House of Salt and Sorrows

by Erin A. Craig

  The ribbon around my wrist was already frayed, and I toyed with the fringed ends, overcome by a sense of déjà vu. Wasn’t this exactly what Camille and I had just spoken of?

  “I suppose these dressmakers might have some light gray silks?” I reasoned, conceding.

  “Cecilia always loved you in green,” he confided, bumping his arm into mine. “That’s why she made up your room in all that jade. She said your eyes reminded her of the sea right before a big storm.”

  “I’ll see what they have,” I said, accepting his hand as he pulled me up. “But you will not catch me wearing pink.”

  * * *

  “Look at this satin! It’s the most delectable shade of pink I ever saw!” Rosalie exclaimed, hoisting the rosette cloth above her head.

  The Gold Parlor was a mess of fabrics and trimmings. Crates of bows and laces lay open like treasure chests, their contents spilling out. There wasn’t a bare surface to be found. I’d tripped over three boxes of buttons already.

  Camille held a swatch of saffron up to her face. “What do you think of this shade, Annaleigh?”

  “It suits you beautifully,” Morella cut in. She was in the middle of the chaos, sitting on a tufted chaise longue like a pampered queen bee. She hadn’t looked at me since the incident in the dining room. I needed to find a way to apologize.

  “Something blue would bring out your eyes more,” I said, scooping up a bolt of cerulean. “See? And it sets off your coloring—you look so rosy. Don’t you think, Morella?”

  She nodded faintly but turned to inspect a glimmering bit of ribbon Mercy pulled from a box.

  “This chiffon is perfect for my lady,” a seamstress said, stepping into the conversation. “Have you seen these sketches yet?” She offered Camille a handful of designs. “We can have that made into any of these dresses.”

  Camille took the drawings and sat on a pouf covered in glittering pastel damasks. The seamstress knelt beside her, taking notes.

  On the rack near me, lengths of cream-colored linens and beautiful green silks rested on padded hangers. I’d selected three patterns for long, flowing dresses and even a ball gown for the triplets’ party. Despite my misgivings, the seafoam tulle—dotted with sparkling silver paillettes like twinkling stars—made me giddy with anticipation. It would be a truly magnificent dress.

  Lenore opened an ornate box. “Oh! Look at these!”

  Nestled inside the velvet lining was a pair of slippers. The silver leather looked as soft as butter and shimmered in the afternoon light. Silk ribbons were sewn on either side to tie around the ankle.

  These shoes were meant for dancing.

  Verity grabbed one and held it close to her face, inspecting the pattern of beads around the toe with awe. “Fairy shoes!”

  “How stunning,” Morella said, admiring the other.

  Reynold Gerver, the cobbler, spoke up. “Each pair takes two weeks to make. The soles are padded for extra comfort. You could dance all night, and your feet wouldn’t mind at all come morning.”

  Rosalie snatched the shoe away from Verity. “I want a pair of them for our ball.”

  “No, I saw them first!” Lenore protested. “I want them.”

  “We should all get a pair,” Ligeia said. She joined Morella on the chaise, touching the ribbons. “We only turn sixteen once.”

  Camille looked up from the sketches. “Can they be made in other colors? I’d love a pair in rose gold, to match my gown.”

  Gerver nodded. “I have samples of all my leather here.” He pulled a book out from under the discarded yellow fabric. He paused, eyeing Morella. “Because these slippers are so unique…they can run quite dear.”

  “Quite dear?” Papa’s voice boomed from the doorway. “I leave my girls alone for an hour and you’ve spent me out of house and home, have you?”

  Rosalie held up the shimmering slipper. “Papa! Look at this! These shoes would be perfect for our ball! May we get them? Please?”

  He looked at each of my sisters’ hopeful faces. “I suppose you all want a pair?”

  “Us too?” Honor asked, standing on tiptoe to peer over a stack of hatboxes.

  He kept his face as a neutral mask. “I’ll need to see them. One of the most important lessons of trade: never shake on an agreement until you’ve inspected the cargo.”

  Rosalie gave the slipper back to Verity and nudged her. She stepped forward, holding it out with reverent, chubby fingers.

  “They’re fairy shoes, Papa.”

  He turned it over and over again with theatrical interest. “Fairy shoes, you say?” Her round eyes, the same green as mine, beamed. “They seem awfully delicate. Very insubstantial.”

  The cobbler stepped forward. “Not at all. I assure you, they will last a whole season’s worth of balls. I make my soles from the finest leather in the kingdom. Flexible but tough.”

  Papa looked unconvinced. “How much for eight pairs?” From the chaise, Morella sniffed. “Nine pairs,” Papa corrected. “Nine pairs, delivered before the end of the month. My daughters are having a ball. We’ll need them ready by then.”

  Gerver whistled through his teeth. “That’s not much time. I’ll have to bring in extra hands….”

  “How much?”

  Gerver counted on the tips of his fingers, then adjusted the gold spectacles hanging from the end of his nose. “Each pair is one hundred and seventy-five gold florettes. But to have nine pairs made up, in only three weeks…I couldn’t charge less than three thousand.”

  The room’s playful mood died away. There was no chance Papa would agree to such extravagance. I couldn’t begin to calculate what the new dresses and underpinnings were already costing him.

  “Surely nine pairs of shoes won’t send us to the poorhouse, Ortun,” Morella prompted with a winsome smile.

  Verity stood on her toes, watching his expression with rapt attention. He knelt beside her. “Do you really think these slippers are worth all that, child?” She looked back to us, then nodded. His face broke into an unexpected grin. “Go on, then, and pick yours out. Fairy shoes for everyone!”

  With a final tug of the oars, I pulled my dinghy into the marina at Selkirk, slipping alongside the sun-bleached dock as the sun rose over the horizon. At Eulalie’s wake, Morella had mentioned she’d been about to tell Papa about the baby but had been interrupted by the fishermen bringing Eulalie’s body home. Perhaps they had seen something, some small detail they might have forgotten to tell Papa because they believed the fall was an accident.

  I threaded my rope through the eye of an open cleat and tied off the excess line, then pulled myself out.

  I needed to find those fishermen.

  * * *

  The five islands of Salann spread across the Kaleic Sea like jeweled clusters of a necklace.

  Selkirk was the farthest to the northeast, home to fishmongers, captains, and sailors. A bustling wharf handled the seafood arriving daily on the boats.

  Astrea was next in the chain, and the most populated. Shops, markets, and taverns sprang from its rocky shores, a glittering city of commerce and wealth. The triplets had been there nearly every day since their ball was announced, scouring the stores for little treasures. An extra pair of stockings, a new shade of lip stain. Somehow Morella convinced Papa they were all absolute necessities for young ladies about to make their societal debut.

  We lived directly in the middle of the chain, on Salten.

  Vasa stretched out like a long, skinny eel, with ports on the north and south sides. Papa oversaw the massive shipyard that took up the whole island. Most of the King’s naval fleet had been built on Vasa. Someone at court once heard him boast the Salann ships were the swiftest in his navy, and Papa had beamed with pride for months.

  The final island was the smallest but most important. Hesperus was one of the most pivotal defense posts in all of
Arcannia. Its lighthouse, affectionately named Old Maude, stood taller than any other in the country. Not only did it assist ships coming in and out of port, it was also an excellent perch for spotting enemy boats.

  I loved the lighthouse. It felt like a second home. When I was small, I’d volunteer to clean the windows in Highmoor till they sparkled, imagining I was polishing the lighthouse gallery. I’d climb to the highest cliffs and pretend to be atop Old Maude, spying on foreign ships—really, fishermen out for their daily catch—and noting all the pertinent details in a giant ledger, as I’d seen Silas do.

  Silas had been Keeper of the Light for as long as anyone could remember. He grew up in the lighthouse, learning the beacon’s workings from his father. When it became clear Silas would never have children of his own, Papa realized an apprentice would need to be chosen as an eventual replacement. I prayed to Pontus every night it would be me.

  Hanna’s son, Fisher, was chosen instead. He worked on the docks, but Papa said he was destined for greater things. As young girls, Camille and I followed him all over Salten, in awe of his every move and hopelessly smitten. When he left to begin his apprenticeship, I cried myself to sleep every night for a week.

  Looking across the Selkirk wharf now, I could just make out the beacon’s flash and wondered what Fisher was doing. Probably cleaning windows. Silas was fanatical about them.

  I made my way down the docks and stopped at the first boat I found, asking the captain if he’d heard of any men who’d discovered a body near Salten. He waved me off, saying it was bad luck for a woman to be near the ships. Two other crewmen followed suit before I found a dockhand willing to talk with me.

  “The Duke’s girl?” he asked around a wad of chewing tobacco. The juice drizzled down from his lips, staining his beard yellow. “A couple of weeks back?”

  I nodded eagerly, hungry for information.

  “You’ll be wanting to talk with Billups….” He scanned the wharf. “But his boat is already out.”

  “Do you know when he’ll return?” With all the party preparations, I could stay away for most of the afternoon without being missed.

  “Not today,” he said, crushing my plan. “Nor tomorrow. He’s wanting one last big catch before Churning sets in.” He held up his hand in the breeze. “Feel that cold snap in the air? It won’t be long now.”

  I tried to hide my disappointment, arranging my face into a smile of thanks.

  “Wasn’t Ekher with him?” asked the dockhand’s companion, who’d overheard the conversation as he rolled an enormous spool of thick rope.

  “Was he? Didn’t think he left the docks these days.”

  The second man grunted, and together they flipped the spool over, setting it upright. “He’s a couple of piers down, the old netter. You can’t miss him.”

  I navigated the maze of connecting docks, keeping my eyes out for someone with nets. Three piers down, I saw him.

  Ekher sat on a bench, surrounded by coils of cobalt and indigo cording. Decades of life on the docks had left his skin dark and leathery, with wrinkles worn in deep. His sinewy fingers were hooked around a wickedly curved needle used to knot the nets together. As they lightly danced over a pile of cords beside him, searching for the right piece, I realized he could not see them.

  He was blind.

  I paused, wondering what I ought to do next. It was obvious he wouldn’t be able to tell me any details about finding Eulalie—Billups must have been the one who spotted her. I was about to leave when he slowly turned from his net and stared directly at me with milky, unseeing eyes.

  “If you’re going to ogle an old man all morning, girl, at least come and keep him company.” He reached out, beckoning with clawed fingers.

  Pushing back a nervous laugh, I approached his bench. “I didn’t realize you could see me,” I apologized, smoothing out my linen skirt.

  “Of course I can’t see you. I’m blind,” he retorted.

  I cocked my head. “Then how—”

  “Your perfume. Or soap. Or whatever it is young girls wear. I could smell it at a hundred paces.”

  “Oh.” My heart dropped with surprising disappointment, saddened his answer was so pragmatic.

  “What do you want with an old blind netter anyhow?”

  “I heard you were with the fisherman who found that body….”

  “I’ll be ninety-eight next Tuesday, my girl. There have been a lot of bodies in my life. You’ll need to be more specific.”

  “Eulalie Thaumas. The Duke’s daughter.”

  He lowered the needle. “Ah. Her. Terrible business.”

  “Did your friend—Billups—think there was anything unusual about it?”

  “It’s not very usual to see pretty young ladies falling from cliffs, is it? Is that what you mean?”

  I sank down on the bench beside him. “So you believe it was an accident?”

  Ekher raised two gnarled fingers toward his chest, as if warding off bad spirits. “What else would it be? She wouldn’t have jumped. We saw the locket.”

  “Locket?” I echoed. I’d never seen Eulalie with a locket.

  He nodded. “Chain was smashed to bits, but we could still make out the inscription.”

  Before I could ask more, he stiffened and grabbed my hand in his. His fingers dug into my palm, and I cried out in surprise and pain. His grasp was too strong to jerk away from.

  “Something’s coming.” His voice rasped, hoarse with panic.

  I raised my other hand to my eyes, shielding out the bright sunlight. The wharf bustled along with its usual rhythms and sounds. Gulls screeched overhead, plotting to filch bits of chum from unsuspecting fishermen. Captains shouted at dockhands, issuing orders and sometimes curses as the wayward lads struggled through headaches undoubtedly the result of a wild time at the tavern the night before.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  His grip tightened; he was clearly frightened. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “What?”

  “Stars. Falling stars.”

  I cast a dubious glance overhead at the morning sky, colored deep peach and amber. Not even Versia’s Diadem—the brightest of all constellations, named after the Night Queen—was visible.

  “What happened to the locket?” I asked, trying to turn his attention to the matter at hand and away from unseen stars. “Did you bring it back with the body?”

  He fixed his milky eyes on me, clearly affronted. “I’m no thief.”

  I thought back to Eulalie’s funeral, remembering that horrible necklace she’d had on. It was the only time I’d ever seen her wear it. Had that been the locket?

  I let out a sigh of frustration. The funeral was over two weeks ago. Her coffin had undoubtedly split open by now, returning Eulalie to the Salt, necklace and all.

  “Do you remember what was written on it?”

  Ekher nodded. “Billups read it out loud. Brought a tear to both our eyes.” He cleared his throat as if preparing to recite a poem. “ ‘I dwelt alone / In a world of moan, / And my soul was a stagnant tide, / Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride.’ ”

  My mouth dropped open. “Bride? Eulalie wasn’t a bride.”

  He shrugged, stabbing the needle back into the cording. Ekher missed his mark, and the curved metal sank into the pad of his wizened thumb. He didn’t seem to feel it. The dark blood stained the indigo net black.

  “You’re hurt.”

  His mood shifted abruptly again as the blood welled up and he rubbed his fingers together. “Get away from me before I lose the whole finger, you daft girl!” He wrinkled his nose and spat.

  I jumped away from Ekher and raced down the docks, but I kept looking back as he shouted curses at me. I’d never seen someone’s moods turn so quickly. Had so many years in the sun addled his mind? As I cast one look back toward h
im, I bumped into someone and nearly fell over my feet.

  “I’m so terribly sorry,” I exclaimed, reaching out for balance. The rising sun was directly behind the stranger, casting around him a brilliant corona that blinded me. Spots, dark blue and white-hot, danced before my eyes.

  Like the old man’s stars.

  “I believe this is yours?” he said, stepping closer, arm outstretched. Shaded from the sun’s glare, I made out friendly blue eyes staring down with concern.

  I felt completely dwarfed by him, barely coming to his shoulders. My eyes lingered on their broad expanse for a moment longer than was entirely proper. He must be a sea captain, I thought, sensing the muscles beneath his fine wool jacket. It wasn’t hard to picture him raising a heavy sail, one hoist at a time.

  His hair was unfashionably long, the dark curls stopping just shy of his jawline. One curl brushed the corner of his mouth, caught on a passing breeze, and I had a sudden and thoroughly horrifying desire to push it aside, just to feel its softness.

  He cleared his throat, and my cheeks burned, so terrified was I that he’d somehow read my mind. He’d been holding out a coin between his fingers while I openly gaped at him, my mind racing with wild thoughts.

  “You dropped this.” He took my hand and pressed the piece of copper into my palm.

  Such a simple gesture, performed every day by merchants and tradesmen, should not have felt so singularly intimate, but his touch thrilled me. His thumb caressed the center of my hand, leaving a tingling sweep when he released the money into my possession. My breath caught as I irrationally wondered what that same movement would feel like against my neck, my cheeks, my lips….

  “Thank you,” I murmured, finding my voice. “That was very kind. Most people would have kept it.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of keeping something that didn’t belong to me.” I sensed he was about to smile. “Besides, it’s only a copper florette. I’d rather lose the money and seize the chance to talk with the pretty girl who owns it.”