All stories

They weren’t allowed sweets, but Jess had sneaked in a box of Maltesers and now they’d all get in trouble because Abigail had managed to smear chocolate down the front of her leotard and couldn’t get it off.

She was crying silently, cheeks turning an ugly mottled red as she frantically tried to scrub off the stain using her own saliva.

Olivia had known better than to eat any. Jess was new and hadn’t had to visit the cellar yet and it wasn’t Jess who’d have to face Miss Sabrina. Abi would never tell, and the empty box had been flung through the dressing room window into the street.

The air traced icy fingers along the girls’ bare skin as they jostled to get nearer the mirror. Hair pins snapped, netting scratched tight goosefleshed skin, ribbons fluttered and breath came in ethereal white clouds. Nobody spoke.

Deep in the walls the pipes groaned lazily in the hush of the frigid little room. The girls collectively shuddered, moving closer together without meeting each others eyes.

Miss Sabrina arrived to collect them for class, a scraping of black hair and paper-thin white skin stretched taut over brittle bird bones. She found them ready, lined up, toes in perfect third position. Jess smiling in front of scowling Olivia. Abi cowering behind the others, hoping not to be noticed.

As the girls filed out they heard the smack of Miss Sabrina’s hand on the doorframe, trapping Abi inside the room. Not one girl looked back as Abigail wordlessly followed the mistress’ pointing finger towards the cellar, tears spilling down her blotchy cheeks.

Then impulsively Olivia turned and hissed ‘Just stay quiet and still. You’ll be alright’.

Miss Sabrina always told the girls there was nothing down there to be scared of, just an old boiler and a lot of rusty pipework. It was only a place to think about what you had done. But she always had a secret smile that played on her lips as she said it.

Abigail stepped into the yawning blackness, her little pink satin slippers drew her inexorably down. Her punishment was twenty minutes time out in the cellar and no dinner. She heard the shuffle of feet above her as the girls filed into the studio. Flecks of plaster showered down around her shoulders like flakes of snow; the air was still and heavy with waiting.

At the bottom the door gaped obscenely, drawing her inside, swallowing her whole. Somewhere deep inside something drew ragged, rasping breaths, then a guttural moan swelled from the furthest, blackest corner. It seemed to travel along the walls towards Abigail, like blood coursing through the great veins of some enormous beast. She bit her lips, tasting blood as two pricks of orange flickered, blinked and stared at her. Her breath came fast, fighting panic, stifling the scream that was rising her chest, hands fluttering to the white skin of her chest. In the darkness something breathed to life and the door slammed shut.

Upstairs the other girls silently lined up at the barre. As class began the pipes in the walls shuddered with drawn-out eldritch groans that wove ecstatically through the dance and flooded their hearts with panic and pity.

Harkness had stared down the muzzle of French cannon. He had ridden the mizzen and jumped with cutlass and pistol to bring death to his foe. This was his most terrible enemy.

The décolletage.

There were dozens of them, bulging like pale eggs above tiny waists clad in silk, faces of the dancers tinged gently pink after an hour of slow waltzing. His mother put a firmer elbow into his back and Harkness found himself plunging into the fray, lacy gloved hands reaching for him, horsey teeth barred in a manner more akin to a French cavalry horse than genteel shire women.

Bloody cousin Archie, the boy a pip-squeak able-seaman, and yet he was moving with grace from each gloved hand to the next, whilst Harkness smiled and tried not to flinch each time something soft and curvaceous made a probing sweep for him. Harkness was a catch – the hero of Cadiz, and heir to ten thousand acres. Oh, to be aboard his ship watching a dozen briney sailors stripped to the waist dance the hornpipe.

As the tinkling of the pianoforte faded the sharks began to close, and then!

A cry rang out, and a murmur of alarm spread.

The beast had been spotted.

Harkness was saved. This beast was the reason he came home, this mysterious creature that had begun to prowl on moonlit nights. He was deaf to mother’s plaintive cries as he marched from the ballroom.

He donned his battered naval jacket, shoved a brace of pistols into his belt and then galloped his favourite stallion down to the village. In the square he discovered a dozen cowering militiamen and their sergeant.

Harkness raised his cutlass above his head.

‘It’s probably smugglers, and this beast is a distraction to keep the revenue men inside.’

The militiamen clutched their muskets nervously. Harkness dismounted, and led the way on foot. They neared the village’s tiny harbour. Figures were moving in the murky light, figures ferrying bundles from the hold of a ship. Harkness surged forward in triumph.

One of the militiamen raised a weak hand and pointed.

It was the beast.

Thick black hair matted around snarling teeth, with slavering jaws sounding a growl that seemed to dance from hell. The beast’s arms were thick with muscle, its hands shaggy fur and wicked needle-sharp claws.

It was the head of a best but the body of a man, and what a man, what a beautiful torso and legs, naked skin so smooth and inviting in the moonlight. Harkness could not tear his eyes away. He stood slowly, fingers picking at the buttons of his coat.

The militiamen stared open mouthed at the size of this thing.

In an awestruck voice, the militia sergeant tried to buck them up.

‘Lads, the law of averages says there has to be some enormous outlier.’

Harkness has removed his shirt too. He stood there, bare chested and magnificent. He gazed at the cowering militiamen.

Harkness said, ‘That’s no beast, and to prove it, I’ll go one on one until either he’s trapped under my panting body or I beneath his.’

He strode out to face the beast.

The militia sergeant whistled low.

‘Lads. Now that’s a real hero.’

The room was spinning. She wasn’t sure if it was the rum or the ceilidh which had done it but she didn’t know which way was up, but then, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She knew he was there somewhere, either above or below her, certainly inside, and that was what mattered. Oh god this was good. But what a journey to get here!

It had all started when her father, Lord Daniel, had caught her riding Donna legs astride. ‘Helen!’, he had cried, ‘how could you! What if anyone had seen you? What if your MOTHER had seen you’. Since then, the admonishment had come thick and fast; ‘lower your voice, young ladies don’t shout!’, ‘shouldn’t you be sewing’, ‘that is not ladylike’. Then little Allan had started joining in, the impertinent upstart! Who did he think he was? He might be the oldest son (lucky bugger) but he was still 4 years her junior.

She had spotted her chance when the Irish pirates had docked to flog their stolen wares. Her parents might seem like upstanding and well-bred citizens but she knew about the late night visits from that mysterious beast, Cap’n Mahoney. She knew her father selected the best bits for himself and his family, and she had heard from the stable boy, Lewis, how they’d been begotten, that lad missed nothing. Ah she would miss Lewis. He’d taught her more about what being a ‘lady’ was than her stuffy parents ever could. Her hips bucked all the more vigorously at his memory. She wondered if her father had had to scrub the blood from the goblets before he served wine to Lord Randell at the next banquet.

She’d packed her bags, kissed Donna goodbye, and stowed away on the ship until they were far out to sea. She’d then revealed herself to Cap’n O’Mahoney, who had recognised her instantly from her portrait over her parents’ hearth, and responded in abject terror that her father would discover his role in her disappearance. She had managed to convince him not to throw her overboard, however. Her fee? Dancing lessons. It turned out that the Cap’n was a dab hand at ceilidhs but wished to expand his repertoire to include the waltzes recently favoured in the courts. Having acquired some higher class clientele like the good Lord Daniel himself, he had aspirations of setting himself up on land, becoming one of the folk to whom he owed his wealth through late night deals or mid-sea steals.

So there she was, trying to recreate Chopin and Schubert on a tin whistle, when the pirates had themselves been ambushed. Helen had pleaded again for her life, saying she was Beth, the stolen daughter of a good Irish family who’d pay good money for her safe return, and had managed to find her way into this Captain’s favours, this time through teaching him the ceilidh moves so spurred by Cap’n Mahoney. And there had love, and passion, and true womanhood blossomed.