Another Side of the Coin

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ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

 

        I can’t really say I understand what’s going on.

Elizabeth did… something. An underwater city, and then a lighthouse. But this place doesn’t feel real. It’s like walking in a dream, or the daze of a heady memory. But as I hold the small pinky in my hands, I know it’s the truth.

        I gave her away. What kind of person could do that? I could never think of an answer, but at the end of the day when, in whatever stupor I was in, the room was always empty. Tears rolled down my face as I thought of the little girl. How she cried when I gave her away. It ate at me.

        “Anna, Anna. Oh God…” in my dreams she still cried. It would echo in my skull and no matter what I did, how fast I ran, she would always disappear into a circle of light. And the silence after would shred whatever it was that I had left, “Oh God…” So I would drink. Leave and spend what little money I could on anything that could help me forget. Gambling, whoring. Anything to drown out those screams, or make some noise in the silence. I had killed men. Boys, children, women. I’ve shot them and stabbed them, watched them scream and run and crawl as their bodies burned and their flesh cracked, but nothing haunted me so much as the face of that beautiful baby girl. “How could I..” How could I forget something so important? “Why would… How could anyone ever… ever forgive something… like this?” my tears sting my face and my sobs wrack my body and strangle my lungs. This must be what drowning feels like. Something wraps itself around me, and holds my hands. Through the blur in my vision, I see two small hands around my own. Delicate and feminine, with a thimble on a pinky. Elizabeth closes my hands around the appendage I hold and I feel her press herself against my back, hugging me, I can feel her head resting on my back

“You came back…” I could hear her say, like a whisper. A wetness spread on my back, Elizabeth’s soft voice wavered, “Booker, you always tried to get me back,” she held me tighter, her hair brushed the back of my neck she buried her face into my back, “I’ll always forgive you…”

        We stayed that way for some time. The city of my mind, an alley way of memories just turned around us as we sat there on our knees sobbing.

        “I… I should have stopped it” I said, “Been there sooner. Never given her away…” Elizabeth’s only reply was the soft pants of her breath, and the slight sniffle as she held me.

“She was supposed to show him more”

“There’s always the chance that she wouldn’t”

“She did before”

“You mean later”

“She’s already done it”

“If she did they wouldn’t be here”

        I looked up at the voices, and met the wind and the rain and the spray of the sea. Elizabeth was in front of me now. I had been here before… This was the boat I was on before I reached Columbia. We’d already reached the dock. I looked up at the Lighthouse that I had climbed. It seemed so long ago now.

        “Booker”

        Elizabeth’s hand took mine again and I looked back to her. I couldn’t read her face. Before it was almost as if she could only keep one emotion at a time, but now she looked happy, but sad. She squeezed my hand and her fingers trailed along it, the thimble cool across my skin. She looked ashamed too. Through the whole ordeal of Columbia, I suppose there was a thought at the back of my mind about who she was. Did she have the same feeling too? Even when I tried to comfort her? She nodded to the ladder, and I climbed up, the metal and wood creaked as I put my weight on it, and climbed onto the pier. I turned and held out my hand and helped Elizabeth up as well.

        “What now?” I ask, looking up at the Lighthouse before us.

        Elizabeth turned her back to me and started to walk away, towards the lighthouse, I followed, “Booker, this place. It’s between everything. Each door is a new world, just like the tears” As I follow after her, I see a shine in the gloom. Elizabeth continued talking, “Every light is just another door way,” I’m only half listening at this point. I’m not sure why but I feel drawn to whatever it was that caught my eye. I kneel down and pick it up. It’s a coin. A silver eagle, like back in Columbia. It was heads up, “We could go anywhere, any when” I shake my head at the last comment.

        “What does that mean?” I said.

        Elizabeth stopped and turned around, she smiled but it never reached her eyes, they were full of sadness, “We can stop Comstock. If you want to.”

        “What?”

She continued towards the light house, climbing the spiral steps. I followed her, and found her standing by the large double doors.

        “We could make it so he never took Anna” she said, the same sad smile on her face “So that none of it ever happened.”

I walked to the door. Comstock. All of this was his fault. Going anywhere? Any time? They could get to him before he opened the tear. Before he even thought about Columbia. I could practically feel my hands tightening around his little neck in his crib, squeezing the life out of him. I’d stare into those blue eyes until I could see the light go out in them. Atonement for giving away Anna. Everything I had done after. None of it would ever have happened. A clean slate, a baptism in a child’s blood. It would be so easy.

        I put my hand on the door, and Elizabeth puts hers over mine.

If none of it happens, what would happen to her? If Comstock never takes Anna, would Elizabeth never exist? In spite of myself, and everything I remembered then, I loved the girl. To right the wrongs that I made, I would have to kill not just Comstock, but her as well. I’d rather live with what I’d done.

        I looked at the coin in my hand. A raised facing of a skull, a key and a sword looked back at me, just as I had found it. I turned it over in my hand. Comstock’s ‘Angel’ was on the other side. I squeezed it in my hand.

        She knew too, didn’t she? Damn her… Comstock was a right bastard but he got one thing right, “No, Elizabeth. It’s over…” I looked up at her, and for the first time since we both left Comstock House, she truly smiled.

She was an angel.

        “Are you sure?”

        I dropped the coin and pushed open the door.

 

People walked the streets, I could hear horses clomp along on their hooves. An afternoon sun shown down on both of us, after the darkness of the night and the gloom of the sea of doors, I could barely see anything.

I could hear Elizabeth say, “Booker, look!” and saw her blurry form point.

I rubbed my eyes and as I got used to the light my vision cleared. Elizabeth pointed to a huge stone building, standing in the middle of a roadway. It looked like an archway, without any walls around it. Through it I could a metal tower made out of a frame work.

 

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ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: First day in Paris

 

It is amazing how quickly the girl came back. Just days ago she was talking about not just killing Comstock, but anyone that got in her way, and now she can’t stop laughing about the antics of some street performer that couldn’t even talk. And she kept on giving him money.

Speaking of which…

I don’t know if I wanted it, or she did, but when we opened that last door, we found ourselves in Paris. And with whatever exchange rate they had for silver eagles, we had money to burn. Elizabeth mentioned that we got more then we really should have, from what she remembered. All I knew was that we were finally out of Columbia, and given everything we had just been through, I wanted a damn drink a good bed.

But it seemed that had to wait. I was dragged around the city; Elizabeth wanted to see the sights.  First, she said, was the Bastille.

“Just what the hell is a bassteal?” I asked

“The Bastille was a prison, Booker” she said, tugging at my arm, “It was stormed on July the fourteenth, and started the French revolution!”

It’s a damn good thing Elizabeth knew French. Something told me I’d be hard pressed to find anyone that spoke English, much less Souix. The Bastille wasn’t much of a prison. It wasn’t much of anything, just a large open square with a monument in the center. I told her as such.

Elizabeth sat down on a bench, looking up at the column at the center of the square.

“The prison was torn down. The column here commemorates the Second Revolution, when the old French king was overthrown and a new one put in his place.”

I sat down next to her, “Second? Didn’t they get rid of their king in the first one?”

“Well, they had a number of kings afterwards, and a number of revolutions. But in the first Revolution they did kill Louis XVI”

“I suppose that’s a good thing”

“Soon after, France went through what’s called the Reign of Terror”

“That sounds less so”

She let out a chuckle, “Basically, the people who rose to power, the people behind the revolution in the first place, only saw execution as a means of stopping conflicts. So that’s what they did. They killed tens of thousands of people” he sighed, “I was made worse by all the wars they were fighting at the time as well. Other countries trying to stop the revolution before it could spread to their own nations”

I couldn’t help but think of Daisy Fitzroy and her Vox Populi. Their civil war had the streets running with blood, but if they had actually won, what would they have done with control of a flying city? Rain fire and blood down on any one that didn’t see the world like they did, I’d wager. I looked at Elizabeth. It happened to her too. Not yet. I got her out, I wouldn’t happen now. Elizabeth fell silent, just looking at the column. Her brows knitted together and she looked down, like she was in her own little world.

If someone like me could make a connection to what had happened here and in Columbia, I know Elizabeth could.

She still wore that blue jacket and skirt from weeks ago. Hell, I was still wearing the same suit since I came to Columbia. We were both covered in dirt, and our clothes looked more like something you’d pull from an attic. Well, in my experience women always liked a change. I stood up.

“As much as I enjoy history lessons, I think there’s a better way we could spend our time right now,” I said with a grin. Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she smiled. She might have blushed a bit too, “We need a change of clothes. Think there’s anywhere around here I could get a new suit?”

 

Elizabeth found a tailor easily enough and in short work I had a new tailored suit on order, and a new shirt and waistcoat that was only slightly too large. Elizabeth on the other hand walked out with three new dresses and other assorted clothes. She even had wide brimmed hat to cover her head from the sun. She was smiling again. As the sky turned orange and red, I suggested we some place to sleep. Elizabeth found us some small hotel, four stories tall with a plain brick face and some stylized concrete columns along the façade. There were a few tables as well; a few men were sitting out in the late afternoon air. As we entered one of them looked at Elizabeth and then myself and smiled. The main floor of the hotel was understated. It made an attempt to mimic a larger more luxurious building, but refrained from anything too gaudy. Behind a large bar styled desk was a man looking over the registry. He grinned at us as we walked in, Elizabeth carrying two bags of some garments she bought, and myself holding the boxes containing her dresses. Elizabeth asked if they had any rooms, and she said that they did.

        “Well tell him we’d like one”

        I don’t know French, but I like to think I can at least read some people. I know a lecherous grin when I see one, “Tell him two bed’s Elizabeth. Two.”

        Elizabeth looked at me, almost as if she was confused, “Er, alright”

        We got our keys and went up the stairs.

        The room was actually two of them, much like my old apartment. There was a small bed in the general living area, and in a separate room was a sort of master bedroom. Without any discussion I put Elizabeth’s things in the separate room, before heading back into the main room and claiming the small bed for my own. You never really know how tired you are until you’re finally on a bed you can sleep on. I put my hands on the bed and lean back, as I do, I feel it shift, and Elizabeth sat next to me. Since the history lesson at that column she’d been surprisingly quiet.

        I smiled, “It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve been able to sleep without thinking I’m about to be shot at,” I said.

        Elizabeth smiled and let out a chuckle before going silent. She’s quiet for some time. I’m about to ask her what’s wrong when she speaks up, “Thank you, Booker”

        “What for?”

        “For helping me leave. For...”she looked down, “I didn’t really know what would happen, Booker, if you had wanted to get rid of Comstock for good… I don’t know what would have happened to me”

        Who could know? Had anything like that happened before? Maybe those two twins, but good luck getting anything out of them. Without thinking I’ve already put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, “I told you, I’m not going to leave you”

        I squeezed her shoulder and before I could say anymore she kissed me. It was like back in the airship again, and for a moment it was the same. I held her close as our mouths smashed together. Her arms wrapped around my neck as I slid a hand down her side to her hip. And then I saw my little girl, Anna, looking up at me from her crib.

        With a sharp breath I pushed her away. Dammit Booker, what is wrong with you.

        “Book-”

        “No, Elizabeth. Go to sleep.” I can’t look at her, right now, at this moment; it would just remind me of what we’ve already done. After a few moments the bed shifts again, and then I hear the door to the other room close. I reach into the one bag that was mine, and pull out a small cheap bottle of brandy. I feel like I nearly ripped off the top opening it.

 

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ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Crossing

 

        I half expected him to come back, to come into the room. When he hadn’t after an hour I knew he was serious. Booker was right, of course. He was my father, and I his long-lost daughter, I shouldn’t have kissed him. For years I had wished to know who my family was, what my mother and father looked like. To be hugged close by them. Now I could almost curse it. But, to tell the truth, I never saw Booker as a father, even after everything we’ve done. Especially after everything we’ve done.  With a heavy sigh I turned over in the bed, closed my eyes, and did my best not to think of the way the scruff of his face tickled and scratched mine.

        I woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache and a faint memory of a dream. A city surrounded by smoke and flames and fire, and draped from every building were long red banners. A woman stood at a bridge, and cried. She cried and cried, and in the morning she was dead. I shook my head to clear it. The Vox were long gone, left on Columbia. I rose from the bed and slowly opened the door; I didn’t want to wake Booker.

        I found him still asleep on the small bed he had taken, there was an empty bottle laid out on the floor. After picking up the bottle I turned it over in my hands. It was brandy. They probably didn’t have much in the way of scotch of whiskey. He looked far more at ease than ever, I suppose he really was half awake since he first came into my life. Without thinking I lightly stroked his cheek and he stirred. I pulled my hand away and stood up; with how he reacted last night he probably would not take to being watched in his sleep very well.

        Actually, I was still a little miffed from last night. With a smile I got up from the bed and walked to the small windows. Booker had closed the curtains. I pulled them open and sang out “Good Morning Booker!” He rolled off the bed with a scream

 

        For the next two days we explored Paris, to my delight. We had far more time than before, and I hoped to make the most of it. I wore the new dresses we had bought, a baby blue garment with a white sash that went around the waist with a small white jacket like the blue one I used to wear and an off white cream dress with a matching belt and short sleeves that ended with a small bit of lace.

        We went to the Panthéon, the sculpture and the architecture was amazing, the paintings were breathtaking. We were even allowed into the crypt, and there was a small tour of the bodies laid to rest there, I’m not sure why, but I was surprised to see a copy of Les Miserables laid before Victor Hugo’s tomb. When we were leaving I even got to discuss with Booker about ‘The Thinker’ I suppose he seemed impressed. He certainly didn’t brush the statue off.

        After that we made our way to the Grand Palais, a huge hall with a giant vaulted glass ceiling, and stone walls that were covered in relief sculpture and design. The building itself was beautiful, but not only that, it was so large that they were showing a horse riding exhibition and a play, with still room for an art gallery! It was one of the few times where Booker and I separated, I followed the play for some time, a re-visioning of Antigone set in the French country side (it was not very good, but I enjoyed it none-the-less) The gallery was stimulating, I asked about the artists, and one of the men there told me that several of them were also the ones who helped decorate the massive stone faced walls of the palace. Later on Booker told me about the horsemanship. The men showed mock charges against each other, there was a race or two, and the end they brought in some trained horses for a routine set to music. By the time we left we realized we’d spent the better part of the day there, and in spite of the small treats and snacks sold by small wagons nearby, we were famished.

       

        We dined at a small café, a little dinner of some breads and scalloped fish. The fish was cooked in a butter and lemon sauce while the bread tasted as if it had just come out of the oven. Booker mostly sat there pushing the food around. By the time I had gobbled all of mine down he was only half done. As I watched him I realized something. We had saved each other’s lives at least half a dozen times, he’d taken me from my tower, we’d even shared a bed, but how much did I know about this man who was my father?

“Booker?” I asked

“Hmm?”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Uh… I uh, I guess I don’t really have one,” he said, if I were a betting girl, I’d say I’d taken him by surprise. I pressed on and asked him more, about where he lived, what he normally did for his work. I found a strange bit of enjoyment from making him uncomfortable, Booker does not like being asked questions. As Booker stumbled through an answer to what he did for ‘fun’ a man at the table next to ours stood up, and knocked over a small folded case, spilling papers all over the ground. As the man swore I went from my chair and helped to pick them up.

        “Laissez-moi vous aider” I said.

        “Merci Madame” he replied as we both collected the papers. They were drawings! Thought I had to admit, they did not seem to be very good. It looked as if the man had taken people and drawn them all the wrong way around, faced jumbled up, peoples bodies contorted in ways they couldn’t, and much of it was very simplistic in its shape. I gave the man his papers and he smiled at me. He had dark hair and a rather average face, though his eyes and nose were both rather large. He didn’t sound like he came from France, maybe Spain?

        “Vous êtes une personne formidable, madame” he said, as I stood back up I noticed Booker had gotten up as well. The other man nodded to him, “Votre mari est un homme chanceux” He laughed and thanked me again as he walked away.

        “What was that about?” Booker asked

        “He was an artist,” I said, “I think. He was just thanking me, that’s all” Booker was already out of sorts with the questions, no need to tell him what else the man had said. From the way Booker stood and the look on his face, I’d almost say he was jealous.

 

        Far too soon the sun began to set, and we decided we should head back. We had crossed the river to get to the café and by the time we came back to the river the sky was a ruddy orange bruising to a deep purple. The bridge itself was rather plain, a few simple arches over the river connecting the small island of King Louis to the right bank of the Seine.

        “You know, Elizabeth, I was sure you’d have wanted to see the Eiffel Tower by now,” Booker said.

I had thought about it but it didn’t seem right, “I uhm… I just didn’t,” a shiver ran down my spine and I grabbed Bookers arm. He was surprised but he didn’t push me away, “Is it… g-getting colder?” my breath puffed in front of me. Booker took off his waist coat and put it about my shoulders. And again I took his arm, it shivered. It was only September, it shouldn’t be this cold, and was that... what was that? Crying? As we both continued along the bridge it got colder, and whatever the sound was, it got louder. As we passed the centre of the bridge, I could hear someone walking behind us. I looked over my shoulder and there was a woman, dressed in what looked like a dark blue dress with a hemline cut to just above her knees, and a very low neckline, one arm wrapped around herself, while she rubbed tears from her eyes with her other hand. Was she behind us the whole time?

“Excuse me?”I asked as I turned around and walked towards the woman, I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I wanted to. As I got closer I could hear her talking to herself.

        “Mon mari? Où est mon mari?” she was asking for her husband?

        “Êtes-vous blessé?” I asked, and put my hand on her shoulder. A hissing noise filled my ears and my hand felt as if it was in fire and I pulled away from the woman with a gasp. She was freezing, beyond freezing, she was so cold it burned. She finally looked up with a stiff jerky motion, as if her joints were hard to move. She stared out with eyes that were a milky white, her face and lips were a pale blue. I could hear Booker call my name as he came to me and took my arm.

        “Elizabeth? What happened?” he asked, I showed him my hand and she swore, he pulled off his neckerchief, and tied it around my hand.

        “Où est mon mari?” she asked again, “Sprechen sie Deutsche? Wo ist mein Mann?”

        “I-I-I Don’t k-know,” I said, it was so cold now, “I-I’m sorry” The woman’s dead eyes stared at Booker, and then back to me.

        “My husband,” she said, her voice was changing, and it was almost like two people were speaking at once, “Gib ihn mir!” She reached out to Booker.

        “No!” I pushed Booker away, and the woman screamed.

        Booker and I watched as the woman changed, her face, arms and legs grew longer, stretching at her skin. The fingers in her hands slid down and curved almost to claws, and all about the would-be woman the air seemed to freeze into a volumous cloud that hung about her like a cloak. She screamed again, the strange harmonics clawing into my head, and she ran at us. Booker pushed me back behind him.

        “Elizabeth, stay-“

        “Don’t let her touch you Booker!” as he started to ask me what I mean the woman grabbed hold of his arm, and I could hear it sizzle. Booker swore and punched the woman away. Welts appeared on his arm, raised and red where she had touched him.

        “Damn” he said. The woman was getting back up with the same jerky motion, she was slow, and not used to moving, “Well alright then” Booker reached under his arm to his holster, and found nothing. We both realized that he hadn’t even had his gun on him the past two days. I made him leave it; ‘People don’t wear guns around in Paris, Booker’ damn me.

        The woman-thing chanted that she wanted her husband back, and the cloak of freezing air snaked from around her, and shot out towards us.

        “Elizabeth!” Booker yelled, and I ran behind him. As the air impacted him, there were flashes of yellow light, and I watched as frost formed on the air around the man. Booker still had the shield from Columbia.

        “Booker! Your vigors!”

        I suppose he didn’t remember, until now. He clenched his hand and steam rose from it, heat radiated from his body and the cloud of air began to evaporate from around us just as it began to reform around the woman. Booker opened his hand and threw out a bomb of fire at the thing, and it exploded as it touched her, causing her to cry out again, as our eyes cleared from the flash and the steam and the clouds the woman jerkily walked and ran towards us again. Booker lashed his hand out again; upwards this time instead of a throw, and the she-creature was lifted up into the air and a second time he threw another fire bomb at her as we backed away. An even large explosion followed, but once the view was clear the woman was unharmed.

        “What the hell is this?” Booker asked.

        It didn’t seem possible, but I had an idea, “I. I think it’s like before, with my mother. Lady Comstock,” I corrected myself “She’s not supposed to be here. She’s like a ghost from somewhere else!”

        “Well can’t you open a tear and send her away?” He raised his hand again and the woman was thrown into the air.

        “I need to find where she’s from, hold on!” I ran from the two of them, the further I got the warmer it was, and the easier to think, to see where else we were. Booker again threw another firebomb at her, sending her reeling back, but otherwise unharmed. A woman, looking for her husband in Paris, speaking French and German? I focused on the thoughts and mirrors lined up around me in my mind. Each one another reflection of the Pont Marie. None of them had this woman, I walked through them and saw people walking along the causeway, or standing and admiring the view. Boats of people sailed beneath it, couples kissing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

        “Elizabeth, hurry!” I could hear Booker’s cry, he was panting, gasping for breath. There weren’t any salts here. Whatever energy he had, it would have to last him, or that cold woman would freeze us to the bone.

        That was it. Freezing. I thought of a woman like her, distraught, trying to find her spouse, and a bitter cold.

        “I’ve got it!” From my mind and into the world, a tear opened up around the bridge. It was Paris still, the same but different. Around us buildings that never were grew to the sky, trees and lamps that waved in the wind and lit the walkways disappeared and re-grew into new designs. Buildings that I had admired we brought down. And over every façade and lamp post a red banner hung. But it wasn’t the Vox, these banners sported a white circle in the center of their red fields surrounding a bent black cross.

If the ghost woman noticed the change she didn’t say anything about it. She again ran as us. Booker raised his hand again, heat rising from it. The heat had done nothing to her before, and while she was freezing cold, she wasn’t frozen…

        “Booker, she froze to death! She froze to death!” Booker looked back at me, and the idea sparked in his mind. He dropped his hand and the heat went away, he then thrust it out forward, and a jet of water shot out at the woman. Where it hit the air sizzled again, but the water stuck and froze on her. Booker clutched his hand tight and I saw water begin to drop from his and again he thrust it out, a larger stream of water doused the woman, and she slowed as more and move of her body was covered in ice until finally she was stopped. Now Booker grinned and it looked nearly as if his hand was surrounded by fire. He raised it and lobbed another bomb at the ice covered woman, this time, she exploded with a scream.

        Before any of the fragments of ice could reach us, I closed the tear, sealing whatever she was back where she came from. The air grew warmer and Booker’s shoulders heaved as he gasped for breath. I came up beside him my mind ticking with adrenalin from watching the man fight. I put his waistcoat over his shoulders, and we continued our walk back to our room in silence.

        The Paris we had spent the last three days in surrounded us once again, but it seems we still weren’t safe from the troubles of Columbia.

 

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ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Autumn in Paris

 

        The sun shone down on the small café, wrought iron chairs sat around tables, with a few people eating here and there. Booker and I sat at one such table, chewing through a day old croissant. We sat in silence.

It was so awkward, we both knew what had to be said, I didn’t want to say it, and I think he knew that. I pulled off another small hunk of the pastry and smeared some jam onto it.

        “Elizabeth…”here it comes, “We should look into leaving”

        Booker looked a mess. After the encounter with the ghost woman last night we made our way back in silence. Even in the room we didn’t say much to each other. We just sat in the darkened room for what seemed like hours. I must have said that I didn’t want to sleep alone, because Booker let me sleep in his bed. I’m sure he stayed up all night. Before leaving the room, I saw Booker put on his holster, make sure his pistol was loaded, and put his waist coat over it. We’d had three days to believe that our problems were over, and now they’ve come flooding back.

        And now we have to leave.

        “I’m sure it was just a coincidence, Booker” I did my best to sound nonchalant about it, as     much as the experience shook me up, I knew Booker felt far worse, I only had to look at him to tell.

“Even so, we’re going to have to leave at some point. In a few days we’ll take a train up north and a boat to England. At the very least I can get some work there.” He was right, of course. He couldn’t do much in Paris without knowing the language. Our days in Paris were numbered, but not over yet.

 

        Somewhere along our walk from the hotel, I had convinced Booker to see Notre Dame with me. I say convinced but, after his first argument of not liking churches, I just told him I was going and he followed.

        The building was massive, I’d seen my tower and Comstock house, huge buildings that flew in the clouds, but they were metal and framework, this was stone. It felt permanent, as though it had always been there and always would be. Light seemed to dull as it was reflected off the stone work, casting the myriad of grotesques and sculptures and reliefs in soft lights and shadows, almost as if they were made of skin and flesh and drank in the light.

        “I really don’t like this, Elizabeth” Booker said. He stood some ways from the building, looking up at the frieze depicting various moments from the bible.

        “You’re being a baby, Booker” I told him. The glare he gave me was rather cute, “Why are you so scared of churches?”

        “I’m not scared of them, Elizabeth. They just make me... I just don’t feel right around them” he said, “Like I’m not myself.” I had shown Booker many things when the siphon was broken, but I never did show him what had happened to him after his baptism. Maybe in some way he knew that Comstock was another him? He was so angry with himself, and all that rage poured out of him when he met the man. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell him. I pushed the thought form my mind and gave Booker a smile.

        “I’m sure I’ll be fine on my own if you’d like to stay out here” I said as I walked inside, after a few minutes Booker came in and joined me.

        If the outside amazed me then the inside was truly astounding. It was dark, but not gloomy. Enough light streamed in through the windows the make them glow in the dimness of the building’s interior. We had seen stained glass in other places, but here it almost looked alive in the light. Some people sat in the white pews of the aisle; others were clearly there to see the cathedral just like us. I walked the corridors on the sides of the cathedral, taking in the stonework and the vaulting of the ceiling. You’d never think that so much stone could be held up so high.

        Eventually we found ourselves alone in front of the altar. Booker stood next to me as I looked up at the choir walls and windows, it was breath taking. The entire time inside the cathedral Booker had been glancing around, like he was looking for anything to happen, watching for any danger. I might be able to forget myself in this place, but I suppose Booker never would. I had to stifle a chuckle. Booker’s nervous habits looked more like a brides groom on his wedding day than anything else. I couldn’t help the thought of what a wedding would be like in this place. Filled with people, the walls and columns decorated with white cloth and flowers. The Bridge and the Groom standing at the altar just like this....

        “I’ve…I’ve got to go,” Booker said suddenly, and stepped back from the altar and turned to leave. It was as if he had the same thought as I did and wanted no part in it. I turned around and watched him leave, left at the altar.

        “It looks like your husband is out of sorts”

I gasped to myself and turned, an older woman was sitting in one of the pews up front, she was speaking in French. She was wearing a black, or maybe dark blue blouse and matching skirt, she looked to be maybe fifty or older, and she rubbed her hands together, as if they hurt.

        “Ah, I’m sorry!” I said back, “I didn’t see you there” the woman just smiled, I felt the silence sucking at my hearing, there were at least two dozen people in here, why weren’t they making a sound? I couldn’t squash the need to fill the void, “He’s er... not my husband.”

        “Oh, so you’re courting then?”

        That...wasn’t right either... How would you explain it? I could say I was just his daughter but... “Something like that, I suppose” I said, feeling my face flush. The woman patted the bench beside her, and I sat down.

        “So what are you two doing here?”

        “Just taking in the sights”

        “It is a rather beautiful building”

        “Everything here is beautiful” I replied, “I never really got out much, and I’ve always wanted to come to Paris.”

        The woman just continued to smile at me. I finally noticed that she was wringing something in her hands, a handkerchief of some kind, with a large M and J inscribed one it, “There’s a wonderful view from the tower up top, if you’d like to join me”

        “Ahh no, thank you,” I said nodding my head, “It might sound silly but, well, I kind of want to save the view for when I go to the Eiffel Tower”

The woman laughed a bit, “With your man, I suppose?”

        “Y-yes” it was a sheepish reply.

The woman laughed more, “It is certainly a magnet for young lovers”

        “I’ve uh... I’ve heard,” oh God, why was I telling this to some woman I didn’t even know?

        “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to go up to the tower?”

        “Yes I’m sure, thank yo-“

        “Elizabeth!”

        I turned at my name. Booker was coming down the aisle, and it was only then that I noticed that the cathedral was empty.

        “Booker? What’s wrong?” he came up to me and grasped my arm, a little rougher then I was expecting and pulled me from the bench.

        “Come on we’re leaving”

        “Ow! Booker!”I yanked my arm away, “Fine just let me say good-bye to-“ I turned back to the pew, the woman was gone. We were practically in the middle of the aisle, there was nothing for her to have hidden behind, she was just gone, “where...?” Booker grabbed my arm again.

        “We have to go,” he said simply, and we hurried out.

        Outside a number of people were milling about. Booker told me that while he was outside a woman’s scream could be heard, and one man exclaimed that a woman had jumped from one of the towers. When he came looking there wasn’t a body to be found, but the man insisted that she fell and landed upon one of the spiked railings and severed in half.

        “That’s horrible!” I said, and Booker agreed. We walked through the square, dodging between groups of people who had gathered to discuss whatever it was that was happening. I couldn’t help but overhear some of them: ‘It’s the woman who jumped,’, ‘The one that split in two?’, ‘That’s the one’, ‘No one knew her name?’, ‘No one ever said they knew her’, ‘Always called her M.J.’, ‘On her handkerchief, wasn’t it?’

But before I could say anything, Booker had taken us away.

 

        Booker said that he didn’t want me anywhere near anything like that. In his experience, he said, all it takes is one person to have a though of who you are, and then you’re made. Comstock and Fink and the others clearly had people on the ground. If they knew about me, he said, they might try anything.

I’d forgotten about the thought of us still being hunted, though the woman at the bridge felt different. I said before that it felt like Lady Comstock, like someone pulled out of their own time, but even so it was different from that as well. She didn’t belong here, but maybe she didn’t belong anywhere? We had sat down in a small park; Booker was just now coming back with some food, crepes from the smell. I barely ate any of it, thinking about things like I was. I may be able to control the tears, but I only have an inkling as to how they work. The Lutece twins were clearly the ones to talk to about it, but if they were around they were staying silent. It seems I was on my own.

        “Elizabeth?”

        Well, maybe not on my own.

        “I’m fine, I was just... thinking” I stared down at the crepe in my hands; it was sweet and filled with a strawberry jam. Booker looked up in the sky, it was nearing later afternoon, he sighed. I suppose he must have felt bad for me, because the next thing I knew he was patting me on the back.

        “Come on, finish your pancake”

        “It’s called a crepe, Booker”

        “Well, finish it. I’m going to take you shopping again”

 

        Bless Booker’s heart, he’d found a book store. It was tucked away in a downtown section of the city, if a little out of the way from the park. It was small and unassuming little shop; it didn’t have any signs as to what it was for, but inside, inside was a museum to the written word. The walls were lined with books, from wall to wall from floor to ceiling, and within the building everything had a musty, back of the throat scratching smell. Inside it felt almost as if a weight as put on you, like the universe itself was depressed, pulled down by the weight of the words in the shop. Very few things could have made me happier.

        Booker and I browsed the shelves, getting glowering glances from the shop keeper. I had found a collection of Poetry by Oscar Wilde, in English, along with an original French printing of Les Miserables. I snatched them both up immediately. Another was a compilation of the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe; ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ and ‘The Purloined Letter’ were my favorites. Following the aisles I found one section labeled ‘Romantique Roman’ I looked around and made sure Booker was not looking, and quickly walked into the section.

        “‘Les Essais de Pinpin et Eva’?” most of the books didn’t have very interesting titles, but for some reason this one caught my eye. A man named Pinpin would work continuously for the affections of the girl, Eva, through various adventures. I added it to my stack of books.

 

        By the time we left the store it was already getting dark, the sky was turning a deep blue, stars flittering out in a clear deep sea. Booker carried the bag holding the books, it wasn’t nearly as large as I wanted, I could only get ten books. Well nine, actually, Booker got a book of his own, and old English printing of Horse husbandry and Dressage. Maybe he missed the army life? He must have liked the exhibition yesterday. Booker led the way back to the hotel, he said the shopkeeper had told him a shortcut through most of the city, ‘anything to get us out of his store’ he had said.

        We walked across a park which, even at this time of night was filled with people, again watching the skies. Even with so many people, the park was nearly silent. It was nearly black now, a little bit of light snaked over the horizon, but was hidden by the surrounding buildings. The moon rose up to the roof of the world, giving a faint glow to the scene. As I looked up into the sky, following Booker, I would never have guessed what was about to happen. An explosion shattered the silence of the park, and the sky was filled with fire.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Girl and her Tower

 

        As it all began I couldn’t help but watch Elizabeth’s face. Her mouth hung open ever so slightly, and her eyes were wide chest rising and falling in deep breaths, and a small gasp escaping her lips at the more exciting bits.

It must have been the first time she’d ever seen fireworks in person.

Outside of the church there was a man handing out fliers, when I tried saying something in French to him, he surprised me by asking if I was an American, in English, no less. The flier was for the autumn festival, the first night would have fireworks ‘Good for a young couple’ he’d said. When I told him I only had a daughter he said ‘Good for a daughter too, eh?’

At least he was right about that.

The rest of the park was, like Elizabeth, rapt in their attention. I must have been the only person not watching the skies. The explosions in the sky colored everything below. The purples filled out shadows, casting everyone in a flat light, the greens made the grass look as if it were growing, everything and everyone was different in that moment.  So entranced was she, Elizabeth probably didn’t even realize that when it first started she had grabbed my hand and now it almost felt as if she was grinding my knuckles to dust. The light colored her differently too. The blues caused Elizabeth’s eyes to glow, and the reds filled her face with a blush. The larger yellow bursts almost gave her a halo. The corners of her mouth slowly turned up as a burst of white and red shined from the sky, her lips shone like rubies. I shook my head, and turned my attention to the sky. There were a few Fourth of July celebrations in New York where I wasn’t drunk, these fireworks weren’t up to that standard, but the company was much better.

Once the display was over and Elizabeth stopped her clapping and whistling we started to make our way back to the room, the entire time chattering about the fireworks, or the books she had gotten. She had both her arms wrapped around mine; at least it gave my hand a rest. I don’t really suppose it was a look that a father and daughter should share, but it felt good, right.  

The girl needed a pick me up, even if I didn’t like the idea of it. The woman on the bridge and me pulling her from the church. Hell even all of Columbia. She did her best to hide it but if she was anything like me, she is my daughter after all; it was all sitting in there waiting to come out. Going to Paris wasn’t enough. Elizabeth deserved better than her lot in life. She deserved a lot better than me.

 

The next morning saw a return to the tailor, my new suit was done, a brown waistcoat with off color brown pinstripes over a laundered white shirt and dark blue pinstripes on blue vest with matching trousers. It fit better then my other clothes. It felt better then my other clothes. Elizabeth paid the man and she never told me how much it cost.

Afterwards Elizabeth dragged me through the Louvre. I was never really much for art. It’s nice to look at but show me a picture of an apple and I see an apple. I was a little curious about one exhibit that was just an empty wall.

Elizabeth came up next to me and followed my gaze at the empty space on the wall. She had worn the same blue skirt she had come here in, along with a new blouse she had bought on our first day in Paris, a cream colored shoulderless affair, with strips of cloth that went around her upper arm, just below the shoulder. She also wore that wide brimmed hat from before. The overall outfit was rather winsome.

“That’s supposed to be the Mona Lisa,” Elizabeth said

“What, the wall?”

“No. It was stolen”

Elizabeth was probably describing the circumstances of the theft, or who they thought had done it, but I was no longer listening. I looked around at the various guards, along with all the men and women who’d come through. How would you steal a priceless painting in all of this? Just grabbing it wouldn’t work; obviously, you’d be taken away in seconds. Breaking in at night probably wasn’t an option either not with the guards they seem to have here. So someone the guards wouldn’t suspect? An employee, then. But they’d still be concerned about someone coming in at night. Maybe they could hide somewh-

“Booker?” it was Elizabeth.

“Oh? Er, sorry” I said, jerking my head at the derailing of my thoughts, “I was just, well.”

“Thinking about how it got stolen?”

“Yeah. Doesn’t seem like it could happen”

Elizabeth looked around at the guards at either end of the wall and then turned back to me, “We could watch it happen, if you’d like.”

Solve the theft of a painting? A lot of money could be made for someone that did that. Money and fame, and I certainly did not want fame. That besides, every time we’d encountered a tear it was never to anyone’s benefit.

“No Elizabeth,” I said, “I know they’re normal for you. You can control them, but with everything they’ve done… There’s some things better left alone”

She looked crestfallen, and why not? I’d just told her not to do one of the things only she in the world could do. We moved on to the other paintings, Elizabeth seemed to know everything about every single one, the girl was certainly astounding.

 

It was past noon by the time we left, the sun was already heading towards the horizon. The streets of Paris were starting to fill with people as the festival kicked off. Stalls had shown up, markets were thrown together, performers played at squares and courtyards. And Elizabeth seemed to stop at every single one. Eventually we came to another bridge and stopped at the middle, Elizabeth looked out over the river at the boats going by. She must have caught sight of the bridge, and remembered that we’d have to leave soon. She wanted to see the tower.

I know I’m not the most, well, culturally sensitive person. My time in the army could tell anyone that. But I did know what most people thought of Paris. It’s a city for people who are in love. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to go before? From the moment I first saw her, holding that card, I knew it had to always have been a dream for her to stand on top of that tower, maybe even with a man. I pushed the thought from my mind, and agreed.

The tower itself is rather impressive, I have to say. Something about it being a frame made it seem that much stronger, like peeling back the skin and flesh and seeing the sturdy skeleton that held it all together. I had to give a little respect to the damn thing for that, if not for the number of stairs to get to the top of the damn thing. While the entire time leading up to actually entering the tower Elizabeth looked almost anxious about the experience, but now she brimming with excitement. By the time we got to the top she was practically vibrating, she left the small lift and went straight for the railing of the observation deck.

It was a spectacular view of the city.

“Booker, it’s beautiful!”

I smiled and walked up next to her and leaned onto the railing. The city stretched out like a carpet beneath us. Boats could be seen on the river, and the small specks of people moved around the streets. The Louvre shined in the afternoon light, a beacon of culture, I suppose. Notre Dame rose up, strong and sturdy. It would outlast us all, it seemed to say. Elizabeth’s hand came down and rested on mine.

“Thank you Booker”

“It’s nothing,” her eyes were shining. I already knew what she wanted to say. I also knew I couldn’t let her

“No Booker, you see-“

“Can’t you see I love you?”

I watched Elizabeth’s face turn red as we both realized that she hadn’t said anything.

        Up until that point we were alone on the top of the tower. Now it looked as if two new people had just gotten off of the lift, a man and a woman. The man walking out before her, the woman followed and was the one talking of love. Booker was surprised to find them both speaking English.

        “Please we can find a way!” she said.

        “No, Jean, leave me alone”

        “Please you have to marry me!”

The couple walked around the observation deck in their argument, Elizabeth just turned back to looking out at the city, whatever she was going to say, forgotten thanks to the intrusion. For another moment it seemed once again as if we were alone above the city.

        “I’ve told you, I’m already engaged to Ellie”

        “But we were meant to be, Michael!”

        “No, only you seem to think that”

        “Michael plea-“

        “I’ve said my peace. Leave me be, I want to be alone”

        I glanced over my shoulder at the recent outburst, just in time to see the woman, Jean I suppose, grab hold of the man’s shirt and shove him bodily over the railing.

        I pulled my hand away from Elizabeth and ran to the other side of the deck, the man’s scream as already getting further away. I reached the edge and looked out at the dizzying heights, and saw nothing. There was no man falling, or holding on for life, but the disembodied scream persisted.

        “Oh hell,” I said under my breath, just like at the church. Elizabeth had followed me, seeing me looking over the edge and the woman now alone; she must have easily pieced two and two together.

        “What did you do?!” Elizabeth screamed.

        “He wouldn’t marry me! If I couldn’t have him no one could”

        “You killed him because of that?” Elizabeth grabbed the woman by the arm, and started to pull her to the life, “You’re going to get wha-“

        “Elizabeth wait!”

        The woman pulled her arm back, taking Elizabeth with it, and grabbed her by the shoulders, “I think you’re this Ellie, aren’t you?”

        “Wha” Elizabeth cried out at the woman pushed her to the edge. And Elizabeth’s hat flew from her head and into the open sky. It all happened to quickly and so slowly at the same time. I grabbed the Jean woman’s shoulder just as she lifted Elizabeth up over the railing. I pulled her back just as she let go. Elizabeth toppled over the edge with a scream that rattled inside my head. The little girl snatched from my arms her cries going silent as the window in space closed. Her face while that damn Bird took her into the sky. There was such a cacophony in my head that I couldn’t even think.

Some part of me must have known what I should be doing, as I reached the edge without thinking I reached down and jerked my hand back up. Below Elizabeth’s descent stuttered and stopped, held in the air and rising slowly. She came closer and closer. I reached out to her as she did the same. I grabbed her hand just as the charged air below her dissipated, and she swung down from my shoulder. Elizabeth was light enough, but even still I could feel something pull in my arm. I braced myself on the railing and pulled her up.

       

        We collapsed onto the decking together, shaking and clinging together. Elizabeth’s was buried in my chest as it rose and fell with my heavy breaths.

        “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said as softly as I could, holding her head close, my heart ringing in my ears, “I’ve got you.” The whole ordeal couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, yet the Jean woman was gone. We were alone on the tower. It didn’t matter, Elizabeth was safe. I hugged her close and we stayed like that for some time. Eventually she looked up at me and her eyes were wet, the light wobbled in them. She let her arms go from around me and held my face and came closer. For just a moment, I didn’t care she was my daughter.

        After a few minutes Elizabeth let out a heavy sigh and gave me a weak smile, “I didn’t think I’d ever say this but, I think I’m ready to leave Paris”

The next day we boarded a train for Calais.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Rail to Calais

 

Thudunk thudunk.

Thudunk thudunk.

Thudunk thudunk.

 

        I’ve always found the sound of a train to be rather soothing, provided you weren’t in a car with a child or too close to the engine. The train from Paris to Calais (Elizabeth spent some time reminding me it was ‘Cah-lay’, not ‘Cah-lace’) Would have been some five hours, but we still needed to make sure we’d get a boat to England, so we were riding a slower locomotive. We’d be in Calais by night fall at the latest, more than eight hours all told. At the very least I could be glad at our lack of luggage, just Elizabeth’s and my clothes, and the books, really.

        I was reading the horsemanship book I had found, and it’s been far more interesting than I anticipated. Maybe this whole book worm thing did run in the family. The book was talking about various ways of raising the animals based on the kind of work called for them. You wouldn’t feed a general work horse the same as a military stallion, or a racer. Now that would be a nice life to have. A horse ranch, maybe out in the west where no one could bother us. People lied, cheated, stole. Hah, gambled and drank. You could see a man everyday for years, but put a foot out of line and you might see a new man the next day, but a horse was a horse, of course.

        Elizabeth had nodded off somewhere around half an hour ago, her head falling onto my shoulder. I closed the book softly and rubbed my eyes. Neither of us got much sleep last night. Near death experiences could do that. My head was throbbing too, Parisian wine was all well and good, but nothing could really beat a good scotch, I felt like I hadn’t had a drink in days. I stifled a yawn and leaned my head back, listening to the sound of the wheels as they ground over the tracks.

 

Thudunk thudunk.

Thudunk thucomp.

Kaclomp  kaclomp.

 

        Booker’s horse made its way down the paved walkway from the stables to the front of the boarding house, clomping its way along the mother of pearl cement. He never much liked the idea but Booker had to admit it made it easier to wheel the feed from the storehouse to the stables, so they extended it once they started getting more visitors. Milling about in front of the boarding house standing in the midday sun were the recent guests and some new arrivals. Little Mark was still here for the lessons his father, another cavalry man, was paying for, and Charlotte was here for what her mother called ‘A more lady like activity then picking fights with her older brothers.’ Booker smiled at that, from what he heard of it little Char got the better of them, more often than not. And learning to ride wouldn’t change that in the least. Mark was a boy of twelve, average height for his age, and far smarter than Booker felt he had any right to be, and far too eager to follow in his father’s footsteps. Char was a fourteen year old firebrand, tall with elegant, if maybe a little lanky, proportions, and with a certain malicious cunning, like a warhorse just waiting for a moment to bite.

        The other’s he hadn’t seen before, but more likely than not they wanted a ‘real west ranch experience’ bless you Bill Cody and your Wild West shows.

        “Alright everyone, who’s here for lessons and who’s here for the tour?”  Booker said, leaning over the saddle, his voice as clear and friendly as he could make it, “You can put your hand down Mark”

        A couple in some rather fine clothes came closer, the man looked like an accountant, in that way that anyone who looks like they sit at a desk all day looking at numbers looks like an accountant. His lady reminded him of the pictures of Lady Comstock, but with blonde hair, she’s the one that spoke.

        “We’re here for some lessons, sir” she said, each syllable coated with a Georgia accent so thick she might as well have been spitting sugared pecans at him. Being a northern boy, Booker always enjoyed a good southern belle. The man nodded next to her. It was clear to Booker who ran the marriage; his heart went out to the poor man.

        “Certainly, Miss. Anyone else?” Booker said, raising his voice over the small conversations that were starting. The other’s introduced themselves and Booker laid out the rules of the ranch. If anyone tells them to do something they do it, wouldn’t matter what it was or who it was. They were guests here and it was his job to make sure they left with all their bits intact. “Lessons are starting right now so once you’ve got your luggage away; meet me by the stables just up the walk. Everyone else, enjoy your day.

        The new guests went into the boarding house the check in and stow their luggage. Booker came down off the horse while Char and Mark came up to him.

        “How come you always come up on Cosette to great everyone Mister DeWitt?” mark asked. Booker pulled at the horse’s reigns and turned her around.

        “Because he has to make an entrance, Marcus”  Charlotte said back.

        “That’s right.” Booker said, the upbeat mannerisms gone, “People like a show. They want to think they’re getting their lessons from a real cowboy, Mark. Not some army sergeant.”

        “My father wanted an army sergeant”

        “That’s because your father’s an officer, and they’ve never been the smartest of folk” Char giggled at the comment.

        Anyone taking lessons would learn soon enough that Booker wasn’t a cowboy.

 

        The next morning saw and early rise for all the new comers, none of them expected a ‘ranch experience’ to entail getting up at four thirty in the morning. Elizabeth was rather surprised at how well the Georgia girl and her man were getting along, moving bales and hauling feed. But she didn’t get breakfast started early just so she could watch guests do jobs poorly. She did it because by the time breakfast was ready, Booker would already have his shirt and undershirt off, and suspenders dangling at his sides.

        Elizabeth remembered one of her books describing the male lead as ‘muscled like a maidens dream’ she always liked that phrase, it not only gave you an idea of what the man looked like, but how every woman saw him as well. She watched Booker lift up a bit of the wooden log fence and slide it back into place. Booker was not ‘muscled like a maidens dream’ years of beef and fat, her home cooking and any kind of alcohol saw to it that he got a bit of a paunch, but it was the body of a work man. Someone that needed to move things around and lift heavy objects all day. It had stamina. Elizabeth wasn’t a maiden, so, she figured, she had a different dream. Booker hadn’t been able to get to town for a shave for the past few days, and his hair had started to get a bit long. Elizabeth liked it, Booker looked rugged, dangerous. Booker saw her as he wiped some sweat from his face. He grinned to himself and vaulted over the rebuilt fence, heading for the house. Elizabeth blushed when he noticed her, and then chastised herself, still acting like a little girl even now. She gathered up the sheets that she’d laid out the day before, and hurried after him.

 

Thudunk thudunk.

Thudunk thudunk.

Thudunk thudunk.

 

        I woke up from my nap, with a soft yawn. When had I fallen asleep? Next to me Booker’s head leaned over and I realized I must have fallen asleep on him, and then him on me. It painted a sweet picture in my mind.

        Well… it was going to be hours until we reached Calais, and he hadn’t slept well after the fall at the tower. I wiggled myself closer to Booker, and put my head back on his shoulder, I think I’d rather be here then some bed in Paris. I put my arm through his and entwined my fingers in his. He’d get mad if he woke up with us like this, but I would enjoy it while I could. I closed my eyes and thought of a man with a three day beard riding a golden yellow horse named for a girl in a forest.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Calais

 

        I have to admit, there are times in a person’s life when they are simply caught up in the events that surround them. Staring out at the white cliffs on the shoreline of England put me in the mind of some old soldier coming to England to conquer it and create an empire. Elizabeth said that the cliffs were chalk, and very famous. To me they were the silver lining to a poor coat I’d been forced to wear for twenty years.

        I didn’t know anyone in England, as far as I knew. No old army friends, no neighbors who looked down on a man who’d lost his daughter. And most importantly, no crazy old men, other than the usual non-electricity shooting and floating city creating sort of course.

        I took a drink from a bottle of scotch and stared at it, plinking it with my fingernail. Something else was a little more worrisome though. I used to think that the strange happenings in Paris were because of Elizabeth. I groaned and rubbed my temples, taking another drink. I shoved the bottle back into my pocket, just in case Elizabeth happened by, and walked to the stern of the ship. I could still just make out the coastline of France. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small gift I’d gotten for Elizabeth.

        Columbia was strange enough, but there was something far more unnerving about recent events. The bridge and the Eiffel Tower, and the church, and now that shop in Calais.

       

 

        We had spent a day in Calais. It was a far busier place then Paris, boats coming and going, sailors and fishermen, train workers and tradesmen had all clogged the streets of the city. Where Elizabeth flourished in the culture of Paris, I felt much more at home in the grime and work-a-day of Calais.

        Even if I still couldn’t speak the language.

        There were some cheap hotels around the place, probably exactly for people visiting from or heading to England, and with Elizabeth’s help we’d gotten another room. I insisted on two beds but Elizabeth said that the rooms only had one. Even with the sleep I’ve gotten on the train I still felt dead on my feet, I didn’t argue.

        I woke up with Elizabeth clinging to me; I got out of the bed as gingerly as I could without waking her. Her hair was frazzled by sleep and she had a faint smile on her face as she lay on the bed, a hand where I was laying. She liked to sleep in a chemise and it and the thing sheets of the bed rolled over her own curves well. I shook my head. I’d have to get her to understand that things couldn’t be like back in Columbia, not anymore.

        Putting on my waistcoat and making sure I had my pistol I went out into the town to see about a damn boat.

 

        It was hot for a September day, but as I got to the docks a cool breeze blew off the water. My shoes thudded on the planks as I made my way along the board walks, looking for ferry boats, among other things. A crowd had gathered around a shop, there was a fair amount of yelling, in French and English.

As far as I could tell, there was some kind of an incident in one of the shops, vandalism, it seemed. The owner of the shop was probably one of those community leaders you read about in the papers. He did his best to placate the peoples around the shop, eventually with several grumbling faces, they left.

        I approached the shop owner.

        “What was that all about?” I asked.

        “Oh an American?” he said back, it must be my hair. The man was solidly built, if a little stocky. He probably brought all of his wares into the store himself, probably hauled them to their new owners home too, his accent was thick too, “it is just some foolish story. One ferry man believes a shopkeeper is trying to steal his boat, and the shopkeeper says that the ferryman takes his wares at night.”

        I nodded, and leaned against the man’s doorframe, “A little bit of a rivalry, eh?”

        “It is more of, what is the word, feud? Their families have not been the closest.”

I asked if I could see the shop, and the man backed away and with a flourish, invited me inside. It seemed almost like a general goods store, until you took a closer look at the wares. Everything was very old looking.

        “Where did you get all of this?”

        The man shrugged, “Mostly it is what the fishermen bring in their nets. Anything I think I can sell I put out here. Food is over on the other wall.”  Shelves lined the walls, as small tabled lined the windows, to give a view of the merchandise. On the far all were several barrels of fish, along with several kinds of pickled foods, some of which I wasn’t sure could be pickled. Above that on some shelves were several bottles. Wine, wine, wine. I picked one up a familiar shaped bottle, square base with a medium length neck. Finally some scotch. I brought the bottle to the counter.

        “With that trouble outside, sure seems like every one in the world is starting to pick a fight, isn’t it?” I said, laying down the bottle, a small label on it said 3 franks.

        “You do not know the half of it. Half the people outside were convinced it was some kind of a ghost stealing both of them at night. What is the sense in that?” he said with a laugh before looking back at me, “I’m sorry, is something wrong”

        Damn damn damn.

        “I just uh, need to leave soon. Today, actually.”

        “Well most of the ferry’s and boats have already gone out. It is an early job, owning a boat”

        “Everyone except that ferry man, right?”

The shopkeeper grinned, “That’s right”

        I guess I was going to see a man about a ghost. I rubbed the knot in my neck and started to walk out when something else caught my eye. There wasn’t a price.

        “How much is this?”

 

        With my new swag tucked away in my pockets, I headed down for where the shopkeeper had said the ferryman was holed up, A building that was little more than a shack on the pier. The boat was tied down along the dock. Big enough for at least 100 people looked like. Why would anyone need something that big to steal from a shop? I knocked on the door.

        “Transit times er posted on da sign!”  I heard from inside. I looked at the side of the building. Just by the door was a large area where the wood was a little darker than the rest of the building.

        “What sign?” I said.

I heard a loud ‘what?!’ and then a lot of swearing. The door opened and I was greeted with what must have been the most British sailor I’ve ever seen. Mutton chops down to his jowls, pot belly held in check with suspenders. He even had a pipe in his mouth. The man glared at me, and then the side of his little shack.

        “Dammit dammit dammit!” he kicked at his wall over and over again.

        “Something wrong?”

        “Thaese damn damn kids stole me sign agin!” the sailor stomped into the middle of the boardwalk; swearing at no one and everyone. Terms like ‘frenchies’ and ‘frog legs’ were used.

I sighed, “What do you need to get the boat up and running?”

        The man spun around on his heal and glared at me with eyes that said if I said something again I’d have to say it with broken teeth.

        “Sheas a ship! Ae ship!”

        I put up my hands in defeat, “Fine fine, what do you need?”

        “Iae dunnae need anaethin’” he said.

        “What do you mean you don’t need anything?”

        “Yae daft? Thae ships raeght thaer” he waved at his boat.

        That wasn’t right, “The shopkeep on the corner said you couldn’t go out,”

        “What? What shopkeep?”

        “The guy on the corner, sells little bits and bobs and food. General goods, I suppose?”

        “Thae shops been burned down fer years,” he peered at me.

I told the man to hold on and ran back around the corner and down to the shop. Turning at the next corner I was met with an empty lot. Whatever was here before had been cleared, given the shrubs and grass; it had been for a while. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of scotch.    I flicked my fingernail against it and was rewarded with a ping. Opening it, I cautiously snipped it, then took a sip. It was real alright. I reach into my other pocket for my other item and my hand reassuredly encircled it.

These tears, or ghosts, or whatever they were, I think they were starting to get into my head.

 

        I came back to the hotel to find Elizabeth at a small café table outside, drinking from a small tea cup; she was wearing a white blouse and blue skirt, much like what she wore when we first met.

        “Good Morning, Booker!” her peppy disposition made me wonder how I would have reacted to waking up and finding that she wasn’t there. It probably would not have ended well, “You don’t look so good. Did you er…have trouble sleeping?” she tried to hide it by taking a drink but I could see the red on her face.

The image of the two of us in bed, Elizabeth’s head and arm on my chest. I’d be a bit of a liar if I said I didn’t like the thought of it. I coughed and placed the ferry tickets on the table.

        “We leave tomorrow morning, first thing,” I said.

        “We only payed for one day. We’ll have to get a new room.”

When Elizabeth finished her tea we went back inside, she told the manager what we needed, and he informed her that other guests had checked out, we could get a room with two beds this time.

        I told him one bed was fine.

 

        I shoved the gift back into my pocket as the French coast became little more than a hair on the horizon. We’d be in to port in Dover soon. We’d left Columbia so abruptly and ended up in Paris so quickly, it almost felt like we never left. Leaving France felt like the ending of whatever story Columbia had played in my life. I couldn’t say I enjoyed it. I turned around just as Elizabeth turned the corner aft. She was wearing that cream shoulderless blouse again.

        At least Columbia brought back the most important thing in my life.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Elizabeth at Night.

 

        My eyes fluttered open. We’d been in England for almost a week, and slowly making our way towards London. Booker went out to cash offices and telegram offices to, as he said, ‘get things in order’ he had to get rid of his apartment in New York, he said, and find some new place in London. So until then we simply bounced from hotel to hotel, and now I was having trouble sleeping.  In the darkness I simply stared at the ceiling. Alone.

       

        I knew I was starting to get to Booker’s feelings. The past few days he cared less and less about how many rooms or beds we’d have. He said it was to make sure we could keep what money we had left but I didn’t believe that. This hotel seemed to only have two bed rooms. Not that it mattered much, it was well past midnight and Booker still hadn’t come back.

       

It was frustrating, Bookers attitude about… well, us. It’s not that I didn’t understand what he meant. I knew that what a father and daughter shouldn’t do what we’d done. That a daughter shouldn’t want the relationship I wanted. But I just didn’t care. I rolled over and thumped my head on the pillow. How can you spend so much time with someone and then in the end of the day, feel so alone? I thought back on our times together in Columbia. In the airship he’d laid with me for a time, but in Emporia we’d spent the whole night in each other’s arms.

        I was the one that started the relationship, I recalled. What would he do this time if I were so forward? On the airship I had even gone so far as to pull him down to the bed and still he protested. He’d refuse me outright like in Paris, I was sure of it.

        A deep sigh escaped me as I closed my eyes again. It would be best to put it out of my mind, or I’d never get to sleep.

        A few minutes later I could feel my mind start to drift towards dreams when the door to the room opened. The shock of the noise caused me to gasp, and I nearly bolted upright. I opened the door to the small room and peered out.

       

It was Booker, and judging from how he wobbled I’d say he was drunk. Whatever he was doing it didn’t end well. I’d never really seen Booker drunk, not except for in the sea of doors when he tried to get me back. Booker grumbled to himself, until he saw me.

        “What happened?” I asked.

        “Oh..oh… Sorry, didn’t mean to. To wake you.” he said, before stumbling his way to his door. When he opened it he smacked himself in the forehead. As he swore to himself I walked across the room and helped him into his room. He collapsed onto the bed and after getting himself back upright, he put his head in his hands.

        “Booker what happened?”

        “I’ve g-got nothing, ‘Lizbeth.” he said, voice muddled by his hands. He looked like another one of the Thinker statues. The Drinker, maybe?

        “What do you mean?”

        “No apartment, no money. What’s inner pockets’s what we got.”

I kneeled down and looked into his eyes. Booker always looked so certain of things normally, now he’s looked hollow.

        I put my head on his knees, “We’ll find something, I know it.”

        “At least I didn’t lose you too” he said.

I looked up at him and smiled.

        “I know watyer, what yer doin’g, Elizabeth” he slurred, “wifth the rooms. And and…” he trailed off and sighed.

        “Booker... I’m… sorry. But its tha-” his hands held my cheeks and pulled me close, our lips met roughly in a surprising kiss. His breath stank of alcohol and I’m sure I could taste some tobacco as well. I didn’t care. I stood up and straddled his lap as we kissed. He broke the kiss and he leaned his forehead on mine.

        “It’s s’not that I don’t want. Want to” he said, breathing heavily, “Sss’not right’s what...” we kissed again and his hands ran down my body. I felt one hand slide down then up my stomach and cup my breast as his other snaked along the hemline of the chemise I wore and slid under it, caressing my thigh. As I pushed my tongue into his mouth I felt his hand grip my rear. It’s happening, I thought. It’s happening, all it took was some drink and…

        I pushed him away, and Booker flopped on his back onto the bed.

        Not like this… I wanted us to be together, but not like this… Booker stared at me, confusion painted his face. “I’m sorry,” I said, and quickly got up and retreated to my own room.

        As I lay in bed again, thank God Booker didn’t come to my door. I would have let him in, I know I would have. Was this how he felt in Paris? Was he the same way? I panted and gasped for breath, and I hated myself. Tears stung at my eyes but I blinked them away. I felt so hot, and without a thought to it, I felt my own hand slide between my legs.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: At the End of the Day

 

        We’d moved on from the small town, slowly making our way north to London. With the realization that Booker had no bank account, apartment in New York, or even seemed to exist, we both had started to take odd jobs to pay our way. It had been almost two weeks ago when he came home drunk.

        I felt better about what had happened when he did. Not good. Good wasn’t the right word. But better, more sure that I did the right thing. Even if I still wonder why I did it. Well I knew why I did it. If Booker came to me, I suppose I wanted him in his right mind. But from the moment I left his room that thought seemed to erode itself until it rang hollow. If Booker remembered any of the night he didn’t say anything. But I remember what he said, and in some small, girlish way, it sent a thrill of hope through me, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to’ he had said. Ever since he pushed me away on our first night in Paris I had an inkling in my mind that what we’d been through in the end, about who we really were to each other, had changed his mind about me. But it hadn’t. I smiled to myself as I carried the basket to the drying line.

        I was working as a washer woman. A respectable first job for a girl my age, I suppose. That’s what the woman who owned the place said. As I pulled some freshly laundered sheets out of my basket, couldn’t help but think that it might be a nice place to live, some day. Clean air, nice people. But I could tell Booker was getting antsy. He really just does not seem to be in his element out here. I wonder if maybe he missed New York, or if being in the open air reminded him of the army.

        Whatever it was, Booker wasn’t saying. I guess you could say it still stung a bit that he wouldn’t tell me what was on his mind.

        I hung the sheets up on the wire before me and stepped back.

        They almost looked like a curtain for a stage show. Or a backdrop for scenery. I had painted some sheets when I was younger to look like Paris, and hung them up just like this. I had danced around; laughing with friends that weren’t there, accepting dancing propositions from handsome suitors only I could see.

        But I always knew it was only in my mind. I’d cry myself to sleep on those nights.

 

        I sighed and pushed the thoughts from my mind. Only another hour and it would be the end of the week, and payday to boot. With Booker’s money coming in too we might have enough to move on to the next part of the journey. Soon we’ll be in London, and Booker could set up his detective business again.

        Though, that would be difficult too. With no record of a Booker DeWitt anywhere, who would believe he was a Pinkerton Detective? I told him before that we’d find a way, and I believed it. He found me after twenty years, we’d gone through Columbia together, and we’d seen the space between spaces. Something as simple as there being no record of us anywhere wouldn’t be enough to bring us down.

        Of course I could have just fixed everything buy opening a tear, but Booker refused it. He was never comfortable with the tears to begin with, and now he says that the tears might have been a cause for all the things that have happened to use since leaving the flying city.

        I… suppose he could be right. Tears were showing up more and more in Columbia the more I used them. Maybe tears is an apt name for them, the more of them you open the more o them show up.

        My thoughts are stunted by the shrill ring of a bell. Quitting time.

 

        We were currently living in two rooms a man was letting out in his home. It was nearly eight at night by the time I arrived. “Good evening, Mister Roberts”

        “Good evening, Miss Elizabeth”

        “Is B-… My father back yet?” Unlike in Paris, no one here seemed to mistake us for a couple, to my disappointment. Whenever we were around other people, I had to watch myself.

        In truth, I didn’t much mind the change. At first it felt strange, but the more and more I called him ‘Father’ the more I felt this warmth inside of me. It felt good to have a father that cared about you.

        Joantain Roberts was a middle aged man, a little older then Booker, and next to Mister Slate, had the biggest mustache I’d ever seen. His house, he said, was his family home, and had been there for years and years. It certainly seemed large enough to be a legacy.

        I sat down at the table. Mister Roberts told us Dinner was prompt at seven, but he made an exception for me. I think he’s a little sweet on me. He began frying up some eggs on a skillet.

Booker game in by the time the eggs were done. Mister Smith did them on top of some toast; ‘eggy in a basket’ he called it. Booker came into the kitchen where I was seated at the table. He was smiling. As he saw Mister Roberts the rare expression dipped from his face, a sort of half hearted smirk left in its place.

        “Hello Mister DeWitt”

        Booker waved and nodded to the man. He never did much to ingratiate himself with anyone we met. With the formalities, in his mind, dealt with, Booker joined me at the small table. When he reached over for some toast I slapped his hand away and grinned, “What has you so happy today, father?”

Weeks ago when we first left Paris, I asked Booker if I should call him father around people. He told me never to do it ever again. Now that I think about it that might be another reason he was so keen on leaving the town. There was a slight wince to his eye when I spoke.

        Booker looked to Mister Roberts, who was dutifully cleaning the skillet.

        “Eh… Roberts? I’d like to talk to El- er. My daughter, alone for a moment? Family business.”

Bless the man. Mister Roberts and Booker had gotten into a bit of a shouting match before about this. His house, his rules, he said. In the end he still left.

        When he was out of the room, I took a small bight of my toast and said “You do know you can still call me Elizabeth, father” I just couldn’t help myself.

        “Listen. We’re leaving tomorrow. We sort out what needs sorting here and then it’s to the train and straight on to London.”

        That didn’t seem right. We couldn’t nearly have enough for any place to live yet, I said as much to Booker.

        Booker reached into his pocket and pulled out several bank notes. More than seven hundred pounds.

        “Booker, where did you get all this?”

        “It doesn’t much matter, so long as we have it. Once we’re in London we could get a small apartment, and work our way up.”

        Booker was helping to unload train cars. Luggage, freight. He came back late and tired most of the time, but I think he may have enjoyed it maybe just a little bit. There was no way he was making this much in a week.

“Booker” I gave him my best glare. The kind that said, ‘if you don’t fess up there’s a tornado in your future,’ he didn’t bat an eye. He just stood up from the table.

“Have your things ready tomorrow morning,” he flashed a smile, “London’s calling”

 

        Booker and I slept in separate rooms. When the arraignment was made, I couldn’t help myself sneering at it in my mind. But it simply was not proper any other way. England, it seemed, was still knee deep in Victoria’s thoughts, even after Edward was dead and buried. I’d changed out of my clothes and sat on my small bed.

        I closed my eyes and thought of Booker back in the kitchen, sauntering in with that smile on his face. And then there were many faces, each one the same but slightly different. All the different Booker’s that walked into that kitchen at that moment. And then time slowly slipped backwards. Booker walked out of the room, the house, down the walk way and back into town.

        He didn’t head, backwards, back to the train station. It was the pub he went to. He didn’t smell of any liquor. Well, no more then what he would usually drink. He certainly wasn’t drunk. Inside he went to a side room. It all made sense now.

        In the room several men sat around a table, their looks ranged from distraught, to annoyance to outright furious. Booker was the only man there with a grin on his face. Cards and drinks and cigarettes dotted the table. In the center was a pile of notes, which Booker was happily scooping in front of him.

        He was gambling with all our money.

 

        As I watched him gamble away a week’s worth of our earnings my mind raced. He could have lost all of it! All those horse race notes in his apartment, all the notices of debt. He could have brought it all back. All of it! Damn damn damndamndamn damn him! I watched them play it out, the correct way this time. Booker started off fine, a few losses here and then, but mostly keeping himself to himself. But things started to shift. He never seemed to give away what cards he had, that stoic half frown on his face the whole time, but the other men were starting to peck away as his, at our money.

        In my head, I stepped around the table looking at the other people’s cards. None of them were very good, but Booker would fold when he had the better hand, and bet when he didn’t.

How could he win if he was so terrible at this?

        I’d rant and rave at the man as again he lost several pounds in a bet. A new hand we dealt, and again I walked around the table. Booker had the best hand of the lot.

        The others made their calls; a few large bets were thrown in.

        I stood behind Booker’s chair; He impassively looked down at his cards.

Oh God he’s going to fold.

        “No no no no. Don’t fold. They’ve got nothing look at them!” I said to myself. All the other men watched Booker. One or two of them were as impassive as him; the others did their best to hide some mock grins.

        Booker put down his cards, and matched the bets on the table.

It continued on like this. I’d comment to myself on the game, and Booker would keep winning. Over and over the others sent over their money until Booker had the lion’s share of it all.

At least to his credit, Booker called it quits before he ran them all out. The other’s shot their glares at him as he left, stuffing the money into his pocket.

 

        I opened my eyes and laid back on the bed.

I would have to give Booker a talking to about that game. He shouldn’t have done that. I pulled the sheets about me and rolled over on my side, my back towards Booker’s room.

        Still, we were leaving. London wasn’t Paris, but it might be just as good.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: DeWitt’s of London, Elizabeth Alone

 

        The apartment Booker had gotten was, not surprisingly, small.

In fact, it struck me that it was very much like his old apartment. It was a little larger, in fact. And for 15 pounds a month and how close it was to London proper, I couldn’t help but feel something was wrong with the place. It even came furnished, if you could call it that.

        Wallpaper the color of nicotine peeled off the walls, and I’m sure those are burn marks in the floor boards. A depressingly small cabinet and table basin under a mirror sat on the far wall, it looked almost rotted through, and a table barely large enough for two people to sit down at sat in the center. Two chairs sat around it, one had a leg too short.

        In the second room, the bedroom was a single mattresses bed on a frame. Against the wall across from the bed was a decently sized wardrobe that looked newer than anything else in the place, which didn’t mean much. Both rooms had windows facing the building on the other side of the alleyway, but they let in enough light, I suppose.

        “Well, what do you think?” Booker asked. I glanced at him and then around the main room, imagining what it would inevitably look like.

        He’d get a desk, that’s for sure. Move the table out of the center and put it so the windows are behind him. Might even buy a chair for it too. We’d need more cabinets, another wardrobe as well. As for the bed…

        I walked right by the man and put my things in the bedroom, closing the door behind me.

        He could find a new one of those too.

 

        I curled up on the bed and read for the rest of the day. Thumps and swearing could be heard from the other room, as Booker talked either with himself or someone else. I suppose he really did get his own bed…

        Well Good.

        Eventually the beams of light from the windows waned and turned orange and red and a knock came at the door.

        “I uhm… Dinner’s on the table…”

        It was a depressing meal. Just some bread and sausages and water and we ate in silence. We were officially the DeWitt’s of London.

 

        The next morning saw Booker off to get a bit more of ‘the lay of the land’ as he said. Off to Scotland Yard and other places; make himself a little more known. ‘Can’t investigate anyone if no one knows you’re there’ he had grumbled.

        I was also told directly not to leave the apartment.

An hour after he left I put my book down on the bed, and opened the door to the main room. Still empty. I found a jacket from my wardrobe and stepped out.

        What if Booker came home and I wasn’t here?

Thoughts swirled in my head as I weighed the possibilities of him not taking it badly. There weren’t many of them. But so what? With what he’d done? I stood with my back to the apartment for some time, like a sentry in the doorway.

        Eventually I relented and went back inside, found some paper and a pen, and scribbled a note, ‘Off to see the sights’

        I closed the door behind me.

 

        I soon found myself standing in front of Parliament, staring up at the clock tower. It rose above the Thames and towered over everything else. For half a moment I wondered if a girl was strapped in the top of it too. People swarmed around me, going to-and-fro on whatever business they had. No one would talk to me for long, even as I asked questions about the capital. Far too busy for some girl on the street.

        London was different from Paris. It felt, well, more real. Filled with people, and not just the well to do. Our apartment was rather close to the east end as well, probably another reason for its low rate. On the way here it was as if I was back in Finkton. I put the thoughts of Columbia out of my mind. I made my way to the tower bridge, and was slightly amazed to find that it was indeed a bascule and suspension bridge. A ship sailed along, under the split raised road. I’d never seen anything like it.

        I’m still somewhat amazed at myself, for finding all these things so fascinating. I lived in a tower larger than any of these monuments. In a city that floated in the air. But somehow these things built on land, by men and women who wanted to build them, were so much more impressive. I moved along and saw the Palace, with its guards in front, and people crowding the gates. I suppose I was just like them all. I certainly would not have minded a glimpse of the King.

        I spent an hour in the crowds there and moved on. The city was so old, everything must have had a story behind it. It would be easy enough to open a tear to an important moment in any buildings, streets, and anything’s life.

        Like I said, the city felt more real. Alive. I wandered the streets, no one bothered me, and I didn’t bother anyone else. Simply took in everything I could. After seeing the same things for twenty years, you’d want to see everything too. Through the winding streets, small flats, tall apartments, shops, food carts, kiosks and everything I eventually found myself in front of a theater.

        The marquee declared it as the Aldwych Theater, sitting on the corner of a crossroads, with very classical arches to its windows and columns running down its curved façade. Old posters, frayed at the edges and torn and nibbled at the corners showed a roman man staring straight out disapprovingly, with the words ‘The Tragedy of Pompey the Great’ over the top, and smaller type below the picture was ‘John Masefield’ In larger type below that ‘August – September’ I walked inside and found an older gentlemen sitting at a small desk counter.

        “I’m sorry miss, but we’re not seating anyone right now” he said, “The performance doesn’t start until tonight.”

        “Oh… “ I said, “I’m sorry. I… uhm, I don’t suppose I could take a peek could I?” the man shook his head, “It’s just that, I’ve never been inside a theater before, much less seen a play. I won’t make any trouble I promise, sir. Please?” I gave him my most pleading look.

        The man squirmed a little in his chair and looked around. He scratched the back of his head and got up, “Alright, but only for a little while. I’ll kick you out the moment any of the actors come in.” I flashed him a smile. If I could get Booker to take me to someplace anyone else was child’s play.

        He showed me up to a box seat, so I’d be out of the way in case anyone did come in. In the box there was enough room for six or so people to sit and watch the stage. I leaned forward out of it, Almost no one could see you if you were seated up here. I sat back and looked out into the theater. It wasn’t so large to be cavernous, but not so small to feel packed in a barrel. It would have been nice to see something here, but I came to early and with no money. Maybe one day Booker and I could both come here. An image flashed in my mind, Booker standing tall, almost regal in a black suit with bow tie, and me in a deep blue dress, and an almost scandalously low neck line. I shook my head.

Hrumph. Why should I wait for Booker? I closed my eyes and through the mirrors in my head I could see people cheering and crying, laughing and applauding. Boos and jeers and cries of encore could all be heard in equal measure. A clashing cacophony of music and voice and sound entered my mind and through it all I picked out an overture and cheers and followed it. As I opened my eyes the tear opened into a wobbly circle. Booker told me I shouldn’t do this, but what’s the point of being a man’s daughter if you couldn’t disobey him? I smiled as the cheers died down and men came onto the stage.

 

The stage was different. Larger. On it people scrawled along the floor, chanting “Ah-UH!” and pulling at chains, and eventually began to sing.

“Look down, Look down, don’t look ‘em in the eye. Look down, Look down, you’re here until you die!”

The inmates lamented their lives in prison. Calling on God to help them, or that their loves from before would still be there when they got out, only to be shouted down by the other prisoners.

“Look down, look down, You’ll always be a slave. Look down, look down, You’re standing in your grave”

A man in French officer’s regalia came forward, and walked along the men, regarding them all with disdain. He called for one prisoner. 24601. He came forward, a large man with a scraggly beard and tattered clothes. He was free, on parole for his crimes of stealing bread. He was Jean Valjean.

I sat and watched, rapt by the performance. Valjean went through the streets, searching for places to sleep, took in by the bishop, and then absconding with the silver, and brought back, not for punishment, but for redemption.

In that moment I thought of Booker. How is it that finding God made Valjean so sure in his convictions to help, while in Comstock he took it to put his boot to others? If Booker had taken part in the baptism, was there even a small chance he could have become a better man? Even if he didn’t turn into Comstock would he still even be Booker?

It continued on, recounting the travels of Valjean, the death of Fantine, and the escape to Paris with Cosette. The barricades rose and the rebellion didn’t last a night.

Before I knew it I was standing and clapping as well, until I realized I was the only one there. I closed the tear just as a knock came at the door. The performers were coming.

 

        Outside the theater the sky was turning from blue to purple, the lamps along the streets were already being lit. As I left the west end of London the streets got darker and fewer people walked them. The cobbled highway that served men and women about their business in the day now served a new clientele, the lovely ladies of the night were out and their customers were in droves the closer I came to the east end.

        There’s more about night workers in books then most people would suspect. A great deal of protagonists work with them, especially detectives, and of course the gunslingers in the west were famous for consorting with them. They were always glamorous and pretty, and always far too good of a person to have to do what they did. These women were… not. They were little more then beggars, women who had no other prospects, no husband to marry, no training for a job. As I passed one small alley way I caught a glimpse of one woman with a customer, I quickly retreated from the opening.

        Now that I think about it, they’re not much different from me, are they? I’d have to find work soon too, something a little more steady then relying on an investigator.

        Booker. I shook my head. What was he thinking? If he doesn’t stop we’ll soon be out on the street just like-

        “’Scuse me dear, you wouldn’t happen to ‘ave a light would ya?” I turned my head to see that a man had just stepped out of a home, with a cigarette in his mouth.

        “Oh, uhm, no, I’m sorry.”

        “Eh, that’s alright” he plucked the roll up from his mouth and tucked it into a pocket under his coat. He wore a rather fine coat indeed, with a tallish hat and trousers of the same color, a dark brown. Under it was a worn shirt and neck tie. The clothes didn’t much match the man, too find for how he acted. Maybe a tradesman out for a fine dinner, looking his best? He came into step beside me.    “Lovely night, tonight”  he said, looking up into the rapidly cloudy sky, “Does look like a bit of rain”

        “Yes” I agreed, “It does.” I’d used to dislike the rain…

        “I hope you don’t mind me asking, miss, but are you a yank?”

        “Er..?”

        “From America?”

        “Oh! Yes” I replied, somewhat embarrassed.

        We talked for some time as we made our way through the city. The man introduced himself as Francis Thompson; he lived south of Whitechapel, near the docks on the Thames. He talked about becoming a surgeon, having registered with the infirmary in London. When he asked what I was doing in the city I responded, telling him that I’d just arrived the day before and was still looking for work. He wished me good luck in it.

        We’d just begun skirting the edge of east end; the city was well into the dark now, an almost starless sky over of a city dotted with the stars of street lamps. We were only a few blocks away from the apartment, and I told him so.

        “Rather lucky of you to get a place around here, I’d say” he began, “Most of the slums in East End are growing out down here. Soon not much of anyone will care what happens here”

        “It is a little sad, I walked through there this morning, something should be done for- AH!”

        “There’s a good love,” Thompson had grabbed me, pulling me into an alley, I lashed out with a first, hitting him in the cheek, he spun to the side, but kept a hand on my other wrist, “Ahh there’s always a bit of a fight” a snakes smile gleamed on his face.

        “Let go of me!” I kicked out at him, hitting his knee, he nearly bent down, still holding onto me. I punched his wrist and he let out a yelp, releasing his grip.

        “Ohw, ye damned harlot” he howled. I ran for the alleyway, when again I felt a grip on my wrist. I spun around ready to put the heal of my palm into the man’s eye, but it wasn’t his face that greeted me.

        It was a woman’s I couldn’t say if she was in the alley before, but it was impossible for me to imagine not seeing her. Her neck was sawed open, and her clothes ripped, her stomach exposed and open, her innards draped over her own shoulder, she missed her right ear. Her grip was warm, but she was truly dead, her hollowed eyes stared out devoid of any light.

I felt another grip on my other hand, pulling it down, I looked over and found another woman kneeling next to me. Her neck was little more than the bone of her spine, her abdomen was carved open, and gaping with nothing inside. Her mouth was open as if gasping for air, long cuts ran from her lips to her chin.

        It was all I could do not to vomit at the mutilation.

        “I see you’ve met my ladies, lovely works, aren’t they?” Francis had a knife in his hand now, small, but large enough to cut deep. He advanced on me as I struggled to pull away from the grip of the dead. I opened my mouth to scream, and another pair of hands clamped themselves over my lips. Thompson brought up the knife and I shut my eyes. Mirrors slid along my mind. It was like the bridge it had to be. The women weren’t supposed to be here. A home with a torn and bloody bed, a square with a blonde man and woman, they weren’t supposed to be there. Images came and went as I looked further and further to find where they rested. An alleyway with a girl, in blue and white, neck opened, blue eyes staring at nothing.

        Oh God.

        A shot rang out and my eyes shot open. Thompson’s hat was missing, and he ducked down clutching at the top of his head.

        “The girl’s with me”

The hands holding me still vanished and I turned. Booker stood against the lamp light, a black tower against the light at the end of the alley. He came to my side.

“Elizabeth?”

        “I’m okay”  I panted.

        “Why don’t you send these ladies back where they came from?” the dead women stood in front of Thompson as he swore, Booker must have grazed the man’s head. The women advanced the Booker shot at them. It didn’t do anything.

        “I…I can’t. They don’t belong anywhere…”

        Booker’s hand clawed at the air, and from nowhere Crows descended from the sky, cawing and screeching. The woman flailed at the birds, silent screams and wails at their desiccated lips. Francis howled and cowered. Booker fired at him again, hitting a crow which squawked and fell to the ground.

        “What about him?” Booker yelled. I hadn’t thought of that. The others appeared out of nowhere, but the man was always around… I closed my eyes again and saw the man, he walked the streets, I was next to him, back and back to the house he came from. In another world he talked to a woman chatting with her, and smiling like a knife before he brought one to her throat. Someone yelled and he ran. It was him.

        The tear opened, and between our two groups, another Francis Thompson knelt above a woman, blood streaming from her slit neck. She wore blue and white, a thimble shined by her hand. He stared from us, to the women and himself.

        Booker fired at the new man, sending the lead through his head, he crumbled onto the body he worked upon, and the Thompson I had known yowled in pain. I closed the tear, sucking the man into a world in which he was already dead, and maybe I was too.

        The women stopped fighting the crows as they rose away from them. As they looked at us they looked almost…content. They flickered like shadows from a candle, and were blown out.

 

        We didn’t say anything to each other all the way to the apartment. Booker closed the door behind us, locking it. I found myself sitting at the table, staring down at its slightly splintered surface. My hands rattled against it.

        “The hell were you doing Elizabeth?”  Booker said looking at the door, “Why wouldn’t you just listen to me?” he turned around, “I’ve been doing everything to keep you safe, dammit. Everythin-”

        “We barely even made it here, Booker”

        “What?”

        “You could have lost us everything,” I said, not looking up, “You could have lost all our money before in your card game”

        “How did yo-” I looked up and glared him to silence.

        “What if you hadn’t won, Booker? We’d be left with nothing by now. Less than nothing. Your gambling, your drinking. If the tears only ever caused us trouble, what have your vices done for you?”

        “Elizabeth, that’s not the same”

        “You gave me away for them!” I screamed, jumping from the chair. My head was on fire, by brain sizzling like an egg in a skillet, “Don’t say they’re not the same! If anything they’re worse!”

        Booker stared at me and for the first time since I met the man, he finally looked old. To me he seemed to deflate.

        “I know…” it was almost a whisper. For a while the only sound in the apartment was my heavy breathing, until Booker spoke again. “I… I’ve tried and. I’m sorry.”

        It was always apologies, “No more Booker. No more drinking. No more gambling” I walked to the cabinet. I know he bought liquor before we got on the train. I yanked open the doors, to find nothing, then the small drawers.

        “Elizabeth wait.”

        I pulled a knob and the drawer slid open, the dark brown bottle slid to the front. I reached in and pulled it out, but something else was next to it.

        It was a thimble. I pulled it out of the drawer. A gold band ran around the base, and above that in flourishes and swoops three fleurs-de-lys made up the bell. It was beautiful.

        “I was going to give it to you for your birthday, but…” Booker said as he stepped next to me. He took the bottle from my hand. I’d never gotten a birthday present before. Wood slid over wood, and I looked up to see Booker standing next to the window, it was open and he was looking down at the whiskey bottle, “You’re right, Elizabeth.” He gripped the bottle and threw it side armed out the window, it shattered against the opposite wall.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Daemons We Keep

 

        I went to bed that night angry, sad, happy, and above all, confused.

As I sat on my bed my brain still fizzled and popped from my outburst, pinging from whatever heat had engulfed it. I didn’t mean to yell at him. Especially not about giving me away. I was angry, not just about Booker drinking or gambling, or giving me away, but strange as it sounds, for giving in so easily.  It was almost like, that was enough for him to stop? He couldn’t do that before? I had already told him I forgave him but maybe I... What if I’m never really able to forgive him?

        I stared down into my hands. The flickering light of my lamp played over the thimbles as I rolled them back and forth in my palms. Did I thank him? I didn’t remember. It was my first birthday present, my first that I could remember anyway. My old thimble was dull in the light, turning from darkness to a hard grey to a lighter shade. The one from Booker shined as the light caught the little edges and corners of it, each one giving of a twinkle like starlight above the gold band. I’d have a ring on my pinky if I wore it.

 It’d been hours since our fight and I still couldn’t put the damn thing on.

Like I felt I didn’t deserve it.

But he threw the bottle out. Without a second thought he did it. Oh it wasn’t going to be as simple as that but, I could help him. We could do it together. The world around me creaked in the night. I looked up at the door. It was closed. But I felt like Booker was standing there, waiting for something. Waiting for me.

        The last thing I remember about the night was closing my hands around my two little thimbles, and holding them so tight I thought they might weld into one.

 

        I awoke the next day in a cold sweat, and for a brief moment I groped around for a bottle I knew wouldn’t be there. Damn. I closed my eyes again and took several deep breaths, wiping my brow. It was then I noticed the distinct smell of tea. I rose from the bed to see Elizabeth sitting at the table. As she brought the cup to her lips I couldn’t help but notice she still had on her old thimble. When she saw me she gave a little sigh and there was a faint smile behind the cup. Well that’s something at least.

        I got up to an ache in my neck and after stretching sat down at the table. The chair wobbled, set on the table were a pair of plates with some toast. Come to think of it, where did she get the tea from? Or toast the bread? We didn’t have a stove, it was part of the reason the place was so cheap.

        Elizabeth must have seen the question on my face, “Our neighbors. They uhm…” she looked down, “heard us shouting, and when I went out this morning they, well. They just wanted to talk and they gave us some tea…”

        “I guess I’ll have to get us a stove,” I said. Place it by the windows and open them when we want to cook, that should be fine.

        We sat in silence for some time.

        As I munched on the toast a tingling tickling itchy feeling ran along my arm, like a spider dancing on my skin, there was nothing there I knew, but the feeling persisted, I pushed it from my mind.

        “You know, Booker. It might do you some good to drink something else. Here, try some tea.”

        She pushed the small cup towards me, in the murky water I watched myself wobble and spin in the room. I picked it up, and it shook slightly.

        I coughed after a drink. It was almost sickly sweet to me, and left a buttery feeling in my mouth. Elizabeth grabbed the cup before I dropped it. I was never much of a tea person. She looked at me, brows furrowed in sympathy. I told her I was fine.

        Again her hand landed on mine and she gave me a weak smile.

I had done my best to forget the night I learned all my assets were gone. I’d gotten drunk and came back to where we were staying and Elizabeth was there and we almost… But there was one thing I didn’t want to forget; Elizabeth’s head on my knee, hugging my legs, ‘We’ll find something, I know it.’

 

        Since I was seventeen I had a drink nearly every day. Of course some days were worse than others. The next few days were unbearable.

The itching and tickling across my skin got worse, even as I knew nothing was there even though I knew nothing was there. At times Elizabeth had to stop me from scratching my arms. Shaking came and went as well, and with it a constant headache, like my head was too full and something was going to burst out of it. It felt like the nosebleeds in Columbia. And even with the cool October air I had a nearly constant sweat, outside or in.

        Elizabeth was convinced that tea would help, for whatever reason. Once we had gotten a standing stove she’d made a new kind of tea every day. Bless her but every single pot was worst then the last. It was nearly getting to the point that I couldn’t stand it anymore.

        After a few days Elizabeth wanted me to get some air, we went out to a park called Hampstead Heath. It was a nice place. Air was cleaner here, you could smell it. I may like a city like London more than Paris, or being out in the country, but I’d be damned if I didn’t think it was good to get out of the city.

 Elizabeth and I walked a path around the park. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was like being back in New York. Once or twice I’d head for the park and for a few precious moments I could feel like I wasn’t Booker DeWitt.

        “We really should come here more often,” I said.

        “I’m surprised you like it here”

        “I’ve always liked this place.”

        “You’ve never been here before, Booker”

        “Of course I have, it’s…” my head swam. I was in the air, falling falling. I stumbled and caught myself on a wood piling by the path. My hand slipped and a pain shot through my arm. The sky stood out above me and an angel appeared. Anna looked down at me. She was saying something but I couldn’t hear her. She held my hand and her eyes never looked bigger.

        I’d never seen my baby girl all grown up before. My sweet little Anna. She was beautiful. She looked so much like her mother. Was she happy where she’d gone? Why did she come back? Lonely? Homesick? I should have taken her to the park more, or gotten her some toys. She wouldn’t have been alone then. When I left her.

        Gave her away.

 My eyes were hot; I felt water on my face. It must have been raining. I told her I loved her. I didn’t want to do what I did. That I was sorry. I’d make it up to her; we could go wherever she wanted. I’d get her whatever she wanted. Anything. I was sorry, so so sorry. A voice cut through the miasma in my head and Anna was gone.

        Elizabeth was holding my hand to her face. Blood dripped down my arm and smeared her worried face.

        “What’s wrong?” I asked. When had we gone outside? My eyes were wet and I blinked away tears that I didn’t understand. A slight feeling of vertigo gripped me as I looked around, “What happened?”

        “You fell,” she said, “You got confused an-and you tripped and your hand and then…” a sad smile softened her distressed features, “You… you called me Annabelle”

        I looked at my hand, half an inch long splinter of wood stuck out of the heel of my palm, blood oozed around it. I reached up and pulled out the splinter as Elizabeth protested.

        “Booker, you should go to a doctor o-”

        “No, no. I’m fine. Just, let’s just go home”

 

        A week later Elizabeth had a bit of a breakthrough on the tea front. I’d gotten a desk. It was warped and old with two drawers with old locks, in the hubbub of bringing it in the tea she was making had been forgotten and gone cold. Elizabeth started another brew and when the new cup was put in front of me I was more than a little trepidus.

        The tea was bitter and it coated my throat as I drank it and left a spicy heat in my mouth. It was thick like molasses and vile to look at and smell. It was delicious.

        When Elizabeth tried it she nearly gagged and doubled over, and couldn’t stop coughing for nearly half an hour.

 

        The desk was a bit of a celebration. I’d gotten a case. Not from the Yard of course, but some man wanted his wife followed. Thought she was having an affair or something, kept on finding his home sorted about when he came home. Must have been the first ad he saw. Either way I had a job and a few extra pounds in my pocket. With Elizabeth getting work at a sewing shop we’d be fine for cash, might even be able to afford some better furniture. I was tired of getting the wobbly chair.

I leaned against a wall in the west end, munching on some nuts, watching my clients house. He seemed convinced that someone was coming in to see his wife. The gentleman stepped out, suit, tie. All the works. He left for whatever his business was, being a west ender, probably some government work. Maybe a clerk that thought himself a noble.

        No one came to the house, no one else left. Stood by for hours, went around and made sure there was no back door. Nothing. Mid day came and went, as did the maids. I stopped them later, but if they knew anything they kept their mouths shut.

        Just sitting and waiting. I groped at my pocket for a bottle and clenched my fist. There wouldn’t be one on me. I still got the shakes, sometimes. Elizabeth said she was sure it would stop. Instead I reached into my waistcoat and pulled out a bent and beaten up cigarette, and lit it. Elizabeth would probably make me stop this to.

        Time dragged on, the sun slid down through the sky, turning the overcast clouds into a sea of pillowing pinks, reds and oranges. The street was starting to shift to its night walkers, the night workers were leaving their homes, ladies were leaving with their husbands for their dinner plans, and paper boys were walking hoping to give out their last few afternoon editions, one boy was chanting the headlines as he walked. I had nearly nodded off as he went by.

        “’America’s Marvel City in Flames!’” he shouted, “’Columbia breaks apart!’”

What?

        “Hey, give me that”, I held out my hand and the kid gave me a paper.

        “Here ya go sir”

        ‘Columbia,’ it said, ‘marvelous flying city of the Americas turned rogue state had been seen in flames over New York. Originally built to show the fledgling countries technical and scientific prowess the city had since seceded from the country that birthed it and went into hiding before finally revealing itself again.

‘People who had fled the city said that an open revolt had gripped the world wonder and plunged it into chaos. The perpetrators were a group of colored and Irish workers, not content with their life in ‘The Flying Eden’ and rebelled against the city leaders. At last sighting the wonder city was pulling apart, whole districts separating and declaring themselves apart from the rest. America’s experiment in being a world power, it seems, is at an end as its greatest achievement and failure turns upon itself.’ With it was a small printed photo of Comstock, with the caption ‘Comstock, Prophet of Columbia, dead, city in shambles

        The place was in shambles long before he died, and it was on its way there long before I arrived.

        “Sir?” I looked up, the boy was still there. I hadn’t even paid him. I grabbed some pennies and handed them over, “Mind if I cop a fag, sir?”

        He pointed to my cigarette, I handed it over to the kid and he walked away.

        Columbia, damned place. I glanced up at the house again. It could wait.

        I crumbled up the paper and tossed it.

We left that place behind. Why was it here? It shouldn’t even exist. Unless… unless we never left that world. Unless those damn doors just put us back where we were before, just in a different city.

        So Elizabeth and I weren’t back where we came from. And the Booker DeWitt in this place was already dead, if Fitzroy could have been believed, and if Elizabeth had even sent me back to that world. Tears and floating cities. Even these damn vigors. Nothing good ever came from any of it.

        A man shouldered past me and I spun to my side, shaking my head. My head ached and my arms felt the crawl of imagined insects. I needed a drink.

        Across the street was a pub. I went inside.

 

        By the time I’d gotten back Elizabeth still wasn’t home. I dragged a chair to the desk and sat at it, dropping my affects on its surface. I should ask Elizabeth about all this. Columbia. What world were we really in? Would going back help? Could we? What she was doing before never felt like stepping through anything, not like the doors. More like, she brought whatever we saw to us. If we tried to go back to our world, our place, would that just bring all our troubles with it? I had run from the army after Wounded Knee, ran from the church when they offered redemption, ran from being a father when I was needed most, and now I ran from Columbia as it brought all my demons back. It felt like I was born to run.

        I stared at what I had brought home. A hip flask and a bottle. That’s all I’d gotten from the pub. Just a flask and a bottle of whiskey. Rotten stuff, could probably burn wood if you dropped some on it. The kind of stuff I’d drink in a heartbeat twenty years ago. I grabbed at it.

I’d just finished putting the sealed bottle in the bottom drawer of the desk and locked it when Elizabeth walked in.

        About her hair she’d tied a handkerchief; it almost looked like a bonnet. In her arms was a bag, the neighbors had given her some extra bread and apples. She looked like a farmer’s wife.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Meet the Windsors

 

        “I know how to tie a tie, Elizabeth”

        “So you just look that way on purpose?”

Booker was being insufferable. He was clenching his fist in that way he does when his hand shakes. It still hadn’t gone away. I pulled at the cloth around his neck, he only ever did it in a knot and left the ends dangling, he never did it proper.

        Even if it gave him a bit of his own kind of charm.

        This wasn’t a particularly important outing, just seeing the neighbors. Mister and Misses Windsor were both kind enough to give me some extra bread and fruit before, and earlier in the week Misses Windsor had asked after Booker and invited us over. It was only after I agreed that I remembered Booker had never met either of them. Booker had to make a good impression.

        I did up his tie and smoothed it down to his chest and smiled.

        Booker wore his best suit, that is to say, the one he got in Paris, which he was already starting to wear on the knees of his trousers and the back of the waistcoat. Still with his shaved cheeks and whenever he didn’t slouch he cut a rather handsome figure.

        “Elizabeth? Are you done?”

        I pulled my hand away from his chest and stepped back, doing my best not to look embarrassed.

Tie on, coat smoothed, sleeves not rolled up and cuffed. We were ready.

I gave a hesitant knock at the door. I elbowed Booker to get him to stand up straight just before the door opened.

        “Ow, Eli-”

        “Hello my loves!”  Mrs. Windsor opened the door and greeted us, a smile on her face. Catherine Windsor was a kind woman, and surprisingly youthful in that unexpected way old women always seem to be. Her skin was wrinkled, but seemed to pull tight as she smiled, though her eyes always seemed to be shining out into the world. She insisted on being called Kate, ‘Or Katie, in a pinch dear.’

She practically pulled us through the door.

        Their home was the same size as ours, but by far more nicely furnished. A lovely light white wallpaper covered the walls, green leaves and vines tangling together over a white field. A large cabinet and wash basin lined one wall, and in the corner, with a pipe leading up to the ceiling was a floor stove, a pot sat on top of it. The center of the main room had a small table, though larger than ours, with four chairs around it. Against the wall was a small sofa at which Mister Windsor sat reading the afternoon paper.

        William Windsor was, like his wife, a generally kind man, at least in the few glimpses I’d had of him. Unlike his wife’s full head of silvery grey hair, Mister Windsor was balding on top, with some faint fuzz around the sides and back of his head. He had a rounder face then his wife, and generally seemed to hold himself in an air of authority, like a military man. Kate called him Wills, but I couldn’t bring myself to.

        I smiled at both of them, “Thank you so much for inviting us Mrs. Windsor”

        “Oh don’t think anything of it my dear,” she said to me then turned to Booker, “And this must be the handsome man you’re hiding away from us! Let’s have a look at you.”

        She practically pawed at Booker, tugging on his clothing. Somehow under her ministrations Bookers clothes became even more smooth, wrinkles I couldn’t get out were suddenly iron smooth under her touch.

        “There now, so much better” she said with a bright smile. She gestured to the chairs at the table, “well come on sit down. The nosh will be ready in just a few minutes. Wills will you stand up? Our guests are here!”

Mister Windsor grumbled to himself and stood up. Where Katie was shorter then Booker, and had to pull him down to smooth his shoulders, William Windsor still stood at his full height and could look Booker in the eye with no trouble at all. The two men stared at each other and I couldn’t help but feel like a little girl looking up at dueling giants, two colossi daring each other across the straights of the end of the world. Eventually Mister Windsor smiled and sat down at the table, and then Booker did the same.

        A few minutes later and bowls were brought out and Misses Windsor served out a stew.

It was a beef broth, with some bits of meat and various vegetables, thickened with flour, a coarse one, if I were to guess. It didn’t have much taste, but it was filling. While we ate, Mrs. Windsor pestered us with questions.

        “So how do you keep busy, Elizabeth? These days you girls are always out and doing something”

        “Oh well, I do some sewing down at Martell’s” I said. It wasn’t the most exciting work, but well, I knew how to sew and make clothes, and it was generally better then the alternatives.

        “That sounds lovely. I always hear about girls going off and writing and telling papers about things” she said back, taking another spoonful of stew to her lips.

        “Oh I’d love to write. At my old home I used to have so many books, I’d read something new every day” there weren’t many good times back in my tower, but my books were one thing I did miss.

        “Oh? Where did you used to live?”

        “Er…” I didn’t even think of having a story for where I was from. Saying I was from Columbia would only have people notice us more.

        “New York” Booker said. I suppose it wasn’t really a lie…

        “OH! I’ve always wanted to go. Haven’t I said that Wills?”

        “Yes dear” William said back, keeping his attention to his stew.

        “Oh Mister DeWitt, you have to tell me about it”

Booker stumbled through Catherine’s persistent questioning. What about the Statue of Liberty? She heard it was turning to green now. And the docks? Where they like the ones on the Thames?

I sat back and enjoyed not being interrogated. I had another look around the room. There was a feeling of warmth here. The Windors had made this place a home a long time ago. It would be nice to have a place like this.

        Booker rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to explain why the Statue of Liberty didn’t work like a lighthouse. I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the room and the warmth of the stew in my belly wash over me. A nice normal life, what I’ve always wanted.

        “So Booker, when did you two get married?” my eyes shot open as Mister Windsor asked the question. It came so suddenly Booker nearly reeled from the question.

        “Er… we’re not” Booker began, “Ah that is. Elizabeth is. She’s…”

        “We’re courting” I said, maybe a little too loudly. I put my hand over Booker’s and as I did I felt the warmth leave the rest of my body and settle in my cheeks. The couple gave us both hard looks. Booker coughed under their scrutiny, I could feel the tremors in his hand, “But we’re very much in love”

        “Living together before marriage?” Mrs. Windsor began, “I’m not sure I approve Elizabeth”

        “Ahh, I don’t really have anywhere else to stay, I’m afraid. Booker is uh, my only real home.  But rest assured, Mrs. Windsor, I have the bedroom. Booker sleeps in the main room” I tried to laugh but it caught in my throat, I coughed, “And I. I uh, always keep my door locked.” I tried a smile.

        Their stares continued until William gave off a sigh, “I suppose that’s alright”

 

        The evening only got awkward after that. After some more light hearted talk we said our good-byes and left. The door closed behind us.

        “We’re courting?” Booker said to me on the short walk back to our door, “You know you shouldn’t have said that”

        “It was the only thing I could think of, Booker” a nice warm place to live, a home made with someone you love, “And they didn’t ask any more after that did they?”

        Booker sighed and opened the door, “I guess not”

        As I walked through the door I held my own hand. Booker had held it so tight when they were staring at us and I said we were in love.

 

I closed the door as they walked out.

        “They do seem like a lovely pair, don’t they Wills?”

        “I suppose so.”

        I walked back to the table, to my husband and sat down. He had picked up the paper again, hiding his face behind it.

        “Why do you think they were so jumpy?”

        “Probably all the questions you asked, dear”

        “If that’s the case why’d you ask what you did?” I asked.

        “To see how jumpy they were” he said back.

        “I wonder why they didn’t tell us the truth, then”

        “The gel certainly didn’t lie” he said.

        Ahh Elizabeth, she was such a dear, and so pretty too, ‘I used to look like that’ I had told William when I first met her. He said ‘Of course dear’

        “Well look at this, that Columbia place is in the news again”

        “That’s the American’s flying city, isn’t it?”

        “Yes indeed. Says here that the city’s broken down into four or five parts, depending on who you’re talking to, and that each of them was going their separate ways. Hah, it’s says one sees itself as being part of Britain and is coming here. Fancy that, our own flying city.”

        “If it’s just a part I suppose it would just be a village then”

        “I guess you’re right”

        I gathered up the empty bowls before me, the only sound in the room was the chink of the china and the soft rustling of paper.

        “Do you think either of them’s ever been to that place?”

        “Who? The neighbors?”

        “Yes, Wills.”

        “Been to Columbia?”

        “Yes”

        “I doubt it. Always sounded like the kind of place only the nobs would go to.” He said.

        “You used to be noble” I said with a smile.

He gave me a rare smirk back, like when he first took me into the air, “You used to be common”

        I looked around at the home. The wall paper peeled and the floors were rotten and half the furniture wasn’t fit to look at much less sit on. Thank goodness they hadn’t noticed. I picked up the china and placed it in the wash basin. I didn’t feel as thin as I used to. All our other neighbors ignored us and we just felt more and more tired, like nothing was keeping us here. It would be nice to see Mister and Misses DeWitt again.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Barghest

In hindsight, it really was just a matter of time before I ended up finding one of these things without Elizabeth around. One of the London cemeteries had a streak of vandalisms, including graves being dug up, so they hired me to look into it. When I asked if there had been anything unusual other than the graves the groundskeeper just said that same as ever: men coming and going, women crying. Just the kind of glamorous job I’m known for. Still I suppose this means Elizabeth isn’t to blame for these damn things.

I came around to have a look at the place in the afternoon and sure enough the fresh dirt mounds they’d found were still there, with holes dug in and around various graves, stones knocked over and a few even broken. I asked about other places that were disturbed and it turned out to be a ring around a mausoleum. First place I looked as the afternoon started to wane.

The culprit, it turned out, was a dog. A big dog. Its fur and skin were both a deep black, it almost sucked at my vision. Long ebony claws stretched from its paws and its teeth were rows of spikes. It didn’t seem to have any kind of a face, save for the snout. It had no eyes, save for a glowing ball of what I could only call fire in the center of its head. It stared me down and with teeth bare, let out a growl that could grind bones.

It stood in the entrance to the tomb; it hadn’t been there the first time I had walked around.

 “Easy there,” I said, “I’m just having a look ar-”

Get Out.

It wasn’t a voice, more of a thought. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine. The dog barked, but no sound came from its mouth. Oh…kay. So the dog can talk, sort of, and it wants me to leave. I wonder how many bullets it can take.

Before I could draw the damn thing was on me. I jumped to the side as it careened out of the tomb, it caught my foot as it ran past and sent me sprawling out onto the ground. The jarring collision rattled my head. In the light of the afternoon the dog looked even less real, the black fur and flesh looked as if it moved and swirled in on itself, like smoke inside of a glass. The thing’s ‘eye’ still looked at me, even though it wasn’t facing me. The dog had dashed out so fast it hadn’t thought to stop, I brought up my pistol and fired into it as it righted itself and turned towards me.

        The Dog whimpered but its baleful eye didn’t waver.

        Oh Hell. It charged again, and I did the only thing I could think of. I made a fist and raised it in front of me, back handed and opened it. The shield from the vigor shot out and met the dog halfway between us, stopping it in its tracks. As it tried to push forward the shield pushed back just as much. The Dog growled and whimpered and chanted in my head.

Leave.

Get Thee Hence.

As green, orange and purple light streamed out of the conflict before me I took aim and fired at the small ball of light, and was rewarded with a small soundless explosion. As I blinked the after image away the Dog still stood, headless and mewling, growling and sputtering. Smoke rose from its stumped neck as it pawed at the ground in pain. The two red orbs of fire floated where they’d always been.

        At least I could hurt the damned thing.

        It dug at a rut in the ground, and howled. It was a sweet and sad sound, the kind you’d imagine a swan would make just before it died. As the sound blew away on the wind the dogs head began to reform about its eyes. A snout with teeth bared appeared, ears pricked and listening, and a jaw full of teeth and muscle.

        Get Out.

The thing pursued me as I got out of dodge. Hounding me from grave monument to monument. Charging me and just missing, blocking my way when I tried to double back. Once I had passed the outer limits of the ring of vandalism it stopped and stared, until like its howl the thing blew apart to the winds as well.

I watched the thing dissolve as all too familiar tremors ran through my arm. I gripped my pistol as tight as I could. It’d been weeks and they still weren’t gone. My breathing became heavier and I stood stock still. This happened sometimes, after a fight. I just needed to- to calm down… just.

I dropped the gun and groped for the flask at my hip. Hurriedly I fumbled with the top as I tried to twist it off. Finally I brought it to my lips. The lukewarm ‘tea’ Elizabeth had made splashed into my mouth and seemed to ooze down my throat.  It burned the back of my mouth and left my tongue bitter. I took a few more deep breaths, my hand calmed down.

I stared at the rooted through cemetery, “God damned son of a bitch…”

 

        I went to the London Library the next day, with Elizabeth in tow. The ghosts or tears, she could see where they went and send them back, all I could do was fend them off. I needed to find some way of getting rid of them too.

        She’d tried to explain to me how the tears worked, the ones that weren’t just there. She’d see pictures in her mind, like what was there, but each one was different. She talked about it like a hall of mirrors, each one showing the same thing but each time the image got reflected something changed. I had tried it once, when I couldn’t sleep for the shakes in my arm, but all I could see were her and me in a bed, and then the tremors in my arm got worse.

So her hall of mirrors was out.

Inside the building the walls were lined with books. Elizabeth seemed to have an idea on what to look for, so I followed her lead. Through shelves and past tables we walked until in some back corner she’d found what she was looking for. A book on British folklore. The cover was old, and the pages inside were thick and yellow. There was some kind of Celtic knot design on it.

“So, you think these things are actual ghosts?” I asked as she sat down with the book.

“Well…” she trailed off, reading the pages, “What was it you saw?”

“A dog, large and black. Red eyes.”

She flipped through pages in the old book before stopping, “There’s… a lot of black dogs, Booker”

I stood behind her and looked at the page. It was filled with sightings of large black dogs, larger then they had any right to be, just in Essex alone. She flipped a few pages more, it continued on for at least ten more pages.

“It attacked you right?”

“Yeah, I guess. It wanted me to leave”

“Then we can rule out some of these. A lot of stories are about dogs helping people.”

“Well it certainly wasn’t helping me or the cemetery”

“Where was it?”

“The dog?”

“The tomb, the graveyard”

“Just north of town” I said.

“Then if it is one of these it would be…” she looked at the lists and her finger came down on one line, “This one. ‘Black Shuck’” she said.

“So how do I get rid of it?”

She flipped through more of the book, coming to an entry on the thing, I guess. And she read to herself. Her lips quivered softly, like she was sounding out the words under her breath, and her hair kept getting in her face, it was getting longer. I smiled to myself.

“It says here that ‘Black Shuck is often seen in graveyards, side roads, crossroads, and bodies of water and dark forests”

“So basically any place in England,” I said. Elizabeth chuckled and continued.

“’Often a portent of death, Black Shuck has been known to leave women to safety and warn people from dangerous places, or protect the victims of fowl deeds’” she looked up at me, “I guess if it’s this, it’s protecting something, or protecting you.”

“It tried to kill me, Elizabeth” she shrugged.

        “Maybe that was the only thing it could think of, Booker”

        “But I still don’t know how to get rid of the damn thing!” I didn’t mean to shout. I closed my eyes and sighed.

        “Well, the stories always go that it’s just something that’s around”

        “You can get rid of them” I said, mostly to myself.

        “Do you want me t-”

“No,” I cut her off, “Not this time. Just like before, you stay home, or at least stay safe.” I said, “Listen to me this time at least, Elizabeth” She just nodded.

“Okay… so, What, I just ask the hell hound to leave? That should work well”

        Elizabeth closed the book with a snap, “You’re a detective, are you not? Detect"

I groaned and leaned on the table. It’s protecting something then? Or keeping people away from something bad. Or helping a little old lady cross the street. Great.

        “I’ll tell the groundskeeper to keep away from the tomb, I guess. It didn’t show up until I tried to get inside. Something in that tomb is why it’s there. I’ll find out who’s buried there, maybe someone in the family can give me an idea on what’s happening.”

 

        It must have been just past noon when I found the place. 212 Baker Street, residence of a lower lord by the name of Bask. The family owned the mausoleum in question. Apparently its most recent applicant was a six minute old boy, born too early and didn’t even live long enough for his father to see him alive. Weeks later the mother, Lord Bask’s daughter, went missing. I rapped on the door.

        “Yes?” a woman, around my age opened the door. Handsome enough, she had a bonnet upon her head and an apron over a severely plain dress.

        “I’d like to speak to Bask,” She gave me a hard look.

        “Does he know you’ve called upon him?”

        “No”

        “Then I doubt he’d wish to see you,” she closed the door, but I’d already gotten my toe in.

        “Tell him it’s about his grandson,” the woman’s eyes went wide.

 

        I didn’t like Bask. He was an amiable fellow, probably because he knew he wasn’t high enough to lord it over enough people. But he was also clearly a family man, pictures of his relatives, including his daughter and son-in-law. He was just as tall as me and clearly still strong in spite of his years. He also had a graying beard and combed back hair that reminded me of a certain prophet.

        “Miss Whitlow says you know something about my grandson?” he held a glass in his hand. Brandy from the smell of it. Damn damn damn.

“Your family tomb, actually,” I said, I pulled out a crude map I’d drawn of the cemetery, marked with all the ruined grave markers and dug up spots I could find. They did indeed form a thick circle around one point, “The cemetery where you keep yourselves has been vandalized nearly every night since your daughter disappeared,” I pointed to the center of the crosses, I had drawn a small box, “Your plot is right in the center, untouched. Why is that?”

        “I wouldn’t know. It’s been vandalized?”

        “Everything except your plot,” I said. The man sat down, looking at the paper I’d handed him. He didn’t look like he was acting confused, but it wouldn’t have been the first time the wool was pulled over my eyes, “There’s been sightings of a large black dog inside”

        That shook him up.

        “M-my God. It’s the boy. Elizabeth’s boy!” he raved.

        “What do you mean?”

        He put his head in his hands, when he spoke his voice was muffled, “We’d never gotten him baptized. The souls of unbaptized children can’t go to heaven so they come back to Earth and haunt our days…”

        I guess some of these Brits take their folklore seriously. I stood above the man, “What happened to your daughter, Bask?”

        “She was distraught. She was convinced someone had killed her baby… She’d wander the house asking for him, until one day she just disappeared.”

        That sounded more useful. A dead infant was a dead lead but a missing mother was something else entirely.

        “Whatever that dog is, it doesn’t want me in the tomb, Bask. What’s down there?”

        He looked up at me, tears ran into his beard, his eyes were turning red, “My family” he said.

 

        It sure as hell wasn’t much, but it was more then I started with. Late afternoon again, and I’m back at the ruined graves. I took another swig from my flask. It hadn’t been a particularly bad day, until now at least. I did not relish a rematch with that dog.

        I picked my way over the graves.  There were a few new holes dug, I think. As I made it through the ring my hand twitched and I took another drink. If this happens every time after I get into a fight I’m going to have a hell of a time.

        I took a look around the mausoleum, and the second time around, the dog was there. It stalked to the entrance, its fiery eye glowing with resentment.

        Go Away.

        I reached for my gun and the thing crouched down, teeth bared and growling.

        “Alright, alright. Easy,” the hound’s supposed to protect people about things, warn them of death, and a woman disappears after losing her child? I know what I’d do. I hope this works.

        I dropped my gun on the ground.

        “There see?” I help up both my hands, “I just want to help”

Help.

        The growling abated. The hound retreated. I followed.

        The structure on the surface lead to an open gate, and some stairs that lead down into the darkness. As the hound walked ahead its eye flared, lighting the way. It was only a couple dozen steps down but other than the hounds eye it was pitch black until we reached the tomb proper. There in the back, surrounded by candles, was a woman. Stick thin and crying. The hound sat down and faced straight ahead, but even behind it I could feel it staring at me.

        Help, it said in my head.

        I made it this far, might as well try, “Elizabeth Bask?”

        The wraith of a woman looked up. God she looked like she’d eaten nothing for weeks, “Who are you?”

        “My name’s Booker DeWitt. I was… I was hired by your father. To find you.”

I took a few steps forward, and she cowered behind her candles, “Stay away! You just want to hurt my son! You want to kill him again!”

        “No. I just want to take you home”

        “I won’t leave him!”

        “Elizabeth, we have to get you out of here,” I was right by the ring of candles now. The girl was doing her best to press herself through a wall.

        “I can’t leave my son. He needs his mother”

        “Elizabeth your son is dead”

        “No he’s not!”

        I did not have time for an insane woman. I stepped through the candles and grabbed her shoulder, “Elizabeth he’s dead, but you’re not you can still have aaAARGH!”

        The hound had rounded on me, bit my arm. God it hurt. Pain seared through my brain, like my body was on fire and then like I was some toy, the dog pulled me down to the cold stone floor. I felt my arm flop to the ground as it released it.

        “You see! You see! My boy protects me!”

        Through tears I looked at my arm. There was nothing wrong with it. I had felt it all, the teeth sink in, and each spear edge as it tore at me pulling me down. The hunk of flesh taken away. I could still feel the empty hole left. I grabbed at my arm. It was still all there, but I could feel the muscle missing. 

Bask was talking again, mumbling something. I turned over. She was hugging the dog’s head, calling it her baby.

        “I’ll never leave you. No no. Never”

        She… she thought the dog was her child. It didn’t make any sense, the woman was driven insane from the child’s death, and she finds some time misplaced hound to fill the void?

        “That’s not your boy, Elizabeth”

        “Yes he is! He’s mama’s little soldier. Going to grow up just like his father”

        “Your child’s dead,” I said again, “You know that, part of you knows that.” I could feel myself start to sweat, “I know what you’re going through, Elizabeth. I… I love my daughter when she wasn’t even a year old… I gave her away and… and I never saw her again,” I could feel bugs crawling on me. I knew they weren’t real, “You can’t let it become all you are. I did, it’s no life for someone. I didn’t have anyone, but you still have your family, Misses Bask.”

        The dog and the girl shared a look with each other.

        “No no, he’s real, he’s here”

        “No he’s not. No more than my girl will be”I lied through my teeth. It was getting to her. I could see it. I could hear the woman pant, breathing heavily, and then the wet splatter of vomit as she coughed, then silence. Minutes or hours passed, in the dark and the cold I couldn’t tell.

        “How long have I been down here?” I heard a soft sad voice ask.

        “Three weeks,” I replied.

        In my head, the voice of a little boy said, Thank You.

 

I took the girl back to her father. She shook like a leaf and looked like a twig, but I felt she could be alright. Lord bask thanked me over and over again, asking for my address, what bank my accounts were at, if there was anything he could do to repay me.

        In a few days I’d be several hundred pounds richer, and with a new friend in a slightly better class than me. All for a job that I wasn’t even hired to do. The cemetery would hear me calling the next day as well.

        My arm still felt strange, but it felt less and less like half of it was bitten off. Small marks were starting to appear too, like bruises. I didn’t think much over it. I reached the apartment just as dusk was starting to turn over to night. I could smell something cooking. Elizabeth, my Elizabeth this time, must have gotten her hands on some meat. I felt a twinge in both my ‘bitten’ and other arm as I fiddled with the door and unlocked it.

        Inside in front of the table, Elizabeth laid on the ground in a pool of blood. Rats and mice and dogs chewed at her clothes and her arms.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Whispers in the Dark

 

        There was a part of me that knew it wasn’t real. Dogs don’t just get into third floor apartments. There was a part of me that knew she wasn’t really lying there. My mind screamed.

        I could feel my arm shake and tighten as my own breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. It was just like when I’d first stopped drinking. It was only going to get worse. I could feel my body getting hotter, the sweat beading on my brow. Oh God my chest was on fire, I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning, I was dying. The dogs looked up at me just as the side room’s door opened and Elizabeth stepped through.

        “Booker?” the Elizabeth looked up from the floor, and spoke at the same time as the other one, her voice was muffled, like I was surrounded by thick cotton I just couldn’t see. I stared at the girl and the animals on the floor, and the more I looked at them the more and more they just looked like patterns in the floor, until I blinked and they were gone. Right, now I just need to. To get my flask an- my head swam and my legs buckled. I gripped the door as best I could, before sliding to the floor.

 

        Booker was just standing in the doorway, gasping for breath, until he just stumbled and fell.

        “Booker!” I cried, running to his side, “Booker? Booker talk to me, please!” his arms and legs trembled, and the muscles were rock hard with cramps, and it seemed all he could do just to keep up with the short gasps for breath he was making.

        I…I-I have to get the door closed. Booker wouldn’t want anyone to see him like this. The park was bad enough for him. I did my best to pull him further into the room and rolled him onto his back, and closed the door.

“I-I c-ant breathe,” his voice was so hoarse. My heart pounded in my head. I didn’t know what to do. We should have gone to a doctor; I should have made him after he fell in the park. I could feel tears in my eyes and I did my best to hold them back. Booker needed my help, even if I didn’t know how to give it to him.

        “Booker?” his eyes darted around, his pupils were pinpricks on his irises, “Booker it’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” I pulled his gun and flask away and hugged him, my head on his chest, “I’m here Booker, it’s okay” it felt like whatever it was that made Booker, Booker was leaving him. I held onto him, I wanted him to stay, I needed him to stay.

        It was hard seeing him like this a second time. He always seemed so sure of himself other times, and to see him like this? I held him as close as I could, I could hear him muttering things, the he was sorry, he couldn’t breathe, that he was too hot.

        However many minutes passed, and Booker’s breathing slowed, the muscles in his arms and legs softened, releasing their grip on him.

        I couldn’t help but feel it was my fault. This hadn’t happened before, and I’d made him this way. He went along with it sure but I pushed him. Maybe he hated me for it. If I thought it might not do more harm than good I was tempted to just tell him to drink something, anything. I didn’t want to see him this way ever again.

        As I thought about it, Bookers arm slid around me and about my waist and pulled me closer. I laid my head back down on his chest. As we laid there I could hear Booker whispering to himself. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or just talking to himself. I pushed myself closer and buried my face in his shirt; I wasn’t going to lose him.

 

        Since the few months we’d lived here, there had been a few rare sunny days. Today was one of those days. It was obscenely bright, and far too many people were more than happy to greet us on the street. I stretched my back as best I could. Sleeping on the floor was not a good idea, but last night I… I couldn’t really bring myself to get up. My arm felt normal again, and save for the bruise shaped like a bite, there were no problems.

       

The whole ordeal had taken more out of me then I’d like to admit. Elizabeth joined me when I said I’d go to the cemetery to get my payment. It almost felt like she thought she needed to keep an eye on me. Maybe she did.

        We’d taken the underground to the outskirts of London, and walked the rest of the way to the graveyard. With the sun shining like it was, the whole place was peaceful. Maybe anyone interred here could get some sleep. The groundskeeper wasn’t in his shack, and given the missing tools, I’d say he was out repairing the damage the hound had done.

        We found him at the Bask mausoleum, hammering away at something. I stopped just before left the ‘ring’ or vandalism, and took a drink of the saloop that passed for my tea. Elizabeth must have noticed my clenched hand and wiggled it open, putting her hand in mine and entwining our fingers. It felt better, and she smiled.

        In truth, I felt broken. In the twenty years I was alone the gambling and the drinking had built up a life for me, and now that it was gone it felt like whatever it had managed to make inside of me was shutting down.

        I told him what I found, though, not all of it was the truth. A woman had broken into the tomb, Lord Bask’s daughter, and had brought a dog in with her which she thought was her son. The dog was responsible, and both of them were gone now. There shouldn’t be any more problems.

        He thanked me, and after he had finished hammering together a new chain for the tomb’s gate, I got paid as well. It wasn’t much, not compared to what Lord Bask would give me, but fifteen pounds paid for a month in the apartment.

 

        Elizabeth had been out and about before, seeing the sights on London, but I hadn’t. Not really anyway. Once we were moved in I had gone around seeking anything I could do to get a case, since I knew no one would come to me. So Elizabeth took me around.  It was like Paris again, only this time, I suppose neither of our hearts were really in it.

        We went through the west end, and Elizabeth showed me a theater she had been to, though she didn’t get to see a play, there were several posters for a new one called “Mind the Paint Girl” a comedy. I could put a few by and take her, I thought. Elizabeth dragged me around to the palace, and parliament, and the clock tower as well. Given recent events, we’d put as much distance as we could with the tower of London too. Neither of us was in any mood for adventures.

 

        With my muscles sore and my back aching we came back home sooner then I think Elizabeth had expected, or wanted. I opened the door and the floor was exceptionally bare or anything. Good. I picked up the horse husbandry book from my desk and took my customary wobbly chair and sat at the table. After a few moments Elizabeth sat down as well.

        I’d already been through the book once, but it was my only one. I doubted I’d get any enjoyment from Elizabeth’s books. Most of her stories weren’t what some other ladies would call proper reading anyway. I could hear Elizabeth tapping her fingers on the table. She was anxious, I could tell. I knew she’d end up wanting to ask about it.

        “Booker… about what happened…” she began. I put down the book.

        “I don’t want to talk about it, Elizabeth”

        “You should Booker,” she said, “Something happened when you came home before. It.. It looked like you were looking at something. What was it?”

        “I didn’t see anything”

        “It triggered the attack you had, didn’t it?” I stayed silent. She pulled her chair over to mine, and looked at me with pleading eyes, “It was about me, wasn’t it?”

        Hell… Look at her. She looked more scared about the whole thing then I felt. Why’d she have to care so much?

        “You were always so stressed before. And… and you never let it out.” She said, her voice quivered, “I just want to help, Booker,” she stood up and leaned over me, holding my cheeks and she brought her lips down onto mine.

        It wasn’t a hard rough kiss. It was soft, gentle, not in lust but in love.

God dammit I loved the girl.

        So I pushed her away, “Elizabeth… I told you before. I’m your father we-“

        “I don’t care,” she gave me a smile a mother gives when her child leaves home. A sad and hopeful one.

        “It just wouldn’t work”

She leaned over again, and spoke in a soft voice, “I still want to try, at least,” and she held my jaw and we came together again.

        I’d always tried to make it clear about our relationship, but there were times I couldn’t help myself. Letting her get close in Paris and on the train, on top of the Eiffel Tower, when I came home in my cups. Hell even last night I shouldn’t have held her like I did. I can look at her and know she’s my daughter, but at times that seems like a distant memory to our time together in Columbia. And each time she kissed me and the memory got further away.

        I pulled away again, but before I could protest once more she had pulled me back.

Before I knew it I’d stopped trying to pull her away and soon after the kiss became rougher. I could feel her hands running through my hair. She opened her mouth and our tongues danced.

        She pulled away, and I couldn’t tell if there were tears on her cheeks of just my eyes playing tricks on me. A ruddy late afternoon light slid into the room and Elizabeth glowed, almost like she was from a dream. She smiled and took my hands, pulling me into her room.

        Our lips met again, just before she sunk down and sat on her bed. I followed suit. Elizabeth pawed at my coat and shirt, pulling them off after some difficulty. She ran her hands over my chest, the little thimble on her pinky making little excited cold dashes on my skin.

        In the back of my mind I knew shouldn’t be doing this. I grabbed her waist and pulled her closer, attacking her neck. I could hear her say my name as I kissed down her neck to her collarbone and her shoulder. She had worn her shoulderless blouse again.  In some faraway place I wondered if she had this idea from the start. My hands slid up from her small waist, pulling at the shirt and freeing it from being tucked into her skirt. My hands ran up and down her back, rumbling over the laces and eyelets of her corset. I lifted her up, running my mouth down from her shoulder to the tops of her breasts, kissing at them as they rose and fell with her breathing. I pulled at the cords of the corset as Elizabeth ran her fingers through my hair. Pulling the cords loose, I pulled away from the girl and pushed her down to lay on the bed as she let out a soft whimper and sigh. I pulled off my own shoes, and then took her legs and did the same. I kissed her bare leg, from her ankle, up her shin and calf, pushing her skirt up as I did, until I came to her knee. I pulled at the ribbon of cloth tying her bloomers, and began to slide that up along with the skirt, revealing more and more of her creamy thigh. Her breathing became more and more labored as I moved further and further.

I came to her hip, and gave it a soft bite, rewarded as a moan escaped the girl’s mouth. I pulled at the buttons holding the skirt to her waist and yanked it off. Elizabeth pulled off her blouse as I pulled at the cords holding her undergarments to her waist, and sliding them down, kissing from her belly to her hips, to her thigh as I pulled the bloomers off. I kissed around her leg to her inner thigh and further up, to between her legs.  Her hand reached for my head as I kissed at her, her legs tensed about my head and shoulders and I could hear her groan. I raised my head and moved my mouth further up, I kissed up what little of her stomach was exposed, then the corset, up between her rising breasts to her clavicle and neck, her chin, her jaw, her cheeks and back to her open pink lips.

        I strained at my trousers and Elizabeth sought my deliverance. Her hands fumbled and pulled at my belt and pants blindly, as our tongues explored each other’s mouths. When my pants loosened I pulled away from her, lifting her body with one arm and pulling off her corset with the other. She laid back again, chest rising with heavy breaths. I leaned down and attacked her mouth again. Her hands slid from my cheeks over my shoulders to my waist and she pulled down at my trousers, freeing me from them. I felt her hand slide along me, stroking me in anticipation. Her legs loosely laid about my hips, one hand took mine, our fingers curling about each other, the other around my shoulder. I pulled away from her lips and looked into her eyes.

        In that moment, looking at Elizabeth, her mouth half open, eyes filled with innocence and anticipation, I saw my little girl Anna looking up at me, wanting her father. My heart trembled and I pushed forward, entering her. Elizabeth’s eyes closed and her mouth moaned, and I kissed her.

        You’re a bastard Booker DeWitt.

        Elizabeth squeezed my hand as I pushed forward, holding me close in our embrace. I broken away from her mouth and kissed down her neck as she let her head lay back. Her breasts bounced with every thrust and I took one in my mouth, my hand slid up from the girl’s hip to grope the other one, her free hand joined it. She moaned my name and each time she did I was driven to push further into her, harder and rougher and she’d groan louder.

        Elizabeth’s legs trembled and became tight around me, she tried to say something but it became one long moan, I was held inside her trembling form. I found her mouth again as she squeezed my hand and my hips harder than ever. My hand left her breast as her own hand clutched at my back, raking it with her nails. As her own tremors stopped I snaked my hand along her leg to her thigh and her read, gripping it and pulling her forward against me. I don’t remember breaking the kiss but I found her shoulder in my mouth, kissing it while she buried her own face in my neck.

        It was over all too soon. I squeezed her hand as I felt a rising strain for release inside me. Elizabeth moaned and bucked herself and I squeezed and thrust into her. She whispered in a breathy groan, “Booker, please…” and again her legs brought me close. Even that wasn’t enough, I ploughed and rutted against her, until I pushed forward as deep as I could and found my own relief. I moaned her name as she moaned mine and I kissed her with all I could muster. For a long time the only sound in the room was our panting. When I tried to pull away and clutched at my back “No… no” she said hoarsely.

 

In time she released me, and we lay in the bed, her head on my chest, eyes closed, my hand about her waist and our legs tangled. To me it was a cruel mirror of how we had slept the night before. In whatever was left of my soul I felt as though a bit of shrapnel had moved and tore out another piece of me. It wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have done it. She’s my girl. I looked down at her, as if she sensed the movement she looked up at me a sinfully sweet smile on her face. Her hair was in disarray, some of it matted to her brow in sweat. Her skin was prickled with goose pimples and sparkled in the waning light of the sun set, like she was covered in rubies. Small little gems slid along her skin and between her breasts as she breathed.

        It wasn’t right, I said to myself again.  Push her away, tell her no more. We should leave a normal life. She deserved that more than anything.

        Elizabeth looked down, and then back to my face and smiled before sliding herself on top of me. She kissed my chest; each time she pulled away she would grind her hips against mine, and then lean forward again and kiss another scar. She took my hand again, and with her free hand she reached back and grabbed a hold of me, holding me still as she slid herself down unto me. She bit her lips as she did, and then took hold of my other hand. She wiggled her hips, as if to get comfortable and leaned forward again and we kissed.

        Maybe neither of us were meant for ordinary lives.

 

        I awoke the early the next morning, still lying on top of Booker. Listening to him breath was soothing, and if felt good to have his body pressed against mine. His hand was on my shoulder, like he was protecting me from the world. It felt like the world as a glow. Booker and I were together again. The floorboards and walls creaked around us. The apartment wasn’t what I had expected in a home when I got out of Columbia, but so long as it was the both of us I didn’t much care.

        There was a shuffling, and the faint glow of the dawn grew brighter, I turned my head and standing at the end of the bed was a man dressed all in black, a sorrowful expression on his face, only partially hidden by a great white beard.  He stood in a window in the air and behind him machinery and steam and smoke billowed in the air.

        Zachary Comstock let out a sigh, “Elizabeth…” he shook his head.

        I wanted to scream. To wake Booker. To throw whatever I could at the man, but just as in Columbia, no matter how mad I was, the man’s presence cowed me, “Go away” as all I could say.

        “My child what ha-”

        “You’re not my father,” I shot back.

        “We both know how debatable that statement is,” he stared at me and I felt even more naked then I already was. His eyes bore into me, and it was as if he really could see what would come next.

        “It doesn’t matter. You’re dead, I watched you die”

        “I suppose I will have died, if I can see this.” he said, “But did that ever stop Booker DeWitt?”

        For some time he stood there with his disapproving stare before finally saying, “Is it really worth what it will cost you, Elizabeth? Is he really worth your soul? I’ve already seen it. You will drown the world and th-”

        “I don’t have to talk to you”

        The machine that made the tear fought it, but I began to stitch it close. Comstock was speaking but I couldn’t hear him and I didn’t care. The man had nothing for me anymore, just another ghost that needed to be sent back to where it belonged.

        Back in the faint light of the sunrise, I counted me breaths and tried to stop my heart from racing. I ran my cheek across Booker’s chest, and a glint caught my eye. On the small table by the bed was the thimble Booker had gotten me in France.

        I groped for it in the bleary light, and with it in hand, I pulled the old one from my finger and threw it away. I slid the new one onto the stump of my pinky, and it glittered. I closed my eyes, and ignored the whispers of Comstock in the darkness of my mind.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: After

 

        The vision closed to me, unbidden by the machines I glimpsed them through. Clearly Elizabeth would destroy the siphon some day, but it was never intended to last forever, only to keep her in check until she was ready.

        What worried me more was the constant presence of Booker DeWitt.

        He would come to my new Eden. He would corrupt my lamb and take her away. He would defile her.

        I knew this, this latest vision had been the fifth time I’d seen them together.

I would not allow this to stand.

        In the morning I would have a new order for Fink and his band of Negros and Irish. Signs to warn Columbia of this, this False Shepherd's coming. I should have killed him when he tried to take my daughter from me the first time.

        I turned from the machinery laden room, and stepped out into the night air. The whole of my glorious city stretched out below me. Columbia would endure, and through it the world would see what the righteous could accomplish in the face of the unmitigated evil and sloth of those below.

        But for that to happen, my little girl needed to be prepared.

        The Lutece woman and her brother have been spending more and more time at the tower as of late. They say they’re making sure the siphon is in working order. A reasonable excuse given some of the recent accidents, but I doubt their intentions are genuine.

        I’ll have Fink send men to check up on them.

 

        Since the hound incident Elizabeth has insisted on coming along to some of the more abnormal jobs that I’ve been given. We hadn’t encountered anything like it since, the closest being a couple of kids screwing with an old man.

        Not to say there wasn’t enough strange in the world to go around, especially with the news in the papers these days.

        Everyday was a new story about Columbia. It had broken apart, it rejoined the United states. It had crashed and burned into the ocean. No one seemed to know what was what, and they printed anything they could think of. I rummaged through the paper to find the latest story for the city.

        ‘... recent refuggee’s have said that the city had broken up into three major parts, one for rejoining the American union, another for independence, and a third for the British Empire. The sections of the city parted ways, moving under whatever power they still had. The current whereabouts of any district of the floating city are unknown, and their intentions are only speculation’

        I always liked that they added that at the end, like it made their ‘reporting’ more valid if they told you they made it up.

        All in all a much more normal life then I’d expected. Good. Normal was good. Well, except for that one thing.

        I looked up from my paper and placed it down next to me on the bench. We were back in the park and once again the sun was shining. The trees were starting to turn bare and the air had a slight chill, but the sun warmed your bones when the wind was calm. A good day to just lay back and relax. Elizabeth had found some a couple walking a dog, and couldn’t get enough of the little bulldog’s face. It jumped onto her lap and licked her; you could hear her laughter and giggles from here.

        Oh and now she had a ball. Where had she gotten that from? She tossed it through the air and the dog chased after it, jowls flailing. Elizabeth was ecstatic as he brought it back and she threw it again. She’d want a dog now, I just knew it. There’d be no living with her now.

        Living with her was still… difficult. I’d never thought us being together would be a good idea, but even still I thought that if it did happen I’d be at peace with it but I wasn’t.  Sometimes she was just Elizabeth, the girl I met in Columbia, but times like these reminded me that she once was my daughter, still is my daughter, in some ways.

        Elizabeth had wrenched the ball back from the dog and threw it again, and like she was a lighthouse calling ships back to port, the damn dog brought it back. She was so happy. That just made it worse. She liked the whole thing. Maybe she didn’t care that I was her father, or maybe that was part of it, I didn’t know. It just made it all the harder, and the only times I could really forget was when we were together. We shared a bed more often than not. And when we didn’t I’d toss and turn as I rattled around my own head.

        It was like when I boozed, and gambled. They got rid of the pain, but it always came back. The ball rolled to my feet, Elizabeth must have let go of it on accident. Like a bullet from a gun, in came the bulldog, grabbing the ball and jumping around with it before looking up at me.

        He was kind of cute, in an ugly sort of way.

        I scratched his face, and tried to wrest the ball free from his under bite. Elizabeth came over and started to scratch the dogs back and sides. I left him to his ball and looked up into Elizabeth’s flushed and happy face.

It was worse than the liquor. At least Whiskey couldn’t smile at you and tell you it loved you.

Not without some Scotch at least.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Albion

 

        Normally getting paid would be my favorite part of the job. Previously what I spent the money on was the best part, but Elizabeth saw an end to that. Regardless, I wouldn’t relish this. The old lady didn’t deserve what I brought for her, and she shouldn’t have to pay to hear it either. If I didn’t get the money first, I knew I’d let her keep it after I gave her the news.

 

        For the past few day’s I’d been on the trail of a tradesman, a ship worker by the name of Godfrey. His wife hired me to find him, he’d taken his daughter and left town.

        The family had some friends, and Godfrey’s co-workers said he’d always wanted to visit Scotland, his family was from there, they’d said, but he was born in London. Seemed like as well a lead to start with as any. A quick cabbie ride to the nearest village north showed me I was right, a pair, matching the man and girls descriptions was seen trying to buy a taxi north, but none of the men would give them a ride as far as he needed. After that they just seemed to disappear.

        As far as I could tell they didn’t have any relation in these parts, so they couldn’t be getting help from that front. Did Godfrey have any friends around? Doubtful if he’d never left London before. Hell I didn’t even know if the girl was with him willingly.

        With any village as it is in the city, the one place you can be sure to find out anything is the pub. With a deep gulp of the early evening air I took a step inside.

        All bars, taverns, saloons and pubs smell the same, in my experience; smoke, sweat urine, vomit and hopelessness. I’d grow to think of it as a second home after a few drinks, but I’d remember to hate it by morning. The barman had seen them. They’d both come in, big man, dark hair scruff, and a slight girl probably eighteen at the latest, with blonde hair and possibly the prettiest face he’d ever seen. Made him want to sing, he said.

        The barman told me that they’d asked him for help, but he couldn’t give it. If the cabbies weren’t heading north they just weren’t, nothing he could do about it. They’d decided to try walking, but he told them it wouldn’t end well. Highwaymen might not be the norm anymore but there’s plenty of desperate travelers that would do them in for a spot of coin. Godfrey, it seemed, had insisted.

        So the man dragged his daughter willingly into danger.

        Yeah, that will end well.

        Elizabeth would say something like, ‘He’s doing it because he loves her’ and she’d say it with a smile.

        No he’s probably just some selfish bastard that doesn’t want to face what he’s got to do. As far as I could tell, the man had been arrested once, stealing. The wife had told me the police had come around, asking about him one day while he was at work, something about a man dying in the shipyard. The day after she had told him, Godfrey and his daughter were gone.

        The wife would want kidnapping brought up on him, and the police would certainly put their thumb on him for the killing, whatever it was.

        I just had to find him.

        I’d gotten horse the next morning for the ride further north. It had been decades since I last rode, and I’m sure the horse didn’t appreciate it. After a fashion we came to an agreement, he’d take me on to the next town, and I’d get a different horse. The next village had much of the same story as the last one. Man and girl, heading for north, but not for Scotland, this time. An inn had let them stay for cheap a few days ago. The owner felt bad forth them down on their luck folk. He’d said the man and girl were looking for a town nearby, Hartsfield, he’d said, about a day’s way east.

        Everyone had said he’d always wanted to visit Scotland. He’s got his chance, why change direction? The innkeeper was also the first one to tell me if the girl was along of her own choice. She’s the one who asked for the directions. When he’d told her she had giggled and squealed, and told her father. The father it seemed was far less excited, but smiled at the girl all the same.

        Clearly not the manners of a hostage. Maybe she just felt it was a vacation for them? Maybe the whole thing was the girl’s idea. Going over what I’d learned about the family did nothing to help my thoughts. The man was just a dock worker like any other man, save for the record. They made enough money to tutor the girl; the man damn near doted upon her like she was the queen. He was determined, it seemed, to make sure she would always be better off than he was. He was a far better father then I ever could be.

       

The next day I’d gotten a new, far less ornery horse, and set out for Hartsfield. The dirt road was wide, clearly well traveled, but no one else came along that day, no carriage or carts. I was alone with the horse and the thoughts in my head.

A man is visited by the police after someone where he works dies, presumably under unnatural occurrences. The next day he runs. Typical for a man who’s committed a crime, or thinks the police will convict him regardless. But why his daughter? She’d only slow him down. Running from the law seemed less and less likely. The girl was clearly with him for the ride, and seemed to be the one in charge of finding their way, and the one most eager to get to wherever they were going. If Hartsfield was their destination, I’d find them and the answers I wanted there.

        The village was larger than I was expecting. Three churches and a few town squares, and more than enough competition from the shops inns and pubs. Hartsfield, it seemed was just a stone’s throw away from being its own city. They even had a few local coppers. They’d been helpful enough, but I made sure to keep mum on why I was in town. Told them some locals from the towns about had a few break ins, and I wanted to make sure if anything around here fit the pattern. Hartsfield, it seemed, was a model village. The last reported crime in this damn place was over a month ago.

        Something itched in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t be that way for long.

        It took another two days of scrounging around Hartsfield to find them.

        They’d made their home in a small house, owned by a Benjamin Hamm, young kid, but inherited the house from his father and mother after they’d passed on. He worked as a carpenter. A few days ago he’d been killed in a botched robbery. He was well liked in Hartsfield, always friendly with those that came into the shop, and gladly helped with house repair and the like, gratis too. Those that attended the funeral recognized Godfrey and the girl.

        So I came to his home. I didn’t know if the man was armed, or what he’d do if he found out what I was there for. Pistol at the ready I pushed at the door and it slowly slid open. For whatever reason I felt rather cheated that it didn’t creak. I suppose that’s what you get when it’s a carpenters house. The shutters were closed on the windows and the scant light that made it in did little except to make the darkness feel more dangerous. I slowly made my way through the first floor of the building, a small kitchen and main room and a back door. No one around and no evidence of any trouble. The stairs didn’t creak either. A godsend for me, I suppose, but something about it all felt wrong. The top floor held two bedrooms, a smaller one at one end of the small hallway, and a larger one, presumably the master bedroom, at the far end. The smaller one was closer, and empty. The larger one was not.

        Inside was Godfrey, sitting on a large four post bed, staring at a brass tub. A girl, naked laid in the tub. She slept under the water, hair floating about her, like a picture of some angel. Godfrey just stared, judging by how hollow his eyes were, I’d say he’d run out of tears long ago.

        “Godfrey” I’d said, “What happened here?”

        He didn’t move at first, but then he slowly turned to me. He looked like one of those people caught between tears in Columbia. A part of him had died. I knew what part.

        It took some doing, but I was able to pull him from the room and down the stairs, flung open the shutters and sat him down in the main room, and then Godfrey told me his story.

        He had killed the man at the docks. He’d swung a pipe to the back of his head and watched him crumble to the ground. The man, he said, was trying to marry his daughter, but he wouldn’t allow it. So he went to her mother. He was a richer man, a manager at the docks, and the wife was eager to marry their daughter into higher standings. But his daughter didn’t want him. Since she was younger she’d always fancied the boy, Benjamin. They’d made a pact, he said, to marry each other and when he moved away she was heartbroken.

        The girl, Cassie, he called her, had gotten a letter from Ben. He’d gotten enough money together, and he was calling her to Hartsfield. Godfrey wasn’t sure about the arrangements, up until the would-be courting of his daughter. They’d left the day after the police came to suspect him.

        But sometime between Ben’s letter and them arriving he’d been killed when men broke into the store. Cassie was beside herself. She told her father she couldn’t live without Ben now, and Godfrey did his best to console her. He’d seen people distraught like she was, but she was always a spritely and kind and happy girl. He never thought she’d…

        Three days after the funeral he’d found her after she’d taken too long in the bath. He’d sat by her body since, for three more days.

 

Godfrey buried his girl, right next to her Ben. He doted on her, even unto death. He wanted her to be happy and he knew she wouldn’t want to be away from him. He didn’t cry. He just stared as they lowered the cheap wooden casket into the ground. He may have killed a man but if the same thing had happened to me, I know I’d have done the same. Hell I already have. Godfrey was dead inside. He’d lost the thing that, to him, gave his life hope. He was already dead inside.

The police had said she’d died from drowning, and there was nothing to indicate that Godfrey had done it. Other’s that knew the boy Benjamin said he’d always talk about the girl from London. Everything was checking out for the man. It didn’t leave any better of a taste in my mouth. I left him there. Told him I’d do my best to make sure he was left alone. There was nothing worse for him in prison then what he’d go through now.

 

        And so I stood at Godfrey’s erstwhile home. I’d found the man and the girl. My job was done. I knocked and far more quickly then I’d have liked, the mother answered. I told her I’d found her husband and her daughter. I was never good with consoling women, and there was nothing I could do for her. I’d made sure to get the money first but I damn near gave it back to her anyway.

        With a ‘Sorry for your loss’ I left her there in her own grief. I wasn’t really part of their story, I just got to see a bit of it and spread it around. I’d like to say I did my job and now it was over, but these things, they crawl inside you and lay there around your heart. I kept thinking back to the funeral and how Godfrey had looked, how he felt. I remembered that, the one good thing in your life taken away from you.

        It just brought back the sinking shame of what I’d done. I headed home, but just like before, I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. If I wasn’t so damn sober, I’d say I needed a drink.

 

Booker had surprised me when he came home. He’d been gone more than a week and when he came home he looked more like a man coming back from the wars rather than a trip through the country. He hadn’t shaved at all in that time and the short scruff was nearly turning to a beard. It tickled when he kissed me.

And what a kiss! I was standing over the table, about to put down a bowl for his stew when he came up behind me. It was rough and full of passion. The kind of kiss I’d always imagined in my books. He held me close, and if I could have, I’d have wrapped my arms around his neck.

It’s scandalous to think about but, well, we didn’t wait for after the dinner. Booker didn’t even wait to remove our clothes. He hiked up my skirt, and I felt his hands slide along my legs and pull at my undergarments, and soon enough his hand was between my legs. I moaned into his mouth as his fingers worked at me, and sighed as he pulled away.

He pulled up my skirt more, over my rump, and pulled my bloomers down, all the time kissing me. His hand held mine and I watched as my fingers framed the AD on the back of his hand. Soon enough I felt him at my entrance, and I squeeze his hand. He pushed forward and we were together again.

“B-Booker!”

His free hand held my hips, and ran up my body. He pulled at my blouse and opened it. I could feel his hand run along my stomach through the corset, and felt him at my breast. I called his name as he kissed the back of my neck, I could feel him nibbling at it.

Even after that, it wasn’t enough.

We didn’t eat dinner that night.

 

The next morning we both were awoken by yelling and running in the streets. I didn’t think much of it. I felt far too warm and full inside, but Booker went to the window. After a moment he came back to the bedroom.

        “Elizabeth, get dressed,” he said.

        “What’s wrong?” I asked half asleep. In my dream Booker and I had been swimming.

        “Just get your clothes on,” he was terse, and after pulling on his trousers and a shirt, he grabbed his shoes and left.

        I hurriedly got dressed in some new clothes and followed him out onto the street. People were running, and walking. Whispering amongst themselves and shouting ‘It’s here, it’s here!’ They all moved in the same direction. We followed them out of the crowded buildings of the East End, and into the wider spaces of central London. Between two buildings and through the clouds I caught a glimpse of something, but it wasn’t until we reached a square that we could truly tell what the commotion was about.

        A city floated in the sky just to the west of London.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: The Girl from the Tower

 

        This was… odd. The city was smaller than it should have been. But it didn’t matter, it would be large enough. It always was.

        The strangest thing was the city wasn’t over New York. In all my years it was over New York. Since I came here five days ago the city had been over some damn farmland, until it finally came to London.

        Ah, London. I’d seen it many times. It always struck me that it could use a Ferris wheel. Of course that wouldn’t really matter in time. London would be fine. Or at least starting in London would be fine.

        When I first game here the city was rebuilding itself, another strange occurrence. Normally I’d have to stop whatever fighting was going on, whatever petty squabbles the people would have I’d put to rest, usually by picking whichever side I wanted to keep.

        It might be nice to not have to deal with all of that.

Columbia was maybe a third of its normal size. Judging from what buildings were still standing in full I’d say it was mostly the industrial areas that had set off for greener pastures across the ocean.

They said after the civil war three groups came about, Founders still wanted to remain apart from everyone else, while a mixture of others wanted to rejoin the united states. A third, mostly the business men of the city, wanted to sell what they knew to the highest bidder, and they would be in Europe. They couldn’t decide so they simply broke the city apart. The European faction just happened to have the most soldiers. That suited me fine.

 

        The people had gathered out in the still ruined courtyard of Fink’s factory. None of the men who made the choice to come here were there, but their own people would be. If any of them decided they didn’t like what I had to say, well, they would be dealt with. Everyone, eventually, would be dealt with.

        Soldiers and workers and socialites all stood side by side. Each with their own finery shining in the sun above the clouds. They had heard about be all their lives. Some of them hated me, some of them even worshiped me. In time they would all follow me.

        “People of Columbia, my name is Elizabeth, and I’ve come back to you to deliver justice to all those who’ve been wronged.”

        Me, most of all.

 

----

 

ANTOHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Back in the Pan

 

        God damned Columbia. The reporters were actually right for once.

        Without a second thought I grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and we hurried back to the apartment. She was saying something, I never heard it. My heart pounded in my head and my skin crawled. God damned Columbia.

        We’d only had the few bags we’d brought from Paris, I never had thought about buying luggage. It would have to do, a few clothes was enough. We’d leave. Keep on running.

        We’d stowed whatever we could and left. Elizabeth said something about the Windsors but if they had any sense they were already gone. More and more people were filling the streets, most of them heading towards the squares and to Columbia. We ran in the other direction. We’d take the bridge south, head back to France maybe. Might even be able to get a boat to the States if we were lucky.

        Other people had the same idea I suppose. Stories had probably got around about Columbia. All of the advanced machinery they had, their Prophet, I’m sure some of them even thought it would be the damn Vox and their revolution. The further we got from the hoi polloi the more and more people were going our way, bags packed, children and pets in arms. Some of them crying. We were nearly over the Thames when a police barge floated down from the sky, and men stood up and jumped off it, machine guns at the ready.

        I knew how this damned dance went.

        They never saw the fire grenade coming, and by the time they realized what it was, they were already smoldering. I shook my hand as smoke trailed from it and grabbed Elizabeth, the sooner we got out of here the better.

        But things never go as planned. More and more barges were dropping around the city, already you could hear gunfire in the streets. Another checkpoint was set up. They didn’t want anyone leaving. I raised my hand and three of the men shot into the air and one fire bomb later the rest of the men didn’t have much to say about anything.

        It was at the third check point that they finally stopped us. Some men had stayed in the alleys and came up behind us as we came to the choke in the road. One of them grabbed Elizabeth, she pulled herself free and kicked and punched at the man, finally opening a tear behind him and closing it after she pushed him through. As I shot down another man someone else grabbed her, she nearly did the same thing before heavy set man brought his rifle against her head. She went down and the man that hit her got a hole burned through his chest. They grabbed her and then me. One of them noticed my brand.

        ‘The Lady will want to see this’ they had said. I didn’t like the sound of that.

 

        Columbia hadn’t changed much in the months since. Except far less of it was on fire then when we had left it. Looks like it was mostly Finkton that came to England. We’d been put in hastily made cells. Thankfully Elizabeth wasn’t out for long. I’d spent my time rummaging around the small room I was placed in. The building used to be just someone’s home by the look of it, and then they bolted bars to the floor and called it a day. It I could just find something to get us out we could find another way off this damn rock.

        “What are we going to do now Booker?” she’d been quiet for some time. I looked up at her. She sat on the floor, her knees to her chest. God damn she looked like she did after Fitzroy. I was right then too, anyplace was better than Columbia.

        I didn’t answer her I just continued rummaging through the detritus of the room, “Elizabeth, I uh, don’t suppose you could get a tear to get us out of here?”

        She closed her eyes for a moment, and opened them again. Why did they have to be so sad? She shook her head, “There’s nothing. It’s strange; every place seems to have these bars…”

I grunted to myself and went back to work. Reaching under an overturned chest of drawers, I found something more promising. Some scrap metal, about two inches long, and about the width of a key, and another thinner strip. Perfect.

        “Elizabeth, catch!” I tossed the metal over to her, “Think you can take care of this?”

        That got a smile. She nodded and went to work.

        It took her some time, the metal would bend out of shape and she’d pull it out and redo it, and then she’d have to deal with having to do it all backwards. Eventually the latch on the door clicked and swung open. She pulled out the metal and went to work on my own door; it clicked in a fraction of the time. Elizabeth swung the door open and hugged me.

        “We get out of here, Elizabeth, same as last time,” If I had to, to get Elizabeth out of here, I’d make sure Columbia burned a second time.

We dashed out of the building and right into two guards. The punch I delivered to one of them men’s heads must have damn near cracked it; he went down like a sack of bricks and didn’t move. Elizabeth had barreled into the other one and brought him down. In their struggle she grabbed his gun and, like had been done to her, smashed it into the side of his head. I grabbed one of the guard’s pistols, and we both grabbed a Sky hook. We were back in the swing of things.

We spent the next few minutes slinking about in alleys and side streets, doing our best to avoid being seen by anyone. The air was clear but there was an acrid smell of smoke. Finkton always smelled of smoke and soot and hot iron, but the city wasn’t a factory anymore. It didn’t seem like anything was being worked on, other than the few armed men the city was deserted.

It was when we got to a stair well to a level above us that we saw where the smoke was coming from. Parts of London were burning. Black smudgy trails rose up from the city and would block out the noon sun in the sky. By night fall it would look like New York. The fight Elizabeth sent me back to make sure would never happen.

        “Oh my God.”

        “We’ve got to go.” I gave her arm a tug

        “Booker all those people…”

        “We can’t help them Elizabeth”

        “Booker-“

        “Come on!”

I had to pull on her arm to get her to continue up the stairs. I had to get her out of here. I didn’t want to end up like Godfrey dammit.

More streets and more guards, we didn’t even know where we were going, we were never in this part of Finkton, and the damn buildings could move anyway. How was anyone supposed to know where anything was? I whipped my pistol across a man’s face, sending him sprawling. The top of this damn place should have the factory proper, right? We’d been there before, there were docks. All those barges had to shove off from some place. We get to the docks and we could get away.

We climbed the access stairwell as high as we could. It lead into some kind of maintenance room. Boilers and dials, and switches and wheels lined the walls, and I got the sinking suspicion that touching any of them could lead to the whole place falling from the sky. It wouldn’t be too bad of an idea to do just that if we had the time but we didn’t. We found the door and opened it.

We were indeed at the main level of Finkton, the sun shone down on the dirt of the ground, and repairs were already being made to the clock tower. A real one, this time, not one that told you your shifts. It also shone down on the several dozen guns held by the same number of men pointed at us.

Damn.

        There’s too many of them for my shield to be any help, I could think of a few tricks with vigors to thin them but I could already feel myself get a bit woozy at the idea. And there was Elizabeth to think about. I felt a heat rise in my hand as the group of men started to part in front of us, and a new figure, shorter than most of them, came into the half circle. She wore a blue dress with some white trim; her hair was brown and pulled back into a bun at the back of her head. She looked to be about my own age.

        “And so the False Shepherd finally shows his face” the older Elizabeth said them, but to me, they sounded more like Comstock’s words.

 

----

 

ANOTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: Things Left Undone

 

        The older woman was more graceful and winsome then I’d like to admit, mostly because I was sure she was about to have us killed. Instead she just stood there, looking at us while we were surrounded by her men. Part of me just wanted her to get it over with. As the silence went on, I couldn’t stand it anymore, “What the hell is going on? What are you doing?”

        The older Elizabeth’s face didn’t waiver from the look of disdain I’d come to associate with Comstock and his posters, “I’m doing what is right. That’s all”

        “Those are innocent people down there!” Elizabeth said next to me.

        “That’s a relative term. You can find anyone guilty of something,” the woman smiled like a cat with two nice mice to play with, “I’m sure you both know about that.”

        This didn’t make any sense, I stopped this. I went back; I got Elizabeth out of Comstock House. She put Songbird in his own kind of cage. I told the woman as much.

        “Oh Booker DeWitt,” she shook her head, “You really are a stupid man. You never came for me.”

        Elizabeth shook her head, “No, no. Booker always comes to save me… Just, until he had the card he never lived…”

        The older Elizabeth’s face had turned stoic once again, “Well, when a dog is punish you should show him what he did wrong…” A tear opened, and we were no longer in Columbia.

        Not the one we were in before, at any rate.

        The carpet was plush and the walls were lined with books, and line streamed in through the massive window on the wall. Elizabeth’s tower, her library. I took her hand in mine. I felt us both jolt when the voice came.

        “I was in the tower all my life, only Songbird to keep me company,” a small girl was in the middle of the room, maybe thirteen? Fourteen? “The day I first bled they took me from the only home I knew and gave me a new one in Comstock House,” her hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, a white shirt and blue skirt, with eyes that matched it, “’So I would be prepared’ they would tell me when I begged them why they took me.” The tear changed, and now the girl lay on a table, strapped down, a huge syringe jammed into her spine, it rattled as she shook, “They injected all manner of things into me, showed me what they thought would bring me to their point of view. One doctor took a very special interest in me. At some point down the line, I may have even thought he loved me,” there was a soft snort from the bed, “When they first came I closed my eyes, and I realized I could go to places in my mind, even if they stopped me from going there myself. As they cut into my skin I thought of what it would be like to have a real father. Someone who protects you, keeps you safe,” The girls eyes narrowed a she stared at us, “loves you. I saw him then. Booker DeWitt.”

        A new tear opened and we were in my apartment in New York. Dust covered nearly everything, and with the shades drawn it was a bleary scene. Trash, racing tickets, notices from banks and all manner of bottles littered the floor. I turned to where I knew my desk would be, and came face to face with myself. He was a younger man, lips wrapped around a bottle as he sucked down the liquid inside, “I saw a man, and when I saw him I knew him for who he was. My own father, drunk and barely conscious while is daughter would scream.”

        “It’s not like that” I heard myself say, “What else could I do?”

        “You know what you could have done” came the younger Elizabeth’s voice. In my dreams in those days, I’d shot the men that took her. Or I came earlier. I got her back. I’d been smarter. I wasn’t drunk. I got her back.

        Then I’d wake up and it would just make it all hurt more.

        “After seven years, something happened to the Siphon. It shut down. I could feel it in my bones, in my mind. I was free. And I brought justice to all the men who had hurt me,” I remember How Elizabeth looked after how short a time she was there. What had this woman done? What couldn’t she have done? “With Columbia in flames, I remembered the vision of my father. Since my first time seeing you, I’d never looked again. No girl should have to see the only man that should care ignore her.” 

        The other Booker looked up, right at me. Wait… wait I remember this. It had gotten too much. I’d always wanted to do it but I never could. I must have downed an entire bar convincing myself I had to do it. I came back home, I found my gun. I put the damn thing to my head.   

        “Booker! Stop!” I looked away from the man at the desk as he pulled the trigger and slumped to his side, blood and brain and other fluid dripping from his ruined skull. Elizabeth held my arm; my own pistol was pointed at my own head, “This didn’t happen to you. You know it didn’t.” There was a soft laugh and the girl was again the older woman. As my Elizabeth pulled my hand down, putting the gun back in my holster, the aged Elizabeth continued, “I was free, but I realized that Comstock would just be stopped because I killed him. The scales had fallen from my eyes and I could see the world for what it was. All the Comstocks would have to die. Columbia would have to burn wherever it was, and the world that made it as well. I would never let what happened to me happen to anyone else.”

        The walls of the reality crashed in on us, and we were back. We may have never truly left. All of the guards, guns will at the ready still surrounded us and Elizabeth still stood amongst them.

        “I have to admit, there’s a certain kind of nostalgia seeing you like this, Booker. I never did get to meet my own father; I wonder how good of one you’d be?”

        I wouldn’t hold my breath for it, but lady, you did give me an idea. I turned to my own Elizabeth, “Remember Comstock House? When I'd gotten you free?” her brows furrowed for a moment until eyes grew a little wider. That-a-girl.

        With a flash of thunder another tear opened. Bigger than any one I’d seen Elizabeth make before. Hell maybe all of Columbia was in it. A massive storm surged around us. Hail and rain pounded the ground, wind sent men and women flying. I felt the electric crystal already growing in my hand, and I tossed it above the group ahead of us including Columbia’s ‘Lady’ as it sailed and sparked through the air, a soft flash went up into the sky, and a massive bolt of lightning shot down, shattering the shock jockey in an electrical storm.

        I don’t know how much damage it did, by the time I let it loose Elizabeth and I were already running.

        The storm continued to rage as we dashed through the streets, barreling past anyone we found, or shooting them down if they thought they could stop us. We ran into another back alley, and held up, catching our breath. Elizabeth was despondent, and I remembered what she’d said before, months ago in the sea of doors.

“We could make it so he never took Anna” she had said, “So that none of it ever happened.”

That’s what this Elizabeth was trying, but maybe she couldn’t go back to when Comstock was born? Was she missing something? “She’s right, isn’t she? Elizabeth?” she looked up at me, “It wasn’t just enough to kill the man I killed, was it?”

She shook her head, “No… There are worlds and worlds out there, and in them Comstock is still around, and I’m still in a tower, or in Comstock house, or…”

        She knew this whole time too, didn’t she? Columbia and all the machinations of Comstock, some how they’d follow us all our lives, wouldn’t they? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

        “You didn’t want to do it… and… there’s something else” her eyes were downcast, I could barely hear the girl over the din of the storm, “You’d be gone too”

        “What?”

        “The reason we could do it, get rid of Comstock, it’s because of you, Booker. You are Zachary Comstock”

        I remembered the recordings in Columbia. Comstock was at Wounded Knee. Comstock never seemed to exist before his baptism. That priest, he’d asked me what new name I’d take, before I ran. I’d never met the man before but he knew everything about me. I couldn’t doubt Elizabeth, but… how? How could I really be that much of a bastard to do all of that to a little girl? I should have made the choice a long time ago. I looked into Elizabeth’s eyes,

        “And… and none of this would happen? Comstock couldn’t hurt you anymore? Anna wouldn’t…”

        Elizabeth shook her head.

“If we do it… what’ll happen to you? If Comstock never lives, what about you?”

        “I don’t know,” I could tell if there were tears in her eyes or if it was just the rain, “But I’ll go with you, whatever you choose, Booker”

        No more running from it, “Let’s go, Elizabeth”

        A tear opened in the air, and we were gone.

 

        The boards of the pier looked the same, even if the memory of it all was still so fuzzy. But I couldn’t help but feel as though we were going in the wrong direction.

        Elizabeth didn’t speak; she just walked ahead of me, the boards and the pilings spilling up from the water under her feet. She didn’t like my choice, I could see that. I wasn’t sure I liked it either but I just kept on thinking of that empty crib. Anna and Elizabeth deserved better than that. And Comstock deserved far worse then what I’d done to him.

 I could hear Elizabeth’s voice, and we both stopped. A few yards away, another Booker and Elizabeth were walking the path. A different one, but similar. He was asking about where they were. I’d said those same words…

        It seemed like forever, but eventually, Elizabeth found the door, when I moved to open it, she put her hand over it and looked me in the eyes, “Are… are you sure, Booker?”

        If she’d never looked at me like that, I’d have been a far happier man. In an instant that lasted years, I saw in those eyes everything I’d ever done.

        When I held my daughter for the first time, I cried for her, and for her mother. I named her Anna. I stayed up nights, trying to stop her from crying. I laughed with her as she played with my finger. In the darkness of the night when all I could see were the faces of children as they burned, her face pushed them back.

        I’d given her away, I thought she’d have a better like then I could ever give her. It was the only way to make sure we’d both be alright. I chased them down, I tried to get her back, she cried and cried, and then she was gone, I held her pinky.

        She reached her hand out, asked if I was real. I took her hand and we ran and ran. She smiled down on me in the sun and on the sand. She smiled and laughed as she ate her first hotdog. Her eyes shined like stars in the darkness of a love tunnel, and smiled as I stumbled over my answers.

        I held her close as she cried; I told her things would be fine. What she did to Fitzroy, it was alright. She kissed me and I took her to bed. Maybe I didn’t realize it then, but I fell in love. She cut her hair, and bandaged my arm.

She asked about my girl and my daughter as it rained. She smiled so sweetly, I doubt I’d ever be able to resist her.

        She reminded me of where I came from and what I’d done. And I took her from Columbia.

        She marveled at Paris. Looked over the city from the Eiffel Tower.

        She even did the right thing when we both wanted to do the wrong one.

        And then she convinced me the wrong way was the right one.

        Did I ever dance with her? Why did I care so much that she was my daughter then? Who would have known? I should have been with her since we left Columbia. I don’t know what will happen to her. If I believed in God I’ve pray he keeps her. She was the only good thing of my life.

        I held her face and kissed her.

 

        It wasn’t passionate. It was soft and sweet, he held me so softly, like I was a doll that could shatter at the slightest touch. As Booker pulled away, I knew it would be our last one. I couldn’t stop the tears from running down my cheeks. He wiped them away and gave me a smile from years ago, “I love you Elizabeth” he said. He took my hand off the door, and pushed his way inside.

        I knew what would happen in there. I’d already seen it because the moment we first came here it always could happen. He’d be surrounded, they’d hold him down, and he’d be gone, forever. This time he knew he was going to die, and he still chose it.

        I stood with my back to the door, twisting the thimble he’d given me between my fingers. Booker deserved better than this. Better than a girl hiding herself away. I wouldn’t do him that injustice. None of them there would feel like I do. He should see a face that was full of price and love for him.

I pushed through the door. It was already happening. In front of him, a group of girls, all the same, but all different. They held his arms, and he told them who he was. And he agreed. Just before he entered the water, he looked at me and it broke my heart.

        He struggled a bit when his body tried to breathe, but soon he went still. All of the others looked sad or distraught; I was the only one that cried as they all disappeared. I closed my eyes, and felt the world slip away. It was like falling asleep.

        I hoped I’d see him again.