Steampunk Jack

Chapter Fifteen

Anne listened as the pastor spoke of her life. There was sadly not a lot to say she admitted to herself, having just turned twenty a few weeks before she died. Several of her old clients spoke for her, talking about her skill as a midwife, and her tenderness as a poor man’s doctor. Some of the eulogies were rough around the edges, but they were all the more special for that.

The casket was closed, for which she was grateful. She didn’t know if she could tolerate staring at her own cold flesh, especially considering how it had been savaged based on newspaper descriptions.

All in all, it was a lovely, if simple ceremony and Anne couldn’t fault it. The only sour note was when her father showed up. He arrived late, halfway through the ceremony, and with his young wife in tow.

Richard Swain was a tall, well-formed man with the same mahogany hair as his daughter, but where her eyes had been green, his were a slate grey. He walked up to the casket and looked down at it, his glare as if he was blaming Anne for being dead. Elbert subtly sidled away from the stony-faced man. Even though she was dead, Anne felt the same nervousness around the tall man she had felt every time she’d met him in life and drifted to be behind James.

Next to him Anne’s young stepmother was dressed in a jet-trimmed black morning gown. The man’s third wife, the tart he had originally divorced Anne’s mother to wed had died a year ago, looked to be about the same age as Anne herself. The young woman’s blue eyes damp with polite tears and her goldenrod hair was pinned up and covered by a lace veil. She looked at her husband and gently touched his arm, causing Anne’s father to nod and drop a single white rose on his daughter’s coffin before glaring at Elbert and stalking off without saying a word to anyone.

“Who was that?” James leaned over and asked Elbert, who was taking a discreet sip from a flask. He’d have asked Anne, but she was to self-absorbed at the moment, and he granted that was rightly so.

“That was my Uncle Dick, I mean Richard Swain, Anne’s father. I never understood what aunt Maddie saw in him.” The man shook his head.

James, having developed a fair judgment into Elbert’s own personality, considered the other man’s disdain for his uncle particularly telling. “Swain? But Anne’s name is Campbell?

“Yes, when he trotted off to a younger field with more ample hills, Aunt Maddie took her maiden’s name back and gave it to Anne. Icy bastard isn’t he.”

“He does seem very…stoic.”

James, Elbert and several other men carried her coffin to a hole already dug into the damp English soil. Carefully, they lowered it down and the priest finished the ceremony, tossing a handful of damp earth onto the casket with a wet thudding sound.

Anne watched, tears in her eyes. It hurt since part of her had hoped that there was some way back. That she wasn’t really dead, and her life wasn’t really over. Watching the funeral was a cold realization that she was really dead and gone. Well not gone. “James, can we go now, please.” She whispered.

“Oh course.”

“What was that?” asked Elbert looking over at James with misted eyes.

“I’m going to go. I wanted to stop by Anne’s shop, to see if the cat has come back.”

“Take care then, Professor. And thanks for coming; I am sure it meant a lot to Anne.”

“And I’m sure it meant a lot to her that you paid for the funeral.” James observed. At Elbert’s surprised look he smiled. “I saw you pass the cash I gave you to the priest. Was it all three hundred?”

“No. Two hundred was for the grave and the service. Grave sites in London are expensive buggers. I spent the lion’s share of the other hundred on her casket. I couldn’t send Anne off in a simple pine box, uncomfortable and all that now could I?” The other man rubbed an eye, slightly tearing up. “Not after her mum and she… well… Just the past now.”

“You’re a good man… rather you know it or not, Elbert.” James assured him.

The other man chuckled, in spite of his tears. “Now I know you’ve been nipping that scotch again,

gov. I’m a right villain, and you know it. Bugger, its chill in a graveyard ain’t it.”

That chill, caused by Anne having attempted to hug the man, passed as Anne rushed out of the graveyard, standing next to the fence.

“Come by if you have need of a friend, Elbert. I know Anne did that for you, even if she wouldn’t admit to liking you any more then you would have acknowledged loving her.” James observed.

“Bah… Bugger off, you Nancy boy.” The man said, but he smiled as he waved James off.

James unlimbered his bike and headed back towards Whitechapel. He pulled the bike into the shop behind them, before shutting and barring the door once more.

“You alright Anne?” He asked. She had been quiet as rumors stated only a ghost could be, and he was a little concerned.

“I am. I don’t know why…I guess it just hit me. There is no going back now. I’m dead!” Anne took a deep breath. “But at least I’m not alone. I could still be stuck on my stoop with no one to talk to and no one acknowledging my presence. I guess what I want to say is thank you. I know I’ve put you through quite a bit but-“

“Quiet Anne. While your situation infuriates me, and my own shocked me more than a little, I am not sorry to have met you.” He grinned and traced his hand down the coolness of her intangible cheek, careful not to accidently push through her. “I only wish I had met you sooner.”

Anne smiled. “Me too.” She drifted to a drawer. “The oak is in here. Oak, as I stated when you made your clever lens, is for strength but lightning is a sign of divine justice. I figured we would replace the pin that supports the needle with this.”

“Makes sense and the pin is a relatively easy thing to change out. Where are the crystals you wanted?”

“The Onyx is in the gem bag in your safe, the Quartz pillars are in this cabinet.”

James collected the items from the places she indicated, and placed them in a pouch he could affix to the front of his bike. “Anything else? Do you have the Frankincense?

“Oh, yes, it’s in this jar,” Anne gestured. “We should also grab the burner.”

“As you wish my Lady.” He said with a gentle smile, grabbing what she indicated.

The sun was setting by the time they got back to the cobbler’s shop. Anne directed James to set the compass in a window sill where the moon could fall upon it, and then to light the incense so that the smoke bathed the metal of the compass, so that it would carry away any unwanted energies.

“So, is it going to be ready to use come morning?” James asked, considering the window, and its view of the moon. It was fortunate that his shop faced the right way, and was taller then the building across the way.

“Unfortunately… no. It’s the full moon, which is good, but we’re going to have to wait all the way through to the new moon for all the previous energies and contaminations to be pulled off.” Anne sighed. “Unfortunately ritual magic isn’t quick.”

“Again, sounds a lot like scientific experimentation.” James observed.

“There is a certain science to it, I suppose.”

“I guess we should be getting along to bed.” James observed. “It’s been a very long day and you are beginning to go transparent again.” He turned to head towards the stairs down to his shop, and his cot.

“James…will you stay with me?” Anne asked in a soft voice. “Maybe then…we will dream again…” She laughed weakly, “You must think me terribly immodest.”

“No, never.” James assured her, turning around to consider her. “Are you sure though?”

“Yes.” she answered softly.

“Then of course I will stay will you Anne. Come along.” He said gently, leading her up the stairs to his room. He changed into a dressing gown while she waited outside the chamber, and curled up under the covers as he watched Anne drift over to lie next to him. Her reclined form left no indentation in the bed even though her hair spilled around her and over the pillow.

“Rest well my…Anne.”

“Rest well James.”

James frowned, confused. He was standing in an empty room, wearing his favorite lab coat and working clothes. He remembered falling asleep, and feeling the cool brush of Anne, welcome for more than one reason on a hot August night. “What the devil?”

“We’re dreaming again.” Anne’s voice, from behind him, caused him to turn about. His eyes settled on her, dressed in a simple dressing gown and as solid looking as he was himself. She strode closer, reaching out hesitantly and settling a warm, soft hand on his cheek. “We’re dreaming again… and we know it this time.” She laughed, though tears stained her cheeks, as she stepped closer, burying her head in his chest.

Instinctively James wrapped his arms around her, holding her as she sobbed in anger and despair. He made meaningless, soothing noises as he held her close, rocking back and forth as she cried. He didn’t blame her for it in the least and was in fact amazed that she’d held out this long.

After untold minutes of racking sobs, and soft cries, she pulled back though not out of his hold and wiped her cheeks and eyes clear. “You must think me a silly thing, crying into you like some frightened babe.”

“No lady, not at all.” He reassured her. “I would think tears to be natural, after attending one’s own funeral. I’m just happy that you didn’t have to do it alone, with none to hold you.”

She smiled, pressing herself against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “You know, you’re a lot more eloquent in dreams then when you’re awake, Mr. St. Cloud.”

“I don’t have my conscious mind getting in the way, Ms. Campbell. It does make it easier; don’t you know.”

“Apparently.” She looked up at him, then suddenly stood on her toes and placed a gentle, hesitant kiss on his lips. “Thank you. For everything.”

“It is nothing, Anne. For you I suspect I’m willing to do yet more.” He declared.

“I hope that’s true.” she said, before blushing brightly. “Oh. Oh my… how that must have sounded. I didn’t mean…”

“Anne! Calm down…” James chuckled, capturing her wrists and pulling her hands away from covering her eyes. “I don’t think, no matter what you do, that I will think badly of you.”

“Truly? I beg to sleep in your bed, and then claim a kiss without leave, and you don’t think me a trollop?”

“How can I, when I was desperately thinking of doing the same thing?” James admitted with his own flushed cheeks.

Anne smiled. “Then why haven’t you?” She asked.

With a smile, he kissed her firmly, pulling her close. She moaned against his lips as their hearts beat together in their embrace.

Finally, their lips parted, and James looked around the room. All he could find was a small loveseat to settle upon, which he pulled Anne gently to, settling her next to him. He caressed her cheeks as she held his hand.

They talked about nothing for a long time, neither remembering nor caring what they said. What was important was the touch of their hands in the others, or the brush of lips. All too soon, and after so very long, the room began to fade and both felt the draw of consciousness against them.

James, in a fit of humor, fired off one shot before Anne could fade completely from his grasp. “Now, to be true, had you managed to put a bed into that room… then I might have thought you a bit naughty of mind… though I doubt I’d have cared one whit!”

Her laughter followed him from the land of dream to his awakened form in his own bed.

“You just keep wishing, Mr. St. Cloud. You haven’t captured my killer yet, so you will have to wait for such a reward!” Anne remarked, her opaque, almost solid seeming ghostly form staring down at him.

“Motivation, my dear Anne, is a wonderful thing!” James declared, with a wink.