Page 7 of Sharpen Your Claws

A pair of gleaming violet eyes flickered in the trees. Fearworn’s laughter slithered up his spine to coil around his neck, squeezing the life from him. His silver arm ached with phantom pains. Branches coiled together tighter than a fisherman’s knot, smothering the world in darkness. All that could be seen were Fearworn’s eyes, then his mouth dripping red. William reached for the revolver at his waist.

“Stay back,” he warned, raising the gun high.

Fearworn’s laughter had him in a stranglehold. His eyes shone in the dark, soon towering over William. A hand, blacker than ink, stretched toward him, promising a gruesome demise.

“Get away from me!” He swung out. He hit something. A quiet voice whimpered, followed by a thud.

The Deadlands liquified. He stood in his bedroom, gazing down at his mother on the floor. A delicate hand brushed her cheek. Alice had vanished, her book of riddles, too. He didn’t hold a gun, but a book that had been on the dresser. His stomach lurched. He swallowed hard, trying not to vomit.

“Mother, I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” To raise his hand, to shout at her, to shove her and frighten her, but she smiled like nothing had transpired.

Matilda stood and dusted off the hem of her skirt as if she tripped of her own accord. Her cheek remained a dull shade of red.

“Alice fetched me saying you were having trouble breathing,” she explained, like he hadn’t done this before, swung at a maid, screamed at a butler, and threw his breakfast across the room. He struggled existing in his home, as a civilian, as a son. The mind played tricks, and those tricks won more often than not.

“Why don’t you stay home tonight?” she suggested, somehow containing the tears brimming her eyes.

He wanted nothing more, but, “We both know I cannot. The king has summoned me.”

In the late hours of the night when he woke in a cold sweat, he wondered about the list he once had, the lives he took during war times, and how desperately he wanted King Ellis to join them. If he could squeeze that vile king’s neck until his face went blue, the world would be an infinitely better place, and he wouldn’t regret a thing. He wondered what that made him, what kind of person and what kind of son, to want to take a life so wantonly.

“Richard will tell him you weren’t feeling well. He could charm the king to forgiveness,” she tried with a gentle approach that he so hated.

His family practiced a new sense of discomfort, a hesitancy where they watched his every move to ensure he wouldn’t lash out, like he just had.

They happened sometimes, moments of paranoia that sent him to the past. He’d blink and find himself in the Deadlands, the place they battled Fearworn once and for all. Blood would be on his hands. He tasted copper in his mouth. He’d hear gunfire, smell smoke, taste ash, and see the faces of those he killed, then he’d awaken and realize he had been screaming in the middle of the night.

Smoking helped, so he went for one of the cannabis cigarettes locked in his bedside drawer. Matilda said nothing of it when he took a match to the cigarette, although he recalled when he was younger how she praised him for not being interested in smoking like the other men of the court. He didn’t press a cigar to his lips, but alas, he felt like he was not quite the son she wanted.

Hot shame bristled behind his cheeks as he took a deep hit of smoke. “I am sorry. Does your cheek hurt?”

“There is nothing to apologize for.” Matilda settled her hands around his waist. Her head fell on his back and she held him tight in an embrace only a parent could give, one so unbearably warm he wanted to turn away but also lean into it, hoping he would wither into nothing.

Their butler, Marshall, and Alice appeared at the threshold. Alice’s bottom lip trembled. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

“I’m nervous about attending the king’s ball. It’s nothing to worry over, sweetheart.” He put out his cigarette and hid the remnants of it in his drawer. “I will try to be home before your bedtime.”

All he did was try. Try to be the person he once was, try to be a good uncle, a good doctor, a full person rather than a broken shell wandering and hopeless. Trying never felt good enough.

Matilda released him, her lips pursed. She wanted to convince William to stay home. That’s all he wanted, too, but the ball was about more than the king summoning him. Tonight, they had a chance to talk to the king about the missing patients.

“Ms. Tuckerton has arrived,” Marshall explained. “Everyone waits in the foyer and the carriage is ready to depart.”

Alice’s pout grew exponentially. William kissed his mother’s cheek, then approached Alice to say, “If I am late, I will read you two stories when you next stay over.”

Like fae, she wouldn’t let William forget about a deal struck. She allowed him to depart without anyone having to pry her from his person.

“I hope tonight isn’t unbearable,” Matilda said.

“Me too.” He had more to apologize for, but could never conjure the appropriate words.

He set off to meet his father, brother, and Charmaine in the foyer. Robert didn’t look his way when he descended the stairs. He didn’t look at William most days. Spoke to him, laughed, asked about his day. All of that was normal, but look at him? Robert proved incapable, and if he ever dared, if William entered a room when he wasn’t prepared, Robert’s eyes fell dark, then he hid.

William said nothing of it, nor did anyone else. He hadn’t the heart to ask why.

Robert had never been a man wishing to stand out. His pressed waistcoat hugged his full figure, navy in tone and embellished with silver buttons to match the tip of his cane. His peppered mustache curled at the ends and a top hat hid his thinning hair.

Richard, on the other hand, wanted ships at sea to spot him on the horizon. He donned a peculiar canary yellow tight-waisted coat and matching trousers. The sleeves narrowed at the wrists like Robert’s, but Richard adorned his with bejeweled orange cufflinks like the first dawn of summer. Noble ladies were likely to throw themselves at him. They always did, even with the wedding ring on his finger.

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