The Circus Infinitus - Victoria 7 Read online

  The Circus Infinitus Presents:

  Victoria 7

  (Based on the short story “Seven Lives for Seven Lovers”)

  Ethan Somerville

  Copyright 2011

  Prologue

  When my mother finally died, she was actually six-hundred and ninety-four years old. But I never realised this as I waited nervously by her bedside. At the tender age of sixteen, I never realised there was anything unusual about her at all. Like the few tight-lipped servants who’d elected to remain, skulking around the tumbledown old Hollingworth mansion, I accepted the total strangeness of the situation simply because I knew no better.

  Unlike the servants, who’d been paid handsomely to keep their silence, I was just naïve. So totally and utterly innocent of the situation that I could look down at my mother’s bandage-wrapped face and see it as mere evidence of the horrific and disfiguring disease that she had suffered from all her life – an illness so severe that I had only been allowed to visit her one day in seven.

  I had never seen my mother’s face. I had no idea what she looked like at all. Did I resemble my father, who had died before I was born, or did I resemble her?

  I wasn’t particularly beautiful, but some thought I was pretty. I was of medium height and build, with gentle brown eyes and pale skin that freckled in the sun. My hair was fine, brown and very curly. I had never cut it, but it still barely reached my shoulders. I had started to despair of it ever growing into the luxurious, waist-length tresses I craved, and was considering joining the wig-craze.

  On this gloomy winter’s day in the Year of Our Lord, Seventeen Thirty Two, I had been summoned into my mother’s dusty chamber to join the others at her bedside. A fire blazed in the grate, but the room still felt dark and cold. Clammy. Cobwebs dangled from the corners of the ceiling like torn bandages, and mould patches thrived on the walls. I shivered. The icy presence of Death skulked in the room with us, hovering behind me and the servants surrounding Annabelle Hollingworth as she gasped and wheezed towards her final breath.

  At my right arm stood Mr Crimpley, my mother’s attorney. He was a gloomy stork of a man with a pair of rimless pince nez perched on his pointy nose. His long powdered wig was in bad need of a shake; I could see bugs crawling through the curls. Perhaps wigs weren’t such a good idea after all. He turned and muttered something to Hobbs, his assistant, but I only caught a few words; “…curse lifted at last.”

  “What was that, Mr Crimpley?” I asked.

  He spun around as though he had been stung and beheld me as though I had suddenly crept up on him. “What? Violet? Oh, nothing, nothing,” he declared a little too loudly.

  I looked down at my mother, her emaciated body scarcely raising a lump beneath the thick brocade quilt. Her face was thickly wrapped in bandages; they even covered her eyes. The bony hands resting on top the bedclothes wore woollen gloves. Her ancient necklace hung about her throat, an artefact I had never once seen her without. It was rumoured to be priceless, set with six pure dark rubies as big as peas, and one in the centre as big as an eye. It was beautiful, but the mere sight of it gave me the shivers. I hated it. It seemed to me to be alive, and I could feel the malevolence radiating from it. I was my mother’s only heir, but I certainly didn’t want to inherit that vile thing.

  Suddenly my mother gave a soft groan. Penny, her personal maid, leaned over her. “What is it, ma’am?” she whispered.

  Annabelle turned her bandaged head towards Penny and mouthed something. Penny gave a nod, and to my surprise beckoned me over. My mother rarely wanted to speak to me. Did she have some final words to impart? Something comforting to make up for the years I had hardly known her?

  I gulped, gathered my skirts, and hurried around to where Penny stood.

  “She wants to talk to you,” the plump little maid in the mob cap told me in a low voice. “She only has a few minutes left.”

  I gulped again and leaned in close to my mother. She smelled old and sick. Unwashed. Her sour breath wafted up into my face. Because of her bandages, I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or not. But then she lifted her gloved hands and plucked at the shrouds. Someone sucked back a shocked breath; I glanced over my shoulder to see Crimpley shaking his head, his eyes wide behind those silly little spectacles.

  But as Penny reached for Annabelle’s hands, trying to push them from her face, the old woman hissed with surprising vehemence; “no, I will look upon my daughter one last time!”

  Penny gulped and stepped back, fumbling the sign of the cross with one plump hand.

  Why were they so frightened? How horrific could my mother possibly be beneath those bandages? They weren’t so thick that I couldn’t see the outline of her face beneath; forehead, eye-sockets, nose, lips – nothing appeared to be disfigured or missing.

  Annabelle pulled the bandages from her eyes.

  I screamed and jumped back.

  It was worse than I could have imaged. Far worse. She wasn’t injured or disfigured at all. She simply … wasn’t there.

  Beneath the bandages lay nothing. The cloths had been wrapped around an invisible body. All I saw was a dark hollow of nothingness.

  “There,” rasped Annabelle. “Now you know the truth, Violet … well, one seventh of it!” She gave a cackle that ended in a dreadful wet coughing. Spittle sprayed from the emptiness. “I hope that once I am gone, you can repair the damage my curse has caused … and restore this grand old house to its former glory.”

  I clapped both my hands over my mouth so as not to scream again. I could only stare. No wonder she had spent her life so heavily wrapped up. “Wh-wha-what-" I stammered.

  “What happened to me?” she wheezed. “A curse. Too much to explain. There is a book…” She tailed off and lifted a hand, gesturing vaguely off to one side. “It will tell my story. But I’d prefer … that it all died with me.”

  The empty space where her face should have been seemed to be tugging at my soul, trying to pull me down into a tunnel to Hell. I couldn’t move. This was all too much. The musty room began to spin around me, but I clenched my hands into fists. No, I refused to faint! This was not a dream! This was real!

  Annabelle lifted a gloved hand and stroked her necklace. “Finally, I’m going to be free…” Her voice tailed off again. She drew a rasping breath.

  Somehow I managed to tear my gaze from her and glare at the lawyer Crimpley. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” I hissed at him.

  Crimpley reddened. “She made me swear to secrecy, Violet – I’m sorry. She must have had a last minute change of heart.”

  I clapped a hand to my chest. “I’ll need a change of heart after this, Mr Crimpley! This poor organ verily near stopped completely!”

  My mother’s breaths continued to wheeze and rattle. The end wasn’t far off.

  “Go to her, Violet. Take her hand so she doesn’t die alone.” Crimpley gestured towards her.

  I stumbled back to Annabelle and took one of her gloved hands. Her fingers were limp in my grasp. She was unconscious already. I lifted the hand, and the sleeve of her nightgown slipped down her arm a little to reveal … more nothing. Her entire body was without appearance. I touched her flesh, which felt cold and clammy, but quite solid and real.

  I began to feel an odd heat at my throat, like I was standing too close to that fire. My mother’s noisy breathing began to subside. “Good bye, Mother,” I whispered. “I wish I could have known you better.” I vowed to look for the book she had mentioned, the one that would explain all.

  The strange burning sensation grew stronger. Was I succumbing to a fever? Perhaps the one that was killing my mother? I pressed a hand against my skin, but to my surprise it felt
cool.

  Looking down at Annabelle, I could have sworn that awful necklace was glowing. No, impossible, just a trick of the flickering light.

  Annabelle drew one more breath and let it out. She didn’t take another, and died quietly. I held her hand for about a minute afterwards, then stepped back. My skin was really searing now, and tears prickled my eyes; tears of pain, grief and disappointment at all the lost years.

  Then, right before my eyes the ruby necklace vanished.

  Crimpley, Hobbs, Penny and the other servants all gasped in horror. Then there was a bright flash of light and I felt something singe my throat. The gasps turned to exclamations of horror, and I heard a scuffling. But I couldn’t see – the illumination had temporarily blinded me. “What’s going on?” I clawed at the air in front of me. My fingers brushed against someone’s velvet coat, but that person screamed and bolted, knocking over something with a crash. I tried to run after them, but tripped over the thing they had upended. I sprawled on my belly on the hard wooden floor.

  Stars continued to blaze across my eyes, but I became aware of something around my throat, something hard and heavy. Lifting myself up onto my knees, I raised my hands to it.

  I felt the unmistakable outlines of my mother’s ruby necklace. Then my vision cleared, and I found myself looking down into the dark, cavernous opening of my bodice. I could see right down into the inside of my tightly-laced corset, the folds of cloth from my underclothes folded tight against my skin … my invisible skin.

  I raised my hands to my face. At least I thought I did. I couldn’t see them at all. The ruffles at my sleeves hung around empty air.

  “Oh … dear God,” I mouthed, and suddenly, mercifully, my consciousness did desert me.

  Chapter One

  Slowly I awoke, and found myself staring up at the high ceiling of my own bedroom. It was illuminated by a fire in the grate. It hadn’t been cleaned or painted for years, and numerous cobwebs nestled in the corners, almost as many as had hung in my mother's room. The memories of everything had happened crashed into me with the force of a thunderbolt, but I tried to convince myself that it had all been a horrible dream.

  Then a bespectacled face swam into view, and I beheld Mr Crimpley. He was leaning over me in concern, and behind him hovered Penny, pale faced and wringing her hands. I couldn’t see the attorney’s assistant Hobbs anywhere in sight. A sick feeling began to boil in my stomach. If everyone was here, then maybe my recollections were real.

  I lifted my hand and wiggled my fingers in front of my face.

  All I saw was my dangling sleeve. Nothing else. I screamed and sat up, sending Crimpley jumping backwards and almost knocking Penny over.

  “How can this be?” I demanded. “How can I now be invisible?”

  Crimpley gulped and nervously licked his lips. “I’m so sorry Miss Violet, but I can’t explain it. Your mother was convinced the curse with die with her. She had no idea it would pass to you. This is … a most unexpected occurrence, one she did not foresee or plan for at all.”

  “The curse? What curse? Please Mr Crimpley, explain it to me!”

  The lawyer found himself a rickety, straight-backed chair and flopped into it. He fished around for a handkerchief and mopped his gleaming brow. “Please Penny – fetch us some refreshments,” he begged the maid.

  Penny curtsied and darted off, as though glad to get out of my presence.

  Crimpley licked his lips again. “I’m so sorry Miss Violet – I only know a very small fraction of the truth. Your mother said she wrote everything down in a book for you, but so far … we haven’t been able to locate the volume. She could have been rambling – her last days were very incoherent. But I will endeavour to explain as much as I can. You are aware of the history of this house, are you not?”

  “I have heard some stories about ghosts, wild dogs, walking dead. I used to think they were servants’ rumours until I saw strange figures in the night myself, shadowy shapes I could not explain. Once, down by the fens I could have sworn I saw a naked woman covered all over with scales. I tried to follow her, but she vanished into the fog. I know I was not dreaming.” I lowered my gaze, although I doubted it made a difference. The attorney could not see me at all, and kept his gaze focussed rather disturbingly on my bodice.

  I expected him to scoff at this childish revelation, but his near-sighted eyes remained serious behind his glasses. “Unfortunately, most of the tales are true, Miss Violet. Steel yourself for a tale of darkness and woe that starts many, many years ago. Long before you were born, or even I was brought into this world. Your mother, when she died, was actually 694 years old.”

  I gaped. “Whaaat?”

  “The reason she managed to live so long was because of her curse, the one within the necklace that has now attached itself to you.

  “She … she was born in medieval times?”

  “Yes.” Crimpley looked down at his hands. “Please don’t think I’m mad, Miss Violet, but every word I’m about to tell you is the truth. Your mother was once a wealthy, upper class medieval lady. She owned all the land around these parts, many more acres than now remain. But she was petrified of growing old and dying, and ruthlessly sought out all manner of bizarre quack remedies to try and prolong her life. Nothing worked until one day, when she decided to seek the help of some gypsies she had allowed to camp on her estates. She thought they would be magnanimous, since she had allowed them to use her lands and resources. And they were … to an extent.” Crimpley gave a thin smile. “An old gypsy soothsayer asked for Annabelle’s necklace, the same one around your neck. She said that she would imbue it with her ancient form of magic.

  “Annabelle handed it over, and the gypsy witch performed some long and complicated incantation over it. It began to glow with power. Annabelle stared greedily at it, convinced that she was about to be granted the secret of immortality at last. Then the old woman handed it back. But as Annabel was about to put the necklace back on, the gypsy stopped her and told her that she had to be pure of heart first, or her secret desires would manifest and become real, taking her soul over. But your foolish mother was too impatient to get herself absolved of sin beforehand. As soon as she had returned to the manor house she slipped the chain around her neck. Seven dark and secret desires immediately rose up to consume her.”

  “Wh … what desires?” I gasped. “Like the seven deadly sins?”

  Mr Crimpley stared. "I never thought about it like that before, but you could be right.” Suddenly he lifted a bony hand to his mouth as something horrible occurred to him. “Dear Lord, perhaps there really was a book, and that cowardly reprobate Hobbs located it! I haven’t seen him since he bolted from your mother’s death-chamber!”

  At that moment Penny returned with a tray of tea and bread, which she placed on the table beside my bed. She gave another curtsey, and then scurried out. I glanced at the window and noticed that it was now dark outside. “What time is it?” I asked.

  Crimpley checked his pocket-watch. “Eleven o’clock. I’m afraid you slept for several hours, Miss Violet. Your mother’s body has been taken down to the mausoleum in preparation for the funeral. You may view it tomorrow, if you like. Once the chain went to you, it became visible.”

  “She … she has a form now?”

  “Yes. Old, frail, white-haired … but whole. I think you would be able to recognise where you obtained some your features. She has fair skin and freckles.”

  I gulped and reached out to the lawyer, grasping his arm. He hadn’t been able to see my hand coming for him and he jumped in shock. “I’m so sorry, Mr Crimpley, but can you please tell me about my mother’s seven secret desires?”

  Somewhat tentatively, he patted my invisible hand. “I will tell you what I know, but the rest you will have to find out for yourself. Your forms may be completely different to hers.”

  “Forms?”

  “Seven different forms to reflect seven different desires; lust, animal ferocity, immortality, intelligence, control, friv
olity and invisibility…” He tailed off. “Now that I think about it, they were like seven deadly sins. Her lustful wants resulted in a tall, dark woman with alabaster skin, breathtakingly beautiful, but a creature of the night that preyed on the living. Her need for strength became a half-wolf, half-woman creature that hunted up in the hills – the wild dog you may have heard howling at the moon sometimes. Her desire to thwart death manifested as an Egyptian Mummy. Her yearning for superior intelligence resulted in another undead creature, pale but skinny and terrifying, with black ringed eyes and white-streaked hair. Her controlling nature came out as a truly horrific being that I have only caught glimpses of – a giant spider creature. Her frivolity resulted in the scaly woman you described earlier, and finally – Annabelle’s urge for invisibility so could move freely amongst men, became the form that you now wear.”

  “Dear God,” I said again. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately. But what else could I say? Had I not become invisible, I would have discounted Crimpley’s words as the ravings of a madman.

  The attorney cleared his throat. “Because only one seventh of your mother remained human, she only aged at one seventh the normal human rate. And because she was invisible, she could not watch herself get older. She had no idea of her true age, and initially thought that the years had stopped for her. But somehow – I still don’t know how - she still managed to find a lover and become pregnant with you. She was wearing the amulet when she conceived, which may be why the curse passed onto you – I don’t know.” He stared down at his hands, folded in his lap. “I’m not sure what else I can tell you,” he finished.

  From somewhere deep within the bowels of the old house a clock started to chime. “What’s that? Midnight?” I asked, rising from the bed. “Is it that late already?”

  Suddenly, Crimpley’s eyes went wide. “Midnight!” he exclaimed in horror. “Oh Lord, I completely forget to tell you!”

  Around my neck, the cursed necklace started to heat up. The sudden, searing warmth felt the same as the fire that had accosted me earlier. I pressed a hand against my throat. “What?”