SPOILER ALERTS AND CONTENT WARNINGS!

Death or Dying

August 1747, Shepherd’s Bush outside London, midday

I can’t see its curdled waters, but the smell of the Thames coats my nostrils and the back of my throat. Who would have thought it could be worse after you’re dead?

London is a crowded, sprawling pit where a man can find anything he needs on every street, sometimes thrice over. No matter your pleasure—beer, brandy, a rowdy game of hazard, a decent whore—you’re bound to find the revelry to suit you. As long as you can stomach the stench of human shite that hangs in the air like a fog. 

The August heat doesn’t help the situation. At least, I think it’s August. I’m fairly certain it’s been a month’s worth of miserable sunrises since I traveled the Tyburn Road. I was not inclined to ride the three-legged mare to a pitiful, jerking end. She’s a rank bitch that no man has tamed. Except perhaps myself, but I’m no victor in this battle of wills. As much as I didn’t want to find myself hanging in chains at the prime age of twenty-eight as an example for every other liberator of overtaxed commodities, I did not expect to exchange the decisiveness of God’s judgment for the torture of surviving my own death. 

That is what comes from loving a woman fiercely, but not to the exclusion of all else.

One month earlier, July 29, 1747, Newgate Prison in London, just after midnight

Richard Ashcroft lay snoring lightly in the corner of our cell after having been sick most of the day. Typhus was commonplace, but what use was fearing it on the eve of execution? An attack of nerves was much more likely. The authorities didn’t see fit to give us time from arrest to sentencing for catching the plague. 

We heard holy verses outside our prison window, coming from just beyond the walls of Newgate. The clergy from St. Sepulchre came out at this time to ply the condemned with words of sin and redemption, all in the hopes they would accept the sacrament on their way to the gallows. As I sat in the dark, counting Ashcroft’s breaths, I thought more about the strong drink I’d be allowed at the halfway house tomorrow on our way to the tree. Could have used it more as I sat there thinking about my master and how he’d left me to face the noose, about every sacrifice I had made in the name of loyalty. What’s more, I could have blamed what came next on the plight of drunkenness.

  “John…” a ghostly whisper called from somewhere in the black. 

I looked to my cellmate, already knowing the voice had not come from him. His sleep sounds still rumbled softly through the warm, damp air. I stayed quiet, certain, after several moment’s silence, that the name spoken was a figment of my imagination. A man’s mind can play tricks on him, to be sure. 

“John Cook…silence will not save you, but I might, if you heed me now.” 

My head jerked to frantically search the dark. There was no mistaking the feminine lilt this time.

Where was the bloody bailiff when you needed him? Making his constant rounds, shining lantern light in your face so as not to give you a moment’s peace. Must be passed out in his own piss somewhere most likely. Man was no better than the lot on this side of the bars.

“No one is coming this way anytime soon. I’ve made sure of that. Besides, you won’t be needing any light.” 

The voice sounded familiar now, but it couldn’t be who I thought. There was no way she could be in this god forsaken place. 

“I recall a time, not too far gone, when you were eager for a few moments spent in the dark with me, John Cook. Your firm, rough hands grasping and coaxing the innocence out of me like the rake that you are, and me too foolish to stop you.” 

I would have known her no matter how much time had passed. Not a day went by that a memory of her didn’t overtake my thoughts in some small way. She was here, and not a shadow of thought. I knew the feel of her breath against my face and the touch of her hands against my chest. My craving for her had never waned, though I feared facing her now. 

“You were special to me, Thora Marshall. From the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Aye, so special that two years ago my brother disappeared after a night spent out with you and that worthless lot you call a gang. Then you follow right after with never another word.” 

The words dripped with venom as they hissed past the fangs of a woman scorned. This was the moment I had longed for and hoped never to face, in equal measure. 

“It’s true, I didn’t want…” too many words pushed forward on my tongue, unable to escape as I was overwhelmed by the need to spill them all at once. Thora had never been one to accept uncertainty, and the last thing I wanted was to offer some to her now. 

“I didn’t come here for lies and excuses, John. I came here to make you an offer, now that you face the judgement for your choices.” 

She moved forward and I finally heard the rustle of fabric against the iron bars. The clouds pulled their veil from in front of the moon. Pale light filtered in through the high window and stretched across the filthy floor, rising to reveal her form inch by inch, all smooth skin and fine red hair. An invisible force drew me to her. The brown cloth of her dress and cloak came into view, the swell of her soft breasts sheltered beneath. Finally, her face was in front of me once more. Two years had made little difference, but her honey eyes were harder as they stared back. The desire to hear her speak again was as potent as my curiosity. 

“What do you want?” 

“I want to know what happened to James. I know the Hawkhurst men did something to him. You did something to him. Where is he, John? Give him back to me, and I’ll help you.”

 My heart bent under the weight of her demand, but I stood stunned. 

“Even now, you hide? What cause do you still have to stay your tongue? I hear Arthur Gray, who you gave all loyalty to, has abandoned you to this fate, interested only in saving his own neck from the hangman’s rope. I can do you no more harm by knowing the truth than what you’ve already done to yourself.” 

She was right. I had walked away from her and stood by as my master acted out of jealousy, fearing my loyalty was shifting. My conscience was twisted and bound by an oath made as a boy with a thirst to prove himself. I took a deep breath and stepped back to make space for what was about to come. Thora mistook my retreat for resistance and grasped the bars in desperation.

“Give me this, and I’ll make sure the Tyburn Tree is not the last you see of this world.”

She deserved what answers I could give, and, God help me, I did not want to die. The words came then, and they burned all the way out. 

“Arthur and the others were worked up that night. We’d been moving a load of tea and brandy down to the channel where Staymaker and Shepherd had a cutter anchored just offshore. We never made it, though. A group of soldiers and customs officers intercepted us and opened fire. We got away, but we were six men down and had lost all but a few sacks of the tea.” I could still see the look in Gray’s eyes that night. He would have burned the whole damn world down if given the chance. 

“I don’t care about the disappointment of your theft gone wrong.” The light of the moon had been shuttered once again, but I could hear her frustration. 

“I meant only to impress upon you just how bad the mood was that night. Gray wanted to make someone pay for his losses. He felt my attentions were not fully where they should have been that evening, that my loyalties were waning.” 

I let the last hang in the air for a moment. 

“They didn’t wane enough, though, did they, John?” 

Under the weight of her disappointment, I heard the clergy’s chanted verses from outside the prison walls again. Redemption indeed. It was time.

“James is dead, Thora. You won’t find his body, most likely.”

“What happened?” 

“Gray was ready to ruin the world. We started at the Mermaid and ended up down the road at the Red Lion. As you said, James came to spend the evening with our group, after hearing we were back in town. I tried to get him to go home. It wasn’t a good night for him to be around Gray, but he would hear none of it.” 

“Don’t blame this on him. He was seventeen and you—” 

“I’m not,” I cut her off. “He was just a boy, seeking the acceptance of men, and that’s one thing all of us who grow up without much of a father have in common.” 

Her silence was heavy. 

I cleared my throat and continued, “Things were turning bad. Gray and two others were firing pistols inside the inn, and the locals were becoming fearful. I tried to calm the situation, but James shouted for the men to stop.”

The boy had mistook the group’s general tolerance of him for inclusion. It was just the spark of flint needed to set Gray off. Nothing would have stopped what happened next. Certainly nothing I could have done would have changed things for James, but the thought of telling his sister that I had done nothing was enough to make me feel ill like my poor cellmate. 

“Gray had the boy drug out to the Camber Castle ruins. I tried to step between them and calm the situation once more, but…” 

I was unable to admit my cowardice out loud. I could not, however, escape the truth of it in my mind. The bruising pressure atop my heart became real again and I recalled the wild look in Gray’s eyes as he pressed the muzzle of his pistol against my chest. Fear had seeped into my bones like winter, and I knew then, he would kill me without hesitation.

“Gray made me choose: the brotherhood or your brother. He threatened to have you killed as well. There was nothing I could do.” 

“The last of it, John. Finish it.”

“Gray shot him. Then told two of the men to take the boy’s body out onto the channel, weigh him down, and dump him over. I must assume they did so, but Gray would not allow me to follow. I could never face looking you in the eye again, knowing what had become of your brother. ”

She was silent for so long after the last, and with no light, I thought perhaps she had gone without a word. 

Uncertain, I called quietly, “Thora?”

A few more seconds brought nothing and then, “So, you stood by, afraid to stand against your master, and watched him cleave the life from the only family I had left?” 

The simple, gruesome truth of her words rang like cathedral bells inside my chest. What cared I for the forgiveness of the church? Not when she stood before me, her judgement justified and echoing in my own heart. Finally, I could take it no longer and threw myself forward, falling at my knees, forehead pressed to the bars between us. How I longed to grasp the fabric of her skirts and hide my face against their folds, but I dared not. 

“I gave you my word, John Cook. You told me the truth so now I will give you what I promised.”

The clouds parted again, but only slightly. The weak light reached the very edge of my cell. She extended her fist through the bars. The silky skin of her wrist looked almost silver in the moon’s glow. She did not speak, but uncurled her fingers, palm upward, to reveal a small pouch. Surely, nothing so small and mundane could save me from a hanging.

“When you are offered your final drink tomorrow, dump this mixture into the liquid and drink it down. No sooner or later, or it may not work properly.”

“How will this keep me from hanging?”

“Tomorrow’s punishment is one I cannot stop for you. You will feel that pain and experience that death. Consider it just punishment for your life, John. What I offer you will allow you to rise once more and look upon the earth.”

“So, I’ll die, but then come back to life?”

“Of a sort.”

“What does that mean? Is this a trick?”

“It’s no trick, John. You will die and then awaken.” 

I took the small bag in my hand and looked down at it curiously. A scraping against the floor made me turn toward the man a few feet away who was set to share my fate tomorrow. Ashcroft turned fitfully towards the wall but remained asleep.

“You’re welcome to make the sacrifice and let your friend have the gift. It matters not to me. Perhaps it could be a final good deed before you leave this world, John. Either way, I’ve done with you. You will not see me again.”

In a waft of stale damp air, and the faintest smell of lavender, she stepped away forever.

August 1747, Shepherd’s Bush outside London, sundown

Judging by my current predicament, I suppose you know now what my choice was. I had considered, briefly, letting Ashcroft have the contents of the pouch as we sat in shackles at the Bowl Inn. He looked green around the gills, and I thought of the wife he’d left behind at Bishopstone. In the end, I reasoned that he’d never been much use to her and that their son was better off learning from the storekeep she’d taken up with. At least, that’s what I chose to focus on, instead of the fear creeping through my veins.

Now I hang here, in the sheep fields outside London, gibbeted and unable to escape the fate bestowed on me by Old Bailey. It’s a sort of waking death—no pulse, no voice, no breath. It’s as Thora said: the ability to look upon the earth, endlessly—with no sleep, as it turns out. The carrion crows come, picking and cawing relentlessly. Passersby stare and encourage their children to throw stones. All the while, Ashcroft hangs next to me, silent and unburdened by this mockery of life. My cowardice has saved him from this torture, and I think, perhaps, I have done my good deed. 

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Kris Violet is a speculative fiction writer with a love for psychological thrillers and gothic horror. She lives for tortured characters and strong female archetypes. In the light of day, she manages the funding for a growing non-profit in Northeast Missouri and pursues an MFA in creative writing. Under cover of darkness, she dreams up new ways to stretch her characters to their limits. When she doesn’t have a pen in her hand, she spends time advocating for individuals with autism like her son who understands the nuances of character growth better than some grad students.