wytchcroft

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Rosemary Lane


And if I am a place call me Rosemary Lane, it is a good name.

As I am but a child, slip a penny into my hand and call me anything, I can be anyone. If I have feeling call me Love. As I have purpose call me service. As I can sing, call this my tale; it is the song of my life, the song of pipes, jenny-wheels and gears, pneumatics, the hiss of the bellows and the wheezing of tubes.

Some say I have a secret, a heartbeat, a life concealed inside, that there is a being hidden inside me, a person. But who does NOT have a being inside them?

I’m under house arrest, I’m under close inspection. All that is left of me and the now is a ruined reputation. I am struggling to order, to think, to place in sequence the parts of the tale, the pieces of me.

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Pt 1: A Study in Shadow

It was a murky but otherwise unremarkable Wednesday evening, in the March of a year best labelled 'Vintage 1882', that the Great Fabrizi looked up from the desk in his richly draped and half darkened cocoon of a study, and peered through his spectacles into the eyes of inevitable doom. “Ah,” he said, nodding almost imperceptibly to the bringer of his demise, “it has come then at last, to this...” it was not a question. Nevertheless, having shimmered into existence as if solidifying out of the very shadows of the room, the Aetheric Assassin returned the nod politely and said, “even so.”

Slowly, for he wished to enjoy every sensation of skin, blood pulse, tendon and muscle while he was still able, and being no doubt privately astonished to discover he was neither driven from his wits, insensible nor even very much a-tremble, the famous Magician rose from his desk. He gestured again with his head, this time toward the crystal radio in its imposing mahogany and ivory cabinet and which was still, and without irony, playing a selection of light musical pieces courtesy of the Royal Alexandria Palace.

“I will admit, had I had any say in the matter, that I would have chosen perhaps a graver musical accompaniment to my execution. However, I am not one to complain and certainly your mode of transport,” once more the directive nod, “is uniquely impressive – astonishing really, and worthy of respect.”

“Thank you,” said the Aetheric Assassin politely.

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thanks to alex, alicia, and stosha for the insp!
hope this chapter affords some small amusement...

phial 4

It is the pressure of a diving bell, the tension an adult feels watching a child make fists from adamant fingers and press them to its ears, the claustrophobia of a railway waiting-room on a rain-lashed warm spring day. It is the desire for air, for life, that grips the drowning man out at sea – or lost in the thick of a nightmare desperately clawing for wakefulness.

And in the grip of this invisible vice, we are of course, quiet, restrained, civilised beyond reason.
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That was back in the war of course.

The old woman finishes her tea with a slurp born of indifference to me and my colleagues - indeed to people in-toto.

Weren't you all evacuated back then? I ask. That's what we're always told.

Well of course, what with His Nibs and the boys up to no good on land and sea and - d'you know why my generation all hate clowns? It’s the balloons see? Just like the bloody King's. Him and that bloody bitch of a Queen lapping up the Empire between them like hungry dogs to a dish.

Mind you, that was after...

 

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There was no time to be lost. Rolling sideways off the trolley I pulled it with me, vainly trying to ignore the pain as it toppled over with a crash onto my arm - pinning me to the spot but keeping the precious hose out of harm’s way and still pointing roughly where I wanted. Slithering on the hot damp floor I struggled to find Bert. I could still hear him murmuring from my ear piece.
( what happened next... )

[Error: unknown template qotd] Is this ok? Sure, uh-huh. Well, my name is Lucy  - hi, it's really nice to be picked for this, but I guess what I do is important even if I'm not. Not really anyway - not much. 
( under the top soil... )