Chapter Text
I come with knives
I come with knives
And agony
To love you
Lydia Martin left her first session with Dr. Seward, feeling the tiniest flicker of hope deep within her. She’d left the mansion today and gone to get help. That was not a small thing. Right? She’d say God bless Lyle, except that she wasn’t sure she had it in her to believe in God anymore.
The whispers grew in volume, enough that she could make out some words of warning.
Lydia flinched, but the death she was sensing wasn’t because someone was about to die. It was… it was the other kind that she sensed. She wasn’t sure that was better.
Suddenly a boy stepped in front of her, blocking her path. “Death ribbon, mum?”
He was offering her a black ribbon for Tennyson, but Lydia could barely hear the words he was saying. The boy in front of her resembled Fenton, and she couldn’t stop staring at him. It wasn’t the shape of his face so much as it was the paleness, and those unforgettable eyes.
Lydia didn’t want to think about it. The vampires were gone, right? The ones that took Allison. She really didn’t want to think about it, so she distractedly bought a ribbon from the boy, if only to have an excuse to get away from him without being rude.
But then she heard it. “Beloved,” he called her as she walked away. Lydia froze, fear welling up inside her. No, she silently begged.
Despite herself, she turned around. He was staring at her, a creepy smile on his youthful face. Lydia stared back, green eyes wide, jaw clenched tight. The boy turned his back on her and walked away.
Lydia shivered. If only she were human, then maybe she wouldn’t feel so hunted all the time. Maybe she wouldn’t be hunted. Besides, these incarnations of evil were only interested in her because she was a banshee – or so she assumed.
Lydia was just starting to admire the spider collection (to her delight, ranging from tiny and dangerous to big and friendly), drawn to it by memories of Joan calling her “little spider,” when the voices in her head started a clamor. Lydia held her breath, not wanting to scream inside the museum, but it wasn’t that kind of death.
No, no one was about to die. Instead, someone whose hands must be drenched in blood was here. The feeling of death hammering into her senses was so strong that she could only conclude that the source of the voices’ panic was a supernatural being. According to the voices, whoever the killer was was approaching Lydia.
Heart in her throat, the young banshee slowly turned her head to the side, trying to follow the voices. She didn’t see anyone approaching her, she didn’t even see anyone looking at her, but the voices were practically screaming at her to run, run, run.
Lydia could feel her heart pounding rapidly. She felt dizzy; she felt sick with fear. As casually as she could, in case the murderer was watching where she couldn’t see, she turned from the spiders, intending to go home.
A man’s voice stopped her, spoken out loud and coming from behind her. Lydia inhaled sharply and jumped about a foot in the air. She whirled to look at the man. He hadn’t noticed. Whoever he was, he was focused on the arachnids. He was clearly talking to her, even as he babbled away.
Then he turned towards her, expecting an answer. Lydia hadn’t heard him over the rushing in her ears and the panicked voices still yelling at her to get away.
“Sorry?” She murmured.
“Oh, I was just saying that the most dangerous ones are the smallest, Miss…”
She took the hint, trying to suppress her terrified trembling. “Martin. Miss Lydia Martin.”
He graced her with a smile, and proceeded to ramble about arachnids again. Lydia did her best to ignore the cacophony inside her head and focus on his words. It was all very interesting, actually.
“You’d think this one would be the most dangerous, with his enormous fangs.” He said, pointing to an unusually large tarantula. She actually knew most species of tarantulas to be gentle, but she didn’t tell this stranger that, lest it give too much of herself away.
“Why do you think I’m interested in the dangerous ones?” Lydia asked with genuine curiosity, and a modicum of apprehension.
“Everyone is,” the man said as if it were obvious. “They imagine them crawling over their bodies as they sleep.”
Honestly, that didn’t sound so bad to Lydia. She liked spiders, scorpions, and the lot. Of course, she pretended to be just as repulsed as most everyone else. She’d learned that lesson long ago: lie about who and what you are, or you will suffer.
“That’s what draws most people in,” he continued, momentarily tilting his head, “the fear. You don’t see them lining up to look at the sheep. More’s the pity – glorious animals,” he made eye contact for a moment, as if he could convince her by sincerity alone that sheep were so impressive.
“They love the tooth and claw. The predators. Would you like to touch one?” He asked congenially, looking at her with a hint of interested excitement. He seemed ready to reach into the case to pull out one of the spiders.
“A predator?” She asked, a hint of her old teasing in her tone.
The man corrected her, ever earnest, “A spider. A venomous one, in particular.”
Lydia smiled for the first time in months, feeling proud of her secrets for the first time in her life. It was a small, shy thing, but it was still a real smile. “I have.”
He was surprised. “You’ve touched one before?” He asked, sounding impressed.
Lydia’s smile grew. She answered honestly but casually, “Yes.” She had touched many dangerous insects and small creatures.
She would have felt relaxed if it weren’t for her banshee powers going haywire. The dead didn’t seem to want her here – they seemed to hate the man who was being kind to her, actually. That didn’t make sense.
Lydia’s smile faltered as she realized that what her powers were telling her didn’t make sense. She’d been able to understand them since the cut-wife. No, wait, she was able to understand even before Joan Clayton. She’d been an adolescent the last time she couldn’t comprehend her own powers.
The man noticed – she could tell by the way he was watching her and the way his own smile faded a fraction – but he didn’t draw attention to it. Instead, he tried to bring her back into conversation, or just distract her from her troubles. Lydia wasn’t quite sure, but she was grateful all the same.
Once he had her attention again, he continued as if there hadn’t been a disheartening lapse. “Don’t tell me you’re a zoologist.”
Lydia’s smile was back, this time with teeth. Fuck the voices of the dead. The man was perfectly charming and friendly. There was no need for her to fear him.
“No,” she huffed a laugh, “But you are.”
He gave a wry close-lipped grin, eyes closing briefly. She’d caught him out. She wondered if he was embarrassed about his rambling. If he was, he didn’t need to be. She enjoyed it.
“Doctor Alexander Sweet, hello.” The man – Dr. Sweet – introduced himself. “I’m the boss here, more or less. Director of Zoological Studies.” He turned to gaze upon his domain. “Noah in his ark.”
Lydia watched Dr. Sweet, charmed. She hadn’t stopped smiling, which was a bloody miracle, in her own opinion.
“But,” she couldn’t help but point out, “Noah’s animals were living.”
“Oh, I think of these ones as alive. Just quiet.” He smiled at her, soft and sincere. Lydia returned it.
“Taxidermy!” He exclaimed out of nowhere, dark eyes lighting up.
Lydia’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Sorry?” She echoed herself from earlier.
“Your hobby. That’s where you’ve touched a venomous spider!” Lord help him, but he looked so excited, like he’d sussed out a compelling secret.
“No,” Lydia told him, and it wasn’t a lie. She’d touched many spiders, benign and dangerous, but all of them had been alive. She wasn’t going to share those details, though. In order to distract Dr. Sweet from trying to figure out where she’d really touched a spider before, she gave him a fraction of the truth.
“But I did practice it as a child,” Lydia glanced away, feeling sheepish.
When she looked back at the friendly doctor, she found him looking at her like he’d just found a kindred spirit. “So did I. That’s where I fell in love with all this.”
And there he went, babbling away again. Lydia didn’t mind, nor did she tune him out. She listened to every word, fascinated by the topic and the knowledge he so openly shared. He was practically radiating his deep, abiding love for his field. She could almost feel it on her skin.
“If only we would stop and look, and wonder.” Lydia wasn’t sure if he noticed exactly how profound that was.
“Do you have a favorite?” She quietly asked.
“Not meant to, but mostly the unloved ones. The unvisited ones.” He admitted. “The cases that get dusty and ignored. All the broken and shunned creatures.”
Despite herself, Lydia was enthralled, enchanted.
“Someone’s got to care for them,” he said, quiet and still earnest, but no longer filled with bouncing energy. “Who shall it be if not us?”
He looked at her again. Lydia held his gaze. Strangely, she did not feel the need to break the stare and run, no matter how much the dead were wailing at her inside her mind.
“I agree,” Lydia whispered.
She could not quite decipher the way he was looking at her now. It was different from before, but she didn’t understand the emotion behind his gaze, nor could she guess at what he was thinking.
Then the moment was broken. One of the doctor’s colleagues had come up to call him away, saying he was needed. She watched him go, torn between confusion and intrigue. She didn’t even mind that he’d forgotten her name.
As he walked away from her, the voices in her head quieted down. Lydia scowled, vexed at the absolute lack of sense her powers made. She’d been able to understand the nuances of being a banshee for years now – she’d even figured out Dorian Gray, though she hoped the man that simultaneously repelled and touched death never found out. So why did her banshee powers suddenly not make sense?
With an almost silent huff of annoyance, Lydia batted away loose strands of strawberry blonde hair from her eyes. She looked once more at the spider collection, then turned on her heel and left. It wasn’t that difficult to refrain from looking in the direction Dr. Sweet had left, not with the relief of the dead ringing their blessed quiet in her head.