Chapter Text
The warm summer days were long gone, and autumn had its firm grip on the city of London. But the summer had brought much heartache and tragedy, not a soul would say they would miss it, hoping for the remaining months to go by quickly, and the next year to bring forth a fresh start for most.
Said fresh start for Mary Reid was supposed to happen in late October. After her son passed away from the Spanish influenza a few months prior, she moved back to her childhood home to have the support of her family.
Or, at least, what was left of her family.
While she appreciated her mother’s support, and Avery’s kind words, they weren’t the reason she stayed. In truth, she was waiting for the remaining member of the Reid family to return to the country.
A letter arrived at their doorstep the week before from Jonathan, announcing that he was travelling home, along with a date for his arrival. Mary were overjoyed at the news, her brother was finally coming back after three years of war.
Her joy, however, turned to worry when he didn't show up the evening he was supposed to.
The evening stretched out into the night, and the night became early morning, with no sign of Jonathan. Mary’s worry turned into anxiety when the first rays of the sun shone through the curtains of their home. She had stayed awake the entire night, waiting for her brother to come through the door.
It's just a hold-up with the quarantine zones, she reasoned with herself. He's late because of the curfew, that's all.
It disturbed her, just how many disastrous scenes her mind could conjure in her worry. It had never happened to her before. She never had to wrangle her thoughts away from the worst case scenario at even the slightest disturbance in her life. Avery not answering right away when she called out from another room, her mother not getting up at the usual time in the mornings.
She found herself jumping to conclusions every time.
And every time, it was the same conclusion. They're dead.
She knew it wasn't true, the rational part of her knew it wasn't, yet that nagging feeling wouldn't leave her be.
It had been like this ever since...
...since the flu took her son. Since the war took her husband.
Another hour passed, and she couldn’t wait any longer.
Just as she was about to leave the house, Avery appeared from seemingly nowhere, stopping her in her tracks. There was no need to come up with a clever lie about some errand she needed to run this early in the morning. He already knew her intentions. And Avery, always the voice of reason, told her rather sternly just how bad an idea that was, with all the deaths reported in the area recently.
“Mister Jonathan is a sensible man,” he said. “I am certain he’s simply been held up by the quarantine zones and not wanted to travel at night.”
Mary couldn’t find it within herself to argue, when she knew deep down he was right. While his words were calm, the butler had pinned her with a look that signed he would give no room for discussion. For a moment she had felt like a child again, being scolded for her somewhat impulsive nature.
Though, it was not enough to dissuade her.
"Good thing I waited until daylight, then," she answered as she put on a light outer coat. "I promise to be careful."
Avery had simply nodded as she closed the door behind her, knowing full well nothing he said could sway her.
— ♠ —
It was still early morning when Mary crossed over to the western docks. The weather was clear for a change, only a few clouds dotting the sky, and the sun had just started peeking above the tall buildings around her. Mary walked through the narrow streets connecting the West End to the north docks. She had always known of these shortcuts, but never found use for them before now. The docks weren’t the safest areas one could roam, and she had always been discouraged from straying too far from the neighbourhood by her peers.
She looked everywhere on her way. It didn't surprise her that the streets were mostly empty so early in the morning, only seeing some life once she reached the docks where Jonathan were supposed to have at least passed on his way home. Someone must have seen him, a man couldn’t just disappear into thin air.
Jonathan had left a trail, she discovered as she asked around in the area. She was lucky enough that some people hanging about had been doing so all night. She ended up with a rather clear picture of where he had been.
He was accounted for as the ship arrived, and some of the ship’s crew she was able to get a hold of could confirm that they had seen a tall, dark-haired man with a crooked nose and a scar on his cheek. A docker not too far away told her the same thing, the tall man had greeted him as he passed through the quarantine gate a couple of nights earlier. An older woman she questioned said she hadn’t seen such a man, but claimed a sizeable group of people were headed towards the local pub, apparently coming from the direction of the wharf Mary had just come from, the evening before.
Which was how she ended up in front of a run down building with a large sign over the main entrance reading The Turquoise Turtle, and Mary found herself standing by the bar counter, talking to the owner.
“Huh? Yeah, I’ve seen a man like that." the man —Tom, he introduced himself as— said. "Came in here with a whole flock of others. Wasn’t interested in takin’ a seat and drink like the rest of ‘em though. Had just arrived with a ship from France, he said."
Mary didn't sit down for their conversation, but she wished she had. Her feet were restless, and she had to force herself to stand still. The worry at the back of her mind had only grown in the time it had taken to get to this point, and every minute that passed felt like another minute of crucial time wasted if she didn't get moving soon.
“I said to him, it’ll do you good to settle down for the night. ‘Cause he looked like hell, I won’t lie. Tired. Told him it's better to stay the night. Safer at this hour anyway.”
“And did he? Stay here, I mean.” she managed to keep her voice composed, but some urgency bled through despite her efforts. The man was a chatter, and she did not have the time for pleasantries. But he was the only one who seemed to have any useful leads for her. She grit her teeth and kept listening.
“He was supposed to, left his luggage here and everything. He went for a walk around nine o’clock last night… haven’t seen him since.”
What little optimism she had gathered quickly faded away. If Jonathan was supposed to go for a short stroll, leaving behind his luggage and even telling the bartender…He should’ve been back within an hour at most, not the entire night.
A woman walked up behind the counter, arms full of empty glasses. A waitress, she assumed.
"I saw him too," she chimed in as she passed behind Tom to reach the backroom. She put down the glasses and came back to point out a direction with her now free hand. "He went that way, but it was hours ago."
Mary turned the way the waitress pointed. Opposite direction of the shortest road to the West End, so he had every intention of returning to the pub, she reasoned.
"At least it's something to go off," she said, holding back a sigh. "Thank you."
The waitress gave a nod and left her with Tom again, going to tend to the few patrons still there at such an early hour.
Mary was quiet for a moment, her earlier restlessness evaporated. An eerie calm had settled over her like a blanket, smothering her. They hadn't seen Jonathan for an entire night. The worry gnawed at her insides at the mere thought. The minutes were ticking by, and she didn't really know exactly where to look other than a vague direction, didn't even know for certain the man Tom and the waitress had seen really were Jonathan.
Then, another thought hit her.
“You mentioned he left some things behind,” she said, turning back to Tom, who were looking at her with concern. “What did you do with them, when he didn’t return? I assume you wouldn’t leave someone’s personal items in an unoccupied room.”
Tom gave her a gentle smile, before gesturing for her to follow him through a door close to the counter.
He led her to the back room of the bar, where a small pile of different items sat under a table. Tom pulled a suitcase from the pile, holding it out for Mary to catch.
“He didn’t bring much, only this suitcase.”
It was, indeed, Jonathan’s suitcase. Labelled with his initials.
Mary left the pub with a sinking feeling and the promise to pick up the suitcase later, and with what little information she was given by the locals, followed the direction the waitress had pointed out. The sun was slowly rising, lighting up the morning fog coming from the Thames. It was late morning, so not much time had passed, but for Mary it felt like an eternity.
The direction took her to a labyrinth of alcoves and dead ends, and narrow paths between buildings.
There were horrifying sights at every corner she turned.
Mary was well aware that looting was a common occurrence in this part of town, but it still surprised her just how many things were strewn about on every road and every alley. Piles of broken wood, empty crates, torn up cloth, abandoned houses with shattered windows and doors hanging loosely off their hinges.
Worst of all were the bodies.
The sight of the first one made her gasp, one hand clutching at her chest with the other covering her mouth, the state of it making her nauseous.
Bodies, some of them completely unrecognisable as people, with their mutilated faces and bloody hands and dirty clothing. Mary had always been tough, both as a child and as an adult, but even for her, the sight made her sick to her stomach. She told herself every time she found another, that it was simply the sight of so much death that made her feel so ill, but in truth, it was the deep rooted fear that her brother was among the corpses, and she would miss him completely.
A trail of blood splattered on the ground and around the next corner, which she followed without thinking.
It had to be blood from the inhuman bodies.
Her steps hastened, shoes clicking faster on the cobblestone beneath her feet.
In her haste, she barely noticed that there were no new bodies connected to the trail.
It will be fine, you're just imagining things, she told herself, repeating over and over again. She needed to stay hopeful. She would find her brother, finding it all to be one big misunderstanding, Jonathan had gotten lost somehow while walking about at night, and he was fine—
The trail stopped at what looked like a lake of dark red.
The last dregs of her hope immediately shattered as the tip of her shoes touched the pool of blood, and her eyes landed on a human-shaped lump lying on the cobblestones, darkened in the shade of the building blocking out the morning sun.
She distantly felt her lungs seize, she couldn’t breathe.
She could only just reach the side of the shadowed figure before her shaking limbs gave out, and fell to her knees next to it.
"Jonathan...?"
She hadn’t seen him in three years, not since the war started. Though no matter how much time had passed, she would always recognise his familiar face.
A face, half covered in the blood pooling under his body. His head was laid at an awkward angle, exposing a massive wound at his throat.
She managed a few steps forward before her knees gave out, dropping next to him.
Mary would never be able to remember if she screamed when she saw her brother lying motionless on the ground in a sea of blood. She could only remember the ringing in her ears, and the burning in her lungs. She sobbed as she held his body. She pleaded and yelled for someone, anyone, for help. She had waited for so long for him to come home, to put an end to her nightmare.
And here he was, her prayers were heard, yet there was no end in sight for the nightmare her life had become.
— ♠ —
