AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Miss Prescott rose from her seat, face flushed and eyes bright, completely unaffected by the glare her parents leveled at her. “Bravo!” she called out, clapping. “I said bravo!”
Mephistopheles gazed at the severed head with a thoughtful expression, as if he was reliving a memory that haunted him, something wretched enough he’d never escape it, no matter how far he’d run. I imagined, like his elaborate illusions, nothing was quite as it seemed where he was concerned. To my astonishment, he picked up the doll’s head and kicked it into the air, where it exploded in fireworks that sprinkled down like fallen stars, burning out before they reached the black-and-white-tiled floor. Silence fell upon us all.
“So, I inquire once more, which will you lose before the week is through? Your heart? Your head? Perhaps,” he drawled, face cast in shadows as the chandeliers dimmed slowly before winking out, “you will lose your life, your very soul, to this magical traveling show.”
I gasped and held my gloved hands up, but could only make out the barest hint of them. My heart pumped faster as I glanced around the pitch blackness, enraptured yet terrified of what monster might be lurking. Seemed I wasn’t the only one intrigued. Excited murmurs rippled through the darkness. The promise of death was as alluring, if not more so, than the prospect of falling in love. What morbid creatures we were, craving danger and mystery in place of happily-ever-afters.
“For now,” he continued, his voice a smooth caress in the dark, “enjoy an evening of magic, mischief, and mayhem.” My palms dampened and I couldn’t help sitting forward, needing another word, another clue, another bit of the surreal. As if he’d heard my inner longings, Mephistopheles spoke again. “Esteemed passengers of the Etruria… please indulge your senses in the greatest show from sea to sea,” he crooned. “Welcome to Mephistopheles’s Magnificent Minstrel Show, or as it’s better known… the Moonlight Carnival!”
Lights flashed on, the brightness stinging as I blinked dark spots away. A moment later, Mrs. Harvey shoved away from our table, face as pale as a specter. Thomas reached out to steady her, but she raised a shaking hand.
I followed her gaze and bit my tongue hard enough to taste copper. Miss Prescott—the young woman clapping with delight moments before—lay facedown, unmoving, in a pool of blood with nearly a dozen knives stuck deep in her velvet-covered back.
I stared, waiting for her to gasp out or twitch. To toss her head back and laugh, having fooled us with her performance. But that was an illusion of my own making.
Miss Prescott was truly dead.
TWO
FROM DREAMS TO NIGHTMARES
DINING SALOON
RMS ETRURIA
1 JANUARY 1889
For a moment, nothing happened except for the growing ringing in my ears. Thomas might have been calling my name, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than forcing myself to breathe. I needed to be rational and analytical, but my emotions weren’t quite ready to comply. I studied the dead, but sitting beside a person who’d been murdered was incomprehensible.
The room twisted as I stood and everything became scorchingly hot. I tried convincing myself it was a terrible dream, but Mrs. Prescott’s guttural scream erupted, drawing a hundred pairs of eyes our way, and I knew it was real.
Passengers at other tables gasped, their expressions filled not with repulsion but… delight as they spied the young woman lying in her own blood with ten dinner knives following the length of her spine. I slowly blinked at the people who were starting to clap, stomach churning, until the truth hit me: they thought this was another act.
To most in the saloon, Miss Prescott’s “murder” was simply part of the dinner show—and what a magnificent one it was, according to a man at the next table. Thomas was already out of his seat, his attention torn between his sobbing chaperone and me, all the while scanning the perimeter for threats. I wanted to assist him, to be productive and useful, but I could not stop the shrill ringing in my ears or the fog that had descended over my thoughts. Everything seemed to move slowly. Everything except for my heart. That thundered against my ribs in frantic bursts. It was a warning beat, urging me to action, begging me to flee.
“Olivia!” Mrs. Prescott clutched her daughter’s body, tears dripping onto her velvet dress. “Get up. Get up!”
Blood smeared across the tablecloth and Mrs. Prescott’s bodice, the color as dark as my churning emotions. Miss Prescott was dead. I could neither process it nor will my heart to harden and be of use. How could this be?
Captain Norwood was suddenly out of his seat and yelling commands I could not decipher through the relentless ringing in my head. Movement around the table finally forced my gaze away from the knives and blood; diners were being escorted out, though the merriment in the room hadn’t quelled. Except for a few at nearby tables, no one looked especially alarmed. I stared down at the horror, uncertain how anyone might mistake it for an illusion. There was so much blood.
“Wadsworth?” Thomas touched my elbow, his brow crinkled. I stared at him without truly seeing anything. A lively young woman lay dead next to me; the world no longer made sense. “Ghastly though it sounds, pretend it is an equation now.”
Thomas bent until I met his gaze, his expression as strained as
I imagined my own. This wasn’t easy for him, either. And if he could turn that cool exterior on, then I could, too. Shaking myself from my own horror, I rushed to Mrs. Prescott’s side, and gently took her hands in mine. It was both to comfort her and preserve the crime scene. Through my storm of emotions I clutched at one fact: a murderer was on board this ship and we needed to isolate clues quickly. As gruesome as it was, we couldn’t disturb the body. At least not yet.
“Come,” I said as tenderly as I could.
“Olivia!” Mrs. Prescott wailed. “Sit up!”
“Look at me, Ruth. Only at me,” Mr. Prescott interrupted his wife’s screams. There was an edge in his voice that carved through her growing hysteria. She straightened, though her lips trembled. “Go to our chambers and instruct Farley to give you a warm brandy. I’ll send Dr. Arden at once.”
I made to go with her when a warm hand came down on my shoulder. Thomas squeezed it in comfort, his golden-brown eyes serious as he inspected me. “I’ll escort Mrs. Prescott and Mrs. Harvey to their chambers, then fetch your uncle.”
He didn’t ask if I’d be all right staying with the body; he trusted I would be. I stared at him a moment more, his confidence proving a balm to my raw nerves, soothing my fears. I nodded once, took another deep breath, then faced the table. Captain Norwood stared at a playing card stuck to Miss Prescott’s back I hadn’t noticed. It was directly in the center of her spine. My blood chilled. Whoever had thrown the knife had impaled the card through the blade first. A potential warning and a clue.
“I’ll need this area to be left precisely as it is, Captain,” I said, falling back on months of forensic training while Thomas guided the two women out. Uncle would be proud; I’d collected my emotions like anatomical specimens and stored them away to dissect later. “You’ll also need to question everyone in this room.”
