Thunderstruck

by Shannon Delany

  Meggie pursed her lips a moment and then continued. “—there was a handsome king—” A sleek silhouette rose from behind the covered table, dressed in a sweeping coat and pants that ballooned out just above the ankles. “—and his beautiful queen.” A second figure joined the first and Meggie slipped behind the table. The puppets bowed to each other and began to dance together. In a more fiercely focused voice, Meggie continued, the slightest bit hesitant, her attention split. “She was his light and his love, and he, as rich as he was—”

  “—which was very, very rich indeed—” Maude quipped.

  “—he was far richer having her in his life.”

  The puppets parted and the queen, silhouetted in her broad ball gown, blew her king a kiss. But she stooped, and she shook.

  “But a cold wind blew across the sea—”

  Bent, the queen was wracked with coughing and the king rushed to her side. More figures appeared on the scene, and the silhouette of a bed rose from somewhere behind the table.

  Meggie said, “And the queen fell ill,” as the queen collapsed into her bed. “But no matter how many doctors came when the king called,” the new puppets gathered around the queen’s bed, poking and prodding the queen while the king paced across the stage, “there was no saving her.”

  The queen’s arms rose, waving like a flag of surrender before falling flush to her body. The doctors drew back, hands flying to their mouths. Across the stage the king straightened as if he somehow knew.

  Beside Jordan, the Wandering Wallace shifted in his seat. He reached out to Miyakitsu, taking her hand so fast and hard she gasped before slouching, relaxed, against his shoulder once more.

  Jordan’s attention returned to the puppet show.

  The queen’s hands were folded on her chest and the bed holding her was lifted onto the doctors’ shoulders. In procession they walked her body past the inconsolable king and sank beneath the table.

  The king fell to the ground, distraught and destroyed.

  Meggie was silent for a long moment.

  “The king was devastated. He was alive, but he no longer lived,” Meggie said as the king twisted in agony on the stage and finally stood, raising his hands to the heavens, pleading. “His kingdom suffered. His people suffered. His advisors knew something had to be done. Somehow he needed to come back to life.”

  A new puppet emerged—a short man in a dramatic cape. He raised his hands, moving them slightly up and down, and the shadow of Meggie’s hand appeared, a small ball pinched between her finger and thumb. She moved it back and forth between the puppet’s hands as if he juggled.

  The king sat up.

  The short man did a back flip and when he popped back to his feet, Maude whistled and Meggie threw confetti into the seated crowd. “A magician was called to court,” she explained, “and although he performed many amazing tricks and the king regained some sense of himself, still, he was not nearly as he was before.”

  The king sank below the table.

  “His kingdom needed more from him,” Meggie continued, “so his advisers took the magician aside.” The doctors returned, cornering the little magician. “They made it clear he had to make the king as good as he was before.”

  The magician shrank away from the threatening postures of the doctors. The doctors stomped away, leaving the magician to pace and rub at his head in worry. Then, suddenly, he raised a hand to the heavens and gave a little hop.

  Meggie cleared her throat and said, “After much thought—”

  “—and even more worry—” Maude chimed in.

  “—the magician had an idea!”

  The magician bent over and appeared to be hammering at something. From behind the table came a frame with a thin napkin pinned to it. The magician next wrestled with a real pair of scissors (Meggie leaning out of the backstage area and saying, “We ran out of time!”) before disappearing again and tossing snips of black paper into the air. The scissors disappeared with a flash and the magician wrestled a real stormlantern onto the table. The magician stepped to center stage and raised both his arms in triumph.

  “The king was brought in for a special show that the magician hoped would catch his attention.”

  The king appeared and sat stiffly on a throne to watch, surrounded by fierce-looking advisers. The magician stood in front of a curtained display of his own—a miniature mimicry of what the crowd sat watching. The magician waved his arms and disappeared. Another stormlantern flared on, making a spotlight behind the miniature display. And from behind the second, and much smaller, illuminated screen another puppet rose.

  The queen had returned.

  The king jumped to his feet.

  In a squeaky voice, Meggie said, “Greetings, my king! Your love has brought me back once more—”

  The king rushed toward his queen, but she waved her arms to keep him back.

  “You and I might be separated by death but we are held together by something far stronger–love. You must stay on one side of the curtain and I must stay on the other. But,” she said when the king began to pace before her, “we can still have this moment and you might have this message to keep you warm now my body lies cold in the ground.”

  The king nodded slowly and, stepping back, sat cross-legged before his queen.

  The Wandering Wallace adjusted his position and laid his masked head on Miyakitsu’s shoulder, watching the story unfold.

  “You are not the same man I first married,” the queen said.

  “How can I be that man when part of my heart is forever gone?”

  “You think you have lost part of your heart? That you have lost your love?”

  He nodded.

  “You are so wrong, my love! I am not gone from this world at all—merely changed. You can find me in the seeping and strong colors of dawn. I am the notes that make the nightingale’s song sweet. I am the sustaining power of the ripened rice and the light in the eyes of our people. But when the joy and prosperity fades from our countrymen, I fade as well. Our people need their king. I need my king,” she whispered. “Your love of our kingdom and the prosperity of our people honors me.”

  The king nodded. “That is what I want—to honor you. For all to know that you will always be my love.”

  “Then give the devotion you once gave me to our people. Do good by them in my name. In this way your love will return to me and you will see me again in their smiles and in their laughter.”

  “As you wish,” he said.

  The queen shifted, her dark form wavering behind the illuminated curtain. “My time in this form is over. Find me in others and my love will never leave you.” And then the figurine shook, sinking behind stage.

  The king leapt to his feet. “Our people shall prosper under my renewed attention and in my queen’s name!”

  “And, so they did,” Meggie announced, crawling out from behind the table to stand. She brushed off her skirts. “Inspired, the king set about to improve his people’s lot in life and he never lacked for love again.”

  The king disappeared, the glow of the stormlanterns faded, and Maude rose from behind the table, dusted herself off, and joined Meggie.

  Meggie piped up in a practiced tone: “As the king was inspired that day, so we hope our play has inspired you! No love ever leaves us if we act with love in our hearts.”

  The two took each other’s hands and bowed low to the cheering crowd, their fingertips brushing the deck.

  It was as Bran helped Maude disassemble their makeshift stage that the Wandering Wallace approached. Bran busied himself with the magician’s props, hearing the Wandering Wallace ask Maude, “If I might make a request … Might you craft a few paper puppets for me?”

  Bran spared the masked man a glance. There was something changed in the Wandering Wallace’s posture—something meek, something humble.

  Not far from them, Marion and Caleb picked up swords to practice fighting, their every move overseen by Evie and Jack.

  Revolution was on its way, and the W
andering Wallace wanted Maude to make puppets.

  Maude nodded slowly. “Puppets of … ?”

  “Of myself, Miyakitsu, and my fox.”

  “Yes, of course,” Maude murmured.

  “Excellent well,” the Wandering Wallace said. He pulled himself up straighter and, as he left Maude and Bran to talk, it seemed his step was lighter.

  Maude pressed close to Bran, her breath teasing across his lips. All thought of revolution and puppets and the sins of his past fled. “Should I not be set other tasks? Miyakitsu makes our masks, Evie trains fighters …”

  Meggie pounced on her, wrapping her arms around Maude’s hips. “That was wonderful! I kept the lights good and steady, yes?” she whispered.

  “You most certainly did,” Maude agreed. “You are learning so much!”

  Bran smiled. “See?” he asked Maude. “You do have an important job in the making of this revolution,” Bran whispered, looking meaningfully at little Meggie, squeezed merrily between them. “No doubt.”

  ***

  Philadelphia

  Their landing near the hedgemaze on the Astraeas’ property had been less than flawless but far from horrendous. Rowen even managed to keep his stomach from turning inside out, which Jack gave as proof of a gentle landing. They had stepped out of the pod and, grunting, groaning, and straining, dragged the small ship out of direct sight of the sprawling Astraea mansion.

  They took their chance, slipping out of the hedgemaze and creeping unnoticed through one of the estate’s gates.

  “I dislike this entire situation,” Jack confided, his hand resting on his gun. “This area is too genteel. Too clean, too neat. Everything and everyone in its place,” he muttered, eyes roaming.

  “It’s where I grew up,” Rowen countered, his hand finding his sword. “This is home to me.”

  “I distrust everything about your home.”

  Rowen nodded. “We agree on that. Have a care,” he warned Jack, thrusting his arm out to move Jack back into the shadows. Men in watchmen’s uniforms strolled past, chatting as they occasionally snapped the butts of their staffs down on the cobbles, enjoying the ring of metal on stone. “They usually stay at their posts,” Rowen said, peering through narrowed eyes.

  “They have reason to be out and about,” Jack muttered. “Word has surely reached them about the Wraiths and Wardens vacating Holgate.”

  “Mmhmm.”

  Several dozen feet away, the watchmen shouted and ran after a ragged-looking boy. Catching him quickly, they held him up by his collar and yelled at him. Rowen picked out a few words, one of which was “curfew” and the other two were not to be repeated in polite company. He looked up at the street lamps. They had started to glow. Dusk was crawling across the Hill.

  Jack pulled his pocket watch from his waistcoat, popping it open to check the time. “We’d best get moving or our contact might decide better than to wait on us.”

  “Your contact can wait,” Rowen assured, watching as the watchmen dropped the boy and shoved him in the direction of the Hill’s slope. The watchmen might not afford lodgings on the Hill but they were eager to move along any ranked below them. If they couldn’t stay longer than a patrol, no ragamuffin would either.

  Another minute passed as the watchmen returned to their seemingly normal circuit, continuing.

  “Wait,” Rowen urged.

  They waited in the thickening shadows, watching the men’s backs grow smaller. When Rowen was certain they were out of earshot, he grabbed Jack’s arm and hurried down the street the opposite way from the watchmen. “Where are we meeting this contact?” Rowen asked.

  “The big oak in the old park. Does that mean anything to you? Any guess as to who this person is?”

  Rowen shook his head. He’d considered who might be willing (and able) to pay a bigger reward than the government, and why they might want him badly enough to do it, but the list in his head was short.

  His mother? Yes, but she’d never be caught in the old park. Not when the new park was far more fashionable. And she certainly would not be in such a location after a curfew. The family of Lord Edwards? He knew little about them. It was possible one of them had motivation and money to lure Rowen into their grasp for the purpose of exacting revenge. Not honorable, but possible.

  Beyond those options, Rowen could fathom no one else with such ready cash and keen interest.

  If things went well it wouldn’t matter. They would show up, take the money, disarm the person and be on their way.

  They had a plan.

  A negligible plan, but it was something. “Take my sword.”

  “What?” Jack’s eyes roamed up and down the streets and the occasional alleys shooting off at crisp angles.

  “Take my sword,” Rowen repeated. “If I am to appear your prisoner, should you not have disarmed me?”

  Jack blinked up at him, lips thin.

  “I would hope I would disarm a prisoner of mine,” Rowen muttered. “Especially a prisoner who is so much bigger than I am.”

  “Fatter.”

  “Heavier.” Rowen straightened, sucking his stomach in. “Muscle is heavy.”

  “So are the rocks in your head,” Jack muttered. “Fine. Give me your sword.”

  Rowen shoved it into his hands.

  “Is there anything else a proper captor would do to better give the impression of having dealt in ransoms?”

  Rowen snorted. “I find it very strange that, having obviously dealt in kidnapping—”

  “—shanghaiing—” Jack corrected.

  “—that you are not be better versed in such things.”

  “Generally we impress a captive, they like us, and there’s not a need to deal in ransoms or rewards for their return,” Jack explained. “You are an odd exception to many of the things we once supposed were rules.”

  Rowen nodded. “As is Jordan,” he whispered. “What a pair we make.”

  “You don’t seem to be making much of a pair at all.”

  Rowen shot him a look that could’ve been lethal, but placed a single finger to his lips and said, “Shhh. There. That’s our destination,” pointing to a copse of broad-trunked trees surrounded by a handful of stone and wooden benches.

  They could see a shadow move by the far bench—a shadow partly obscured by a tree’s trunk.

  Jack stepped out and around him, slipping a sash around his wrists.

  “That’s a bit weak, don’t you think?”

  “No, a bit weak is what you’ll be if I stab you in the leg with your own sword,” Jack corrected, snugging the sash tight.

  Rowen rolled his eyes.

  “Remember, you are my prisoner. Behave accordingly.”

  Rowen lowered his head and muttered under his breath, but Jack led him, carrying Rowen’s sword at his suggestion.

  They approached the trees and benches, muscles taut and coiled like springs—expecting ambush. They stopped before a seated figure engulfed in a voluminous cloak.

  A Kinsale cloak.

  A woman.

  ***

  Aboard the Artemesia

  A knock on her cabin door revealed Caleb outside. She let him in, relieved to be in a room where she controlled who entered and exited.

  “Bring it in,” he instructed in a most authoritative voice.

  Jordan stepped back, watching as a guard entered, a folded screen tucked beneath his arm. He moved to the edge of the room, and adjusted his grip, set the screen—still folded—before him.

  A man entered backwards, carrying the first part of a large copper tub, and he and a partner set it down in the room’s middle. The first man opened the screen and then they all removed their hats and bowed in her direction. They turned and left.

  Caleb entered, closing the door behind him once more. He gave Jordan a glance and then moved the chair to the far side of the screen so that now the chair and the tub were separated visually. He peeked back around at her. “It took some doing, you know. To bring a tub down here. That elevator isn’t exactly sp
acious. But, as you have made it abundantly clear you will not move to the captain’s quarters—”

  She winced. “Of course I cannot,” she whispered. Aghast, she stared at the gleaming tub.

  The door opened again and a group of maids carrying buckets of steaming hot water entered and began to fill the tub.

  “Is that his … ?”

  “No. You deserve to have his, but his is firmly attached to a wall and the floor with a system of pipes and a drain to provide running water. There was no easy way to remove it.”

  “Good,” she said, letting out a sigh. “I want nothing that reminds me of him,” she whispered, stepping forward to rest a hand on the tub’s tall edge.

  Lightning flared outside her windows, its reflection tripping across the rippling surface of the water as its volume grew. A girl paused and threw a handful of herbs and flowers into the bath water and Jordan couldn’t help but smile. She remembered baths like this. The servants, the scent of herbs steeping in warm water.

  The peace it all brought.

  “Thank you,” she said. She meant it. Suddenly it was not simply a reflexive response she had been trained into, but she meant it.

  Truly and deeply.

  Caleb smiled. “This is only the beginning, dear child,” he assured.

  “You really need to stop calling me that,” she said. “We are surely of an age.”

  After sufficient time soaking to leave her hands as wrinkled as walnuts and her mind clear, she stepped out of the tub, her body alive, fresh, and gleaming with water. She snatched a towel from a waiting servant’s hands and wrapped herself in it, using a second to rub most of the wet out of her hair.

  “Are you decent, dear one,” Caleb asked.

  “I most certainly am not,” Jordan snapped, pulling the towel more tightly about herself.

  “Oh, dear,” he muttered, coming around the screen to look at her directly.

  She gave a little shriek and turned her back to him. “Go away, Caleb. Go away now—it is not seemly for you to see me like this …”

  “Well, that is most unfortunate. Because I am not the only one who will be seeing you like that, my lady.”