The Infernal Devices Reimagined

To Be Nothing

In the beginning, she had refused to cry out. It couldn't have been so bad. All they had done was shackle her to her bed, no torture or anything. They even brought her food, and let her out of her chains to eat and use the lavatory. But after the first week, Jessie's resolve had broken. So many days of staring at the plain walls and staring at the walls had turned her mind numb. Had it truly been days, or had she just been there for an hour? Her mind could not puzzle it out.

From what Jessie could tell, the shackles were bolted quite loosely to the wall. After three hours of struggling, she knew that to be a false assessment. Then, Jessie tried crying out, screaming till her throat turned raw. Someone must have heard her, but if they did, they did not care. Jessie wanted to cry, but she could not find the strength to do so.

Day after day, laying on a bed, unmoving. In complete darkness, she stared at the wall in front of her and tried to pick out the marks and scuffs in the paint because she could not find anything else to do with herself. Jessie knew with a certainty that she would die on that bed, staring at the ceiling. How poetic that Jessamine Lovelace, who had wanted to be nothing but a lady, would die looking like a shadowhunter. The irony of it made her want to claw her eyes out, but what else could she do? Nothing but pull at her shackles and cry out as her skin bruised and blued. It was all pointless. Why should she try to stay alive? Jessie stopped eating, stopped thinking, stopped hoping. She closed her eyes and waited to die.

There was something bright in front of her eyes. Heaven. I've died, it's finally happened. Eagerly, Jessie pulled them open, but she had no such luck. The ceiling above her was still beige and browning, and her hands were still shackled to the wall, though now the lights were on. That was good, perhaps. A change.

The door flew open, and a girl wandered in. She was small and thin, fourteen at most. Her ratty brown hair was shortly cut, and eyes cavernous. Pinched between two dainty fingers she held a set of keys. Holding them up, she clanged them together.

"Are you here to free me?" Jessie choked out. The girl said nothing. With baited breath, Jessie watched as the girl slid her key into the keyhole and was amazed when they fell free. Tentatively, Jessie rubbed her chatted wrists and sat up straight. The motion made her back ache. "Why are you doing this?" Jessie asked. She ran her hands over her legs and arms to get the blood moving and remove the numbness from them.

The girl said nothing once again. She left the room and came back in a few moments later holding a dress. By then Jessie was on her feet and desperate for answers, but never did a sound escape the girl's mouth. Six other girls fluttered into the room carrying hot water for a bath, similarly small and thin. The last girl locked the door behind her.

One of them pulled aside a screen to reveal a bath. Jessie had been in utter darkness for so long that she hadn't realized that there were other things in that room. Quickly, the girls poured out their buckets of water into the tub, then walked over to Jessie and made her go in the bath. Seeing them up close, Jessie saw that their sockets held no eyes. Automatons! She wanted to scream. The automaton girls furiously scrubbed her skin and hair like she was a particularly grimy stain. They scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin turned red and head pounded.

After her torture of a bath, the automaton girl's got to work dressing Jessie. One of them brushed her hair while two tied her corset and the other silently left. The corset girls pulled and pulled the corset until Jessie couldn't breathe and cried out, then some more. When they had sufficiently freed her lungs of all the air in them, the girls got to work putting the dress on Jessie. It was long sleeved and cream colored with flowery detailing. The underskirt was a teal color, the same as the bows that adorned the bodice.

Standing behind her, the girl combed and styled Jessie's hair into a massive puffy bun with a few tight ringlets. The girls put a white feathered hat on her head, slid long gloves onto her hands, and laced boots onto her feet. When it was all done, they gave her not a moment not look herself in the mirror before they marched her out the door.

The place she emerged into was not as decrepit as Jessie had thought it would be. There were large skylights that flooded the building in sunlight. Jessie saw that she was on the top floor of an enormous two-story manor. The girls led her down the grand staircase to a ballroom with large windows. Through them, you could see lush forestry unheard of in smoggy London. Where am I? The girls did not allow her to admire the scenery and steered her towards a table for two. A man was already seated there, drinking from a blue china tea set. Jessie's blood hardened. She was a prisoner here. She could not forget that amidst all the pretty dresses and fancy manors.

Tentatively, Jessie took her place on the seat designated for her. The man sitting opposite to was looking away out the window. His profile seemed familiar to her somehow. Having done their duty, the automaton girls curtsied and left. When they left, the man finally turned to look at her. Jessie nearly gasped. That man was none other than Nathaniel Gray. Before she could say a word, Mr. Gray started speaking.

"I know you must be confused, Ms. Lovelace," he said, "I assure you that all your questions will be answered, in time."

"Answer me this first, Mr. Gray," Jessie demanded, "Why are you standing here with Mortmain, and not with your sister, where ever she may be?"

"Ms. Lovelace, there are some things you must know-"

"All I must know is that you have betrayed your own family and those who have saved you!" Jessie stood up. The automaton girls came back into her vision, but Mr. Gray waved them away.

"I understand that you feel betrayed, Ms. Lovelace, but you must understand, the shadowhunters are not what you believe them to be."

"And you understand the shadowhunters better than I do, of course?" Jessie could feel her face growing hotter. It would be looking terribly blotchy, then. Not pretty at all. She had to calm herself as soon as possible, for Mother always said that a lady must look her best at all times.

"Ms. Lovelace, the shadowhunters are not what they pretend to be. Instead of protecting mundanes and downworlders, they look down upon them as though they are the filth of the streets. So deep they are in their arrogance that they not once considered a lowly mundane could outwit them. They were bound to be eradicated at some point, Ms. Lovelace. All Mr. Mortmain is doing is speeding up the process. And you, as a woman who has suffered greatly from the shadowhunters' cruelty, well, we considered that you might be of a mind to assist us."

"What are you suggesting?"

"As I see it, you have two paths before you, Ms. Lovelace. You may either agree to spy on the shadowhunters for the Mortmain initiative, or you may rot away in that room. Horribly absolute, I know, but desperate time do call for desperate measures."

"How could you even think of such a thing?" The automaton girls were encircling Jessie once again. She had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming, "I am a shadowhunter!"

Mr. Gray gave her one last, wane look, "Are you, now?" By now the automatons stood all around Jessie. Mr. Gray stood up, signaling that the meeting was over, "I shall give you a week to think it over, Ms. Lovelace. Do think carefully." At that, she was swept away, back to her prison. Jessie looked only at where she was headed to keep from turning to look at Mr. Gray again. There had been something off about him, different in his manner. For some unknowable reason, Jessie could not believe that the man she had known all too briefly at the Institute could betray his sister so. Or perhaps that was all a show? Wouldn't Ms. Gray see through it? He was her brother, after all.

The automatons girls echoed Mr. Gray words of 'a week to think it over', then slammed it shut, leaving Jessie in the same darkness she had come to hate. Though now she could move, perhaps that could be considered an improvement. Feeling through the dark, she sat down on the bed and sighed, shoulders drooping. Why had they given her a week to think it over, in any case? They surely knew what her answer would be, and it was no. She was a shadowhunter, and she would not betray her own. Are you, now? Mr. Gray's words would not stop echoing in her mind. AreyounowAreyounowAreyounowAreyounowAreyounowAreyounowAreyounow. Jessie fell back and felt hot tears forming in her eyes. No, she wasn't. She wasn't a shadowhunter, and she couldn't be a lady, either. She was too emotional, Mother was always saying, too loud, too opinionated, too much, too much, always too much. Well, if she wasn't a shadowhunter, and she wasn't a lady, what was she?

As her tears spilled onto the knitted quilt she lay on, Jessie thought she knew the answer: nothing.