"Sweet Jesus," he murmured, touching her chin, tilting her face up. "Our esteemed leader was wrong."
Selena ignored the confusing jumble of his words. "You help me learn?"
"Of course I will, goddess. Andrew and I shall teach you all the words you've forgotten." He turned to Andrew. "It should be quite a moment when Ian returns." Selena's heartbeat sped up. "Ian?"
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Johann turned back to her, a sad, understanding look in his eyes. "He's gone, goddess. I don't know when he'll return."
Selena understood gone. When you pinched the can-dlewick, the fire changed into smoke and was gone. She looked up at Johann, tried to force the words out. "Here is home."
Very slowly, Johann smiled. "Yes, this is home for Ian. And sooner or later, people always come home. Even idiots like Dr. Carrick."
One month to the day after he'd left, Ian returned.
He stood outside the closed wrought-iron gates of Lethe House, staring through the intricately formed black bars, listening to the fading sounds of his rented carriage as it disappeared back down the road. Night curled around him, comforting in its anonymity; he wished fleetingly that he hadn't wired ahead with notice of his return.
Overhead, the moon was a bright, pearlescent plate wreathed in glowing gray clouds. Wind whispered through the pine needles, brushed the hair at the back of his neck. He drew his cloak tighter around his body. It was an instinctive move. Though he knew it was cold out, bitingly cold in this midnight hour, he couldn't really feel it.
He felt detached from his body, his feelings as removed as the stars hidden behind the hazy veil, as distant as tomorrow's pale sunlight. With each passing day in New York, he'd felt himself sinking deeper into a darkness from which there was no escape.
He'd thought to find peace in the city, some respite from the guilt and desperation he'd felt in Alabaster. And for the first few days, things had been quiet enough. The staff had waited on him hand and foot, careful never to touch or speak to their infamous employer; no one said a word when he staggered through the house at night, blind drunk.
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But somehow, word of his arrival had leaked out, bits and pieces of gossip sliding through the sewer system, tinkling in glasses of expensive champagne. The gawk-ers had been the first to come, hovering outside his front door, waiting breathlessly f
or a sighting of the notorious doctor. Next had come his fellow physicians, wanting advice from their peerless peer; all the while watching him from beneath hooded eyelids, smiling when he refused to shake their hands.
Surprisingly, he'd been less upset by them than before. He could handle the sickly curious. It was the others, the last to arrive, who had sent him scurrying back to the safety of Lethe House like the night crawler he'd become.
They invariably came dressed in black, their heads down, clutching a photograph, a bit of lace, an old daguerreotype. He knew the moment one of them arrived, could see the stark ravages of fear and despair in their eyes. The desperate.
Help us, Dr. Carrick . . . we 've lost our precious daughter.... My baby boy is suffering from a strange illness; touch him, Dr. Carrick, and tell me if he will live. ... I'm dying, Dr. Carrick. Use your gift and save me.
Save me ... save me ... save me .. .
Their words were always the same, always futile, hopeless pleas that filled him with shame and horror and disgust. He'd tried to run from it, but there was no relief, either inside the house or out. They reached out for him, clawed at him every time he left the house, fell to their knees when he passed them on the street. The soft aftermath of their sobs followed him wherever he went.
Liquor had only made things worse. With every swallow of fire, he'd become drowsier and more morose. Images of Selena besieged him, hovered at his bedside like a mournful ghost, taunting, teasing, beckoning. At first the images of Elizabeth had been ever-present, a
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weight on his shoulder that kept him reaching for the bottle, but as time went on, he had more and more trouble bringing forth the pictures. Instead, he imagined Selena. Not as she was, of course, but as he wanted her to be. Beautiful, normal, talking to him in a soft, husky voice that formed real sentences and spoke about real things.
For days, before the pathetic entourage began arriving, he sat in his study, steeped in the familiar bosom of scotch, trying to eradicate all thoughts of her. But the more he pushed her away, the more his obsession rooted itself in his soul. As always, he was incapable of doing anything halfway. Instead of hoping in a quiet, scientific fashion that she would survive, he'd imbued her with all his hopes and dreams and prayers. He'd thought she could somehow redeem him.
Such a fool. He'd known better. Deep inside himself, beneath the sick obsession, he'd known the truth from the beginning. There was no hope for Selena. Not one of the books he'd read promised even a ray of promise for a recovery. She was brain-damaged, and she always would be.
He stood there, swaying softly in the cold night air. Ahead, the house stood in the midst of the shadowy yard, alone and indomitable and in need of repair. Glass windows blinked in the inconsequential light, the white trim appeared dull and gray.
There were no lights on, and he'd expected none, and yet he knew that someone was awake in there, someone was watching him. He searched the windows, his gaze moving from one barred square to the next, trying to make out a shadow within a shadow, a whisper of movement when all else was motionless and still.
He's home.
The thought slammed into his head. He winced and staggered back at the force of the sudden knowledge.
He should have known better than to return on the night of a full moon.