The Asylum for Fairy-Tale Creatures (8 page)

“Think of nicer days,” Alice explained. “I think of my parents and seeing their smiles.”

When the young ladies of “Miss Scrim’s Orphanage for Burdens” were unable to complete their tasks, the mistress created even more unusual punishments. Such as standing for hours — bare footed — in the leech bowl.

Miss Scrim had the girls in a line as she paraded in front of them.

“You,” creaked the mistress, pointing a finger that was more bone than anything towards the tiny Dinah. The other orphans sighed with a mixture of relief and terror at what was happening and what would happen next.

“You didn’t work as hard as you should. You must earn your keep if I am to keep a roof over your miserable head.”

“Please, miss,” she whimpered.

“To the leeches with you,” Miss Scrim hissed.

Dinah took a shuddering step forward before Alice caught her shoulder.

“Mistress.” Alice spoke. “It was I who didn’t work hard. I am sorry — Dinah was helping me,” she lied.

The mistress sneered and thought for a moment. “Then you feed my pets tonight,” she decided.

Alice stood in front of the bowl at her feet; the bloated leeches squirmed in anticipation. Alice placed her feet in one after the other. The feeling of the slime-riddled creatures feeding between her toes was not unlike putting one’s feet in a bowl of jelly laced with sewing needles. Once again Alice thought of her parents and let her mind wander to their arms.

Toys were prohibited at the orphanage; playtime was time away from work time, considered Miss Scrim. So the children made do with what they could, making themselves teddy bears of coal or dolls from nettles, sticks and mud. The girls of the orphanage slept in the damp and infested cellar. While in the lodgings above, Miss Scrim rented the rooms to unsavoury characters, leaving the orphans to huddle together in the dark. They slept amongst scraps with always one eye to the shadowy corners. Things of many limbs, things of many eyes crawled in those corners. There were stories of children sinking into the shadows. Upon the stone floor tiny nail marks were dragged and etched along.

“Where is Dinah?” Alice asked one evening. She had not seen her all day.

There was a moment’s silence before the reply came.

“Mistress sold her to a chimney sweep. Except…”

“Except what?” Alice asked.

“Except I saw the sweep come back demanding his money. He was mad at Dinah. He said she ruined a toff’s chimney with her corpse.”

So it was that sometime after her uncelebrated thirteenth birthday Alice decided to jump into the River Thames and forever end her misery. To that end, one freezing night Alice climbed from the cellar’s small window and made her way through gaslit cobbled streets to Tower Bridge. Horrible black steaming creatures snorted, pulling carriages as she passed by. No one paid her attention, except to sneer or stare with an unhealthy purpose. There were plenty of children on London’s streets and so another urchin in the night was paid little heed. She kept to the dark shades of London and her head to the street. Eventually after the dark walk through London’s slums, Alice stood on the bridge staring into the water. The wind was cutting and blew her long blonde hair with the sharpest of strokes. Alice looked out from the bridge; London was lit by a thousand dull lights. It reminded Alice of a demented beast.

To calm her nerves she sang a song under its gaze:

‘I often wondered what it would be like to die,

To jump into the river and sink deep inside,

Drink in the water and fill my lungs a while,

Floating along with a contented dead smile.

Did the dead sleep for ever so they could dream?

How I would dream such things, floating in that stream.’

Alice closed her eyes to the world, held her hands out and felt the edge of the bridge beneath her feet. She thought of her parents and how they had all loved each other. She thought of the orphanage and how love avoided the place. She wondered how much loss and heartbreak she could endure, was there ever to be an end. Her short life had been hard and tinged with sadness; however she had the comfort in memories of her parents. There were children living amongst the gutters who had never known their own parents at all. Yet here she was, still managing to live when others had not been so fortunate. There was something in those thoughts that calmed her and suddenly, with determination, she knew not to let adversity define her. She never had and even now at her lowest moment, she would not.

Feeling foolish at her plan, Alice began to climb from the edge of the bridge when a policeman, seeing the danger, ran towards her calling out, “Girl, girl, get down!” Alice, startled, turned to explain before slipping and plunging like a dead seagull into the waiting water. The frozen cold took her breath and the water rushed into the gap left in her lungs. She was welcomed to the oppressive water as her dress became as heavy as lead. Although Alice had no longer the intention of drowning, she did anyway.

Chapter Two

Alice found death to be quite troublesome. So she decided not to do it any more. When she opened her eyes again, she found the stars staring back at her. Was this the afterlife? If so it had dampness to it. Alice realised she had been carried by the water and abandoned upon the muddy riverbank. Soaking wet and covered in thick mud, Alice lay in the silt and pondered. She should have been panicked at her ordeal but Alice was no longer breathing. Her chest simply refused to gasp for air. Water dripped from her mouth as if she were an overflowing cup of tea. A way along the river she could see the distant silhouette of Tower Bridge. There were police whistles demanding attention. The lights of London’s eyes continued to watch her from all around the Thames.

It was then she noticed the rabbit sitting on her chest. The rabbit was dirty, white and tatty. A wretched thing with broken ears and a missing left eye. Curiously its mouth was covered by a surgeon’s mask. Confused by this, Alice noticed the rabbit’s paws. In one it held a blooded scalpel, in its other a human heart, still dripping. She held her hand to where her terrified heart should have been pumping; except it was now an empty wound.

The rabbit placed her heart into a tiny knapsack tied around its waist. It leapt from Alice and over to a sewer pipe jutting from the bank, spilling London’s filth into the river. Underneath, the rabbit was covered in muck, crawling and struggling upwards. As it made its way to the pipe the spilling sewage washed it back down into the mud.

“That’s my heart,” shouted Alice as she waddled over, heavy and sloshing with water.

She managed to pick the rabbit up in both hands; it looked like a stuffed toy, yet had the feel of bone wrapped in wet rags. The rabbit immediately screeched a horrible sound when Alice lifted it from the mud. It tore away its mask and sank sharp teeth deep into Alice’s left hand. There was no pain but Alice shook the creature this way and that. The rabbit refused to let go, so she had no choice but to smash its head against the pipe. The rabbit spun from Alice’s hand and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer.

“Well, I never,” gasped Alice. She held her bitten hand to her eyes.

Two fingers were now missing. Strange, thought Alice, as to why there was no blood. The skin and stumps were a pale greenish. She tore a piece of material from her dress and wrapped the makeshift bandage over her wound.

Alice’s mother had always taught her to keep her most precious emotions in her heart. Alice remembered her mother holding and stroking her hair. She ran her finger over her chest bone, making the shape of a love heart. Having the organ stolen was akin to having the love she held for her departed parents taken away. Alice searched herself for any feelings, only to find she had none. Death had hollowed her. This would not do at all; Alice had no choice but to follow the rabbit.

The rusted pipe, although tiny in comparison to Alice, would still be able to accommodate her if she crawled on her stomach. She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark and her nose to the stench before using the bank to climb into the pipe. There was a lining of soft debris and a kind of slime not unlike that of slugs, so Alice slid along at a pace.

This isn’t so dreadful, thought Alice.

The running water washed away most of the mud and the rats that ran along seemed friendly enough, only occasionally stopping to nibble at her legs. However the rabbit was nowhere to be seen, but Alice could hear screeching further along. She believed herself to be getting closer to her quarry when all of a sudden the pipe took an impossibly sharp dip, sending Alice sliding down, sprawling.

CARINA™

ISBN: 978 1 472 08397 5

The Asylum for Fairy Tale Creatures

Copyright © 2014 Sebastian Brown

Published in Great Britain (2014)

by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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