Death and His Handmaiden

By Abbigail Nutter

Death was not skeletal. This was the first thing that I learned while in his service.

    He was slim, and a bit malnourished, certainly.

    But he was not the terror striking being that the old paintings of the reaper showed.

    He was not cruel.

    He was not benevolent, or merciful, or supernaturally confident.

    Death was a man.

    And he was my master.

   

The first time that I made the acquaintance of Doctor Damon Morrison, the world was full of ice and sorrow. White coated the slick walkways of upper London, causing passersby to slip and slide as they wandered aimlessly past.

As for myself, I sat on the edge of a mostly deserted alleyway-vacant save for the tomcats who had made their homes in the towering piles of rubbish that leaned against the brickwork of the bookstore.

People paid me no mind as they passed-they had all seen the impoverished souls that called the streets their home. They wanted nothing to do with us sordid lumps of society.

It was in that moment that the doctor of Sycamore Street stepped into my line of sight.

I was shivering, swaddled in a moth eaten blanket that some well wishing aristocrat had draped over me as I slept.

I started to snap at the man-though I was so weak that I could barely move. I had begun to wish for death weeks ago, waiting for its cold embrace like a lamb for slaughter.

He squatted in front of me, blocking out the blinding light of the winter sun.

He smiled, a sly, smirking sort of smile that hinted at the handsome face of his youth.

That first day, Damon Morrison spoke only five simple words to me.

Five words that began my new life in his service.

“It is not your time.” He said, pulling my frail body from the freezing ground and pressing two fingers to my chilled temple.

The world turned dark around me.

That day, surrounded by snow and the dark embrace of a stranger, I died in the eyes of the world.

No one would look for me. No one would be searching or investigating my disappearance.

Now, nearly two hundred years later, I wonder whether he was waiting for someone like me to come along.

Someone who would not be missed.

~*~

I woke to the soft metallic heat of a freshly placed bedpan and the quiet tinkling music of a harpsichord.

My nose was like ice, and , my feet were like fire.

For a brief moment, I found myself thinking that I was home in my old room and that the last ten weeks of my life had been nothing more than a miserable dream.

Sitting up in the grand canopied bed of my new room, I saw from my surroundings that that was not the case.

The walls were papered with a garish floral pattern that my mother would have scoffed at, and the floors were laden with wood that my father would have quaked at. My sister would have run her polished fingertips over the elegant furnishings and wiggled her toes on the exquisite rugs.

I did none of these things.

The elaborate furnishings and sheer size of the space that surrounded me did not impress my wandering mind, but rather deterred me from falling into a sense of false contentment.

Rooms like this were meant for mistresses and secretaries, and though I was scraping at the bottom of the proverbial barrel, I had no desire to claw out the pitiful existence that either of those paths would inevitably doom me too.

I was a beggar and an old maid, yes. but my upbringing would not allow for me to permit myself to die a common street whore.

And though my father had long since sent me far away from his house to die alone in squalor, I would not allow my status as a lady be erased so easily.

The music of the harpsichord rose in a great crescendo and I followed its deafening calls, eager for have a proper introduction who I would soon determine to be my savior or my executioner.

In the years to come, I would consider him to be both.

I crept down a rickety flight of stairs and stumbled over another. If my curiosity around my gracious host had not consumed my half awake consciousness, I would have been insulted and outraged that he had seemingly banished me to the confines of a lonely attic room.

If I had been him, I would not have wished for a beggar to be in my house at all, heaven forbid the main floor. Angels in heaven knew what diseases the filthy lot of us carried.

When I at last reached the open doorway to the parlor, the music stopped abruptly, leaving me staring at an empty bench and still warm keys.

It seemed that my savior had been a phantom.

That would explain the lingering cold.

“Hello?” I ventured a step forward into the parlor’s chill embrace.

A frantic clashing of dishes in the kitchen was my only answer, and my only confirmation of another’s presence.

“My name is Anastasia Donovan.” The concoction of syllables that formed what was once my name sounded impossibly foreign as it rolled from my peeling lips. “You snatched me from death’s grasp last night. You gave me a warm bed and a roaring fire. I would like to thank you. Face to face.”

A pause came from beyond the kitchen door, followed by the shifting gravelly crunch of a man’s voice. “It has been three.”  It said, sounding as though it were attempting to correct a mistake that I had unwittingly made.

Blinking, I stepped further into the room, plucking a heavy looking candlestick from the mantlepiece on instinct. “Three? Three what?” I question, ready to defend myself if the need arose.

What a silly thing to say.

My host seemed to think so as well as a low laugh resounded through the walls, sending my already chilled blood boiling with an icy, fearful flame. My heart pounded in my chest as the voice with no face answered me again. “It’s been three days since you came into my care, of course.”

“Came into your care? Is that what you call snatching a girl half your age off the streets so that you might have your way with her? I think not, kind sir, for if it is that sort of service a man too cowardly to show a captive his face is looking for, then I must bid you farewell and ado.”

A gust of wind flew through the window, pushing me against the papered wall.

“I would suggest that you do not speak of me as though you know me personally.” My captor had at last stepped into the light of the doorway. As he revealed himself, I quickly hid the scowl that adorned my features.

“I suggest that you do not treat me like a child when I do not even know your name.” A rug slipped under my bare foot as I took a cautious step backwards, fighting to conceal the slight quiver in my voice.

“How of awful of me.” A twisted smile graced the man’s lips, lifting his hollowed cheekbones and full mustache. “I’ve forgotten my manners again.” I wondered briefly how often he did. “I am Doctor Damon Morrison.” He offered me a flourished bow, a proper gesture that I returned with the respectable response-a shallow curtise with a slight dip of the head.

“I am-” I was interrupted by a dismissive wave of the doctor’s hand that ever instinct of my being screaming at me to tear it off with my teeth.

His answering smile made me feel as though he could hear exactly what I was thinking and found it amusing. “Oh I know all about you, of course. Anastasia Donovan. Daughter of a wealthy Englishman named Maxwell Donavon and an equally wealthy Dorothea Chanty. Outcast by her family. You, my dear are the girl who was begging death himself to claim her long before her time.”

I met Doctor Damon Morrison’s accusative diagnosis of my life with an equally condemning stare. I set my bitter gaze on his for a minute that stretched into an hour or maybe more, I did not know.

“Silence is not a proper answer to my question, Miss Donovan.” He broke what had settled between us with a remark that seemed to combat with his previous comment with an astute rudeness which had me wondering how he ever ascended to his position as a physician.

Nonetheless, I held my head high and responded with viper’s tongue as my sister had taught me. “I wasn’t aware that a question had been proposed, Mr.Morrison.”

“Doctor.”

I raised a brow. “Pardon?”

“Its Doctor Morrison.”

“Very well, doctor.” I began with the venom my mother found absolutely deplorable. She claimed it was one of the many reasons why I could not find myself a suitable husband. On the contrary, I had found that there were no suitable men in the whole of London, and that the one before me now was no different from the rest of them. “I still believe that there was no question posed.”

Doctor Damon Morrison’s laugh was like ice in my bones.

“Right again, Miss Donovan. How right you are.” He looked at me, a mischievous glint in his eye that told me that he was now toying with me.

I sighed. “The question, Doctor.” Exasperation was laced through my voice, something that my mother would have pulled me into a the kitchen and scolded me for without hesitation.

“Ah. Yes, the question. Anastasia Donovan, I am in desperate need of your assistance.”

“I already told you that I am a far cry from being that desperate, Mr.Morrison.” I protest, daring a step backwards towards the door.

“Doctor, Miss Donovan. I beg of you. If we are to work together, you must respect me enough to use the title I have learned.

I paused, considering his choice of words. It no longer seemed as though he wished for me to sell my body to him, but with his avoidance of specifics, I have no idea what it his he does want of me. “What sort of work would we be doing, exactly.”

“My last nursing assistant quit. Moved onto better things after I forced her onto her feet. I am simply offering you the same opportunity that I gave to her.”

“So you’re offering me a job. A real job.”

“Is that not what I said?” Morrison tilted his head, looking at me as though I was a test subject that he wanted to poke and prod.

But I was desperate back then, you see. And I was not able to resist the thought of a bed to sleep in and food in my belly.

So I took the offer.

And my life changed forever.

~*~

Thirty days into my service to Dr. Morrison, I had discovered that the business of saving lives was often also the business of losing them.

Every time that he would lose a patient in his efforts to save them, Morrison would curse the skies and plead with them to allow the patient to return.

He would tell them what he had told me.

That it was not yet their time.

It occurred to me that the doctor was indeed mad, though I never did voice this concern whilst in his presence.

And so I watched him struggle through the reality of both life and death and restrained myself from following him from the home when he would leave for fresh air after a particularly bad day.

The madness of Dr. Morrison was my new reality, and with it came the strange happenings of his practice. His rounds were made in the dead of night, when no one was awake to see his movements.

No one but me.

I laid awake each night, listening for the sound of the front door as the good doctor came and went.

Hours would pass between the time of his departure and the time of his return.

The next morning was always a somber one. He would move  about the house in a quiet daze, almost completely ignorant of reality.

And with his dazed state came my peaked curiosity.

I allowed weeks to pass in this same routine-Mr. Morrison’s strange behavior by day and my own less than fulfilling company by night- before I finally allowed for myself to follow in his less than inconspicuous movements.

He waited until midnight-as though there was something terrible that he wanted to hide.

As for me-I waited my time as well- until I watched him go around the bend through my upstairs window and disappear into the night.

Rushing down the staircase and trying my best not to tear the already mended hem of my dress, I ran after him into the cold, looking to the world-I’m sure- like a whore running after a client who had forgone payment.

I found him standing in the middle of the road at the corner of Castle Court and Poppin Street , staring into the distance as though he was waiting on something he knew was coming. Pressing my body against the brick of a shop’s exterior, I watched in awe as the doctor spread his arms, seeming to summon the stars from the sky as hundreds of balls of light flew towards him through the darkness.

It was over as quickly as it began-the lights disappearing the moment they connected with his silhouette.

He hunched over, seeming to grapple for breath. When he straightened, he turned to look straight at me.

“I know you’re there, Miss Donovan. Step into the light.”

Reluctantly I obeyed, at a loss for words as I internally grappled with the witchcraft I had just bore witness to. They would hang us both for this. “What are you?” I asked, my voice shaking as I asked the painfully obvious question.

Damon Morrison tilted his chiseled head, staring at me with the once pale eyes that had now turned black. “Is that really the question that you want to ask of me?”

I gritted my teeth. “ Yes.”

“If you must know, I am the thing all men fear. The thing you wished for so adamantly in that alleyway. I am death.”

“And I’m her Royal Majesty.” I retorted.

“Do not believe me if you wish. But whether you believe in what I am saying or not, this much is true: I am tired, Miss Donovan. And it is time I pass this burden on to you.” He was close-so dangerously close as he took my face in his hands.

He breathed something into my being in that moment-though I would not be able to place it even now. He gave me that smile that I had come to be so annoyed yet bemused by and looked at me with a tired sorrow that I had never before noticed.

“I’m sorry. I am so very sorry.” He stepped away, far enough that I could no longer see the fear in his eyes as the darkness shrouded his features. “But I must rest. I have been awake for far too long.”

I wanted to cry out- to beg him to stay.

I wished that there was something I could do to help him as his form began to fade.

Before me, the man who had become my savior crumbled to dust, leaving me alone in this world with nothing but a house and an immortal gift that sent me walking to the corner of Castle and Poppins each night at midnight.
The next morning, the doctor himself had been forgotten by all in London, and all his credentials ad seemed to have passed to me.

I spent the next years of my life in that house, serving the needy of London’s center and keeping the legacy of Doctor Damon Morrison alive.

Barely half a century passed before I was forced to leave the bustle of Sycamore street behind.

I had lingered for too long.

It wasn’t until I met Harrison Jenkins nearly two centuries later that I was free of his curse. And even then, I did not pass the lonely burden on.

It was-rightly so-a fate worse than death itself.

Death was not a man. That was first thing he learned while in my service,

She was not cruel, or beautiful or experienced.

She was not her title.

Death was a young woman.

And she was me.