"The Ghost of a Flea" by Priya Sharma

Readers unfamiliar with "The Ghost of a Flea" may prefer to read these notes only after reading the story.

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            John Varley came to the rented room on South Molton Street that was our kitchen, bedroom, parlour and workroom. A bear of a man, he had to duck to avoid the prints that Kate and I had hung like drying laundry on washing lines.

     "It's a pleasure to meet you Mrs Blake. Mr Linnell is full of praise for your skill as a printer."

     Kate scoured his face for mockery, as did I, but there was only geniality in his ruddy complexion. The examination was mutual. Age and care had worn Kate down but her hair was still dark and her black eyes lively.

     "Mr Linnell's too kind." Her smile told me she thought John Varley genuine. Her judgement was rarely wrong.

     "Rot, Kate." Christened Catherine, she was always Kate to me. "She's much more Mr Varley. She has a hand in every element of the work you see from design to execution."

     I reached out and we shook hands.

     "Come, sit."

     The chair creaked under his weight. He laid a folio, fat with papers, on his knee.

     "Are you here with a commission Mr Varley? That would help me enormously. I have to pay the butcher."

     "And the greengrocer," Kate put in. "The money is going Mr Blake."

     "Oh, damn the money Mrs Blake!" I barked. "It's always the money!"

     Varley looked alarmed until we both burst out laughing. Our small income was a running theme in our jocular arguments. We'd vowed to be unashamed in our deprivation.

     "I'm not here on a commission. Do you know my work Mr Blake?"

     "Your watercolours? They're very fine."

     "No, my other occupation. I understand that we both have certain sympathies for other realms."

     John wasn't only an artist, but also an astrologist, known for the accuracy of his predictions, his poor head for business and his large brood of children.

     "Yes, I've heard. How can I help you?"

     "Mr Blake, I need to know if your visions are real. I'd understand if they were," he searched for the right word, "cultivated."

     Kate put a hand on my shoulder and I lifted mine to meet it. We would always remain unified. Kate's reply was calm. Her most dangerous state.

     "My husband is publicly ridiculed. His work overlooked by the Royal Academy. He's mocked as the happy madman for his gifts and we barely scrape a living. He's not a liar Mr Varley, not for publicity or anything else."

     "My sincere apologies." He flushed. "I meant no offence. I wouldn't ask unless it were crucial for me to know."

     "I saw angels in the trees at Peckham Rye when I was four years old." They bespangled every bough like stars. "I've had the sight ever since. What do you want from me?"

     "I've been reading the constellations." He pulled at the ribbon securing his folio and it fell open. "May I?"

     He motioned to the workbench which had been cleared for the night. I nodded. He divided up the stack of papers and laid them out. There were charts of the heavens, a map of London, newspaper clippings, and scrawled lists.

     "Mr Blake, there's a blot on the sky so dark that it devours all light and hope." He stabbed at the celestial chart with his forefinger. "The stars are emphatic in their message."

     "Which is?"

     "Death is here."

     "Death's always been here." Kate's gaze was a deep well. "We live in a time of atrocities. Of blockade and famine. Slavery. Riots and revolutions."

     "Not like this. May I show you?" He started to spread out the clippings but paused and looked at me. "Perhaps this isn't for Mrs Blake's eyes."

     "Mrs Blake's eyes are her own," I said gently. "She decides what she sees with them."

     "I'll stay." Kate was resolute.

     "The stars signal certain days going as far back as 1811. They turn their eyes to us in pity. I searched the newspapers from all over the city. I believe this is the first one."

The Ghost of a Flea by William Blake

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"The Ghost of a Flea" by Priya Sharma is the finest short story I have read for several years. It is also the best story in its anthology, Screams from the Dark (2022).

Among the many types of story "The Ghost of a Flea" is, historical fiction is the most obvious. "The Ghost of a Flea" is narrated by visionary artist and poet William Blake (1757-1827). He is our narrator, and author Sharma allows him to tell us how he came to create his weird miniature painting, "The Ghost of a Flea." Sharma's achievement is stunning: with great economy she recalls to life the early nineteenth century world of Blake, his companion and collaborator Kate, and the astrologer and occultist John Varley. 

In Sharma's story, the Flea is real, monstrous, and strides through London feasting on human blood. His existence is known to Blake because Blake can see the supernatural creatures hidden from most humans.

Varley has been tracking the Flea by mapping his killings, but does not know the nature of his antagonist until he joins forces with William and Kate.

The three uniting to thwart this adversary naturally brings them to the Flea's attention.

      I lay awake studying Hooke's work by the light of a single candle. Kate was beside me, in the companionable snores of deeper sleep. How one body accommodates another. How what was once charming becomes an irritation to be tolerated and then, with time, essential to our comfort.

     Hooke's drawing of the Flea spanned eighteen inches. Its bristle-jointed legs looked fragile against its bulbous abdomen and plated back. Its head was disproportionately small.

     I put the book down, feeling Kate stir, then settle. I leant back, enjoying her warmth against me. Comfort is beguiling. It lulled me into a sacred space. The flame flared and then guttered, leaving a column of smoke in the moonlight.

     It heralded the Flea. He no longer needed to slink in after the angels, if he ever needed them at all. I reached out to wake Kate but he wagged his finger at me as if I were an errant child.

     The Flea was different in the flesh. He was power personified. Bigger than when I last saw him. Bigger than any man. He had swagger. He stalked across the room like a player on a stage. Naked and shameless. He glimmered with unholy light, that gave him a reptilian iridescence. His musculature was part man, part animal. A prowling tyger. The run of his spine was gnarled and his neck bull-like. He had a murderer's profile.

     "You interfered with my pleasures, William Blake. I had to go out of London because of your meddling."

     Only the thought of brave Eleanor Morton stopped me from screaming.

     "You said your purpose is to kill. The wolf doesn't toy with the lamb. You take pleasure in cruelty."

     "I thought you understood me." He shook his head. Even monsters desire understanding. "I am becoming."

     "Becoming what?"

     "What I should've been. When God made me He intended me to be as big as a bullock but changed his mind. He told me I was too powerful in proportion to my bulk and would be too mighty a destroyer, so He diminished me."

     "He limited you for a good reason."

     "He belittled me." The Flea's rage was swift. "He betrayed me. Am I not magnificent? I should walk as a God upon the Earth."

     My blood curdled.

     "The darkness can't hold me. Nor the Land of Nod. Mayhem's delicious. I'll reach my true proportions and the streets of your precious city will be strewn with corpses."

     "Why are you here? To kill me?"

     The Flea paused by the fireplace and picked up Robert's portrait.

     "Who's this?"

     "My brother."

     "Brothers." He looked from me to Robert. "You loved him deeply."

     He put the picture down and came to the foot of the bed, looming over us.

     "Your wife still has fire, even though the world's worn her down. I can see why you still might want her."

     The Flea slowly pulled the sheets from us. Micrographia fell to the floor with a thump. Kate's nightgown was tangled around her thighs. His gaze wandered along her contours. He slid over her, his body close to her bare legs, without touching her. He inhaled the scent of her hair. I couldn't call out. I couldn't move. I couldn't stop him.

     The thorn appeared in the Flea's hand. In the other an acorn cup as large as a chalice. He trailed the thorn's tip from her stomach to her throat. Then he pierced the skin at her neck, the spot I'd kissed that morning. Kate moaned. He caught the pulsing blood in his ungodly grail, which he lifted to his lipless mouth. His tongue flicked in and out, running around the rim. Then he tipped back his head, the muscles of his throat working as he gulped.

     He hadn't finished. His weight shifted and rolled to the edge of the mattress. It was my turn. I tried to draw away.

     "Why so coy? There's nothing shameful here. Only the mingling of your blood in me, here on your marriage bed."

     The engorged degenerate was closer than a lover. The dome of his head had the same shifting colour as the rest of him. His hot breath on my groin made me tremble. Then came the sharp penetration of the thorn and the wetness that followed.

     "Don't make me your enemy, not when we could be allies."

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This story ranks with works of historical horror by writers like Gerald Kersh and Reggie Oliver. The skill required to recreate a "foreign country" in a way that allows it to radiate its dangerous uncanniness is rare. Sharma clearly demonstrates her mastery of that skill in "The Ghost of a Flea."

Jay

28 June 2022

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