Incendium (Ch23)

A confrontation on the eve of Theda's return to Philadelphia strikes a devastating blow. Chapter 23 in Theda's Time Machine.

Read the first chapter of Theda’s Time Machine here. At the end of each chapter there is a link to the next chapter.

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“I know it’s you, Theda.” Her father’s voice cut the perfect quiet with a velvet knife. The hair on her arms and crown rippled and she stopped halfway down the stairs. The rough voice calling from the dark did not resemble the gentle tone of Dr. Harold Evora at all. It was as if a stranger were imitating her father.

Theda crept down the lower half of the stairs, stocking feet feeling for the landing. The gilt-tinged doorway to the front parlor gaped and the scraping noise of a fireplace poker against stone abruptly ended in the clink! of metal thrust on metal.

Her father knelt on one knee with his eyes closed before the heat, his face an ancient stone carving in the firelight. He spoke. “You are the only one who moves as like an owl in flight. That grace is absent from your mother and sister, I’m afraid.” A wooden knot popped, sending a small spark to the stone hearth. He opened his eyes, licked his thumb and pressed into the ember. The room was a burnt forest.

“God giveth and God taketh away.” She tried the same bright tone that worked on her mother and sister, but the attempt to use it on her father left her mouth filled with ashes.

He laughed. “And with that, my dear, you’ve stumbled upon the secret to the universe. Congratulations.”

“I found something today. Upstairs. Buried in the closet. You should see.” She stopped in the room’s center and studied his back. His black overcoat, normally without a speck of lint, was now brushed with splashes of dried mud speckled with bits of withered grass and straw. The coat pooled behind him in a semi-circle, the hem heavy to the floor and faintly fragrant of harsh chemical and swamp. It’s wet. Why is his coat wet?

Then she noticed his hand was scraped pink and raw. One long scratch zigzagged across the back, petering out just past his wrist. “What happened to you?” she asked.

He rose and passed her without a word, shoving his hands in his pockets. “There was an accident tonight,” he said, back to her, pacing. “You can be a doctor for a long time and there’s always another incident that arises to test you at your self-appointed task of saving lives.”

“What do you…”

“Private Jackson is dead.”

“What?” Her leaded arms dropped the envelope. Had she been alone she would have crumpled along with it, but one did not lose their composure with Dr. Harold Evora. “How?”

“His motorcycle veered from the road and hit an icy patch. That’s what Private Rankin said, anyway. He happened to be coming from the other direction. Saw the motorcycle roll, then rushed to the General to collect us, but it was too late. The motorcycle’s a heap of scrap metal. Private Jackson was tangled in it. He succumbed to his injuries before we could even move him.” He slowly pulled at his coat collar with hands that looked like the aftermath of a catfight until the button and the button hole parted.

“Did he say anything?” Wood burst in the fireplace sending sparks skittering across the hearth that blurred and multiplied through her unshed tears.

Harold shook his head, concentrating on the second button. “He was too injured to speak. I’m sorry. More sorry than you, you know. I enjoyed his company. He was an example of the best of us. The only comfort I can offer is he was spared dying in the mud on a European field, choking on chlorine.”

“I didn’t really like him.” It was true. She hadn’t liked him much at all, but that afternoon, when he had driven her home, she sensed that there was more to him than simply a farm boy joining the military with his buddies. And she realized what it was. Maxim. He reminded her of the Russian anarchist. Both men presented calm rationality but lurking beneath was another persona. She sensed it from the first day, but it became apparent this afternoon.

Now it was too late. She’d never know the truth of him. Mourn later. Alone.

She used all of her will to lean forward into the silence and retrieve the envelope, blood rushing to her head. “Father, I think you should look at this. It’s a letter and…”

“What if I told you,” he cut her off for the second time, “that I do not want to see whatever is in that envelope?”

She scowled and straightened her back. She began to stutter out a response but he spoke over her again. “And that as of right now, the only thing I want…no, not want…require from you, is that you board that train tomorrow morning with your mother and sister?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow regardless. You don’t need to ask me twice, believe me. But you need to see this. This may be from that doctor who lived here before us.” She started toward him.

“I know about the incident at the Federal Building. And about your friends.”

She stopped. A chill like never before froze her like a prey animal who gets a whiff of enemy in the breeze. She opened her mouth to speak, to deny, but there were no lies between them and never had been. Until now.

He pulled the last button off and slowly, deliberately, removed the coat. His brown tweed suit hung askew from his slight body, which had drastically thinned in the months since he left their home in Philadelphia for Fort Riley. His tie was yanked so far to one side it resembled a hangman’s noose, and one jacket sleeve was separated at the shoulder, white shirt peeking through. The chemical odor was even stronger. He tossed the coat over a chair.

“My clever girl. That’s what I always called you, you know. Or maybe you don’t. When referring to you with my colleagues, I’d always call you my clever girl.” He passed her and grabbed the fireplace poker from the wrought iron holder.

Theda’s legs finally gave out but she managed to shuffle to a chair and sit. The envelope crushed in her lap. Her voice was gone, extinguished. She tried to inhale but couldn’t. Please let me die.

Harold turned and rammed the poker against the burning logs that hissed in their disturbance. “But my clever girl, the girl who will make a fine physician some day, is sneaking around with riffraff. Violent riffraff.” He dropped the poker flat on the stone hearth with a clang! She jumped, her hands flying to her face.

His eyes. Oh, I’ve seen that look before, but not on him. Theda had never feared losing her father’s affection, or her place as his favorite, but now, his eyes shown with disgust and it hurt worse than any physical pain could.

He straightened and faced her. “One would think that you would have thought ahead. Maybe thought that your father, who has treated thousands in Philadelphia, would have many friends, perhaps even in law enforcement. Friends such as Captain Josephs. I saved his little girl’s life, you see. He said he was forever in my service and I just thought, well, people say those things when you treat their child. When they know their little child is now not going to die like the other, lesser doctors said, but will live because of being properly treated. And that man made good on his promise. He paid me a call and informed me what you were up to before you did anything wildly foolish.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she pleaded in a whisper, tears rolling. “I stopped it. I’m…so…”

“So what?” Harold gently took the envelope.

“Ashamed.”

“I know,” he looked down at the envelope. “I know you did stop it. For that, you’re not rotting in a jail cell as the others are going to be. That young Russian and his brothers are wanted men. According to the Captain, they’re gone from Philadelphia.”

New York. The mug shot of Maxim’s beaten face in Conlin’s photograph swam before her. He’s off to New York where he becomes a murderer. Maxim could have been anywhere in the world, but the knowledge clicked inside her in another wave of coldness. He was in New York. Plotting the next violent incident.

“I almost let it happen, you know,” Harold watched her carefully. “I was enraged. That a daughter of mine would be such a fool. I almost let you pay the price. But to see your mother and sister dragged in the press for your idiocy was out of the question. Not to mention what it would have done to me. No. Your selfishness won’t destroy this family.”

She shook her head.

“You owe me,” still holding the envelope he placed his hands on the chair arms and lowered his head until his eyes were level with hers. “You owe me for saving your hide and now you’re going to repay me. Tomorrow, you board that train and you don’t utter a peep until you get to Philadelphia. The day after you arrive home, you go to the university and register for your classes. And you’re going to be good as gold from now on. Is this clear?”

She nodded.

“Good.” He moved to the fireplace. “Dr. Mark Collins. Chemist Mark Collins. Since you’re so good at keeping secrets, I’ll tell you one.”

She started to shake her head. No. No more. The shock was beginning to wear off and be replaced by aversion. An intense aversion to her own self where she finally understood how despair drove a person to end his own life.

"A man’s actions determine his place in the universal natural order. Only weak men are felled by doing what’s necessary. If you ever happen to run into Dr. Mark Collins, ask him about phosgene. Ask him about his time with the French chemists. Doctors are backward gods. When the time is right.”

Harold tossed the envelope into the fire.

The heavy paper incinerated instantly and the flames worked on the photographs, curling them into soot. Harold watched it burn, both dark and otherworldly; a primitive man before the first fire.

“You’re not a coward, though, are you?” he said with a hint of admiration. “Misguided though you are. Good-night, now. Sleep well.” He walked into the dark.

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