Chapter 11 - The Mayweather Estate

The door is just slightly ajar, some barely human groan echoing into the room. Ida, who is completely tensed up, turns her head to see Charlotte out of the corner of her eye. The little girl is staring directly at Ida, a long flat piece of metal in her hands. It looks to be a plaque for a larger display case, although this one is blank. Ida takes a drawn out step toward Charlotte, her hands curling into fists hard enough her knuckles turn white. Charlotte is shaking, eyes brimming with tears, as she holds it out toward Ida. 

The door shifts slightly again, the resulting creak could be a hinge or something else entirely, the new open space revealing the back of a man in a torn suit in the next room. Ida, seeing this, carefully lifts the plaque from Charlotte’s trembling hands and gestures to the far door. The two of them start moving, Ida leading by a pace, taking periodic breaks to check behind them. She takes a deep breath as they reach the end, stopping to look down the hall. The figure has not moved, remaining just barely in view through the gap in the door. 

The plaque bites into the splintered frame, Ida slowly applying her bodyweight against it. The wood cracks, just barely audible but enough to make Ida hiss through her teeth. She pauses, looking down at the petrified child barely a step away. 

“Charlotte? Look at me. It is going to be alright.” Taking a shallow breath, she continues. “When I get this door open, I need you to run and hide in the next room. Can you do that for me please?”

Charlotte nods, tears now freely streaming down her cheeks. The figure has stepped past the threshold into the room, leaning awkwardly to one side as if compensating for an injury. The suit he wears, now lit slightly better, is torn to shreds with most of the jacket hanging off him. There are streaks of red across the back of his head as if someone had been feverishly clawing at him, and there is purple bruising sprouting along his neck. Ida, noticing him out of the corner of her eye, begins trembling, a single tear running down the similar red fingernail scratches that are still visible on her face. Charlotte tugs on Ida’s dress, almost exactly the same as when they first met earlier that day, bringing her back to the present. 

The long metal bar shakes in protest as Ida begins pushing on it as hard as she can, the splintering getting louder and louder. The sound of creaking and haphazard footsteps start from the other end of the hall, getting closer. Not sparing a moment to look, Ida lets out a voiceless scream and heaves, the door cracking away and falling open. The man is almost on her now, only a few unnatural strides away. Charlotte runs into the next room out of sight. Ida turns to swing the plaque into his head, meeting it with a sickening sound, causing him to veer off to the side and crumple into the wall and fall limp. Just before she can make out his face, his arms snap backward and push against the wall, several wet noises tearing out from his legs as they shift him sideways. He appears to be trying to stand back up backwards. The display is haunting enough to capture Ida’s attention for a moment, before she notices the other figures coming in, attracted by the noise.

Turning through the now open door, she finds herself in a theatre room or perhaps an assembly hall, scarcely lit by the dim electric lanterns strung up on the walls. There are steps leading down between multiple rows of plush, velvet chairs that meet the bottom of a dark stage that is mostly hidden behind two huge crimson curtains. Charlotte is in the process of trying to climb onto the stage, struggling to get her leg over the edge. Ida begins bolting down the stairs, the sound of tumbling and wood splintering behind her as more than one of them try to push through the doorway at the same time. Just as she makes it to the stage, Charlotte has slipped behind the curtain. Ida does a quick scan of the room, no doors on either wall in sight and by now there are several people spreading out in the back, one of which is crawling backward over the tops of the chairs. She quickly throws herself onto the dais, stumbling on her hands and knees for a few paces before using the heavy curtain to pull herself up, and close it behind her.

The area beyond is primarily filled with piles of wooden crates arranged in long rows. Ida, not hesitating even a moment, begins to climb one of the larger stacks of crates that is a little over twice her height. The curtain ripples as something hits it hard and, just as Ida lays flat, it pulls open enough to let one of those people in before closing again. 

-

Minutes pass. The one that followed them is lost between piles of crates, although it is not hard to figure out where it is given the noises it makes when it moves. The ones that did not make it in had wailed on the curtain for a short while before it went quiet. Ida is still on top of the pile of crates, laid flat on her stomach with her head barely peeking over the edge. Charlotte is nowhere to be seen but given the lack of noise, she hasn’t been found yet. Ida’s head twitches back and forth, her eyes squinting to make out details, desperately looking for a sign of Charlotte. There. Underneath a podium that’s been moved up against a wall, Charlotte’s tiny little pale pink shoes are poking out from the shadows, standing out like the smallest beacons. Ida lets out a breath of relief.

She shifts into a sitting position, her legs dangling just off the edge, taking her shawl off and taking each side in a hand.

“Cover the eyes. Cover the eyes.” She repeats to herself, recalling something Andrew had told her earlier. Carefully standing, she scans the edges of the stage, spotting a door in the back right, not far from where Charlotte is. It is, however, behind a wall of crates. They’ll have to climb over to get to it. Ida looks up for a moment, as if asking for strength from above, before beginning to lower herself quietly to the floor.

The stage falls silent, wherever the person is, they aren’t moving. Ida is low to the ground, shuffling between the stacks of crates and checking around thoroughly before each movement. Without the shawl, the dress she borrowed from Irene shows her shoulders, which are similarly marred with fingernail scratch marks as her face is. The podium that Charlotte is hiding under is only four rows of crates away, but the very thin stream of light coming from under the main curtains scarcely makes a dent in the shadows between them. With the person not making any sound, it will be a gamble between each aisle. Ida moves across the first gap and peeks down into the shadows. Carefully, she steps twice and stops at the next row. Her face creeps round the edge just enough to see… the side profile of an older woman, angled just slightly away from her. She is dressed in a flowery frock, the colour lost in the lack of light, her white wispy hair in a ratty nest around her head and bruising merging with liver spots around her wrists and throat. She is just barely out of arm’s reach. Ida pulls herself back round the corner, her hands flying up to her mouth as she nearly retches from the proximity. 

Gritting her teeth, Ida looks again, her breath catching in her throat as the woman sways softly. She seems to have bloodied fingertips, from clawing or crawling who knows, but no other major injury suggesting she would be slow. Ida leans back, sliding the brass knife out from a strap under her dress, staring at it intensely for a moment. She risks another look, taking proper note of the details of the woman, noticing the thin silver chain that ends with a locket around her neck. Ida shakes her head slightly, turning and throwing the knife hard in the direction she came from. It lands with a clatter and skids to a stop against a crate. 

There is a beat of silence before the older woman groans, her joints screaming with sudden forced movement as she crawls out from between the crates. She just barely misses Ida, who is looking straight up to avoid seeing her, skittering backwards with speed she shouldn’t be capable of, far down the other end of the stage. Ida moves fast, closing up the rest of the distance between her and the podium whilst barely making a noise.

“Charlotte? It's me, It’s Ida. Quickly, let's go.” Peeking under the podium, Charlotte is pressed into as small a ball as she could fit, both hands over her face and shaking, but she reaches out and grabs Ida’s hand when it is offered. 

The curtain starts rippling with impacts of others that heard the knife. Ida and Charlotte slink further into the shadows away from them, toward the pile of crates that block them from their exit. Ida lifts Charlotte ahead of her, and as she finds her grip on the crate in front, one of the small pink shoes slips free and hits the floor with a dull thud. The stage falls silent again, this time only for a moment before the skittering and cracking of movement begins, getting closer. Abandoning being quiet, Ida clambers over the crates, practically dragging Charlotte along with her, pausing only to pick her up and lower her down the other side. The tiny brass knob moves freely, the small door shifting open with a soft snick, revealing a narrow hall just barely taller than a crawl space. Ida pushes Charlotte ahead, closing the door behind her and quickly tying the shawl around the handle and a wall radiator that is thankfully close enough to reach. As one of them starts crashing through the crates, Ida turns away from the door and starts hurrying Charlotte along. 

-

Ida sighs, she and Charlotte are slumped against a wall, in a study that looks to not have seen use in several months at least. Ida has lit a small candle in the corner and the heavy desk that was in the centre has been pushed up against the door. 

Charlotte is snoring softly, her head resting on Ida’s thigh, her other shoe removed so as to avoid her tripping. Despite the exhaustion plain on her face, Ida isn’t sleeping. Instead, she is scanning the contents of the room over and over. Looking as if something is dawning on her slowly, she cradles Charlotte’s head and lowers it to the cushion she was sitting on as she goes to stand. She begins pouring over the contents of the desk, her hands stopping on a small leather-bound journal, the cover of which is very clearly imprinted with an elaborate W. 

“Surely not.” She combs through a few pages, all of which are blank. “tsk.”

She sets it down, disturbing some papers and revealing some engraved lettering carved into the desk front. She pushes away the rest, revealing a name:

‘William Hargrave’

Ida smiles, a sad fondness in her eyes. The rest of the items on the desk are quickly disregarded, a dry inkwell and some official papers not of much use in this situation.

“Come on, Will, you must have something useful in here.” She whispers to herself, pulling a few drawers to no avail, none of them budge. Kneeling down, she studies the small silvery handles, pulling on them a few more times. Curiously, there are no keyholes or any sign of a means to open them.

“A secret locking desk? William, I have missed you so much.” Her smile growing, a knowing look in her eye. She runs her fingers along the engraving again, this time pausing on the A in his first name, which slides inward with little effort. The desk responds with a muted click, the drawers shifting open a tiny amount.

Most of them are empty, or filled with writing supplies, except for one that stands out. It has in it a well-used journal of the same design as the one on the desk, only this cover is creased and worn, smudged in a few places with dried ink. Ida lifts it from the drawer, unwinding the length of twine that is tying it shut, a single sheet falling freely onto the desk.