THE DEVIL’S SCRIBE

A Novella

Alma Katsu

Author of THE IMMORTAL TRILOGY

DEVIL’S SCRIBE

1846

The evening of my return to America was ominous and an indication, I feared, of things to come. We sailed into Baltimore harbor under a weirdly yellow night sky, not unlike the celestial phosphorescence of the Northern Lights. It was as though an unknown hand had blanketed the city in a haze of brimstone for my arrival, a sign that something sinister would take place that night. You may find those words melodramatic or think them the ramblings of a paranoid mind, but I’d come to believe I was cursed, and deserved nothing less.

I regretted returning to America this way – gracelessly, hastily – having fled more than twenty years ago after inflicting a grievous hurt on a man. Any stranger would have said I scarcely looked twenty years of age, and might have asked how a girl my size could possibly have harmed a full-grown man, to which I had no reply. I’d learned long ago to tell no one anything, and keep my strange story to myself.

I thought I’d never return to Boston, so great was my shame. I’d been fleeing my past, trying to outrun the terrible thing I’d done all those years ago. I was learning, however, that one never really escapes from one’s sins; they will demand your attention if you try to ignore them. I had suffered many sleepless evenings and had nightmares on the rare occasion when I managed to sleep. At last I could take it no more, and booked a passage back to Boston to attend to a dark duty that was long overdue.

Baltimore was a popular port in those days, particularly for ships coming from Europe. Travelers could take a train in either direction on the eastern seaboard, either up to New York or Boston, or south to the fine old houses of Charleston. Boston, a city where I’d once lived, was my final destination, but the train did not leave until the next day, so I checked into one of the more luxurious hotels in the city. I sent my bags up to my suite but, as the hour was late, decided to go into the dining room first for a nightcap before retiring. It was uncommon in those days for a lady to imbibe alone, in public. To do so was to risk being taken for a prostitute, but by that point in my life I cared little what others thought of me, for the truth was much worse than anything they might imagine.

I asked for a discreet table – though I needn’t have bothered, as a lone woman would only be given the least desirable table in the house – and ordered a bottle of whiskey. It seemed for a moment that the waiter considered rebuking me, but then he slunk away, perhaps thinking the better of wasting his energy on an obviously unrepentant sinner. Left alone in the murky darkness of the back room, I made myself comfortable, pulling my gloves off and lifting the veil I wore to hide my face from casual observation.

A bottle and glass were left abruptly in front of me, the waiter not even bothering to pour the first drink for me. I sloshed a shot of whiskey in the glass and threw it back, fiery and raw, burning all the way to my stomach. I was about to have a second drink when I noticed that I was being watched by a man sitting at a nearby table.

He was by himself, but judging from the evidence at the table he’d recently had company. He sat behind a hodgepodge of dirty plates and discarded napkins, finishing off a bottle of wine. When he saw that I’d noticed him, he nodded at me solemnly. It was then that I committed an indiscretion: I never encouraged strange men in public, but for some reason that night I returned his nod with a minute salute with my shot glass. I meant it only as an acknowledgment of our similar situations that night – ‘Hail, fellow! Well met!’ and all that – but to my surprise he picked up his glass and meandered over to my table.

He was not prepossessing in any way, but he hovered over my table in a manner that commanded my attention nonetheless. ‘Good evening, mademoiselle,’ he said by way of a greeting, though it came out slurred. ‘I do not mean to intrude on your solitude, but only wish to tell you that you are the loveliest sight I’ve seen inside a month and that I would regret it later if I did not find the courage to tell you so.’ He bowed his head to me in a way meant to be gallant.

Obviously, he was angling for an invitation to join me. He appeared to pose no threat to a woman alone: he was thin, almost scrawny, with a tentative manner. While he wasn’t expensively attired, he seemed neither destitute nor desperate. I found him unattractive, with his high forehead and sunken eyes and a tiny, pinched mouth like a parrot’s beak. There was something pitiable about him, as though he was accustomed to misfortune; indeed, as though misfortune was a companion he had given up trying to elude. In this, he had my sympathy, for I felt I’d been dogged by bad luck ever since I’d fled from America twenty years ago. Besides, I could use the company, a diversion from what lay ahead.

I nodded at the empty chair opposite me. ‘Would you care to join me for a drink?’ Where was the harm in one drink? I thought. My night would be long. He might be good company. If he turned out to be a bore, I’d retire to my room.

He fell on the bottle before he took a seat, pouring two fingers of whiskey into his wineglass, streaked with the last of a red he’d consumed. Now that he’d gotten his invitation, his tentative edge fell away, replaced by relief. ‘This is most generous of you. As you can see, my companions have retired but I am not ready to join them. I favor the evening. I treat it as another man treats the day. So would you, it seems.’