Shadows in the Smoke S2E11 - "Save a Dance for Me"

Shadows in the Smoke Season 2 Episode 11 - "Save a dance for me"

Kim

Shadows in the Smoke is intended for mature audiences and may contain material that some people find disturbing. Please see the episode description for content warnings and listen with care. 

[Shadows in the Smoke theme music ]

Let us return to the Unscene and the Bitter End in Whitechapel. Nat, please describe Nanette, sweet natured and petite. How do we know Nanette is doing this because she has no other choice. 

Natalia

Nanette rises on her toes as she kisses her caller on the cheek and sends him outdoor. Despite how small her body is, she falls heavily onto the bed. She separates the coins on the nightstand and puts them in a pouch which she tucks underneath her mattress. The bills, instead, she folds and places in an envelope with a letter to her father. It tells him about the wonderful time she's having caring for the Enfield children and how she hopes her last letter contained enough money to buy a cordial for mother's worsening cough. She promises to visit soon and sends the letter on its way.

[mooy ambience]

Kim

Oh, hunters of Hargrave House. There are many things to contend with this evening. You had prepared for the Cursed, this transformed creature that you once called Mister John Augustus Hutchinson -- who knows what other names. You intend to save him from himself tonight. What you did not expect was that the Cursed would be pursued by hunters who have heard a tale of a horrible beast stalking London and who wish to make it a most excellent trophy.

We see them now, these hunters, many rifles trained upon the writhing, wriggling, monstrous body of the Cursed. We hear another crack of gunfire, and this beast startles into a violent, unpredictable panic,

[intermittent string music]

 not caring who it strikes, not caring who it eats. This situation is going to get out of control. There may not be a mister John alive to save. What are you all doing?

Natalia

The crack of gunfire sends Maesie running down the stairs, and her eyes are black before she even knows what she's doing. And she stands in the doorway and sees all these guns trained on the Cursed and on the house. She decides that this is not a fight that she wants these people present for. And she begins to redirect the fog back out towards them in the hopes of choking them all to death with it.

T.

(laughing) Oh.

Madeleine

(wheezing laugh) Oh, no.

Kim

Okay. I believe this falls under your hydromancy that you've gained from your Cosmic Passage. This is going to be a Night Move sensitivity, with advantage because of your Cosmic Passage. What are you afraid will happen if you fail?

Natalia

I am afraid that all I will succeed in doing is dissipating the fog to make it easier for them to kill Hutch.

Kim

Miss Douglas, it's worse than that. You will succeed in redirecting this now poisonous fog, but it won't go towards the big game hunters. It will go into Hargrave House, suffocating and killing everyone inside. Please make the night move with sensitivity. Let me look at your conditions.

I feel like "sea longing" is one that we could call upon here, especially given your... I hesitate to call her a patroness, '

Natalia

(laughs)

Kim

-- but I suppose whoever gave you newfound life deep in the ocean, she does not care what souls you take. So this will be a straight roll. 

Natalia

Cool. Two 5s is 10 plus three is 13.

Kim

Oh my. I was intending for the big game hunters to be more of an ever present threat this evening, but

Natalia/Madeleine

(laughing)

Kim

-- a 13 is a 13. Miss Douglas, what happens to these poor individuals? 

[soft droning, dense fog ambience]

Natalia

The fog that had settled once more on the ground at the beating of the Cursed's wings begins to thicken once again, and it rises. And it becomes so dense that these hunters begin to lose sight of their comrades next to them. They can hear each other moving in the fog, but they can't see anything and they are worried to move forward lest they run into the Cursed itself. And what they don't realize is that as they breathe it in, it begins to fill and condense within their lungs, drowning them on land.

Kim

For several uncomfortable seconds, all we hear are slurping, gurgling sounds from both the Cursed as well as the drowning big game hunters. There are now several dead drowned bodies on your front lawn. But Hunters, you have more important things to concern yourselves with, namely the Cursed that is currently battering in the sides of Hargrave House. We hear the crack of wood and brick as a former Hunter tries to enter a place it once called home. What are the rest of you doing?

Madeleine

Branford raises her whistle to her mouth and blows. And as soon as she does, it doesn't arrive the way note does. It arrives the way weather does. 

[a low distant rumble

First, there's nothing at all, and then there's something underneath the toes of both Maesie and Brantford standing in that front room, below hearing in the floor, in the soles of their feet, in the backs of their teeth, someone a house over has a sudden pain in their jaw that they can't explain. And then the house finds the pitch and the shaft of the fireplace, the chimney rising up through the entire house, takes the sound, and it comes like water filling a well from beneath, and the whole column speaks at once. Three stories of air, stone, and open flues sounding one note together so low that it is less a sound, than it is a condition of the building. The window panes begin to buzz. Dust comes off all of the pictures in a fine gray curtain. Branford grabs Maesie's arm and says, 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

I believe we must to the roof. The sound will lead it there.

Madeleine

Somewhere above a door that was propped open swing slowly shut again and again, the house vibrating at the same frequency. Rebekka is keeping even -- exactly as she was told, two floors down in the dark -- where she can't hear what she's making, but we all know what's happening above. 

Kim

Incredible. Instead of ceaselessly, mindlessly attacking the walls of Hargrave House, we now hear this very very methodical rhythm that the Cursed has taken on. We hear these light sucker sounds as the Cursed reaches out with its many tentacles and starts wrapping around the brickwork and the molding of Hargrave Hargrave House climbing up the side of the building towards the ramparts and parapets. Brother Samuel, Miss Thanero. What are the two of you doing?

Cassandra

After Ena gazed into the sapphire and beheld what fate would commence this evening, she calmly, quietly, almost languidly makes her way up to the rooftops to meet Brother Samuel with her spear and Aegis already in her hands.

T.

She emerges to find Brother Samuel in the midst of constructing his apparatus. The bars of this cage have all been twisted and rent into claw like shapes instead of a nice even bell. It appears more to be a grasping hand, and each bar is being etched painfully and methodically with an awl and hammer runes on every bar. 

Brother Samuel (T)

I am almost ready, my my lady.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)

Good work, Brother Samuel.

Brother Samuel (T)

Thank you, my lady. It is an honor to be called upon to service my--

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)

Now now, Brother Samuel. There will be time for you to fawn later. Stay your hand and keep working.

Brother Samuel (T)

Quite. It may take a moment for the ritual's effects to, uh - produce a tangible result. So if the Doctor's plan accelerates things, I I trust you to be able to abjure the creature until such time as it is complete.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)

I shall be ever at the ready, but I wouldn't worry too much.

Brother Samuel (T)

Of course not. 

T.

And he finishes making a rune and then produces a candle from within his person and lights it and then begins fixing it in various parts of the battlements.

Kim

It takes some time, you say, to set off this ritual. Interesting. Very interesting. Doctor Branford and Miss Douglas, you hustle up the many stairs arriving at the ramparts and parapets of Hargrave House, joining Miss Thanero, Brother Samuel, and this enormous transformed cage. You arrive just in time to see the Cursed, make landfall upon the roof of Hargrave House and -- subdued as it is, even so -- this creature was put on this earth with a purpose, a divine purpose, to kill Miss Thanero. And so it wraps one of these tentacles around her throat. Let us go to the next unseen prompt. Madeleine, please describe Candace whose three children live with her in the brothel. In what ways has Candace tried create a normal life for them here?

[soft chamber music]

Madeleine

Candace lives in the smallest room of the brothel under the condition that her children can live there with her. The walls, whitewashed by hand, small flowers stenciled along the center of the walls. There's a stretch near a corner where one of the girls tried to help and the flowers are misshapen, but still full of color. Each cot on the floor has a small box next to it filled with their personal items. Hand sewn dolls made from scraps of old dresses from the other girls in the house. One made of tattered red velvet, another from a soft calico. Sister Mary Edward Price visits this room tonight like she does every week to teach the girls Bible studies. The eldest has learned to read this way, for it is their only book. They have a schedule and they keep it no matter the cost. They eat at the same time. They wash before they eat in the bucket, scrubbed clean, and every night they pile into Candace's straw cot, the smallest of all of them, and they all pick a section to read together.

Kim

We return to the rooftops of Hargrave House. Miss Thanero, it is unclear whether you can die, but the curse is certainly making a very good attempt at it right now. What are you doing?

Cassandra

Ena does not reach up to pull this tentacle from her throat. She instead quickly whips her spear across it, severing the tentacle and throwing Aegis toward the Cursed in a long, beautiful, magnificent loop aiming for its wolf-like head. 

Kim

Alright. This is going to be a night move with vitality.

Cassandra

I think I'm gonna go ahead and spend my hold and just make it a 12 +. I'm not gonna give you an opportunity to make it worse for me.

Cassandra/T.

(laughing)

Cassandra

 I've heard enough. 

Kim

How dare you use the tools that I give you? 

Cassandra

I know. Imagine.

Kim

Please describe the vision that you saw and tell me what happens.

Cassandra

In the vision, the curse has reached the rooftops. Doctor Branford is ready and waiting to move as is Maesie, whose eyes are black as she is in her Curse of the Deep state. When that tentacle wraps around Ena's throat, she does not cower. She's calm, and she takes her spear, severs it, throws Aegis as Maesie throws a wave of water at the Cursed. She snaps the spear and charges, darting across all of the little chimneys that line the top of Hargrave house and wraps that cord around the Cursed's horse like legs and yanks its feet out from under it and whips it back towards Brother Samuel and the ritual that he has prepared.

Kim

And let us hear of this ritual. Could you please read Brother Samuel's Night Phase move?

T.

Once per phase, you can perform a dark rite. Describe it, then pick one from the list of effects and two from the list of complications.

Kim

Alright. Your effects are banish a spirit or curse from the person, object, or place it inhabits, communicate with someone or something that you do not share a language with, or observe another place or time. And the complications are, you take condition, the Keeper will tell you what, the magic draws immediate unwanted attention, or the magic has a problematic side effect. I can guess the effect that you're going for, but what are you going to try to do tonight, Brother Samuel?

T.

I would like to banish a spirit or curse from the person, object, or place it is inhabiting.

Kim

Lovely. That being Augustus Hutchinson and two complications.

T.

The magic draws immediate unwanted attention. The magic has a problematic side effect.

Kim

Alright. I suppose you can tell me what those are in due time. Tell me, Brother Samuel, what happens here?

T.

This sea creature hurtling toward Brother Samuel, he goes, 

Brother Samuel (T)

Ah- this must be my moment. 

[sustained ambient notes]

T.

He tunes into the instrument that Doctor Branford has turned Hargrave House into playing this sacred chord of the dusk and takes the awl, pierces his own hand with it, utters something in Greek, and then points his hand toward the sky. Everything suddenly goes monochrome in shades of blue and indigo and violet and silver. The Thames seems to warp in to the sky. The clouds part, and it circles around into an enormous pool.

At Samuel's point, the cage levitates into the air. And in English, he says, 

Brother Samuel (T)

Let's land a big one. 

T.

It goes into the pool, disappearing. The chain (chain unravelling vocal sound) that is attached to the bell going high and then ringing taut, it sounds out a note-- 

[higher pitched sound added to ambience]

-- as it catches and then pulls down an enclosed orb within it bound with chains inside the cage, a woman that no one in Hargrave House has ever seen before but one. Her skin dark, her eyes wide.

She looks at the Cursed, looks at the people around her, opens her mouth to say something, and Brother Samuel says--

Brother Samuel (T)

Man and woman is one flesh. Per the terms of the contract transfer this curse to another part of the flesh. 

T.

As the sun sigil glows on the cursed back with a rush of energy, all of the animal-like parts of him being pulled off into the cage, it envelops Constance, the monster bound within this gilded cage, leaving Augustus Hutchinson in his human form on the parapets. He looks up in time to see the last remnants of her human visage fade away, her mouth going 

Constance (T)

Joh--

T.

--and then the jaws elongate into the wolf-like snout. The curse captured in this bauble, it returns to the pool, and the world writes itself back up.

Kim

Let us make our final trip to the brothel in Whitechapel. Cass, please describe Mabel who has gotten a bit "long in the tooth." What does Mabel try to do to keep up with the younger girls?

[soft chamber music]

Cassandra

Sister Mary enters a tattered and worn sitting room. Women and men alike cluster in this space. The bargains of the trade being made as others wait for rooms to open so business may commence. She spies Mabel, prowling through the couples as if stalking her prey. Mabel is no longer a rose in this wretched excuse for a garden. She has begun to wilt. The only thing still youthful on her person are her eyes, still sharp and exceptionally clever. 

Mabel has told Sister Mary many a time that beauty isn't the only way to line your pockets. What she lacks in youth, she more than makes up for in experience. While these silly, vain, young things priss and preen about, flaunting what time will eventually take from them, Mabel has to merely whisper in a John's ear what she's capable of doing to him for him to shuck the company of the younger woman and run to Mabel's room. She'll smile widely at whomever she's poached an hour's earnings from, offer her a wink, and proceed to collect her coin.

[eerie tonal ambience]

Kim

On the rooftop of Hargrave House, we see two figures sputtering, exhausted, lying in a heap together. One is Augustus Hutchinson. The other is a man who looks vaguely familiar. He's wearing a silk robe in iridescent shades of blue and green, which is draped loosely over his shoulders. It is an odd fashion, a style of dress that seems alien to you. A style of dress that to those of us in the twenty first century seems more attuned to the nineteen sixties.

T.

Wh-wh-what? 

Madeleine

Wha?

Cassandra

What?

Kim

This figure stands, lights a cigarette, takes a drag, looks at you through heavy lidded eyes beneath a messy salt and pepper fringe. He nods at each of you in turn and then stoops to pick up a gold glittering sun mask. He slips it on over his face. His clothing changes to the garb that you associate with him. There is a flash of green and he is gone. And for the first time in who knows how long, we see a hint of pink--

[birds chirping]

creeping up at the horizon as the sun begins to rise on London once more. In the yard of Hargrave House, distantly, we hear a couple whistles, sailors' whistles, as a couple craggy, sea-bedraggled men move silently out of the house next door, pick up the twitching, flailing, discarded tentacle from the Cursed and carry it to the house next door. The gold spyglass, high away in an attic window, pays no notice to the front lawn. You pay no notice to the front lawn. Instead, the spyglass trains itself firmly on the rooftop, firmly on this odd reunion between Hunters. What does vice admiral Flagg see? What do we see?

T.

Augustus Beaufort Hutchinson is still in the pirate costume he copped from Theodora Brathwaite. The eye patch, the deep sapphire blue, the hook. He's a little boy dressed up playing pirate, soaking wet, and embarrassed beyond reason. He doesn't dare look up at any of you, but shivers, 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

(coughs)

T.

--coughs up sea water. --

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Did I hurt anyone?

Natalia

Yes. 

Madeleine

Branford approaches with her coat and puts it over his shoulders.

T.

He glances over, doesn't recognize the legs, and then looks up to see you. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

(soft acknowledgement) Doc.

Madeleine

She takes out a small parcel from her pocket and places it into his hand. 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

For a better day.

T.

He starts weeping.

Natalia

Maesie starts weeping too and runs to hold his shivering body in her arms.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

You came back.

T.

He just shakes his head. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Brought back.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

No. 

Natalia

She holds his face in her hands. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

You came back. Thank you.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

(soft laugh) I will never understand you, girl.

T.

 And he gives you a hug back.

Natalia

She just sort of speaks into his shoulder. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Good.

T.

He's, like, shaking with sobs, silently wrecking your body, just trying not to come undone at the seams.

Natalia

She's holding him up with a strength that I don't think he knows she has.

Madeleine

Branford is going to take Brother Samuel by the arm and slowly escort him back into the house. She looks back at Ena and nods and heads inside.

Natalia

After a moment of just holding each other, Maesie finally lets go and squeezes his good hand.

T.

As he pulls away, he catches the sight of your pelt. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Done a lot of work on that thing.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Yeah. I've- I've been trying to fix it. We're almost there.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

You can patch it up. You can repair it. You can cover up the holes and give it some scars. You can cover the thing with scars if you want. 

T.

And he takes his hand and puts it on the side of your face, 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

But it never needed to be fixed because it weren't never broken. You weren't never broken.

Natalia

Silent tears are just falling down Maesie's face.

T.

He gestures to his body. The scars, the brokenness, the one hand. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

You just live with the damage for as long as you can.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

What if I can't live with it anymore?

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Then let it go.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Would you fix it before you go?

[lighthearted harp music]

T.

He takes the pelt in his hands, runs his thumb over some of the skin that has been patched, the sapphire thread, the ice. He looks at her and says, 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

No. But I don't have to. 

T.

And he kisses it to make it better. He gives it back to this girl that reminds him so much of his daughter.

Kim

Miss Douglas, please check the final box on "Severed from the Sea." Your pelt is repaired. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Thanks, Hutch.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Anything for you, darling.

Natalia

She throws her arms around him again.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

I never really like to say it, but I feel like it's coming. So goodbye.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Goodbye, little one. 

T.

He kisses the top of your head, smooths your hair, and then takes the repaired pelt and drapes it over your shoulders. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Save a dance for me, will you?

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

Only if you don't step on my feet.

T.

He just smiles.

Natalia

She walks back inside.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

(deep inhale, exhale)

[guitar chord strums out note by note, then continues slowly]

T

He turns.

Cassandra

While all of that has happened, Ina has quietly snapped her spear back into its cord and retied it at her shoulder. The visage of Aegis has vanished, but her hand still glows gold as she slowly starts to walk towards Augustus.

T.

He sees you on the far side of the rampart and, breathing heavily walks his 10 paces toward you as the sun is starting to rise.

Cassandra

She walks up to meet you and places that glowing hand on the side of your face. 

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)

You are human again. For that, you should be grateful.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Your eyes are different.

Cassandra

She looks down for a moment and then back into his eyes. I have seen many things while you have been absent.

T.

He sizes you up. He knows what's coming. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Feel like I've done enough talking. I'm not gonna see another sunset to ride off into, so do what you gotta do. No hard feelings.

Cassandra

She puts her other hand on the side of his face. 

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)

I wish it could be different, but it can't. And I forgive you being desperate, but you are still a problem. There is still a bargain. And unfortunately, I cannot let you continue to walk this plane.

Cassandra

She leans in and kisses him fully on the mouth, And with that gold glowing hand of Aegis, reaches into his chest, grabs his heart, and pulls it out.

Kim

Alright. A couple things happen. Augustus Hutchinson, you're no longer a true Hunter of Hargrave House, so thus masks and rolls are not resources that are available to you. This simply happens. Miss Thanero, this isn't quite "Taketh Away." While Mister John is no longer a hunter, they are not a side character. So you do not get to mechanically benefit from what it is you are doing here. But I will ask you, how does destroying John make you feel?

Cassandra

As Ena pulls his heart from his chest, there isn't grief or joy or anything that might feel like a positive considering what she's accomplished in neutralizing this threat. Instead, there is just quiet and a little bit of envy for the blackness that Augustus now gets to experience and that she longs for.

[fuller guitar chords]

Kim

Please scar your reflection. How does the masterwork change?

Cassandra

Augustus's body is in that mid transformation currently in the painting. But upon his death, his body morphs into a state of being human collapsed at Ena's feet, one hand limply grazing the water around the cracked pedestal. The spear she'd held at the ready has now been driven into the pedestal as if marking a grave, a thin crack running up the shaft of the spear. The angry waves around the pedestal have calmed slightly, still dangerous, but not an imminent threat. Hutch's face is peaceful, not happy, not redeemed, just peaceful.

Kim

Mister Hutchinson, there is one last thing that you are conscious of in this strange threshold twilight place between living and dead. You feel that emptiness in your chest, and then you feel a weight and a warmth, and you see this very big black cat sitting on your chest. A cat that you recognize, one that used to tail Morgan Lloyd, one that used to have no love for you. Here, it regards you neutrally, all business. Cait simply wishes to hear your last secret before he takes you where you need to go.

T.

Narrate a flashback showing the incident that caused you to go on the run. 

[music change, nostalgic Americana guitar]

After his botched attempts to get to the Pacific, the man calling himself "One Shot John" went back East in search of balm for his misery and wretchedness. Poets and writers and other folk like that. They just made him more miserable and wretched. In '48, he attends the Seneca Falls Convention, listens to Elizabeth Candy Stanton and Frederick Douglass speak. He has a drink with William Lloyd Garrison and after that conversation, dedicates his powers (such as they are) to the cousin justices of suffrage and abolitionism. 

In the winters, he tours the prairie as a trick shot and in the summer he tours the cradle of the civil war speaking to sharecroppers and homesteaders trying to bend them toward the cause. It's during this time he meets John Brown, his King Arthur. The man who puts a broad sword in his hand and enlists him to carry out real action. On October 15, 1859, he's hunkering down in the Kennedy farmhouse four miles north of a one horse river crossing.

He'd been there for six months with nothing to pass the time but drills and Plutarch and the mounting struggle of keeping the evil inside him in check. A struggle that was getting more and more difficult with each passing night. That afternoon, he's drifting off in the warm late sun remembering the last time he saw her. He stands on the balcony feeling the setting sun warm her face, comes up behind her and sets his hands just below her navel. 

Constance (T)

Why you always gotta touch me there?

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

I wanna feel her moving. 

Constance (T)

She never stops. It's incessant. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Hey, this is our life now. 

Constance (T)

Wouldn't have to be if you would let me see my people when we get to Lousiana.

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Stop that talk now. It's too late for that. Don't you want her? 

Constance (T)

I don't want anything to to need me that much. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

What's so wrong with being needed? Don't you think it's good to be in service to something greater than yourself? Me and mine been in service plenty in this fucking country, you ask me. Soon as this baby is born, you and I will become nothing more than servants to a needy god, and I will worship you both. 

T.

She pulls away from him. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

What's wrong with being worshiped?

Constance (T) 

It ain't love. I know you think it is, but it ain't. It's just need disguised as devotion. Love is an exchange between equals. Worship is just a means to keep yourself occupied and think it noble.

T.

He's silent for a moment. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

I know I'm never going to be great. I made peace with that, but I at least might contribute to something greater than me. I want to meet great people so that I can be proud I knew them and help them on their way. To be able to say, “I held the door for her once” or -or “I shook his hand and…”

T.

 He takes a hold of her hand enveloping it in his. They're finally starting to get rough. 

Augustus Hutchinson (T)

Maybe if I'm lucky, some of their greatness can rub off on me and I can be good. 

T.

She takes his face in her hands. 

Constance (T) 

A king's dog is still a dog.

T.

 As the sun sets on Harper's Ferry, the turn is stronger than ever. He can hear the dark haired man's call, a wind blowing to the east that tastes of salt and horses, a threat. “Ignore me and you will keep hurting people.” He tells himself it's for the good of his fellows, but in his heart he knows that it's because he's a coward. Few days later, when he hears that the raid failed, and John Brown is arrested, he decides it's all his fault because he wasn't there to turn the tide. And tail tucked between his legs, he heads back to the Atlantic and books passage aboard a steamer bound for London. On his 30 birthday, as one John ascends the gallows, another crosses a gangplank to heed his master's wishes and carry out his dark purpose.

[resounding transition, into dawn, light piano music]

Kim

Welcome to the dawn.

Madeleine

Oh god. 

Cassandra

I'm not okay. 

Natalia

Everything is awful.

Kim

 How's everyone doing?

T.

But there is a dawn. But but there's sun and there’s light–

Cassandra

But there’s a dawn and the sun will rise

Natalia

Finally

Madeleine

We have dawn finally=

Kim

 A true dawn in London as the sun rises indeed. Oh my goodness, everybody. Well done. Everyone firing on all cylinders today. The first thing we do in the dawn is collect rewards if a threat was resolved.

We resolved “The Cursed,” and thus, each of you may take something from the American’s' personal quarters and add it to your own unmarked

T.

(laughs)loot the body.

Kim

 What does everyone wanna take from Mister John's room?

Cassandra

Am I allowed to take the heart? The... I wanted to stick it back in my box.

Kim

 I like that because you gave that to Hutch. You gave the box with the heart. 

Cassandra

And he gave it back to me.

Kim

Yeah- so,

T.

Mmhmm

Cassandra

 Yeah. So the box is sitting next to the sapphire now, and I would like to keep them as separate items, but I like the idea of putting it back in the box of a former lover.

Kim

Alright. I like that. So go ahead and add Augustus Hutchinson's heart.

Natalia

I think I'd like to take the gramophone.

T.

Of course, you would.

Kim

Doctor Branford?

Madeleine

I will be taking the corpse of Myfanwy. I think Rebekka and I may have some fun with that.

T.

Yeesh.

Kim

I will remind all of you and the listeners that while Hutch did have the personal quarters item, the corpse from the demon of Kilburn Abbey, that corpse is still currently sealed in the wall. So it is more so you have gained access to the corpse, not necessarily the corpse itself.

Madeleine

All I need is access.

Kim

Duly noted. Go ahead and

T.

Double yikes.

Kim

Add that to your personal quarters, she says dubiously. 

Cassandra

I'm nervous.

T.

There's just a whole bunch of eeps and ipes coming from me, gang.

Kim

Well, I fear that the eeps and ipes are going to be continuing. The next thing we do is resolve moves that are resolved in the dawn. So Doctor Branford, what have the resurrectionists brought back for you?

Madeleine

From the dumbwaiter, she removes a small parcel carefully wrapped. It is a pair of lungs. 

Kim

Please describe a pleasant memory associated with lungs.

[light playful piano music]

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

In the cold weather, she'd breathe on the window glass and draw in it for me since I... Well, she always drew the same house, always the same crooked chimney. By the time she'd finished the first one, it had faded, so she'd start again. She must have drawn that house 10,000 times. You know, in certain light, it reminds me now of Hargrave. Perhaps one chimney a little more crooked now after tonight's activities.

Kim

And what item do you get to add to your personal quarters? 

Madeleine

I get to ask another hunter what the resurrection has found and add it to my personal quarters. So T?

T.

Is it regifting if they find the gift that you gave to him and give it back to you? 

Madeleine

No. 

T.

Yeah. I wanna know what it is.

Madeleine

I think Branford directs the Resurrectionists up to the roof and points Harley that way saying, 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

There's something you may need to tend to up there. I don't need any of the body.

Harley White (Kim) 

‘Course, m’am. Did notice something on them, though. Pretty parcel. Don't suppose you want it.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

Oh, right. Yes. I will take that. Thank you. And she unwraps a small music box. It has already been wound. She strikes the lever, and we hear the notes of “Home! Sweet Home,” a song Hutch used to sing to annoy her. But she would catch him humming in his spare time when he thought he was alone. As these notes ring out in the early morning, Rebekka Salomon emerges from behind the mirror. Her expression is inscrutable. 

Rebekka Salomon (Kim)

We need to discuss your little project.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

I take it you touched something?

Rebekka Salomon (Kim)

Well, you did keep me down there for an awful long time before you blew that whistle. 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

It has been a long night. Can we discuss this in the morning, or do we need to resolve things now? 

Madeleine

And Branford fingers the scalpel on her chatelaine.

Kim

Salomon clocks that, smirks. 

Rebekka Salomon (Kim)

My dear friend, I was always the quicker hand even if yours was the steadier. No. You may put that away. I find that all things are clearer in the light, but we will discuss it.

Madeleine

Branford steps back and lets her pass. She holds her hand out. 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

You are forgetting my key. 

Kim

She places it in your hand. 

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

I owe you everything.

Rebekka Salomon (Kim)

 I know. Don't you forget it. Sleep well, dear.

Dr. Branford (Madeleine)

I always do.

Kim

 Let us go to Dawn questions. 

[light piano]

Really only relevant for Doctor Bradford at this point, I would say, but I'll go ahead and ask them anyway. Did we answer a question?

All

Yes. Yes.

Kim

Did we resolve a threat?

All

Yes. Yes.

Kim

Did we get echoes in the night? I know many of you can't mark experience, but I still like echoes to happen when we may.

Madeleine

No. I had one, and I just didn't do it.

Cassandra

I didn't. 

Natalia

I sort of did. It wasn't intentional, but T. pointed it out that Georgina dying of consumption would be drowning all those people on land sort of equivalent circumstances. 

Kim

Oh, yeah. I'll allow it.

T.

It was so, like, this specific wording that you were, like, drowning in their lungs, and I was like, oh, I see what you're doing.

Natalia I did. I... You do not see what I was doing because I was not doing that.

Cassandra

I was not doing it.

Kim

 I'll allow it, especially because no one else got echos tonight. Doctor Branford, did you dismiss the possibility of a supernatural explanation despite everything that you have experienced?

Madeleine

Oh, yes. At my séance.

Kim

And did you secretly engage in romantic or emotional behavior at odds with your aloof logical exterior? 

Madeleine

I trusted Rebekka in my secret space. 

Kim

You also wanted to protect her, from being killed by-

Madelene

Yes. Gotta keep my precious in the basement.

Kim 

Do you level up?

Madeleine

So close. One away.

Kim

We shall end our dawn with our Informals prompt. T, who shall we hear from?

T.

Let's keep hanging out with Brother Samuel.

Kim

Oh, let's.

T.

Narrate a scene in the present day showing how you atone or otherwise gain redemption for the incident that caused your fall from grace. 

T.

It's beautiful. It really is terrible, but beautiful. In that way, it's a perfect likeness of her. He can't help but let tears stream down his face at its magnificence.

Brother Samuel (T)

Thank you. 

T.

He whispers in the space. His voice echoes all around him. 

Miss Thanero (T)

Take your time, Samuel. 

T.

She blesses his name with her tongue.

Miss Thanero (T) 

Once you've gazed upon the master work, there is no more beauty worth beholding in this realm. You know what must come next. 

Brother Samuel (T)

Yes, mistress

T.

He says again, closes his eyes and with a soft kerchief wipes the tears away. 

Brother Samuel (T)

But I wouldn't want to be greedy. Not anymore.

T.

He bows his head as she covers the painting with its curtain once more. He feels the room desecrate and quiet. 

Miss Thanero (T) 

Are you ready? 

T.

She asks him. 

Brother Samuel (T)

Yes, mistress.

Miss Thanero (T) 

We'll see. 

T.

Another servant, one of the women, places the brooch before him on the floor. He holds it up, examining its point in the low light. It gleams with a greed all its own. He spent most of the day wondering about this moment. If he'll do it quickly, gracelessly, brutally, graphically, passionately, dispassionately. He doesn't trust himself to maintain ceremony. Pain has a way of interrupting intentions. He's tempted to perform a ritual to dull the pain for the sake of the performance, but he knows that that is not the purpose. 

He pauses with the point of the pin on the edge of his medial canthus. The pink flesh of his lacrimal gland still seeping a drop of salt water. He inhales deeply, remembers the angle. 23 millimeters to get past the eyeball, three millimeters past the ganglia and the small muscles, five millimeters to pierce the optic nerve, three centimeters all told, right back out. 

Brother Samuel (T)

Έχει κανείς να μην την λύσω εκτός από την Αθήνα;

T.

Pain has a way of interrupting intentions. He doesn't take nearly so long to size up the left. He just wants it to be over. And when the world goes dark, he knows it is. The bowl wasn't needed in the end. The foul jelly stayed in his head, severed from his brain, but still intact. So near and yet, he's bandaged and given a cane and a more seasoned servant guides him out of the museum and onto the streets of London.

It takes some time before his other senses adjust to the absence of sight. It takes longer than he would like to adjust to the stick, but he is patient and he learns. The first day out of his home, he's pick pocketed by either a very hairy child or else a bugbear. The second day, he only falls twice. At the end of the first week, he can navigate from his room to Hargrave House and back without stumbling.

And in very little time at all, he is on the street reading fortunes. Mostly, it's mothers craving blessings for their children or young girls in want of affirmation they won't be alone forever. But occasionally, he finds a gentleman in need of answers to something. These he sends to his mistress.

Kim

Some time passes. Miss Douglas, your pelt is repaired. “Severed from the Sea” reads, when all the boxes are marked, your pelt is completely repaired and you can safely stay in your seal form indefinitely. However, the strange magic needed to restore your connection to the sea has altered your pelt and you greatly. Narrate a scene in which you are swimming with the repaired pelt noting the mystical changes to your appearance and body. And then a question for you to ponder. You may choose right now to swim off and rejoin your undersea brethren, reuniting with your friends and family. If you do so, you must retire this character. If you would like to continue your work at Hargrave House, instead narrate a scene where you return to the streets of London with newfound vigor and interest.

Natalia

Maesie has never been one for goodbyes. In the dead of night, while most of the house sleeps, she climbs out the window in her bedroom and hikes down the trellis to the garden below. She runs giddily, laughter bubbling out of her as she pitches toward the docks. She sheds her clothes hastily and wraps herself in her second skin as she drops off the end of the pier and plunges headfirst into the dark rippling waters of the Thames. It holds her with the familiarity and tenderness of her mother's arms, a feeling she's missed far longer than the pelt has been torn and several tears mixed with the water around her as she hugs herself in a tight ball under the surface.

And then in a blink, she's off legs flapping powerfully towards the salty call of the sea– of her family. The scars of repair melting away in an explosion of iridescent bubbles witnessed only by the unblinking eyes of a flounder buried in the sand at the bottom of the river. She pounds forward, her human lungs no longer screaming for air. With the same abruptness, she stops short. She can feel the icy front before her, the barrier where London's Lady keeps the dark deep reach of she at bay.

And in the silent space, Maesie can hear the whispering hiss of abyssal fissures calling her home. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

No

Natalia

Maesie thinks. 

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

I have a home. 

She of the Primordial Waters (Natalia)

Do not be greedy. 

Natalia

A thousand bubbles spit back.

Miss Douglas (Natalia)

I'm not done yet. 

Natalia

She cries to the black water. She hears another voice, a softer and kind er voice in her head echoing, 

New Voice in Maesie’s Head (Natalia)

Let go little one. 

Natalia

She has lost too much. She turns tail and paddles back to shore faster than the briny claws that reach for her fins and threatened to pull her down into crushing depths she could never return from. As she pulls herself onto the sand and peels the pelt from her skin, it comes away intact, pristine as it once was several years ago. A row of golden stitches wrap themselves along the ribs beneath her right breast, and a column of barnacles rises along her nape above a patch of sapphires rupturing from the skin down the length of her spine as she buttons her blouse. Her bootlaces follow the swinging path of her arms as she skips back to Hargrave House for the night. 

As I am returning to Hargrave House, I no longer have access to the moves Severed from the Sea and Moonlight upon the Waves. I instead unlock Scion of the Ocean. And Keeper, please put the Vengeful into play.

[Shadows in the Smoke theme]

Kim

Shadows in the Smoke is a Kitten Marlowe production. This episode was edited and produced by Kim Dalton and featured a theme song by Jake Pierlie. You can find out more about us by visiting kittenmarlowe.com, signing up for our newsletter, or following us on socials. For discord access, exclusive cast talkbacks, TTRPG materials, and more, visit patreon.com/kittenmarlowe and join our East End ghouls, the kitten marlowe patrons, in supporting artist-driven storytelling. Thanks for listening.