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A Woman of Reputation. Chapter 2, Dusk. 4/5

“His infamous reputation is propping up his ghost?” the manes of Agnes Little asked.

“It is partly his reputation--but partly your own.” Martin answered.

“I still don’t understand. Oh! Oh dear, did someone summon him? Like in that case reported in Illustrated Phantom Stories where a Parisian theater owner hired evil manesologists to summon the worst killers in history to frighten his audiences?”

“That wasn’t a real case. Not every case reported in Illustrated Phantom Stories is true. Now, brace yourself, manes of Agnes Little, for what I’m about to tell you is a very, very strange revelation.”

“Compared to learning that I’m dead?”

“Yes. It is a very strange revelation. But first, tell me something--”

“Tell you something? Don’t ask me to brace for a strange revelation and then ask me something! Just tell me what it is!”

“In a moment, But do you understand that, to the average citizen of Blackwall, the Werewolf is a highly infamous murderer? Even today, Chopin Street is deserted because of his actions. The Werewolf is as infamous as Nero and Bluebeard combined. But you, on the other hand, are known only as his first victim. When people say your name it is in the context of you being his victim. That repetitive chase outside, that phantasmagoria--that is his reputation, and yours. Do you understand that?”

“I understand.”

“Now here is the revelation: that creature out there is not the manes of the Blackwall Werewolf.”

Agnes spun around and gestured to the man outside. “Impossible, Dr. Glass! That has to be the Werewolf! He stabbed me, he chased me, that is the Werewolf out there!”

“It is the Werewolf, but it is not the manes of the Werewolf.”

“I am confused.”

“I figured you would be. He is of your rn.”

“He is of my what?”

“Your rn papnor. Your…”

Martin touched his head. He was being foolish in assuming she knew these things.

“Have you ever heard of the ogdoan quad?” he asked.

“I think I may have heard the term before, but I don’t recall what it means.”

“It’s the organizational structure of a manes. It means the four-that-are-eight.There are four salman and each salman contains two papnors and each papnor…I’m sorry, I’m giving you too much information for the matter at hand.”

“Have you ever lectured before, Dr. Glass? You strike me as one having the manner of a professor.”

“No, but I’ve learned from many teachers. Too many, I’m afraid. Do you know how the human body works? How it has several kinds of organs each performing a function? Like how the lungs breathe and the heart pumps?”

“Yes.”

“Manes likewise are composed of things called spiritual components, or to use manesological terminology, papnors. For instance, there’s a spiritual component, the sah papnor, that controls the expression for what a manes considers its “self.” This most often takes the form of a body based on the living body. Thus manes with strong sahs appear very much as living humans appear. Some with very strong sahs, such as yourself, can even feel pain and eat food.”

“But we still go through tables if we hit them hard enough.”

“Yes. Though there are a rare few with sahs so strong their hair sheds and their fingernails grow. The ogdoad quad copies much from living individuals, but there are always imperfections and changes. Sometimes there are many imperfections. Manes with weak sahs may appear as empty outlines of people, or sometimes not even that. They may appear as nothing more than balls of light. Every manes is composed of eight papnor, and a complication within your rn papnor has created the thing outside leering at us.”

“So this papnor of mine…it created another ghost, and the ghost happened to look and act like the Werewolf of Blackwall?”

“No. That thing out there is your rn papnor. It is a manifestation of your papnor. Manes are not bound to one manifestation. My friends and I once helped a manes that manifested as an entire stage full of Shakespeare characters, yet though there were many bodies, there was only one manes. Another time, we encountered an entire Napoleonic army, and yet again, there was only one manes with many bodies--the manes of a drummer, actuall.”

“So that thing is…like an extra arm for me?”

“I’m sorry how complicated this all is, but yes, that is exactly what he is. He is a part of you”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“If he’s a part of me, then why can’t I control him? Was this actor ghost and drummer ghost able to control all their other bodies?”

“Yes they were, but you’re different. Their multiple bodies were the result of other papnors. You can’t control him, at least at this point, because the rn papnor is very strange compared to other papnors. It is based in the shared thoughts of humanity linked across the Astral. The rn papnor is papnor that only partially belongs to its manes. Part of it belongs to the generalized thoughts of humanity.”

Martin fished in his pockets and produced a wooden cross.

He held it out to the manes of Agnes Little.

Her eyelids drooped.

“Dr. Glass…I feel…I feel very tired all of a sudden…”

“Do you feel calm?”

“Yes I do…”

The manes of Agnes Little yawned.

Martin put the cross back in his pocket.

Esmee snapped back to her alertness. “What was that? Did you perform another Operation on me?”

“No. I just showed you a crucifix. We carry a lot of them on our persons, my friends and I. We use them to affix unpleasant manes. Do you know why we use crucifixes?”

“Um…because they’re easy to carry around?”

Martin smiled. “Actually, yes, that is one of the reasons. But another is that because our English culture is dominated by Christianity. Because people believe in Christ, the power of the cross radiates throughout the Astral and touches every rn papnor. If a manes has a strong rn papnor, such as yourself, a cross will produce feelings of intense calm, if they believe God loves them, or intense pain, if they believe God does not.”

The manes of Agnes Little chuckled. “There must be some mistake here, Dr. Glass. I’ve never been on good terms with God. It should repulse me like a vampire, yet all I want to do is cuddle up with it like a pillow.”

“I don’t believe I have to explain the implications of your response to the cross.”

The manes of Agnes Little looked away, deep in thought.

“...Agnes Little knew that God wanted nothing to do with her.” she muttered. “...But I am not Agnes Little…”

“Because you have one of the strongest rn papnor I have ever seen, and because Blackwall remembers you as nothing more than the Werewolf’s victim, your rn papnor, your reputational component, created and recreated the moment you were both best known for. It made you bleed. It made the streets go on forever. It made him.”

“You mean because some guy that stabbed me got infamous that I had to go on being stabbed by him?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s…but that’s so unfair!”

“It is, which is why we’re doing something about it.”

“I think I understand your plan now…well, part of your plan, at least.”

“That’s very good!”

“My reputation, as it currently stands, is that I was the first victim of the Werewolf and nothing more. But if I talk to people, if Blackwall gets to know about me, then my reputation will become my reputation, not his, and he’ll…I don’t know, dry up and blow away?”

“Or simply blink out of existence, but yes, you get the idea.”

“I don’t think I do, Dr. Glass, not fully. Do you really think that I can overcome the legend of the Werewolf of Blackwall with…with what? My story? If I was such an interesting person, my reputation wouldn’t have been consumed by a madman with a knife in the first place.”

“But you are an interesting person--far more interesting than the Werewolf. The Werewolf isn’t even a person. He’s a shape, a figure. He doesn’t have the dynamism of a actual person. You have a history. He just has a series of homicides. He’s only interesting in the moment. Beyond that, he’s boring.”

“I’m flattered you think I’m interesting, but what am I supposed to do exactly? Give speeches? Am I supposed to defeat the legend of the Werewolf of Blackwall through…what, public discourse? Men didn’t associate with me because they were interested in what I had to say.”

“It will be a slow process. This isn’t a war that can be won in a single night. But if you talk to one person, even just one person, that person can share your story to others. Most of the fighting against the Werewolf will be done through other people sharing your story.”

The manes of Agnes Little stared at him “You really think this will work, don’t you?”

“Of course I think this will work. I’m a manesologist. I should know these things, shouldn’t i?”

“I don’t claim to be an expert on anything save one thing--Agnes Little. I am definitely the world’s leading expert on her. She isn’t anything anyone would care about. I think if people had to choose between the Werewolf’s story and her own, they’d choose the whore being carved up again and again.”

“Forgive me if this sounds presumptuous, but you’ve been wrong about Agnes Little many times tonight.”

“Point taken…but it still seems odd to me. Is there nothing you can do with your candles to help me? Nothing at all? They seem like they can do anything.”

“In truth, we’ve already worked several Operations on you tonight. We had to, in order to free you from your phantasmagoria. Your phantasmagoria first came to our attention about four days ago. That was when you awoke from your brgdo and manifested on Earth.”

“So I didn’t spend all five years being stabbed. That’s good to know. Though I don’t suppose it matters much. If you can’t remember something, it's like it never happened.”

“We acted to free you as soon as we could. At first, all we had to work with were scattered reports from people that happened to be walking down Chopin Street in the middle of the night. They would see flashes of a woman, and a man, and they would feel a pain in their side as your psychic power component lashed out at them.”

“I remember none of this.”

“You wouldn’t have. Chopin Street, as you’ve said, is a very storied location. It took us a little time to figure out what was happening and then when we knew we still had trouble pinning you down.”

Martin sighed as he remembered the sleepless game of tag he and his friends had to play.

You kept teleporting, keep moving across the entire street. Your shut component, your object impression component, was very strong, and it made it so that you were just…everywhere, all at once, and you kept moving. I’m so sorry it took us so long.”

“It’s alright.”

“Speaking of your object impression, that was one of your components we weakened, along with your psychic power component. People will no longer feel a stabbing sensation in their sides when you’re around them, and you’re no longer tied to Chopin Street.”

“Thank God for that. You know, the preachers always said I was married to Chopin Street…”

“You may still feel a slight...pull towards Chopin Street. It’s nothing overpowering, you can go anywhere in the world you want to go, but every once-in-a-while you may feel the urge to visit Chopin Street.”

“If you were able to reduce my object impression component so much that I went from teleporting around the street to being able to leave it at my will, then why can’t you do the same to the Werewolf? Weaken my reputational component to the point he’s a dwarf. Wouldn’t that make it easier for me to snuff him out through word-of-mouth?”

“It would be like putting a bandage on a festering wound. It would only hide the problem. The problem is his reputation and your reputation out there in the minds of the populace. We could use an Operation to reduce him to the size of a goblin, we could make him invisible, but he would still exist, and he would still have power over you. But if you share your story, you can take all the power away from him.

The manes of Agnes Little stared at the man with angry, wrathful eyes.

It would be nice to destroy him under her own power. It would be so very, very nice…

“Share your story. Share the story of Agnes, and Amy, and Alice, and all the rest. Share the stories that were obscured by the darkness of the Werewolf of Blackwall.”

The manes of Agnes Little thought long and hard about what she wanted to do, and then she spoke.

“Okay, Dr. Glass. Set me up a soapbox on the street corner or however it's going to work. I’m willing to try this.”

Martin smiled. “We’re ready, now. At last.”

Martin looked out the window, but he didn’t seem to look at the Werewolf. Rather, he seemed to look past the werewolf. He motioned with his hand.

There was a commotion outside. There was a flash of green fire. The man suddenly burned away like paper cast into a fireplace.

The door opened, and Dr. Matthew Ernst and Dr. Joseph Morton walked in.