Prologue
OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED
Doctor James Esdaile had known for years that this day would eventually arrive – the one on which someone would come to kill him.
For some, the certainty of that fact, and the inevitability of this day, would have been disconcerting; but Esdaile had long since become accustomed to the idea – it was like an old friend, something reassuring and almost comforting. Most importantly, it was an eventuality for which one could plan, even though it might not be possible to avoid it.
On a cold, blustery Monday morning he rose at his accustomed hour and took his breakfast with Eliza; then, despite the inclement weather, they put on their overcoats and traveled by cab to Sydenham Hill to the Crystal Palace. An artifact of the Great Exposition, the Palace had afterward been moved to suburban Sydenham at enormous expense; Esdaile and his wife had come down from Scotland shortly afterward. His reasons were anything but coincidence.
Visitors were few at opening hour. Within the structure it was relatively quiet; the wind was muffled by the glass, and thin, wan strands of sunlight found their way through the clouds and the glass-paneled roof that gave the palace its name. Esdaile led his wife along the Nave until they stood at the exact middle of the structure; he verified this to his satisfaction by removing a half-crown coin from his pocket and balancing it on end atop one of the floor tiles: it remained in place, not rolling in any direction.
As he stood up, Eliza tugged on his elbow.
“He’s here,” she said.
“He came in person?”
“You’re surprised?”
“No. Not really.” Esdaile licked his lips, which were a trifle chapped from the short walk from the cab to the Palace’s entrance – and perhaps for another reason. Eliza did not seem to take any notice.
“I could –”
“I would prefer that you did not.”
Eliza took notice of this and seemed to think carefully about it, then nodded. “Very well. But it would be much easier.”
“It would only postpone the inevitable.”
Esdaile looked away from his wife, carefully disengaging his sleeve from her grasp. A middle-aged man dressed as a parish vicar was making his way across the great concourse toward the place where they stood. He waited until the man was close enough that he did not have to shout and said, “Reverend.”
“Doctor.”
“I wondered when the Committee might pay me a visit.”
“It is not as if you could hide forever, Esdaile. You must know it had to come to this.”
“Reverend Davey, I have lived here for more than four years, and before that I resided in Perth at an address where I corresponded regularly. I daresay that I have not been hiding.”
William Davey’s glance went quickly from Esdaile to Eliza and back; he did not respond.
“You’re not afraid of her, are you?”
“Certainly not.”
“But clearly someone is, or you would have sent some minor functionary rather than gracing me with your own presence.”
“You have made your own damned bed, Esdaile,” Davey said, looking pointedly at Eliza. “But so that you know that I am a fair man, I will ask you once more, for form’s sake: do you have the statue?”
“You know that I do not. I left it behind in Hooghly.”
“And you are still at peace with that – betrayal.” Davey’s face glowered, anger seemingly held back by force of will.
“The statue conveyed access to power that is simply too great for anyone to possess – not me, not you, not any member of the Committee or anyone else. I judged –“
“You judged!”
“Yes,” Esdaile answered. “I judged that happenstance had placed it in my hands, but a deliberate choice was necessary to keep it out of yours. You will never have the statue, Reverend Davey. The Committee will never have it – and someday you may understand why this is a blessing and not a curse.”
“You’re telling me that I don’t want something as powerful as this item. Nonsense.”
“I stand by my assertion.”
“Very well, then,” Davey said. He slowly lifted his left hand, palm up.
In the sparsely-occupied Crystal Palace, it became very quiet. Even the wind outside seemed to die down. Esdaile waited . . . and after a moment he smiled.
For his part, Davey looked baffled – and even more angry.
“This is an unusual structure,” Esdaile said. “It seems to nullify mesmeric power. Whatever pleasantries you had in store, you’ll be unable to share them with me in here.”
“Then I’ll simply wait until you depart.”
“Ah,” Esdaile said. He took a step away from his wife, turning slightly to face her. “But it will be too late by then, I’m afraid.”
“What does that mean?”
Esdaile smiled. “I am going to do you a great favor, Reverend – in accordance with a text of scripture with which you are familiar. Despite years of enmity, I am about to turn the other cheek.
“My wife –” he gestured toward Eliza – “is of a particular nature. By choosing her, I allowed myself to reach beyond nightfall, a circumstance that has protected me from you and the Committee for these many years. At my death, of course, she would consume me, as all such beings are wont to do. Unfortunately, I will not give her the chance: my morning tea included a sufficiently high dose of a particularly efficient poison so that I shall expire . . .” he slowly removed his watch from its vest pocket and opened it to consult it, then snapped it shut. “In a matter of a few minutes.
“You should also realize that if I perish too quickly for . . . matters to take their usual course, her hunger would remain, and despite your demonstrated skill, you would likely be consumed instead. But once again the Crystal Palace intervenes.” He stretched his arms toward the great ceiling and let them fall. “Chthonic spirits are powerless at the place where we stand.”
Eliza did not speak: she looked shocked at Esdaile’s revelation. Davey stood with his fists clenched, his arms rigid.
Esdaile seemed unsteady on his feet. Eliza looked at Davey and spoke a series of unintelligible syllables; the sounds seemed to float away and disappear into the vast spaces of the Crystal Palace.
“You have cheated the Committee,” Davey whispered. “And you have cheated your nightfall companion. And by committing suicide, you damn fool, you have cheated yourself.”
“Some day you will think this a blessing,” Esdaile said softly, his attention beginning to wander . . .
“If you live that long,” he added, then said in a whisper, “Our revels now are ended” – the words that had been spoken, elegiac, when the Crystal Palace had been closed in Hyde Park eight years ago, before the structure was disassembled and rebuilt here on Beulah Hill near Sydenham.
It was from The Tempest, Davey knew.
And as Esdaile’s last breath escaped him, Reverend William Davey and Eliza Weatherhead Esdaile gently lowered his body to the floor of the Crystal Palace, the hint of a smile upon Esdaile’s face.
