Dawn Bringer

by E J Kitchens

  They knew when they had gone three miles when they suddenly veered inland and her head spun if she so much as looked toward the coastline. If they didn’t stop now, the curse would send them off in who-knew-what direction or just in circles for as long as they stayed on the move. If there were three people or more in a conveyance, one could sometimes trick the curse into letting one go seven miles, but no more, if one changed human navigators before each three-mile limit. But it was difficult to know when to change, and for two people walking, the curse seemed to consider them both navigators and only allowed three miles and no tricks.

  Not far ahead, a rock outcropping formed a mound that was overgrown with some type of fern with long fronds and stemmy shrubs with tiny leaves, the petiteness of the latter’s greenery making up for the largeness of the former’s.

  “Let’s rest here. If we sleep, we should be able to reset our three-mile ‘scramble distance.’” Marianna headed for the mound, and Bertram wearily followed, settling down a few feet from her.

  He offered her more medicine, which she took, and a book as a pillow, which she refused, neither favoring the faerie-tainted smell of the things or the thought of any dampness from the ferns seeping into the pages.

  “We’ll have to get a shipping schedule from one of the Time Keeper stations somehow,” she said as she settled in as comfortably as she could, “and find out where we can rendezvous with Davy and your uncle Philip and give them the book on the Star Clock so Davy can build it. Before or after that, I know a Sky Keeper printer who’ll copy the books for us. Darius Lockley and his niece, Caroline, will also help distribute them to the other Sky Keepers.”

  Bertram was silent, and Marianna looked over at him, his face barely visible through the greenery. His expression was thoughtful, troubled.

  Marianna bit her lip. We’ll have to … we can … What we? She was the one on the run now—it was better for the Time Keepers to suspect her of being in the caves and never find her than blame an islander with nowhere to hide. She was the one with Sky Keeper connections all over the world and a reason to keep on the move to see them. Bertram could go back to being a mild-mannered schoolmaster and stay in Sheffield-on-the-Sea getting plump and gray. She’d be selfish to want to change that. She had no ship; she might as well disappear anyway.

  “I know Darius and Caroline,” Bertram said at last. “They’re my brother-in-law’s uncle and cousin. Caroline’s twin brother was on your brother Kingsley’s ship when it disappeared.”

  Sorrow momentarily eclipsing her surprise at the connection, Marianna closed her eyes, remembering again all the men who’d followed Kingsley on what had turned out to be a foolhardy venture, who’d perished with him. And she wondered which of her own crew had perished in the storm, leaving the ship on her orders. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was his choice to go.”

  Marianna was silent for a moment before forcibly dragging her thoughts out of the pit they were digging. She wasn’t impulsive, but she was a captain and used to making decisions, big and small, fast. She’d already decided about Bertram and about what she’d give up for the truth in the books to get out, but she couldn’t expect Bertram to do the same so quickly, or to choose the same path either. “I had forgotten so many of you from Sheffield-on-the-Sea end up in the Bowditch crews.”

  “There aren’t many opportunities on the island, so a lot of the young men and women leave to seek out work. Your family’s known to many here as respected captains and as fellow Sky Keepers, so they go to the Bowditch ships for work first. You could say we trust your family with our own.”

  She gave a weak smile. “You love Sheffield-on-the-Sea, don’t you?” She was certain Bertram could have gone anywhere and done anything he wanted, become wealthy and lived in Reydon, home to glittering theaters and concert halls and art galleries—and even the Rí Am and much of the Vanon family, his descendants—but Bertram had stayed here, a humble schoolmaster and arranger of smuggled goods.

  “Yes.”

  She heard the tension in his voice and fell silent.

  Her heart aching along with the rest of her, Marianna fell into a sleep of exhaustion.

  7

  Marianna was awakened sometime later to a very large, whiskery mouth snuffling its way over her face. Forcing herself to stay still despite a sudden urge to dart away, she opened her eyes to look up the muzzle of a thick-furred, light brown horse.

  “Don’t spook her,” Bertram whispered as he quietly rose to his feet, rope in hand, and crept toward the horse.

  Marianna let the horse inspect her, then slowly raised her hand and brushed it along the horse’s long face.

  “Ok,” Bertram whispered. Marianna removed her hand, and Bertram eased the rope over the horse’s head. As the rope settled around her neck, the mare merely looked at him and shook her mane, as if saying, “That wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t going to lose you.”

  They let out a breath of relief, and Marianna struggled up.

  “This is Aishling.” Bertram lifted her onto the horse, who stood calmly, then handed her the gunnysack. “A man with a farm not far from my cottage owns her, lets her roam loose during the day.” His expression as he looked up at her was one of wonder, the kind coupled with gratitude even if the latter wasn’t spoken. “She returns home in the evenings.” He held her gaze for a moment, then led the horse to a small boulder and used it as a mounting block.

  Hugging the sack to her chest, Marianna blinked away a sudden wetness to her eyes. They were going to make it, and she wouldn’t have to walk. “So it’s true the curse didn’t extend to animals.” It was forbidden to train animals for guidance, and many animals had been slaughtered and people imprisoned for trying.

  Bertram’s chuckles as he settled in behind her were decidedly mischievous. “Just wait till Thomas learns his Aishling helped us get around the curse. He’ll probably name a child after her. He’s trustworthy, and lives near enough to my cottage to take us there without the curse keeping him from being able to get himself home.”

  “He sounds wonderful.”

  Aishling began walking, a slow, plodding gait over uneven rock, her thick hide seemingly immune to the limby shrubs poking her. Marianna soon sank into a sleep of exhaustion once more, trusting Bertram to keep her safe.

  “Oh, I’m so hungry. Can you cook, Bertram? Airship captains don’t cook, so I was never taught.” Marianna eased herself into the first available chair in the front room of Bertram’s cottage just as the sky crystals began to dim. It was a cozy, tidy little place. There were no servants to wait on one, but it looked like a place where one could be snug and happy.

  Upon seeing Bertram’s cottage at the edge of a small fishing village, Marianna had gotten a second wind—or probably a twentieth, actually—and felt almost herself again. She found herself smiling as she looked about the cottage, her fingers tracing the embroidery of a pillow that was likely a gift from Bertram’s grandmother. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. Her smile faded, and she clasped her hands in her lap. This was not a place for her to get comfortable in. She’d be on the run again immediately after dinner. Or maybe after dinner and a bath.

  Bertram dropped his sack on another chair and gave her a smile that could only be described as fond. “Humble schoolmasters cook, don’t worry. But first we’re going to change the bandage on your arm.”

  “First, you’re going to tell me what you’ve been up to.” A female sharing Bertram’s intelligent green eyes and slightly too large nose stood in the kitchen doorway, brandishing a wooden spoon.

  “Lydia, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Bertram wrapped the woman in a hug, then introduced her to Marianna as his younger sister, Lydia Lockley. Marianna liked her at once. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Keeping up the appearance that you’re here.” Lydia gestured to the cheerful fire burning in the hearth.

  Bertram, the dark circles under his eyes evident, blinked at it as if just noticing it, then sighed and r
ubbed a hand through his hair. “The Time Keepers noticed my absence then?”

  “They may suspect it, but they don’t know it.” Lydia punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Your clever, resourceful, and loyal niece and nephew, my offspring, when they noticed you were late for school, found a note from you that had fallen off the door saying school had been canceled due to the disturbance of everyone’s sleep last night. I came over here and poked the fire back to life. When the Time Keepers stopped by—they seemed to think someone had been prowling around parts forbidden last night—I pretended to be a good little sister cleaning her bachelor brother’s house for him.” She gave him a significant look.

  “My house is not that dirty. For a bachelor. And I was grading papers all week.”

  She cocked an eyebrow, but then smiled deviously. “Be that as it may, I convinced them you were still sleeping. Plenty of pillows and Nathan and his brown hair amongst them helped.”

  With a laugh, Bertram kissed his sister and spun her around. “What did I do to deserve a sister like you? And tell Nathan and Cindy they get an A in Kindness from now on. Where are they?”

  “It’s the traveling circus’s last day, and I said they could go again with Robert’s sister. The show’s good, and the sharpshooter and his daughter are Sky Keepers and good for information.” She winked at Bertram. “How about an A in arithmetic?”

  “Nothing doing.” Bertram released his sister and settled into a chair. His gaze fell on the bulging sack on the chair beside Marianna, then shifted to her, lingering there a long moment. His smile slipped away, and he turned to the fire.

  Marianna’s heart twisted. Had she really expected him to run off into danger with her on a mission likely to get them both killed? She hadn’t planned on asking him to, but … Exhaustion and her injuries must be affecting her, for Captain Marianna Bowditch had never needed anyone before. Well, no one but a good crew, but Bertram wasn’t a crew she could command. He was something else entirely. He was a commander and an equal in his own right.

  “It will be a little while before the stew is ready,” Lydia said, glancing between them. “Why don’t I see to your arm, Captain Bowditch?”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but please, call me Marianna.”

  Lydia gave her the same raised eyebrows Bertram had but nodded and quickly gathered the needed supplies.

  “Any news of my crew?” Marianna asked as Lydia knelt beside her.

  “Banged up but no worse off than you, from what I’ve heard. Two more turned up this morning. With you, everyone is accounted for. They were divided up between villages to be looked after until a transport ship arrives to take them off island. They thought you alone were lost…” She let the statement hang, as if, like Marianna, she was unsure whether it was better for her to stay “lost” or not but feared it was. The question eclipsed some of the joy of hearing her crew, all of them, were safe. Lydia glanced at her brother, the same question in her eyes.

  Bertram retrieved his pack and began emptying it onto a table, Lydia watching him as she cleaned Marianna’s wound with a quietness Marianna knew better than to interrupt. Bertram organized the books into piles, then went through them again, turning each over in his hand and glancing at the title pages. As he placed the last one back on the table, he finally met his sister’s gaze. “I’m not staying, Lydia.”

  “I half expected not,” she said quietly. Instead of questioning or crying or even giving Marianna an evil look, she merely squeezed Marianna’s hand gently, then returned to bandaging her arm, her brows drawn. Marianna’s heart did a wild dance of joy and gratitude. She gave Bertram a soft smile.

  “If I don’t go with her,” he said, returning her smile, “she’ll follow a will-o’-the-wisp and end up who knows where.”

  Marianna wrinkled her nose at him.

  “I didn’t find the faerie mound entrance,” he continued, turning to Lydia, “but we found something else: On the other side of the island, there’s a secret mine for the crystals used in the automatons. We think the crystals have something to do with the automaton control systems. I don’t know why it’s kept a secret, but there’s bound to be a reason. It is slave labor, but the Rí Am wouldn’t feel a need to hide that.” He held up a book and the odd metal disk, his voice growing excited. “And, Lydia, we discovered something more—books on navigation! And old equipment! Maps! The Word is true. The heavens exist. Men could navigate themselves. The Star Veil was a curse and not a blessing to man.

  “Marianna’s brother Davy—Uncle Philip’s captain—is an inventor, and as soon as we find him, we’re going to build a Star Clock to rival the Time King’s navigators. And we’ll get all the books to Darius and the other Sky Keeper printers, and we’ll teach man to navigate again.”

  Lydia’s gaze shot between Marianna and Bertram as if trying to make sure they weren’t jesting with her. Marianna nodded, and Lydia hastily tied off the bandages and sprang up and over to her brother and began examining the books for herself. The examination ended with her dancing Bertram around the room. “Wait till I tell Robert! I’ll get you Darius’s address, and I’ll hem up some of my dresses for Marianna—she can stay with us until Commodore Bowditch sends a transport for the crew—and with the kids’ help, maybe we can get one of the books copied before you leave, and—”

  Laughing, Bertram wrapped her in another hug. “How about dinner?”

  Wrinkling her nose, Lydia pushed him away. “And a bath. You reek of the faerie … and more acceptable but still malodorous things.”

  With another laugh and a shrug, Bertram released her. His expression, like his sister’s, was one of happiness and contentment, belonging, and it awakened an ache in Marianna for her own family. But at the moment, her crew was the closest thing to family she had. She needed to see them, not just hear they were safe. She needed to get out of Bertram and Lydia’s hair for a while. She wasn’t their family, and she didn’t want to intrude any more than necessary.

  “I hate to ask, but would it be too much trouble for me to see one of my crew? Is one being quartered near here? I can walk, if you’ll direct me,” Marianna asked, rising.

  “Not at all.” Lydia gave her an understanding smile, and Marianna got the feeling she really did understand. “Bertram, take her to my house. She can bathe and change into one of my dresses there while you come back here. You can take her to the Lawsons’ later.”

  “Are you avoiding goodbyes, Bertram?” Marianna asked as the old-fashioned horse-drawn cart lumbered toward the Lawsons’ home later that evening. Marianna cautiously adjusted herself on the stack of books she was sitting on to put her more at Lydia’s height. They’d thought it best for her to pretend to be Lydia as they drove through the gas lamp–lit village. “I’m an airship captain and a Sky Keeper smuggler,” she continued. “I’ve had a lot of possible last nights with family. You don’t have to accompany me tonight. Drop me off, go back, and I’ll find my own way back. It’s not far, you said.”

  Bertram chuckled, and it was an almost normal chuckle. “And I’m a Sky Keeper who hunts for faerie mounds in forbidden forests. I’ve had those too. If I go with you now, my sister will pack for me and clean my house.”

  Marianna sputtered in surprise, then shook her head, unable to stop a smile. “You’re a spoiled big brother, you know that, right?”

  Judging by the curve of his mouth, he knew that very well and didn’t mind a bit. “She’s a spoiled younger sister.”

  “So was I, but I didn’t spoil my brothers that much. Not that I had a chance with us all on different airships. But speaking of sisters,” she said as the stack of books wobbled underneath her as they hit a rut, “do I have to sit on this precarious tower? I feel like a six year old unable to reach the dinner table without help.”

  “Not unless you want my reputation ruined and a forced introduction to all the gossips in the village.”

  “Surely they can’t be that bad,” she insisted, looking around at the quiet, sparse homes in the village that swept
around an inlet of the sea and rose into the thin woodlands of the hill behind. “It’s fairly dark in the streets.”

  A man with a lantern walked along the lane ahead, coming their way, but he was the only one out and about. Bertram eased the horse and cart toward the opposite edge.

  “Silhouettes are easily distinguished, and I, as schoolmaster, am a prominent citizen,” he said with mock pride. “The ladies will come out to see us.”

  Marianna gave a contemptuous huff. “It’s the mischief-loving faerie blood coming out in you. That’s what it is.”

  As Bertram sputtered in protest, the man with the lantern darted into the lane and planted himself in the middle of it. Bertram brought the horse to a quick halt, and Marianna drew in a sharp breath as her stack slid and she fell into him.

  “Running away with Lydia Lockley again, I see,” the man growled as he approached Marianna’s side of the wagon. Of course it would be her side when she’s biting back a whimper and hanging on to Bertram as if for dear life and Bertram trying to get her re-seated without touching anywhere he shouldn’t. “Well,” the man continued, and Marianna could have sworn there was amusement in his tone, “if she has to run away with any man, I’m glad it’s you.” With that, he swung himself up into the bed of the wagon.

  Marianna plopped down to the seat as Bertram removed the books.

  “Marianna,” he said without looking at the man as they both re-seated themselves and moved away from one another, “this is my brother-in-law, Robert Lockley. Robert, this is—”

  “Captain Marianna Bowditch.” He spoke quietly but with confidence. This time, both Bertram and Marianna swiveled around to face him. Robert’s triumphant expression sobered quickly. “Turn the cart around, Bertram. We need to talk in private.”

  “We already know we’re in trouble. At least, that I am,” Marianna said.