No, I’m not kidding. When I wrote the post about the Athena Club last week, I hadn’t completely finished the last book in the series (so far), “The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl” by Theodora Coss. It seems to be the end of the series - unlike the first two books, “The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter” and “European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman”, it doesn’t end with a new call to adventure. From the ending, it sounds very much like the last account of the adventures of the Athena Club (by now having seven members instead of the original five), but there still might be other stories over time. Surely, there’s still material enough and hope springs eternal.
There will be spoilers, since I can’t discuss the great plotting without disclosing at least some major plot points.
At first glance, from the suggestions at the end of the prior book, the big bad of the third story will be Professor Moriarty - but he’s not. He’s ashes by the time things really get going - unlike Sherlock Holmes, whom he wanted to use as a sacrifice. But let’s take a step back.
When Sherlock Holmes gets made a damsel in distress, there must be a lot going on - and there is. Admittedly, Sherlock Holmes disappears without a trace during the second novel, but since this one is set in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (pre-WWI), someone disappearing back in England is not a major plot point. In addition, Sherlock Holmes is, after all, known for often working undercover. It’s a thing he’s still doing post-Reichenbach (since the stories are set in the 1890s). Watson being worried for him, therefore, is perfectly normal, but there’s no reason for the Athena Club (even for Mary with her crush on Holmes) to immediately travel back and leave the whole mess of Van Helsing’s experiments unsolved.
It becomes a topic when a second person disappears: Alice, a member of the Jekyll household and gifted with the power of mesmerism, as Catherine Moreau found out in the second novel. Alice is kidnapped in the middle of the night on the very premises of 11 Park Terrace, where the club is situated, which is something the club members can’t and won’t ignore.
The end of the prior book already presents Professor Moriarty (who somehow got out of the waterfall, too) as the mind behind the kidnapping and his reasons seem clear: he wants Alice to help him with removing Queen Victoria and gaining power over England. He claims Eugenic reasons, but given he’s behind most illegal trafficking, that seems rather unlikely. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
The novel brings back Mrs. Raymond who was the director of the Society of St. Mary Magdalen in the first book. The strict Mrs. Raymond is much more than that, though: she’s an experiment herself, the daughter of Dr. Raymond, former head of the English chapter of the Society of Alchemists, who experimented on his wife to give her powers above those of regular mortals. His wife was driven mad, but his daughter gained control over her mesmeric powers. Then Mrs. Raymond (this isn’t really her name, of course) became pregnant and let the baby girl disappear. Lydia Raymond grew up under the name Alice and is nobody else than the scullery maid of the Jekyll household. Unlike what her mother thinks, however, she was never treated badly there and never wanted to leave - nor does she wish to work for Moriarty like her mother.
Another woman, Miss Margaret Trelawney (known to people who enjoy Gothic horrors from Stoker’s “The Jewel of Seven Stars”), cuts in and gets Alice out of her cell - it’s her who, unknowingly, teaches Alice the most important lesson she learns in the book: listen and learn, but pretend not to.
Alice soon realizes there is another prisoner in the house - the former headquarters of the Society of Alchemists, now appropriated by the Order of the Golden Dawn. When she discovers it’s Sherlock Holmes (kept drugged with Heroin), she takes steps to change things by diluting the drug he’s given (exchanging about half the Heroin crystals for salt). Yet, the ceremony she’s forced to attend doesn’t end as it was supposed to.
Well, it does end as it was supposed to, but the seven male members of the Order didn’t know how it really was supposed to end. Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker (all four were in with Van Helsing’s experiments on Lucy Westenra, as told in the second novel), Dr. Raymond, Colonel Moran, and Professor Moriarty himself are the sacrifices chosen for the ritual by Miss Trelawney and Mrs. Raymond. All seven are burned to ashes while the ‘official’ sacrifice Sherlock Holmes is still alive, although mostly drugged. By the time Holmes is again clear enough in the head to act, the ritual is done and Queen Tera (also from “The Jewel of Seven Stars”) has been brought back to live. As with Ayesha, the 2000-year-old Priestess of Isis (and Tera’s pupil at one time) introduced in the second book, Tera has abilities far above mere mesmeric power - she, too, can electrocute people without touching them. This is a power which keeps Holmes under control for a little while, until he’s safely locked away again. And once he’s out of the cell and ready to charge into the fray of the big final battle, he’s shot and out of it. The big battle only has female participants on either side - with the two kept out of the main battle (Diana Hyde and Laura Jennings) to look for Holmes, Alice, and Mary actually taking down Queen Tera and turning the tide.
The way the book keeps Holmes out of the action is very clever and worth looking at, which is the main reason why I’ve focused on this book instead of the others in the series. First, he’s kept drugged, which means he’s out of it. As a more or less regular consumer of Heroin, he’s easy to keep down with regular injections. As long as he’s in the drug-induced state, he’s no danger to his captors and completely at their mercy. When the drug loses power over him (due to being diluted), he’s facing Queen Tera who can kill people without even touching them. Just as a gun pointed at him, her powers make him defenceless - perhaps even more so than the gun, since they’re harder to dodge than a bullet. Locked away without food (although Alice feeds him in secret) and without any tools he could use to crack the lock, he’s unable to free himself from his cell, although he surely considers all possible ways. Finally, when freed from the dungeon and on his way into the fight, he’s shot in the shoulder - the shot almost kills him, it’s Ayesha who keeps him alive with her healing powers. He’s in no state to help the Athena Club then, either.
If you need a damsel in your story, this is a way for doing it you should look into. Holmes is not helpless, he’s not mentally or physically weak, he surely has a lot of skills to bring to the table - he’s not your classic damsel in distress. From the way the book handles his capture and captivity, though, he’s in no better situation than the most damselled damsel to ever be damselled. It’s not about not giving him agency (although the drug takes it away for a while, keeping him in a state in which he can’t act), it’s about not giving him the means to escape, no matter how much he tries. He’s not sitting in his cell with his hands in his lap, waiting for the rescue, he’s in a situation in which his impressive skills are of no use to him. He’s not helpless himself, his captors simply have the means to keep him imprisoned despite his skills.
Take note of the book (and give it a go - it’s fun and I’ve never read a book with more fully-realized female protagonists and antagonists) and take a good look at how it handles making a damsel out of the last person you probably thought could ever be successfully damselled. It’s much more interesting when a damsel (no matter who they are) isn’t merely sitting around, but clearly kept locked up despite their best efforts to free themselves.
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