The Circus Infinitus - Victoria 7 Page 6

  I collected the notes I had found in the Inferno. From her studies, my mother had managed to start piecing together the strange Language of Magick and its accompanying gestures. She had noted down the whole alphabet, the entire list of gestures and basic words. She had started mastering some simple words, and then, at the end – nothing. She had died before she could progress to proper phrases.

  It was up to me to continue her work. Could I do it? I had discovered her secret early, and had my whole life ahead of me to continue it. But only one night in seven would make it difficult. I doubted my other forms had the mental ability, except maybe the Mummy, if only she could stop obsessing about the cold so much.

  I vowed that while I was in this form, I would devote at least six hours of my day to learning Magick. The rest of the time I would devote to more scientific pursuits.

  So I sat down at her bench with the Magick notes and began to read and practice, speaking each letter and performing each simple gesture.

  Chapter Eight

  I awoke with a start, breathing heavily. For a few minutes I had absolutely no idea where I was. Then looked down at what my head had been resting on, and saw a page of notes. For a split second I fancied I could read them. Then my knowledge was gone. Oh, I knew what I had been doing, researching the ancient, forgotten tongue of Magick. But I couldn’t remember how to read the strange little squiggles, or which gesture went with which letter.

  I groaned and dropped my head into my hands, realising that I’d become ordinary again. Above me, the shutter I’d forgotten to close revealed the blue light of midmorning.

  When I looked down at my hands, I realised I couldn’t see them. I had returned to my invisible human form. I was still dressed in the smart body’s white smock, now tight around my plumper body. Some liquid in my bladder clamoured for release, and I pushed myself up with a groan. Obviously I had been so engrossed in my research I had fallen asleep at my desk.

  I closed the shutter and staggered downstairs, fumbling with the handle at the back of the secret door before I managed to turn it and throw it wide. I started Crimpley, who had been waiting behind it, obviously struggling to figure out the sequence.

  “Madam Violet!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide with horror – probably at the sight of the white dress floating in the air all by itself.

  “Yes Mr Crimpley – it’s me again – the real me. I’ve gone all the way around, back to the beginning.” I let the door slam behind me and heard the locks engage. I spun back around, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how the sequence worked so I could get it open. Something about planets? I actually swore. I should have wedged something into it!

  “Are you alright?” Crimpley asked, his eyes concerned behind this thick spectacles.

  “Yes, I just wanted to be able to go back up there again. I’m sure I could have read some of those books in this form.”

  “Books? What on Earth’s up there?”

  I realised I’d made a mistake. Even though he was trustworthy, he was still a lawyer. I couldn’t reveal too many secrets. “A collection of my mother’s favourite things. Some treasured books, pressed flowers and plants and a telescope for stargazing. No diary though. Hobbs definitely took that.”

  Crimpley’s face darkened at the mention of his thieving servant, but he appeared satisfied with my explanation. Fortunately, I was still smart enough to think on my feet. I began to bounce from one to another as the urgency of my situation took over. “It’s nice to see you so concerned about my welfare, Mr Crimpley, but now I really must attend to some … er, personal business.”

  “Yes, yes – of course, Ma’am.” He hurried from the room.

  After I’d finished attending to my toilet and dressing, I wrapped myself up like my mother had, and left the room. I needed something to eat, desperately. Fortunately, Mr Crimpley was waiting for me in the hall, and arranged to have breakfast brought up for me. Now I was human again, I thought I’d better return to attending to the running of the household. Crimpley had done some of the work for me, but since I was the Lady of the House, it really was my job. But accounts were so boring! After only an hour of poring over the ledgers I wanted to go back to sleep. There seemed to be so many expenses, and not nearly enough funds coming in to pay for them. The house and grounds needed a lot of work, but I couldn’t rely on my tenants to take over – now they knew the curse was continuing in me, only a handful of diehards dared to remain behind. It was up to me to restore what my mother had left to fall fallow in her dying years.

  I sighed. “I suppose I’d better see if anything else can be sold to pay some of these bills.”

  And so began my strange life as Lady Violet Hollingworth of Hollingworth Manor. I was grateful for Crimpley’s help, but even he had to leave occasionally to tend to business down in London. He made sure what servants I did have left were paid handsomely to remain and take care of the place, but because they were the dregs of the dregs, with absolutely nothing left to lose, I couldn’t rely on them too heavily. I only felt comfortable with Penny and Liza waiting on me.

  I couldn’t rely on any of my other forms either. I soon realised why my poor mother had been unable to leave. In my human form, I couldn’t make any plans that lasted longer than a day. I couldn’t see anyone either, so I had to send long letters through Crimpley to stave off the creditors, pay bills and placate curious relatives who wanted to look over the place. I had to become as reclusive and strange as my mother had been.

  Whenever I thought to myself; I’ll take care of that tomorrow, hoping another of my selves would take responsibility, my desires were invariably blown out of the water. In my other forms, I just couldn’t concentrate on the mundane day-to-day tasks involved in running a household. As the Wolf Woman I preferred to run and hunt up in the hills while as the Swamp Girl all I wanted to do was swim and chase fish. Fortunately, I managed to stay lucid enough not to venture too deep into the fens.

  As the Vampiress I was far too preoccupied with my own desires, and stayed out most nights. I managed to prowl all the way into town, where I found a couple of men willing to let me take their blood. I also had my wicked way with Crimpley, but not because I desired him. I wanted to bind him more loyally to me, make him more trustworthy. In this form I spent my days sleeping away from the sun.

  As the Spider Queen I wasn’t much use to the manor either, as I tended to spend most of my time eating and spinning webs. I did however start practicing how to create huge, magnificent works of art rather than the messy bunches of silk my mother had left around the house. I did this well away from the manor, so no locals would see my enormous webs. They were strong enough to hold my weight and large enough to ensnare rabbits. When I did manage to capture a large creature, I especially enjoyed my feast.

  My Mummy form was some help with the accounts, but only if I was warm enough. After a couple of attempts in this body I managed to open the secret door to my mother’s secret room and continue some of the research. Unfortunately, as Amuna, I wasn’t quite as brilliant as the smart form – which I still didn’t have a name for. I couldn’t continue my Magick or scientific studies, and resorted to reading the philosophical tests.

  However the body I most wanted to deal with the ledgers, the brilliant one who could have sorted them out within minutes, absolutely refused. In this shape I stayed up in the secret laboratory and devoted myself completely to my scientific, alchemical and arcane arts. I thought I’d feel guilty about abandoning my post, but I never did – as though the body had no capacity for that particular emotion. Accounts were beneath me.

  Unfortunately, my research into Magick progressed slowly. I could only study it one day in seven, and, unlike a normal language, there were runes and gestures to learn as well as sounds. My mother had only managed to get down the rudiments of the tongue so I had to plough through her books and notes to discover more. She had also recorded information about volumes she needed to get, so that meant more long letters to shops and libraries and months
of impatient waiting for a response. Sometimes I had to acquire one book just to get a single sentence.

  It would be a hundred years before I could acquire enough words to start forming proper spells. Oh, if only there was a Magick book with everything in it I required! But I knew if there were such things, they would be jealously guarded, and no way would I be getting hold of one. It was fortunate I was smart enough to pick out words that had been hidden in more mundane texts.

  Even though I couldn’t leave the area, time began to fly. I may have been far longer lived than an ordinary person, but each of my forms perceived the passage of days differently. Governed by sensory input, I often lost track of hours as the Wolf Woman and Swamp Girl. Slave to my appetites, I experienced a similar time-flight as the Vampiress and the Spider Queen. And nothing could disturb me while I was Amuna or the Brilliant One, when I was completely absorbed in my research.

  Only when I was my invisible self did I check the clock and worry about where the years were going.

  Crimpley seemed to age before my eyes, moving from the form of a slender, somewhat distinguished man in his mid-thirties to the stooped, older body of a tired old bachelor in his seventies. During this time he acquired several new retainers, whom as the Vampiress I bound more closely to me. He also appropriated a young apprentice, whom I also took over so he could then reveal the dark truth to him. As I mastered my vampire powers, I grew even more bewitching. Soon I could beguile people by simply turning my smouldering stare onto them, drawing them to me so I could bite them and make them truly mine. I learned how to read emotions and surface thoughts, and knew with more practice, I’d be able to plumb the depths of their minds as well.

  I discovered new powers in my other forms, too. As Amuna I could also influence with my stare, but unfortunately I couldn’t make this control permanent. The beings I’d taken over as the Vampiress wouldn’t obey her, or any of the other forms, as easily. But I did discover something else as the Mummy – I could slip into shadows and move through them with … well, the speed of dark. I could jump from one patch of darkness to another simply by thinking about it. I became a shadow myself, able to slip under doors and into rooms. So long as there was blackness within, I could reappear and solidify. I realised, when I was slipping through the darkness, that for once I didn’t feel cold.

  As the Swamp Girl I discovered an affinity for marine creatures. I could control tiny creatures and communicate telepathically with the larger, more intelligent ones. Unfortunately, fish, frogs and slugs weren’t the most interesting conversationalists.

  As the Spider Queen, I developed a similar ability to control bugs, enabling me to catch small insects without wasting enormous webs on them. Thus I was able to snack on blue-bottles, wasps, bees and delicious, crunchy dragonflies in between larger meals.

  The Wolf Woman didn't have any special abilities apart from her great strength and speed, and enhanced senses. In that form I was basically a smart wild animal. I enjoyed running, swimming, hunting and eating. But I also sought something more, something nebulous I couldn’t describe. The Wolf Woman and to a lesser extent the Swamp Girl contained something deep that needed to be satisfied, but what … I had no idea. I only knew that it had something to do with Liza, and the first time I had beheld her at the wash-line, hanging up those sheets. It seems when I was in those two forms, I was quite smitten by beautiful female bodies, the Wolf Woman especially. But I never figured out what I actually wanted to do with the women. Did I want to eat them? No. Hunt them? Chase them? Fight them? No. All I knew was that my heart beat deep down inside me, in a part only the Vampiress had had any experience with.

  In those forms, did I long for woman like I was male instead of female? Was such a thing even possible? I had heard about men who desired other men, but not about women who lusted after their own sex. Did such creatures even exist? Good Queen Anne, who had died just before my birth, had apparently loved another women named Sarah Churchill. Had that possessed a physical component? I doubted it. How did two women actually make love to each other, anyway?

  In my various forms I had explored my manor’s grounds and the nearby town of Oak Fens. I had eavesdropped on various love affairs, and even discovered an active secret underground of men who loved other men and boys. But I couldn’t find any females who desired their own kind. There wasn't any reference to it in the Bible. Did that make me even more of a freak?

  One day in the 1780s, a large group of gypsies who had been moved out of every local province finally arrived at the boundary of my lands, seeking some time to rest and recuperate. Crimpley urged me to move them along as well, but I couldn’t. Even though my mother had been cursed so long ago, perhaps they still knew something about it. So I gave them permission to come onto my property and set up camp. Crimpley told me what he’d heard from servant gossip; that the Rom were at their wits’ ends and desperate to camp anywhere – even on the grounds of a cursed woman.

  Today I was my normal, invisible self. I wrapped a thin scarf around my face so I could still see and breathe through it, placed a hat on my head, and went down to see the gypsies. Their normally brightly coloured caravans were damaged and splattered with mud, but now they had a temporary camp some effort was being made to fix and clean them. As I approached, small dirty children gaped at me in horror and darted off to hide. The men working on the vans and tending to their animals watched me warily. Women stopped washing and hanging up clothes to glare at me. But no-one dared to make a move or say anything.

  Only one person approached; a very old, wizened woman with a hunchback. Wispy white hair stuck out from under her mob cap like straw. She hissed and forked the sign of the evil eye at me. “Cursed one!” she growled at me.

  One of the workmen grabbed her by an arm. “Anika, you want to get us kicked out of here as well?” he snarled at her. “There’s nowhere left to go save into the marshes!”

  I lifted my hands. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m just looking for some information about … this.” I lifted my hands to the necklace.

  The old woman glared at me balefully, the man beside her nervous. But then he gave a nod. “Old Dimitri might know something about it. He’s at least a hundred years old. Please wait here. Anika, leave her alone for God’s sake.”

  The old woman spat on the ground at my feet, swore in another language, and lumbered off. Other gypsies continued to watch warily, just in case I started casting an evil spell.

  Although I knew some Magick words, in this form I couldn’t match them with the gestures. I just didn’t have the mental acuity. But the Rom didn’t know that. They watched me like I was some very dangerous wild animal.

  The gypsy man returned with a very old wizened fellow in tow. He was bent almost double over a gnarled walking stick. The younger man tried to help him, but he impatiently waved his hand away and hobbled right up to me. He stared at me with none of the others’ wariness. His eyes were bright and clear and filled with fascination. “Ahh, you’re the Lady with the Seven Faces!” he croaked, and gave a cackle. “I never thought I’d live to see you, but here you are!”

  I pulled the scarf down. “There’s nothing to see.”

  Old Dimitri thought that was incredibly funny and laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall over. By contrast, the younger man gasped and made the sign of the cross. Other gypsies decided they had far more important tasks to do elsewhere around the camp, and quickly vacated the area. “So what brings you here, Lady of Seven Faces?” asked Dimitri. He hobbled over to a long wooden bench that had been set up near one of the caravans and sat down. The young gypsy also chose that moment to hurry off out of my terrifying presence.

  I perched beside old Dimitri. “I was hoping you might know something about my curse.”

  “What, just because we’re gypsies? There are other groups, you know.” Dimitri cackled again. “We all know the story of your mother’s search for immortality. She wouldn’t have been cursed if she had simply gotten herself absolved of sin before
hand.” He laughed again. “But she was far too impatient, and the blessing backfired.”

  “Do you know who placed the curse?”

  “Of course. It was an old witch named Anushka.”

  My heart started to race. “Where can I find her?”

  Dimitri shrugged. “Who knows where she’s buried? Her body might not even be in English soil.”

  My hopes fell. “She’s dead?”

  “Of course she’s dead!” Dimitri scoffed. “Your mother was cursed way back in the Middle Ages!”

  “But I thought, because she was a witch, she might also be immortal.”

  Dimitri made a rude noise. “Only rich, ambitious aristocrats want to live forever. Not poor gypsy folk. And certainly not old Mother Anushka. She lived to about a hundred and fifty or thereabouts, but then she was quite happy to go.” He gave me a toothless grin.

  I sighed. “I don’t suppose she passed any of her Magick knowledge on?”

  “She probably did, but not to me.” He lifted his old arthritic fingers. “Not that I could cast a spell with these anymore. I’d probably blow myself up!” He cracked himself up again and nearly tumbled backwards off the bench.

  “Very well. Do you know anyone who might be able to help me?”

  Dimitri stared up at me and his bright, brown-button eyes grew seriously. “Perhaps. Give me a minute.” He lifted two gnarly fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. The man who’d helped him soon reappeared, looking nervous. “Go fetch me my crystal ball.”

  “Yes, of course Dimitri.” The young man darted off.

  “There is a chance, but I’ll need to Look before I can tell you for sure. These days the old Vision isn’t as reliable as it should be.”

  The young gypsy returned with a smooth glass globe that looked like a fishing float. He placed it in Dimitri’s withered hands. “Ah, good.” He huffed on it a few times then polished it with the sleeve of his robe. Then he placed it between his knees and lifted his hands dramatically.