Creature of Filth

“No,” Emily said, staring at the stricken old woman. “My name is Emily. Emily Edwards. I’m here to see … Mrs. Kendall.” Remembering, she felt for a card, one of the new ones she’d had made, engraved in simple black letters.

The maid blinked. Emily tried to hand her the card, but the old woman would not take it.

“I’ve come from New York,” Emily fumbled for something to say. “From California, actually—”

“Wait,” the maid blurted and disappeared from the door, closing it loudly. Emily stood on the doorstep, her face flushed. The woman had recognized her—or rather, had recognized her mother in her. Emily’s heart pounded like a drum, blood rushing madly between her ears.

There was more shuffling behind the door, and more sounds. Emily heard a muffled: “Don’t be silly, Liddy!” and small crisp steps coming toward the door. Then the door was jerked open to reveal another old woman, different from the maid in every respect. She was neat and small and pretty, with smooth white hair. Emily was sure she would look nicer without the expression of anger and suspicion that disfigured her face. Her mouth was set in a way that said she was about to tell Emily to shove off, but then her eyes caught Emily’s. The blood drained from her face, but she did not falter. If anything, she stood up even straighter.

“You do look like her,” she said softly. “Very much.”

“My name is Emily Edwards,” Emily said. “Or Kendall. I don’t really know. I’ve come … I’ve come to speak with you about Catherine Kendall. She was my mother.”

The woman blinked, her face softening for a moment, then hardening again abruptly. “Was?” she said. “She is dead, then?”

Emily nodded.

The old woman blew out a breath, as though a long-held suspicion had finally been confirmed.

“Come in,” she said.

Emily was shown into a large sitting room, and though she hardly considered herself au courant in matters of fashion, even she could tell that the decor was severely outdated. The furniture in the room was gothic and austere, all angles and corners. There was a notable absence of the kinds of ornamentation—needlepoint pillows and wax flowers, cut paper and painted china—that Emily had become accustomed to. One prominent piece of decoration, however, caught Emily’s eye. On the wall, a simple red cross. Her heart thumped nervously, but she pushed the anxiety away. Lots of people had crosses in their homes, she thought. And red was a very popular color.

The old woman perched on the edge of a horsehair settle.

“My name is Emily, too,” she said.

“I know this is very unexpected.” Emily clutched her reticule tightly. The action made the diamond ring on her finger flash like a shooting star. The speck of brilliance was sufficient to draw Mrs. Kendall’s attention to Emily’s good hand, and from there to her prosthetic of ivory. The old woman looked away from the appendage quickly. Emily cursed herself for forgetting to wear gloves.

“And you believe Catherine was your mother?” The old woman’s voice caught upon speaking her daughter’s name. “In what manner do you intend to support this claim?” There was a high tense note in the woman’s voice, both eager and forbidding, as if she wanted Emily to both prove and disprove her kinship.

“I have this.” Emily pulled out the calling card with her mother’s name on it. She showed the card to the old woman, who took it with trembling hands. “That’s how I found you. It was in my mother’s things.”

“My daughter handed out hundreds of cards,” Mrs. Kendall said, turning the card over with slender fingers. “That means nothing.”

“There are also these.” Emily reached into the reticule and withdrew the hair sticks, holding them out for Mrs. Kendall to examine. The woman shook her head curtly.

“I have never seen them before.”

Emily fought discouragement. Was it possible this was all an elaborate mistake? It just couldn’t be. She leaned forward, gesturing to her ears.

“And these,” she said. “She was wearing them when she died.”

This time, the old woman paused. She leaned forward, too, so that she could more closely scrutinize the eardrops. She lifted a trembling hand, touched one of the glimmering amethysts, then let her hand drop wearily. She said nothing, but stood, and went to the drawer of a tall sideboard. She pulled out a velvet box. Without a word, she handed the box to Emily.

Awkwardly, aware that Mrs. Kendall was watching her, Emily opened the box. Inside there was a velvet separator with a place for earrings and a necklace. The earrings were missing, but Emily knew exactly where they were—in her ears. The necklace was there, a perfect match.

“Tell me what happened to her,” Mrs. Kendall said.

“I don’t know all of it,” Emily said, thinking guiltily of the bottle of memories and the knowledge that this woman would relish of her daughter. “She died in California, at a place called Lost Pine. I was with her. She was going to San Francisco—”

“San Francisco?” Mrs. Kendall snapped in disbelief. “Why on earth would she go there?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said. “That’s why I’ve come to you—”

“What do you want here?” The words came from the doorway. Emily looked up and saw an old man with a sour face and acidic eyes. Tufts of white hair stood out over his ears. He wore a suit of black and a priest’s collar. He bore an electricity of anger into the room with him, anger that focused on Emily.

“James!” Mrs. Kendall said, taking one unconscious step back from him.

“I asked what you want here, young woman.” Mr. Kendall’s words were for Emily alone, spat with barely restrained fury.

“I wanted to meet you,” Emily whispered.

“Why?” he barked.

“Because Catherine Kendall was my mother.”

“My daughter is dead,” the old man said. “And any bastard she had died with her. Or should have.”

“No,” Emily said. “I didn’t die. I was raised up in California. I have her earrings—”

“You could have gotten those anywhere.”

“James, please,” the old woman said. “Look at her. She looks just like Catherine.”

“And a poisonous mushroom looks edible until you die from eating one.” The old man looked sidelong at his wife. “The Russians have been back here, Mother. They steal my daughter, lead her to a strange death somewhere in the wilderness, and then they have the brass to come back!”

“James!” Mrs. Kendall said. “What did they want?”

“They were here less than a week ago, asking me questions about Catherine, and about you.” The last word was punched at Emily.

“The Russians?” Emily said softly, the words catching in her throat. “The Sini Mira?”

“Oh, you know about them, do you?” Mr. Kendall came closer to her, so close she could smell the mentholatum and talc on his clothes. “If you think that knowing will help your cause, young woman, you’re wrong.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mrs. Kendall said to him, her voice low and hot.

“I saw no need.” The Reverend Kendall’s eyes continued to burn into Emily. “I didn’t want you to know. She was raised a Witch, Mother. And she intends to marry a Warlock.” The word “Warlock” was spoken with such disdain that Rev. Kendall’s mouth went through precisely four discrete contortions.

Mrs. Kendall lifted her hand to her mouth.

“No,” she whispered against her fingers. “It can’t be.”

Emily’s amorphous fears seemed to coagulate all at once as she saw the horror in the eyes of the woman who had just begun to soften toward her. Now there were two pairs of hostile eyes scrutinizing her. The red cross on the wall wasn’t just an ornament. It did mean what she’d feared.

Emily remembered New Bethel, the knife-faced preacher and his parishioners, Stanton tied in preparation for being burned at the stake for the sin of being a Warlock … they had been adherents to an ultraconservative theology, Eradicationists who wanted to see all Witches and Warlocks wiped from the face of the earth …

“You’re Scharfians,” Emily whispered.

“I count the good brother as one of my closest friends,” Rev. Kendall said. “My church was the first in Boston to loose itself from the shackles of sinful appeasement and reform under the Scharfian banner. The banner of decency and godliness.” His voice seemed to gain intensity as he spoke. “You are a sinner, girl. You are a foul and accursed thing, an abomination before the Lord—”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a Witch,” Emily stammered, standing quickly. She suddenly felt as if she might need to flee at any moment. “And the fact that I’m a Witch doesn’t have anything to do with what I came for—”

“You came here to make some claim to being a Kendall,” the old man interrupted. “But even if my daughter did have the misfortune to give you life, you’re no Kendall. The Kendalls have hated Witches for three hundred years. The hatred is in our very blood.”

Emily said nothing, but felt her way backward, toward the archway that led to the hall that led to the front door.

“The Kendall family moved to Boston only recently,” Rev. Kendall said, driving her before him as he advanced on her, step by step, fingers held like claws.

“James, no,” Mrs. Kendall said, under her breath. He did not seem to hear her.

“We arrived in Boston a hundred years ago. Before that, we were residents of Salem.” He paused. “We were Witch hunters. Celebrated Witch hunters. My great-grandfather personally executed two hundred Warlocks, and almost as many Witches. Burned most of them. Hung a few. Chopped the heads off the rest. Hell-shackled sinners, each and every one. Sinners just like you.”

He had backed her all the way to the front door. The large brass doorknob pressed into the small of her back. He stopped right before her, his face a mask of abhorrence.

“Mark my words, creature of filth.” Spittle flecked her cheek; she did not dare reach up and wipe it off. “If I have anything to do with it, you and everyone like you will be dead before the century is out.”

“James, please,” Mrs. Kendall was saying. She was coaxing him backward with pleading hands laid on his arm. It gave Emily just enough space to reach behind herself and open the front door.

“Leave my house.” Kendall shook his wife’s hand away as Emily hurried out the door and down the steps. The old man watched her go, his voice rising in fury to follow her.

“Leave, and return to the bed of Satan from which you came! Leave, that the earnest faithful may not be sickened with thee! Leave, foul and accursed thing …”

Emily stumbled along the sidewalk, epithets ringing in her ears, until finally she heard the door slam shut. Then she stopped, and stood still for a moment, fighting tears that prickled the corners of her eyes. She looked around, suddenly realizing that in her nervousness, she’d forgotten to tell the cab to wait. Cursing her own stupidity, she wrapped her arms around her trembling body. Surely she could find a cab if she walked. And she wanted to get away from the Kendall house, far away.

She turned her steps back in the direction that she remembered coming. It felt good to walk, to let her legs do the thinking for her. Her head certainly wasn’t up to the task of sorting it all out … that her mother had been born into a family of Eradicationists, Witch hunters who had killed hundreds of Witches and Warlocks … hung them, decapitated them, burned them alive … it was a point of family pride!

And again, the Sini Mira. They were all around her now. The bottle of memories—it had to be what they wanted. She felt for it in her pocket, but it was not there; she suffered a momentary panic before she remembered she’d left it in the hotel, carefully hidden at the bottom of her trunk. Relief flooded her, and then she was glad she didn’t have it, that she wasn’t walking around with it. It seemed so dangerous all of a sudden.

She looked for a cab, but there were none on this quiet residential street; only the soft reassuring sounds of ordinary people going about their lives. It made Emily feel a little better. She walked on, wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders. The sky had turned grayer, and the air had a chill in it. There were no Russians around her now. The Sini Mira were far away. She kept telling herself that. The Sini Mira were far away.

Or were they?

Almost experimentally, Emily stopped in her tracks and looked around herself. There was no one near, but that did not stop Emily saying in a loud voice, “Dmitri! Dmitri, if you’re here, show yourself!”

The words rang around her. Silence was the only answer.

She sighed, feeling better and worse at the same time. There was no reason to believe the Russian was still following her. There was no reason not to believe, really, that he hadn’t been left behind in California. But deep frustration and anguish made Emily raise her voice again.

“Dmitri, come out and face me! Tell me what you want with me … or my mother …”

Again, only silence answered, and after a while, Emily trudged on, her brow furrowed darkly.

By the time Emily got back to the hotel, the skies had opened and drenched her in a downpour. She paused at the front desk and asked for paper and pencil. She wrote a short note to Miss Jesczenka, assuring the woman that she had made it back safely.

After a moment’s thought, she added a little postscript explaining that she wished to be alone with her thoughts for the evening, and that she would meet her for breakfast in the morning. She handed it to the clerk and asked that a bellman be dispatched to deliver it.

Then she climbed up the stairs wearily and let herself into her room. She sat down to dry herself before the little gas grate in the corner.

There was a knock on the door. She stood wearily, expecting that it was Miss Jesczenka, come to check on her despite her expressed desire to be left alone. It annoyed her, and she jerked open the door, intending to address the woman coolly. When she saw who stood in the doorway, however, the words froze in her throat.

It was a woman in a heavy black cloak that was dripping with rain. She put back her hood, revealing shining white hair. It was Mrs. Kendall.

“I had to find you before you went,” she said. “I thought you might be at the American. It’s where all the Witches and Warlocks stay …”

Emily stood frozen in surprise for a few moments before she was able to speak. When she did, words tumbled over words quickly, and she opened the door wide.

“Come in,” Emily said. “Please, come in.”

Mrs. Kendall came into the room, and Emily showed her to two small chairs arranged before the mean little grate. The old woman sat slowly, her back straight, as if anticipating the need to bolt.

“I came as soon as James went to the church for Wednesday evening service,” Mrs. Kendall said. “I usually go with him, of course, but I told him I didn’t feel well. After what happened today, he thought I should rest—” She stopped abruptly, collecting herself. “James would be furious if he knew I’d come.”

“So I gathered,” Emily said.

“But I couldn’t …” Mrs. Kendall let out a breath. “You should know what happened. Where you came from. She would have wanted that.”

“Then you believe me?” Emily said. “You believe … about my mother?”

“I believe you,” Mrs. Kendall said, fixing Emily with a clear blue gaze. “But if you think that will entitle you to anything, you’re wrong. James will never accept you.”

“I don’t want anything from you or him,” Emily said. “I just want to know.”

“Then I will tell you,” Mrs. Kendall said. She shrugged the wet black cloak from her shoulders. She drew a deep breath. “Your father was a refugee from Russia—Saint Petersburg. His name was Vladimir Lyakhov, and he was a member of a group called the Sini Mira.” She looked up at Emily. “You seem to know the Sini Mira.”

Emily said nothing. Her mind went back to Chicago, to the words Perun had whispered in her ear … a daughter would more properly be called Lyakhova … So it was her name after all.

“The Sini Mira and the Scharfian Brotherhood have worked together for many years. Their beliefs have always been compatible with our own.”

A chill climbed Emily’s spine. Stanton had said that the Sini Mira and the Scharfians shared the same views, but he’d never gone so far as to say they actually worked together. But it made terrible sense. They were both Eradicationists, except that the Scharfians wanted to eradicate magic by killing those who practiced it and the Sini Mira wanted to eradicate magic by making it unpracticable.

“It was before the war,” Mrs. Kendall continued. “The war engineered by Warlocks, as an excuse to massacre young Christian men, both Northern and Southern—” She checked herself, then continued. “Many, like the Scharfian Brotherhood and the Sini Mira, put their finest men into the service of one noble cause—eradicating the use of magic. Of course, your Warlocks wanted nothing more than to find these men and destroy them, so everyone shared in their protection. We opened our house in service of the greater good. We sheltered your father.”

“He was in danger?”

Mrs. Kendall nodded. “He had a mentor in Russia, a scientist. The man had been working on important research before he died, and your father was his assistant.”

Emily felt her body go cold. “Important research?”

“Important enough that the Warlocks who murdered him felt it necessary to burn down his laboratory with him in it.” Mrs. Kendall’s tone was harsh. “I don’t know any more about it than that. But yes, your father was in danger. Great danger. He sought safety on our shores, and we took pride in opening our home to a hero of the cause.” Mrs. Kendall paused, looking into the glow of the gas grate before adding bitterly, “Little did we know that he would take our daughter in the bargain.”

“My mother,” Emily said.

“She was only nineteen. You do look very much like her, except you’ve got your father’s eyes. They make you look like you’re always keeping a secret, poorly.” Mrs. Kendall drew a breath and continued. “We had high hopes that she would make a good marriage. In fact, she was engaged to marry a very nice young man, the son of one of my husband’s most prominent parishioners. It would have been an excellent match.”

“What happened?” Emily asked.

Mrs. Kendall’s blue eyes glided up to meet Emily’s.

“The Kendall Curse,” she said, simply. “It destroyed any chance she had of a normal life. After the Curse descended upon her, I often thought that it would have been better if she’d never been born.”

There was a long silence. Emily stared at the old woman; the old woman stared inward, delicately examining memories like fragile antique lace stored in a dusty trunk.

“You heard James refer to our Witch-hunting ancestors,” Mrs. Kendall said softly. “Witches do not like to be hunted. Their wrath can be bitter, and it can extend beyond the grave, even for many centuries. Our family incurred the wrath of Aebedel Cowdray.”

The name made a chill chase up Emily’s spine. It sounded familiar in a terrible, unsettling way, like remembering a long-unpaid bill.

“Who was Aebedel Cowdray?” Emily asked.

“A very powerful Warlock in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690s. Civil Magistrate Anson Kendall—your great-great-great-great-grandfather—had him pressed between two stones. He vowed revenge. He cursed the Kendalls with his dying breath, and the curse was as powerful as his spite and hatred.” She trailed a hand along the fabric of her skirt. “The curse allows his unsettled spirit to claim the body of its victim during the full moon. A half dozen Kendalls over the past two hundred years have lost their lives to it, usually after decades of great suffering.” She looked at Emily. “It is good for you that you are well past your eighteenth birthday. The curse always manifests itself then.”

“But my mother—”

“Every full moon, the spirit of Aebedel Cowdray would possess her, make her foulmouthed and cruel. We would lock her in her room to keep her from wreaking havoc, but Cowdray could always find ways to make her do evil. We tried to keep instruments of violence away from her at such times but—” Mrs. Kendall shuddered. “She killed her own cat … or rather, Cowdray killed it. A little yellow tabby she loved so much. Her fiancé gave it to her on her eighteenth birthday. She killed it with a heavy leather-bound Bible that we’d left for her to take comfort in. Crushed its skull and broke its back. Once Cowdray left her, she was disconsolate over its death. She was a good girl, a gentle child. She would never have hurt anything of her own volition.”

Sudden understanding broke over Emily. Pap had said her mother was evil. But what if it hadn’t been her mother Pap had met? What if it had been Aebedel Cowdray in her mother’s body? The idea gave her hope, as though the image she’d always had of her mother could be reclaimed.

“The Russian—your father—did not approve of how we addressed her condition,” Mrs. Kendall said. “It is true, James wrestled mightily with her to exorcise the demon, but what other choice did he have? Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. But the Russian believed that gentler ways would work better.”

“One day, we found them both gone. We did not know where they went. Catherine sent one letter, posted from a hotel, saying that she was not coming back. James wanted nothing to do with her after that. And he wanted nothing more to do with the Sini Mira. He didn’t speak with them again until just recently, when they came here asking questions.”

“What did they want to know?”

“James wouldn’t tell me. He said only that they were looking for Catherine, and that he’d told them good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Sudden anger surged through Emily. “She was his daughter!” Emily bit the words. “How could he say something like that? How could he be so cruel?”

“James is a man of principles,” Mrs. Kendall said. “And it has been such a long time. But I never stopped wondering what happened to her. I always hoped she would come back. I hoped she was still alive. But I think I knew long ago that I would never see her again—” Mrs. Kendall’s voice broke. She raised a handkerchief to her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut. Emily reached out a tentative hand to her, but Mrs. Kendall drew away.

“Please, don’t.” Mrs. Kendall said. “I have come out of respect for my daughter. I know she would have wanted me to come. But for you, Miss Edwards—and for the sinner’s path you have chosen—I have only pity and contempt.”

Emily pulled back as if struck.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said softly.

Mrs. Kendall stood. “James will be home soon.”

Emily said nothing, but rose along with her.

“There is one last thing,” Mrs. Kendall said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small box. She handed it to Emily. “She would have wanted you to have this. I have no use for it anymore.”

It was the velvet box containing the necklace that matched the amethyst earrings. Emily smoothed her fingers over the silken nap.

“You do look so like her,” Mrs. Kendall said, staring for a long time at Emily’s face. “I will pray for your soul, Miss Edwards. Whatever of it is left.”

Then she turned and went quickly to the door, and was gone.

Emily was left standing in the middle of the room, bewildered and silent. She lifted the lid of the velvet box, gazed at the necklace again. She touched it with the tip of her thumb. But it was not thoughts of her mother that occupied her at the moment. It was thoughts of her father.

Emily was not used to thinking about her father. In all honesty, what had happened to her father never concerned Emily much. Because she’d had a father. She’d had Pap.

But now, however, she’d learned more about her father than she’d ever even thought to wonder. His name was Vladimir Lyakhov. He was a member of the Sini Mira. He had been working on important research …

Emily shook her head. The Sini Mira weren’t looking for her mother at all.

She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. They were looking for Vladimir Lyakhov. What did the Sini Mira want with him now, over two decades later? She’d come to Boston for answers, and now she just had ten times as many questions.

Well, you know where the answers are.

Emily’s eyes found her trunk, in which the blue bottle of memories lay hidden between neatly folded stacks of undergarments. She realized now why she had told Miss Jesczenka not to bother her that evening. She realized now that she’d already decided what she had to do.

She had promised Stanton she would wait for him—but with all the uncertainty at the Institute, who knew how long it would be before he could help her?

She remembered Pap’s words:

These Russians … these Sini Mira … if they’re after you … You may have to know, Em. If you don’t know, then you might not know how to stay away from them …

She was sick and tired of not knowing. She was sick and tired of question piling upon question on question. She wanted her memories back. She wanted answers.

Hurrying over to the trunk, she pushed clothing aside and retrieved the bottle. She uncapped it, tilted it between her lips, all in one movement, as if the haste of the gesture were required to maintain her resolve. The liquid spilled down her throat, bitter and stale tasting. Remembering Pap’s admonition not to drink it all at once, she restoppered the bottle when it was half emptied, placing it carefully on the table beside the bed as the spell made its way down her throat, setting fire to her belly and chest. The smell of hay and sunlight and roses and warm, warm summer engulfed her, time dissolved, and then …