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I knew something was amiss when I woke and the sun was creeping six inches closer to my bed than the it should.  I had over slept and was almost positive to the cause.  Not since I was young had anyone needed to wake me as I am one of those few people that can choose the time of my own waking with some preternatural accuracy, rarely deviating more than ten minutes either direction.  After I made my self the minimum of presentable, still much better than Agnes the day before, I headed into the hallway and then the downstairs of the silent house.  Cook had a fearful look in her face as she must know that I was aware that she was the one who had spiked my tea.  Uncle truly hadn’t intended for me to assist and was at this moment, thinking, rightly so, that he had given me the slip on the perfect piece of subterfuge.  He had taken the hounds, Sergei, Gabriel and James.  He left me Stephen, who I could never take and leave the house unmanned, Adeline who was obviuosly in collusion, Mss Pimms who had a constitutiuon ill suited to adventure and Jenkins the gardener.  Realizing that I had been played most badly, I vowed to force my will.

My suspicions proved to be baseless.  My uncle, looking slightly more rested, but with the glossy eyes of one who has read too much, was at supper that evening.  He seemes much more himself now that he no longer had the all consuming hunger of earlier, and continued the converstion from earlier.  He praised my handling the corpse, only admonishing me for my callous way I had left what was a still breathing man to hunt the killer rather than staying to save the life.  He was also quite vexed with my dispariging remarks about the captain and constable, as he has been known to wander to their station for an occasional game of cribbage with the chief.  I of course bit back my retort, that if the chief was competent, he would play a game of skill such as chess rather than a worker’s game of chance good cards.

The duck, as it was Tuesday was delicious, the perfect amount of thyme offset the crackling skin.  We never drank during supper, as it becomes too easy to fall prey to addiction when ritual is added to idleness.  Instead, we drank orange spiced black tea, as Uncle always said the cloves awakened the mind and the senses.  Tonight the tea seemed more refreshing, the excitemnt acting as the perfect garnish.  It was with satisfaction in how I carried myself today that I went to bed.  After brushing my teeth and letting down my hair, it almost felt like someone else climbing into bed.  The Land of Nod called its wayward daughter home.

At his juncture, the watch captain arrived, being practically dragged across my threshold by the oaf of a constable.  It was clear by the good captain’s unpolished boots and unfit physique that he was the one responsible for his degenerate underlings ignorance.  I had no particular hope for aid from him and proceeded to convince him that returning to his breakfast, ideally adding in many fat strips of bacon, would be the best course.  With the aid of the syncophant constable they commandeered a wheelbarrow from the gardener Jenkins, no relation to my former suitor beyond the stench of manure, and used that for removing the body.  While taking the corpse, and giving me disapproving looks at the callous way I had stripped it of clothes and dignity, they implored me to cease with my own investigation and leave it to the professionals.  I gave them my solemn word, knowing that my uncle’s staff was quite professional, and I would absolutely have to supervise them.

After their departure, we shut the doors and prepared for just another day, plus or minus, as our morning rituals had been most interrupted.  I as was typical of my day, cleaned my equipment in preparation for the possibility of adventure, making sure today to give a thorough polishing of my boots as the puddles were quite ugly.  I followed this by a healthy breakfast that focused on utility rather than flavour.  One orange to prevent scurvy and increase visual acuity.  Hash browns for quick energy, scrambled eggs to yield long term fuel.  No jam, bacon or steak was consumed.  Today, because of its auspicious beginnings, assuming that a murder most foul is good,  I also skipped my typical mimosa as a digestive, instead going for a sobering cup of black coffee, no cream or sugar.  After this repast, I did my last morning task, which endeared me to the staff who were deathly loyal to my uncle.  Every morning, whether he was there or not, I went to his room and replaced the flowers in the bedside vase and opened his shutters to allow the healing light of day inside.  As was always the case when he was on one of his fugues, it was with a certain trepidation that I entered, always worried that, straight of a children’s story, I might find a doppelganger, zipping off his flesh to exit through the window, leaving my  of uncle bewildered at another lost few days.  This time, as every time before, there was no doppelganger, but there was my uncle, thrashed out in his his bed.

As was always the case, there was no sign of how he had returned, and it would have been mentioned in the commotion if someone had seen him enter.  As tangled in his bedding as he was, there was still enough of him visible to see he was fully clothed down to his boots and cuff links.  Intending him to be able to gently awake, I cracked the shutters to allow some minor amount of light inside.  The light gave a warm rose tint to the room which I thought odd giving the violence of the morning, until I came ot the realization that the peculiar hue was from refracted light through bloody hand smears across the window.  My uncle, while maybe being bruised was most definitely not covered blood, neither his nor another’s.  I shook his foot, as had been taught me to prevent a violent response, and brought him more hurriedly from slumber.  At first he had difficulkty shaking his fugue, but that passed in short order.  Once I had his attention, I gave him the summary of what had occured, and confirmed his own health.  Due to the finicky nature of some of the staff, he had me wash the windows and burn the cloth in the fireplace.  He was most pleased with the way I had handled myself through the events of the morning, and was as interested as I was in continuing the investigation.

We had breakfast brought to his miniature library, where I always remembered him reading bed time stories to me as a small girl.  The coffee was noticeably but understandably bitter, as it hadn’t been drunk in a timely fashion, and we never seemed well enough to do to waste what we had.  The toast was decent, and the scrambled eggs were superb, the cook seeming to have finally decided to earn her pay.  After I finished eating, Uncle continued to wolf down more and more food like he hadn’t eaten in days, and all the while I filled in more details and answered questions that slipped past his food engorged mouth.  The line of questions, seemed to lead in haphazard directions, almost as though he knew things that he chose not to divulge.  He showed no interest in the markings, though he may have known he would have to see himself, but the dust, the dust in the loft and the pants’ cuffs was incredible import.  He needed to know if it was ivory or alabaster white.  Was it gritty or a fine powder like from wheat flour?  Each answer prompted him to new directions, but only directiosn about the damnable dust.  He almost choked, he was so excited, when I remembered that I might have a sample I was going to practice my forensic chemistry on.  After he confiscated this sample, he begged off with exhaustion from whatever rigors had been put through the last few days.

I left Uncle to his rest, and continued my day.  I went through my normal routine, knowing that tomorrow would hold adventurous joy, and if my fortune’s held, maybe some danger as well.  I had doubt though, not in regards to his excitement, but instead to his willingness to take me into a much less certain environment.  For this reason, I chose my day’s tasks most carefully.  I ran the hounds through their coursework, prepared my firearms rather than firing them, when pressed to go to the market for whatever damn reason, I begged off, indicating how my boots were damp and hadn’t had a chance to dry.  This last one not being a lie at all, just an ommission in regards to my indifference of wet feet.

It was a somber party that returned to my Uncle’s house.  We had what we figured to be a corpse on our front stoop and no killer to be found.  The rain matching our mood was continuing to fall with nearly no noise against the cobble stones.  Maybe the dreary weather was the cause of the absence of the goodly people of town, but as this was the time of year for such weather it almost seemed something else was damping the spirit.  The earlier sense of pointedly not being followed was still present, so to try to shake this funeral dirge I took a nip from my flask and quietly passed it to Sergei, keeping it from the sight of Gabriel with his being a teetotaler.  The stain of violence had already washed away from all but the most secluded corners of the street, and with our minds on other diverse subject we all were almost surprised to find ourselves back at the gates.  The footmen went to challenge us from their warm gatehouse, before recognizing us and sending us inside not only to get warm and dry, but to have us confer with the physician and constable they had brought in to deal with the corpse.
The physician, a restrained gentleman in his mid-fifties was counter balanced by the constable, a firebrand of Irish descent. The body was definitively a corpse; any appearance of life earlier had been gases being expelled from his innards. Of his face there was no sign, it beating the marks of claws or maybe a garden fork. His clothes were now unfit to be worn by even a pauper, there was the sign they had once been of a finer quality, maybe that to be worn by a watch maker I surmised.
The mysterious fabric of previous was not off this poor man’s clothes leaving that party of the mystery unsolved, nor was the reason why he had come here for his final resting place. The constable, who’s job was to determine the causality behind this unhappy morning, was continuously looking to me for approval like the terrier Jacks I had as a young girl. After dragging the body inside, spoiling any clues from the positioning of the body he tried his crude workers hand at forensics, prying open the deceased’s ruined mouth, wiping away blood and how from the wasted face and otherwise destroying any information of any remote value. I would think he was defective, but I doubt even this ill run government would be so incompetent. As he would only make it worse if he became upset, and I assume run to some nepotistic relative, I was forced to thank him for his efforts and try to guide him via suggestion rather than the drubbing he deserved.
I turned my knowledge of the victim’s potential identity into access into the convincing the constable to go get his superiors to further this investigation.  Once he left, allowing me the time to not have to look more incompetent than him, I began thoroughly search the body and catalog everything from a loosened jacket button to a considerable amount of sandy dust that was rolled into his bottom trouser cuff.  His right breast pocket contained an engraved pocket watch with some design engraved on the back, that denied my knowledge of modern and ancient languages to pierce the veil of meaningfulness.  He carried no photographs or identification; beyond the watch the only other evidence to whom he might be were his cuff links which seemed almost like onyx, but darker, a darkness that seemed to pull my soul down some winding tunnel.  They, like the watch, had a different but equally peculiar symbol carved into them, which also escaped the extent of my knowledge.

With the physician’s assistance, I began to strip the corpse,  making notes and taking measurements as we went.  The shoes, a servicable pair made of stout leather, had the same dust as the trousers worn into the seems.  The soles had been worn considerably as if they had been used to walk great distances over loose terrain, though with none of the gouges one would expect from the sharpened shale rock of the nearby hillsides.  His socks were non-descript beyond having the dampness and stench of a pair that had been worn all day in the blistering sun, versus the dreary morning of today.  Underneath the socks was a different matter.  Both of his feet had more of the queer markings, this time carved into the flesh of the balls of his feet and then more marking at the ankle.  At this point the physician begged off as he had only appeared to be refined, and was much more of one of those garden lillies that only got his degree to appear more useful than a traditional dandy.

The belt came off with some effort as his waistband was also showing the sweat of a long day, causing the belt to adhere on like some kraken-esque myth.  The trousers had nothing in their pockets beyond more of the dust in the far tips.  The cut of the trousers was typical for the city beyond the faux pas of pleated trousers on an average build, one should only wear pleats if one is wider than their height would dictate. The a light wool they provided no hint to their providence. The seams now, those were a cause for my curiosity to be piqued. Most every seem in the more common wear areas had been replaced or reinforced by someone do ham-fisted it could have been only the owner. Once we removed those we were faced with more of the tattoos, looking over them it felt like I was hearing an inaudible whisper of words, of sentences. The marks traced up the side of his calves, which were overly developed of a shopkeeper. They continued I’m front of his bony and almost definitely arthritic knees, and then flowed to the backside of his thighs. The ant like tracing made continuous sinuous lines reminiscent of pictures of giant kraken. Underneath some of the lines there were deep scars that looked like other glyphs of the same damnable language, and over the top skin deflation which could only be faded brandings. Continuing to the upper half, the jacket, while a similar style as the trousers had been kept in better repair or not been subjected to the same rigors, perhaps having been removed before any strenous activity was performed.  The pockets were empty, though there was sign of a slight bulging that one would expect from a small book being kept in that storehouse of illicit goods, the inner left breast pocket.  The shirt below was drenched in blood from the ruined face above.  The shirt as a whole lacked shape.  There were no collar stays, no starch, no creases from being tucked in.  The only other item of note, is the pits of the shirt were yellowed considerably which would show it being worn during much hotter or industrious labor than repairing watches.  Unbuttoning this shirt gave light to a considerable more drawn, cut or burned markings, some of them being much more intricate than the previous lower pieces, maybe with some of these meant for some horrible aesthetic purpose while the ones below might only be for a bizarre practicality.

The body at the steps was barely moving as we exited the house. Heaving hoarse breaths escaped from its huddled form. Periodic tiny coughs gave hint to bloody aspiration that was confirmed by one prime example, yielding in a small spray of red floating out of what must be its mouth, hitting the steps and dripping down to mix with the slight drizzle that had started half an earlier. While Gabriel looked to the body, I, with my equal skills and youthful vigor, began to keep one eye on the surroundings and the other to see if I could determine where this unhappy occurrence had happened.  A trail of blood was apparent, though it was starting to drift towards the drains, which made me much happier when I saw Stefan round the corner with the hounds.  Once the footmen returned from securing doors, I left them to continue with triage while Gabriel, Stefan, and myself began to trace what happened.  It wasn’t even a block from the front gate before I realized there was an uncharacteristic quiet to the cobblestone street which should have at least had the sounds of shopkeepers preparing their wares even at this hour.  There was no sound, no dogs barking, no cocks crowing.  There was only furtive figures, always on the edge of sight, always in the corner where the eye plays trick on mankind.

Using a puddle underfoot, while the dogs were realigning themselves with their diminishing prey, I made as if to retie my boot and peered around with god’s own mirrors.  Not ten feet behind us was a man who must have appeared from nowhere as there were no doors and no alleys for him to have emerged from.  A tall man, slender in build, wearing a suit more fit for a undertaker than decent company.  I could not see his face beneath his wide brimmed hat, but he appeared to have a thick beard, a black tendrilly mass that waved unnaturally in the wind.   His hands were hanging slack by his side, neither in a threatening manner nor passively.  When I whipped my head sharply up to see if I could discern any features before he turned away, I was not incredibly amazed to find him gone.  For the rest of our hunt, we all remarked on the singular way that we felt as if we were not being watched.  The lack of watching was maddening in that we knew that our whereabouts were being noted, someone knew where our path went, but almost like they were following our lack of presence versus our corporeal selfs.

The path led through alleys and walk-ways until finally ending in a fair pool of spilled blood outside of clock-maker.  The door of the shop, once tested proved to be unlocked even though the interior was silent.  We entered; a feeling of dread begining to steel upon us with the absolute lack of life outside in the street and now no person at work in the shop.  There was no overturned furniture, nor broken displays, but the foreboding tension was still building.  It was at this time that Gabriel called “The clocks!” when it became clear what was wrong.  For an shop to be uninhabited with the door unlocked was strange, but that all the clocks had stopped showing the same time of a quarter past five was terrifying.  From the grandfather clock, to a pocket watch in the clamps where it looked to be getting its last polishing before being returned to its owner, there was no sound of gears, no clicks of springs in the shop.  We followed the hounds, though there reluctance to chase this particular scent was growing obvious, up the back stairs to the apartment of the watch maker.  The door at the top of the stairs, which had probably only been shut once in this last year, was locked and barred for all the good it had done.  While the doorframe was intact and the deadbolt held firmly in the jam, through the center of the door there was a man-sized hole as if a company of firemen had broken through.  Stepping through the hole, we saw scaprs of dark red fabric, maybe a velvet, as if someone had crawled though, or been dragged through.  Beyond this small amopunt of evidence, there was no sign of life, nor that anyone had ever lived there.  The room was bare with a fairly high amount of dust piles in the corners looking like the sand dunes of mysterious Egypt.  The kitchen was empty, no dishes in the sink, no ash in the hearth.  Searching for half-an-hour, for something, anything, we left empty handed.  Making note of the apparent point of conflict as well as the path taken we returned to the house to find who the victim was and perhaps determine what fate had befallen him.

By the time I arrived the entire staff was descending upon the front for with a rapidity that belied the excellent choices Uncle had made in their employment.  Admittedly, one of the footmen’s hair looked like a haystack and his liverly as well as the east wings maid looked like they had just been put on, but he was as ready to defend this entry like the Bifrost bridge at Ragnarok.  The footmen James and Stephen, the latter being the lecher, commenced to ensuring no entry had been forced.  Ms. Adeline, or miserly cook who’s only redeeming quality is her ability to not kill with food poisoning, attended to Mss. Pimms.  Sergei, our cossack stable master was outside with the hounds, based on his almost unintelligible yells and there exited braying.  With my initial assessment verifying that all was being handled appropriately, the man-at-arms Gabriel and myself proceed outward to unleash he’ll and fury upon whatever was assaulting us.  With myself in lead we exited the door, it’s dark oak paneling seeming darker and less inviting than usual.  Upon the granite cut steps we saw what we assumed was some pauper dead from ferocious wounds we could see.

As the weather outside was beyond miserable I took it upon myself to figure out at least the rough location of Uncle.  I began with a map of the area that showed everywhere he had been sighted, as well as a godly raids outside of that.  I placed a pushpin for each location, than added an opposite colour for each location that had proof of legitimate business.  My hypothesis ran that the only sightings that should be happening, would happen where people could be expected to see him.  In a third colour I marked each return address on correspondence waiting to be fooled away.  The third colour being needed due to my having no knowledge of the relative legitimacy off his transactions in these locations as they were all individuals of no means in the toughest of locations, with many of the addresses consisting of nothing more than a rural crossroads with a name like “quarter mile past burnt ash tree” or “corner of swamp creek and locust avenue”. What soon developed was a snail shell like curve originating from our location and moving outwards by date, not only slightly further away but also rotating around with the house as the pivot.
The most curious part of this projection I had created it seemed at first glance to map disparity in the means of the inhabitants, with the lowest of people living in the center of the spiral path, much like the rings in a snail’s while the most affluent and influential were the bright rings. While I began to ponder if the poor made the path our the path made the poor I heard a commotion downstairs. Within seconds of the first screams the hound began to raise a terrible ruckus. Being as curious as any 23 year old, I hurried downstairs, only to find the housekeeper, Ms. Pimms, passed out at the foyer.

I had never noticed some of my uncle’s peculiarities in my youth but now that I had been living there for the last six months, some oddities came to light.  Even asking his household staff failed to illuminate some of his outings.  On a regular basis he would depart for a few days to research some new item of interest, like the tarnished metal rosary on display in the library or the tome he put under lock and key and refused my reading until some unknown later date. These were his more transparent excursions, for, when posed he would typically give already an affirmation that he had been dealing with sundry individuals of a coarse nature. The other, more deeply concerning, occasions had him departing the house in the middle of the night. He would leave no word, nor send letters that hinged to wellbeing even that he might be gone anywhere from a fortnight to a month on the outside margin. We would hear from acquaintances from leagues away, telling of sightings, but when the claims were investigated, he was nowhere to be found not a witness to testify. Just as strange as his departure was his return. He would wake from his bed with no one being the wiser to his arrival. Often covered in bruises and filth. On more than one occasion we were forced to burn his clothes, so fouled they were.
Beyond this though, it was a happy time. I continued my studies, even going on a very select few of his travels, always hand picked I’m sure both for their relative safety and blandness. Positive that any day he would make some occult determination that I was prepared to be his assistant if not apprentice, I prepared a kit with all manner of useful implements. My rapier and revolver as well as two boxes of ammunition were joined with my ivory brush, one flask of good American whiskey (chosen for liquid courage and for disinfecting the aftermath of said courage), a case of sulfur matches, half dozen candles, 40′ of strong cord (at least it should be sufficient to hold my weight), a small hatchet, one bottle blue ink, two pens, this journal as well as a spare, folding knife, compass, and mirror. I figured I could grab all that at a whim but good stuffs would, by nature, require to be freshly acquired lest I enter the field with only spoiled rations. On his normal trips Uncle never carried more than a valise so I assume he rarely if ever slept in such dire circumstances to require an additional blanket, and if I’m wrong than my standard dress had enough fabric to keep me from expiring of exposure in most reasonable circumstances.
The seventh of March, a frigid day with grey clouds threatening terrible weather on the horizon, Uncle was on another of his later trips and had been for nigh on 11 days, having left in the middle of the night and leaving no message as was typical of these trips. This time there was a small amount mire agitation, as Misses Whimple swears she saw seven cruel looking magpies outside his window on the small rosebush that morning as well as the evening before.

Uncle Richard – a singular gentleman, throw back to an earlier age with periodic prescience of the post current

Anethesia – our heroine and narrator, being in her mid-twenties with a slight build.  The protege of her Uncle Richard, she has become passable with a revolver, expert with a rapier.  Versed in multiple dead languages, higher logic and applied physics at a minimum.  She calls station and family honor.  Conceited would be polite.

Albert Jenkins – failed suitor, gave like a rat, brutish demeanor, terrible personal stench

Footmen

James

Stephen – Stephen balling the maid

Ms Adeline – Cook

Mss Pimms –

Sergei – Stable Master – Cossak

Gabriel – man-at-arms

Jenkins – Gardener

 

I decided I should add this section as the last three days have been quite hectic.  I can only assume it’s been the days, as the light here seems to go in a cycle and feel like I’ve had three suppers and the breakfasts.
As an introduction, in case my journal should be separate from my person which feels more and more likely, my name is Anethesia.  I come from old stock of a dignified standing.  We are well to do with no need of commerce, in part because my uncle Richard has a tendency to find the most particular investments.  Seven years ago he nearly broke the family leveraging not only his house but the main manor without my father’s knowledge.  When airships figuratively exploded into popularity after being used as command posts for the Battle for Redmond, his only comment was “I seem to forget exact dates more often lately.”  While the end did justify the means and my father was more than happy to spend his newfound wealth on extravagances like one of those godless automobiles he never seem to have forgotten Uncle.  Needless to say I was amazed when I was sent to live with Uncle to further my education.
I’m a disappointment to my parents, having twenty-three years, and yet refusing to even consider marrying any of the suitors who have deigned ask my hand in matrimony.  They are each below me and only want my name as a trophy to add to their lacking credentials.
This is not the first time I boarded with Uncle Richard, as every spring I would stay with him as my parents, in an ineffective effort to coddle me, would send me there to keep me from the noxious miasma coming off the moors. During my stay my education took a drastic turn from the misogynistic homemaking and pivot over to adventure. The only modern family I know of with a man-at-arms and an armourer, they took care of my physical training. Uncle’s opinion, which I value greatly, is that one needs to be only possible with revolver as the range is terrible but the damage terrible. For this reason I’m only passable with firearms, focusing instead on training with a rapier. Many of my contemporaries see the value of an eastern katana as being incredible, but being slight of frame I chose to go with a route more focused on finesse and passing than superior strength and a single deadly blow. Not to say that there is no skill employed by the throwbacks if the samurai class, but the stylized and honorable technique only works against each other, which it’s evidenced but the recent folding that foreign empire into being merely another barony beholden to the crown. Against Isaac, his man-at-arms, I now emerge successful three out of four, and against my uncle it comes down to a coin toss.
After three hours of the day, while with my uncle, and otherwise whenever left to my own devices, I further my education beyond the simplistic poetry reading, expanding into Latin, Aramaic, and the brutish Gaelic and other languages that are now whispers out of time, where the name of the culture itself has been forgotten. I’ve been given the opportunity to show my knowledge of modern physics, calling down a faux artillery airtime while uncle was considering the purchase of a specially crafted 20mm gun. I can debate a yogi and a priest on the nature of good and evil, and have them both agree with my supposition. In no quibling manner, I declare I have an excellent education well beyond the realm of my fairer sex peers.

This expansive knowledge led me to look at any suitor as substandard. They looked at me with the boorish perspective of a cattle buyer. Turn around, show your teeth, say something nice. The final straw for my parents, which is how I got sent to my uncle’s this last time, depsite having reached my majority, was Albert Jenkins. He came from a family of almost non-existant lineage, having a grandfather that at one time actually was more useful than the average pikeman. He was a pikemen. Albert was gangly with the face of a norsk rat, black stubbly facial hair appearing at odd angles, a perceptible hook to his nose. During a social, he, with the facilitation of mother, segregated me in the garden where he was to my wooing. The stecnch from his body, bathing once a week is not enough, caused my eyes to water and so I attempted to leave. He grabbed my hand to keep me under control, and I responded appropriately. With a suddeness, I pulled him towards me and then his using his momentum I acted most unfeminen by moving my knee up top catch him in his hurtling stomach. Unfortunately, not only is he from lesser stock, but he also is sickly, having difficulty catching his breath from even going up a flight of stairs. When his governess found him, he was practically purple in the face, and everyone was quite displeased. I indicated, rightly so, that if I had managed to cause him to expire down that lonekly garden path, that I would have been doing the world a great service, for that would mean one more fair maiden would never be the brunt of his odiferous advances nor his advancing odor.

Upon returning home, my biological parents had already begun to pack for my sojorn at a convent, as I was obviously not fit for marriage. My uncle though had been visiting a local bell founder when he heard what had happened and he pressured them to allow me to leave with him instead where he would lead me being a proper lady as was befit my station.