Victorian Boy || l.s. ✔︎

CHAPTER X

"‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire." 

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

They tied their cloaks around their shoulders and reached for their walking sticks—both with horse head handles, Harry's in silver, Louis' in gold.

The rain was heavy enough to drown in.

Harry shielded his face, doing everything he could to protect himself from the downpour, while Louis forged ahead unperturbed. He swept into the forest as though in collusion with the wind and part storm himself.

The grass was slick beneath their boots as they traversed the garden. Two bent trees formed an opening to the woods like a hellmouth. Harry sank into the mud, the soaking earth threatening to swallow him whole with each step.

What was he thinking following a possible murderer into the forest in the middle of the night? Not a soul knew they were out there. Louis could kill him and be in bed before breakfast without anyone being the wiser.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked, wet branches clawing at his cloak like the fingernails of a witch.

Louis hopped over a log. "My father always said 'if you want to catch a fox, you have to think like one.'"

"My father always said, 'stay out of the rain, you'll die of pneumonia.'"

They went deeper and deeper into the woods. There was no pathway and even if there were one, it would be imperceptible in the dark. Louis didn't appear to be following landmarks either. He knew the place intuitively, the way one navigates a dreamscape.

The deeper they walked into the woods, the heavier the foliage, until in blotted out the night sky completely. Harry could only make out vague shapes and shadows. When they reached what felt like the deepest, darkest part of the forest, Louis stopped.

There was nothing there.

He's going to kill me, Harry thought. The Duke of Warwick is mad as a hatter and means to butcher me tonight.

Louis kneeled down and swept away a pile of leaves to reveal a mound of earth with an opening on the side.

Harry crouched down beside him and swallowed. "A grave?"

"No," he laughed, "a fox den." He then proceeded to crawl inside. "Come on."

"Goodness gracious, I'll soil my breeches!"

Louis grabbed his hand and pulled him in.

It may not have been a grave but the space was no wider than a coffin. They had to cram together cheek to cheek in order to fit.

Louis lit a match.

As his eyes adjusted, Harry realized that this was not an ordinary fox den. There were trinkets, toys, and maps of the colonies lining the mud walls. Louis' flame met a small candle in a tarnished brass holder bubbled over with dried wax. He rested it by their heads.

"This place was much more spacious when I was a child."

"You did this?"

He nodded. "It was my second bedchamber growing up."

"My parents would never let me sleep outside."

"Neither would mine."

"You disobeyed them?"