The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

My vision blurs, the world reduced to a smudge of colour and a flash of pain as I crash into a wall, then drop to the floor, blood trickling from my head. He’s looming over me, an iron poker in his hand.

‘Please,’ I say, trying to slide backwards, away from him. ‘I’m not—’

He kicks me in the side, emptying my lungs.

I reach out a hand, trying to speak, beg, but that only seems to infuriate him further. He’s kicking me faster and faster until there’s nothing I can do but curl up in a ball as he pours his wrath upon me.

I can barely breathe, barely see. I’m sobbing, buried beneath my pain.

Mercifully, I pass out.

10

Day Three

It’s dark, the net on the window fluttering in the breath of a moonless night. The sheets are soft, the bed comfortable and canopied.

Clutching the eiderdown, I smile.

It was a nightmare, that’s all.

Slowly, beat by beat, my heart quietens, the taste of blood fading with the dream. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am, another to pick out the dim shape of a large man standing in the corner of the room.

My breath catches in my throat.

Sliding my hand through the covers towards the bedside table, I reach for the matches, but they seem to slither away from my searching fingers.

‘Who are you?’ I ask the darkness, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.

‘A friend.’

It’s a man’s voice, muffled and deep.

‘Friends don’t lurk in the gloom,’ I say.

‘I didn’t say I was your friend, Mr Davies.’

My blind fumbling almost knocks the oil lamp off the bedside table. Attempting to steady it, my fingers find the matches cowering at its base.

‘Don’t worry about the light,’ says the darkness. ‘It will little profit you.’

I strike the match with a trembling hand, touching it to the lamp. Flame explodes behind the glass, driving the shadows deep into the corners and illuminating my visitor. It’s the man in the plague doctor costume I met earlier, the light revealing details I’d missed in the gloom of the study. His greatcoat is scuffed and tattered at the edges, a top hat and porcelain beak mask covering all of his face except for the eyes. Gloved hands rest on a black cane, an inscription inlaid in sparkling silver down the side, though the writing’s much too small to read at this distance.

‘Observant, good,’ remarks the Plague Doctor. Footsteps sound from somewhere in the house, and I wonder if my imagination is sufficient to conjure the mundane details of such an extraordinary dream.

‘What the hell are you doing in my room?’ I demand, surprising myself with this outburst.

The beak mask ceases its exploration of the room, fixing on me once again.

‘We have work to do,’ he says. ‘I have a puzzle which requires a solution.’

‘I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else,’ I say angrily. ‘I’m a doctor.’

‘You were a doctor,’ he says. ‘Then a butler, today a playboy, tomorrow a banker. None of them is your real face, or your real personality. Those were stripped from you when you entered Blackheath and they won’t be returned until you leave.’

Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small mirror and tosses it onto the bed.

‘See for yourself.’

The glass shakes in my hand, reflecting a young man with striking blue eyes and precious little wisdom behind them. The face in the glass isn’t that of Sebastian Bell, or the burnt butler.

‘His name’s Donald Davies,’ says the Plague Doctor. ‘He has a sister called Grace and a best friend called Jim, and he doesn’t like peanuts. Davies will be your host for today, and when you wake up tomorrow, you’ll have another. That’s how this works.’

It wasn’t a dream after all, it really happened. I lived the same day twice in the bodies of two different people. I talked to myself, berated myself and examined myself through somebody else’s eyes.

‘I’m going mad, aren’t I?’ I say, looking at him over the top of the mirror.

I can hear the cracks in my voice.

‘Of course not,’ says the Plague Doctor. ‘Madness would be an escape and there’s only one way to escape Blackheath. That’s why I’m here, I have a proposition for you.’

‘Why have you done this to me?’ I demand.

‘That’s a flattering notion, but I’m not responsible for your predicament, or Blackheath’s for that matter.’

‘Then who is?’

‘Nobody you’d care to meet or need to,’ he says, dismissing the notion with a wave of his hand. ‘Which brings me back to my proposition—’

‘I must speak with them,’ I say.

‘Speak with whom?’

‘The person who brought me here, whoever can free me,’ I say through gritted teeth, struggling to keep hold of my temper.

‘Well, the former is long gone, and the latter is before you,’ he says, tapping his chest with both hands. Perhaps it’s the costume, but the movement seems somehow theatrical, almost rehearsed. I suddenly have the sense of taking part in a play in which everybody knows their lines but me.

‘Only I know how you can escape Blackheath,’ he says.

‘Your proposition?’ I say suspiciously.