five List. Maybe it’s Asha, maybe it’s the feeling of looking over my shoulder for my sister, or maybe I just don’t belong here even more than I don’t belong anywhere - which is really saying something.

  At night, we pull out a handwritten letter, addressed to Ethan and Lu. Every single night we pull this letter out and leave it on our nightstand. Every single morning, when we wake still here, we tuck it back inside the drawer to be pulled out again when we go to sleep next. It’s Israel’s words, but it’s my handwriting. (His is terrible. How his beautiful hands can perform surgeries and delicate operations, plus make me weak kneed when he strokes my wrist, but can’t legibly write his own name, is a mystery to me). It says this:

  Dear Ethan and Lu,

  The time has come to part ways. You know of some of our plight in London; indeed, it is worse than you believed. Our enemies are close, and we must put distance between ourselves and those we love, namely you. It is better this way so you will not be in danger, too. Thank you for your patience, understanding, wisdom, teaching, and friendship. Forgive us for our abrupt departure.

  Israel and Sonnet, Noah, Bea, and Joe.

  It’s unusual that we do this, but the thought of abandoning them without any kind of explanation is too cruel. They’ve allowed us to live with them, and we’ve endangered them, traveled continents with them, and gotten to know them. To disappear in the middle of the night, as we will inevitably do someday, would haunt us. Our explanation is shoddy, but the best we can do. Plus, it’s a little bit true. They know of Rose and Luke; without Lu, Israel and I might have met a bloody demise at the end of Luke’s pistol. Instead, she was our avenging angel, flying through the night and saving our lives. I still smile when I remember it. I doubt Luke smiles over it though; he was so angry. I thought he might break right through the wardrobe door we locked him inside. I wonder how and if he got out. Did Rose return from wherever it was she had gone that day? Had she been cavorting with Jack the Ripper again? Had she traveled somewhere alone? She is the only one of us who can control her travels. I’m jealous of that, I’ll admit readily enough. To be able to steer, to navigate, to go where and when you choose – a luxury, though it hasn’t done her any favors; she’s as mad as a hatter. The weird thing is: I still love her, desperately, fiercely, hopelessly, but we’ll never be true sisters again, and I want nothing to do with her.

  It’s dark, and nor
mally we’d all be asleep by now – especially Joe, who is our alarm clock in the morning and our bedtime reminder at night – but the ribbon cutting ceremony and all the excitement surrounding it has wired us all up. Joe is eating more dessert in Asha’s kitchen, Bea and my father have gone for a stroll in the moonlight (I try not to imagine them stopping to kiss or some such thing), Lu is sewing by the light of an oil lamp, Dr. Smythe and Israel are conversing out on the porch with a colleague, and though I tried to join in their conversation, it was getting far too bloody and detailed for squeamish me. I don’t mind pretending I know what they’re talking about when the conversation is tuned to turned ankles or fevers or coughs, but when they get into things like squirting blood vessels and violent bleeding, I feel a bit lightheaded. Actually, I think Iz does too, but he takes it like a man more than I do. When you’re a good three or four inches over six feet tall and full of rippled muscles, people expect braver things of you (unless there’s a scorpion nearby).

  So, I wander up to our room, thinking I’ll read until Iz comes to bed and we start our awkward dance of who sleeps where. Lu has given me a collection of Chinese fairytales; they’re gruesome and eerie and guaranteed t not to give me stellar dreams. I’ll read a while and maybe comb through my mop of tangled hair. I haven’t had my dark hair trimmed in months and months, and I forget how long it is until I take the time to brush it. I decide if we travel to the 1920s flapper era, I’m going to cut it all off in a pageboy style. Of course, with my luck, we’d wake up the next day in Puritan Salem, and they’d burn me as a witch for such a wicked head of hair. I can’t seem to win for losing.

  I’m distracted by the sight of our letter to Dr Smythe and Lu perched on the nightstand. I frown. I haven’t taken it out yet – it’s always the last thing we do before we fall asleep. Israel hasn’t even been to our room since early this morning, and I distinctly remember putting it away when I got up, hours and hours ago. Reaching for it, I realize it’s not our letter; this one is a paler shade, not the same paper at all, and it’s not folded like ours is. It’s just a small rectangle of paper with one line written in familiar handwriting. I know it because I’ve seen his writing on the backs of his photos.

  Gray,

  I need to see you – life or death matter. It’s about Rose.

  My blood runs cold. The last person I ever wanted to see again had found me. My betrayer, my sister’s lover, Luke Dawes.

  ***

  “All in all, I think it was pretty successful.” Israel yawns and stretches. “The natives are warming up to us, and even though I know Basil is a greasy skunk, the hospital needs the publicity. I made him promise me to give me the photo of us, though.” He winks at me. “Want to reenact the moment?”

  I’m too distracted for kissing. I haven’t decided what to do about the note. Earlier, I had ripped it into tiny, unrecognizable pieces and threw them out the window. Then I bolted shut the window. The thought of Luke being in my room without my knowledge makes my skin crawl. I haven’t told Israel.

  Yet.

  “I haven’t brushed my teeth,” I lie. “I have garlic breath.”

  “Yum!” Iz grins. “Come here.”

  “No, really!” I back up. “And I’m getting a cold.”

  “You should see a doctor.” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d better examine you.” What has gotten into him? The one night I’m far too distracted for flirting, and he goes all romantic on me. For crying out loud.

  “For that cheesy line,” I announce, “you totally get the floor. Down, boy.”

  “You’re killing me, Sonny,” Iz groans. “I’m not kidding.”

  “You just worked a twelve hour shift. You’re delirious.”

  “Delirious, but not dead,” he mutters, right as I hear the familiar goodnight knock on our door. We freeze as though we had been doing something remotely questionable.

  “Night, Dad,” I say loudly.

  “Night, Sonny!”

  “See?” Crossly, I turn to Iz. “You call me that one minute, expecting goose bumps and passion, and then my dad comes along and calls me Sonny. Seriously.”

  “You’re just looking for excuses.” Israel’s tone is teasing, but there’s an underlying current to his words. It’s probably true. I do look for excuses to not get too close. My emotional walls are as high as the moon sometimes. “Fine then, but if you’re planning a booty call in the middle of night, missy, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

  I snort. “Thank you for the warning, Casanova, though I hardly know what that means.” I take a deep breath and lick my lips. Then I chew on the bottom one. I can’t get the words out, the words that will tell him our least favorite person in the world is lurking nearby.

  “What?” Israel frowns. “What is wrong with you tonight?”

  I already know what will happen if I talk. Israel will grab the rifle that Asha keeps for protection, and he will pace the house and the grounds until he finds Luke, and then he’ll shoot him – after he beats him to a pulp – or maybe vice versa. I just know there won’t be any conversation between them, and I may never know the meaning of the note. It’s about Rose? Is she dead? No, he wouldn’t come find me for that news – there’d be no point. Is she locked up again? That’s probably it, though what I could do about it is beyond me. Has she traveled without him? Again, what could I possibly do about that? Has she … recovered? Yes, Sonnet, she’s all better now, full of sweetness and light, my inner sarcastic voice ridicules me.

  “I’m just tired and cranky,” I answer, with a shrug. “Are the doors all locked?”

  Israel really stares at me now. “You know Asha. She’s pretty into safety. Why, think Basil is going to sneak in and annoy you some more?”

  “I’ve heard of paparazzi doing worse,” I point out, glad my tone sounds normal. “He might climb the tree and come in through our window. I’ll just double check the latch.” I make a show of being silly and dramatic, but really I am jiggling the lock, testing it. Did Luke just stroll casually through the boarding house to my room? How did he know where to go? Did he ask Asha for my room number, or did he really shimmy through the window? I don’t remember now if it was locked or not; like a dunce, I’ve locked and relocked it so many times in the past twenty seconds that I can’t recall. I look down, into the space below the window. It’s too dark now to see the tiny pieces of paper I threw. Had I unlocked the window before tossing them out? I can’t remember. I’m such a fool. I lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window. I feel Israel kiss the back of my neck – which would normally give me delicious goose-bump but tonight only serves to make me jump – and then hear him toss his pillow on the floor.

  I crawl into bed and debate my options. I could wait until Iz falls asleep, then sneak down and get the rifle myself, go find Luke, and demand to know what he wants from me, but I run the risk I always run if I’m not sleeping at the same time as the others. If tonight’s the night for a travel, I’d be left behind. I would have chosen Luke, of all people, over my own family.

  I close my eyes tight, and with obstinate resolve, I make myself fall asleep.

  ***

  For once, I’m awake before Israel. I think I even wake up before the rooster out back, but then again, that’s not necessarily an achievement: whoever says roosters only crow at dawn are mistaken. They crow all day and half the night – at least old Boris does. Asha told me his African name, but I couldn’t decipher or remember it, so I call the mean old thing Boris. Boris and Asha have very similar personalities actually: snooty, snobby, and peckish.

  I struggle to get my pants on underneath my nightgown, and then realize that’s not half as difficult as putting on my chemise and shirt while still wearing my nightgown. I am practically stifled to death by a ruffle, and at one point I am concerned I’ll have to wake Israel up just to get me out. That would defeat the purpose of me doing this in the first place: keeping him from seeing me naked. Flushed and feeling like I just ran a marathon, I finally close the door sof
tly behind me and set off downstairs. I’ll have to wake him soon – no sense tempting fate – but he had a long day yesterday, and he never gets to sleep much. Also, I’m pretty confident I heard a soft chuckle when I was tangled in my nightgown, so I don’t think he’s sleeping anyway. Overgrown brat.

  I ignore the sound of Joe’s chatter over his porridge close by, and head straight for where I know Asha keeps her rifle: her room. She’ll kill me six different ways if she catches me, but honestly, I have bigger enemies to worry about, and one of them is practically on my doorstep.

  Asha’s room is sparse, but larger than the other rooms. Her bed is enormous, and I wonder, not for the first time, what her husband was like. She is barely older than me, and already a widow. I reach under the bed and pull out what I’m looking for: the Martini-Henry rifle her husband left her. It’s extremely heavy, but I think I can use it if I need to, especially if Luke makes me mad enough. Dad taught me to shoot years ago or years from now; I forget. Sometime in my past, but not the world’s past, anyway.

  Asha’s room has a large picture window, one that is more like a door than a window. It’s pretty, almost romantic somehow, and I wonder again about her husband. If this were a more modern era, it would lead to a patio, or a swimming pool, but Asha’s only leads to wilderness behind the boarding house. I leave through this window instead of sneaking out through the house. It’s difficult enough to sneak without lugging around the world’s heaviest firearm.

  Boris comes squawking up to me, his ugly eyes looking mean as ever. “Get away from me, you smelly bugger,” I threaten, brandishing the rifle. “I have eaten plenty of rooster pudding in my time, and I am not above eating it again.” Such a culinary oddity was one of Prue’s specialties, along with squirrel pie and alligator gumbo, and I miss her with a sharp pang. I’d give anything to smell her strange pastries and bizarre stews again. Leaving her behind in London was difficult, but necessary. Lost herself, she may travel on her own, but it was a better alternative than traipsing about countries with our pursued and endangered family. Also, once the Lost get old enough (and Prue is extremely old) their traveling whittles down to nothing if they aren’t near enough any other Lost to get pulled into their journeys. I can only hope she lives out her final days, in culinary bliss, at Sir Halloway’s house.