Devil Among Us

If I had another choice—any other choice—I would take it with one simple question: when can I start?

Yes, this is a life that I used to not mind so much in the past. A way to survive is a way to survive, and I’m not particular in how I survive as long as I accomplish doing so. Yet things are different now. If there was ever peace, I have a hard time remembering it. Have atrocities always been made light and comedic by the public? So much so that they sing their songs and make their games with tragedies in mind? If I bet on a horse named ‘Jack the Ripper,’ will it stop him from coming after me?

“Mary, I don’t want you going out there,” Joseph says, like he says every night. “Not until they catch him.”

I don’t stop mussing my hair (I can never get it quite right) while he talks—protests. “You know I can’t Joseph. You’re out of work, so I’m left to keep our apartment paid for. I know that he’s targeting prostitutes—and don’t get me wrong, I am scared about it—but what can I do other than survive and pray?”

“Give me a few days, Mary. We can survive that long, and I’ll look for work. I’ll take any work to keep you off the streets.”

I purse my lips and feel their corners droop into a slight frown. Joseph means well—I know he does in that good heart of his—but he knows better. Our funds are too low. If I don’t earn some money, we won’t have a place to live soon. It isn’t about the murders, either. Not fully. Joseph has a shy way about him, unable to admit that it’s my being a prostitute that bothers him more than having a prostitute murderer roaming the streets of Whitechapel. Poor boy is smitten, but without a way to support a family, let alone himself.

By the time he’s starting another protest with my name at the beginning, I’m halfway through the door with it closing behind me.

-:-

I bring a hand up to feel my right ear. Not to feel anything particular about it, but to ensure that it’s still there. Attached to my head. Emma Elizabeth Smith’s had been torn, and that was when it began. April third revealed a darkness in mankind that left fear free to flow through the streets as everyone wondered why this happened to Emma and how a man so dangerous could be loose on the streets of Whitechapel, able to do what he pleases. The terror didn’t start until more brutal murders continued to take up space in the newspapers, and it hasn’t stopped since then.

Today, I still fear. Though my night has ended and I’m on my way back home, where Joseph is surely waiting, my heart beats a little quicker than it should and I see shadows move when I know they are as stationary as always. But it’s been over a month since the last kill attributed to Jack the Ripper occurred, and I worry that means another body will be found soon. If only I knew how he chose, beyond looking for prostitutes. If only I could stay off the streets like Joseph wants, but we need the money. When he had a job, I could stay away from Whitechapel and in the safety of our apartment. But good things never last. Not for folks like us.

“Pull yourself together, Mary,” I say under my breath. “Seeing things that aren’t there, what would Mum think of you?”

Well, a lot of things. None of them good, I bet.

All night, my thoughts are stuck on the murders of women, some of which I knew. Poor Martha, found in a pool of her own blood. All those stab wounds she had. She might have liked her drinks, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die like that. And then to be exposed in death like that! Nobody deserved that. Any of that, or any of what happened to the other women.

I’ve got to shake these thoughts before I face Joseph again. If he sees me like this and asks what’s wrong, well, I’ve got to tell the truth. I’m a horrid liar, truly. And then he’ll double his efforts at convincing me to stay off the streets. And what will we do then? Where are we supposed to live when we can’t afford to pay the rent?

I take one more deep breath before entering the apartment. Joseph is still awake, as I knew he would be.

“I’ve made it back, Joseph. Safe and alive,” I say. I try to sound light-hearted, but the words keep morbid tone as we both know that the reality could have been very different. Being back alive is more than other women could claim.

“So you are,” he says.

His words sound different tonight, though I’m uncertain why. Unhappiness, most likely. He’s always a touch pouty when he doesn’t get his way, and tonight he didn’t get his way. He didn’t get to keep me in the apartment where I would be safe, but that’s how life goes. It isn’t easy, but we make do.

“I’m heading to bed,” I say, but he doesn’t reply.

Sleep drags my eyes closed quickly, but the door to my bedroom forces them open again. In my doorway, I see Joseph, but he looks different. Darker. I trace his shadowed outline to his right hand where a large knife is clasped. Fear tells me to run, but I’m kept still by his gaze.

“Joseph... You? It was you?”