by Lia Habel
Mom kissed my forehead. “Exactly.” She drew back and looked me over before announcing, “I have a surprise for you. I was going to give it to you for Christmas, but I think you need it now.”
She left me and went to her room. While she was gone, I thought about what she’d said. For some reason, at that moment I felt more annoyed than resigned. Despite my mother’s reassurances, I felt like my crush on Michael had been soured by manners. Was I not permitted to have a single thing of my own? Could I not enjoy even an innocent crush without it becoming a serious affair?
At the same time, I felt sick with shame for wanting to enjoy it. I remembered the sound of Nora’s voice mingling with Michael’s, how happy we all seemed that day in the garden of rare birds.
Just for a moment, I wanted to be free of everything. Every burden, every fear. Just for a moment.
I knew that was unlikely to ever happen.
When Mom came back, it was with a long, irregular package wrapped in thin paper and tied with a ribbon.
“What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
I did, untying the ribbon carefully so I could add it to my collection. I ripped the paper away, revealing a gas lamp parasol, lacy white.
“When Nora comes back,” she told me, “you shall be the prettiest pair out walking. What boy, rich or poor, could resist?”
I desperately hoped that would come to pass, my fingers trailing along the buttons on the parasol’s handle.
Isambard returned for breakfast, and I made a show of asking after his health and serving him at the table. His expression told me he didn’t know what to make of my show of kindness.
“What are you doing?” he whispered when Mom had her back turned.
“Showing you what two-faced behavior looks like,” I whispered back. “For when you get to Arcadian’s.”
His scowl made my breakfast taste so good.
A little before ten he got ready to depart for school again. My mother waited at the open door to see him off. The street outside was still filled with people.
“My stars,” she commented.
“Dirty vagabonds,” Isambard sniffed.
I couldn’t help but gawp at him. Perhaps he hadn’t gotten the point. “Isambard, some of those people are richer than our family ten times over.”
He looked at me. “Well, now they’re dirty vagabonds,” he said, tone dry and hateful. I realized that fighting with him was useless. It would be far better to focus my energies elsewhere.
As Mom was closing the door, we saw it. Making its way slowly up the street, through the crowd, was an electric carriage in enameled blue and silver. I stepped closer to the doorway to watch with her, to see if it really was him. Sure enough, I saw a hint of fair hair through the tinted window. “It’s Mr. Allister.”
Mom shut the door and practically dragged me to the parlor. She did a once-over on me, patting things into place, before grabbing a book from the cabinet and throwing it at my chest.
“Oof! Mom!”
“Sit. Read.” She then hastened back to the door.
I did as I was told, and counted to ten.
The knock came perhaps five minutes later. Mother straightened her own plain dress, waited for an agonizing fifteen seconds more, and opened the door. “Ah, young Mr. Allister! How pleasant to see you.”
I heard him respond with, “Good morning, Mrs. Roe. I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Not at all. Please, come in.” When I heard his feet on the floorboards, I thought again of how, at any other time, I might have been positively giddy at the notion that Michael Allister was in my house. Today, I looked at the book on my lap and tried to muster up enough energy to smile.
When they entered the parlor, I stood up and curtsied. “Mr. Allister, how do you do?”
He bowed. His gray suit was perfectly cut, and his cravat matched the green of his eyes. “Very well, Miss Roe, how are you?”
“Doing as well as can be expected.” I sat, and so did my mother, which gave him permission to as well. He chose to sit opposite me, on the other end of the sofa. My skirt was currently hiding the little hole I’d put in it.
“I hope you encountered no problems on the road,” my mother said.
“I think there’s nothing but problems to be had on the road,” he said, looking to the window. Our parlor is a little shabby, but clean. The walls are painted a faded blue, and the cluttered fireplace and shelves are built directly in. “Has this been going on since the arrival of our forces?”
“Yes, it started yesterday.” My mother adjusted her apron over her dress. “We’re the part of the city closest to the Elysian Fields, likely we’ll see everyone move through here.”
“Ah,” he said in understanding. There was nothing but the ticking of our old grandfather clock for a minute or more before he offered, “It’s a good thing Miss Dearly isn’t here to see this, really.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. Michael and my mother looked at me oddly. I explained, “I mean … she’d be in the thick of it if she were.”
“Ah,” Michael said again. His tone of voice told me he didn’t quite accept this.
I swallowed and added, “But as long as she’s not … well … there’s hope.”
Michael reached into the pocket of his velvet frock coat, drawing out a handkerchief. It was embroidered with his initials in navy blue.
I shook my head and took a deep breath, even as I felt my cheeks burning. “I am well, sir.”
“It would be a great honor to me if you would have it,” he said, offering it.
I slowly reached out to take it. “Thank you.”
He smiled stiffly. “I must admit, your family has been much on my mind. Miss Dearly’s aunt, Mrs. Ortega, is staying with us, you know.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t know that. Is she well?”
His brow furrowed. “Yes, she’s well.”
“And her staff?” I thought of Matilda and Alencar, and found myself suddenly worried about them.
“She would have to tell you—I’m afraid I don’t know. They are not with us. Honestly, I think it’s rather low of her not to have been in touch with you.”
My mother’s posture straightened. “Well, Mr. Allister, you move in circles that are not likely to be in touch with us, aside from a few necessary words. Your parents demonstrated that yesterday.”
Michael coughed. “I cannot apologize for my parents, but I am sorry that you were made to endure that slight. It was not my intention to subject you to that. I must have my parents’ permission to speak with you, to come here, but …” He looked at me again. “I do not care how grudgingly it’s given, so long as I have it. I hope to count you as a friend.”
I admitted, “I hope to count you as a friend as well.”
My mother said nothing, but went about her handkerchief embroidery with more patience than usual, which told me she was repressing the urge to dance.
The rest of the visit passed in the usual way—talk of the weather, of school. Michael attended St. Arcadian’s. Chuckling, he said, “I hope to have longer to spend with you someday—the stories I could tell you about school. It might distract us both.”
“I half think I could outdo you,” I said. “Keep in mind, I bring an outsider’s perspective.”
Michael tugged on the lapels of his waistcoat. “You think so, hmm? It’s on, then. Verbal pistols at dawn.”
I actually smiled.
And then I heard screaming.
We all leapt up at once, like marionettes attached to the same string. Michael and I ran to the parlor window, while my mother went to the door. Pushing the curtains back, I could see a crowd fleeing toward the outskirts of the city. One man trailed behind them, a single bloody arm lifted in the air.
A bow was clutched in his hand.
God in heaven.
“Miss Roe!” Michael shouted as I ran away.
Without even thinking about it, I grabbed the first thing my hand landed upon from the umbrel
la stand near the door—which just happened to be my new parasol. My mother was standing in the open doorway, her fist to her mouth, and I had to physically shove her aside to get out of the house. She caught me by my skirt and attempted to pull me back inside.
“Pamela, what are you doing?!”
“Let me go!” I yelled. “Let me go! It’s Mr. Coughlin—it’s Ebenezer Coughlin! Someone has to help him!”
“Someone will! Get back inside, it’s not for you to handle!”
I wanted this to be true. I watched the crowd anxiously, waiting for someone to go to Mr. Coughlin’s aid. But they just kept running. No one stopped.
I took my skirt in my hands and tore it away from my mother. I ran into the street, into the massive current of humanity, the only person going in the opposite direction. I used the parasol to shove people off if they wouldn’t move, to fight my way through. All I could think of was getting to the poor man and helping him.
The ribbon around my neck came loose and fluttered away on the cold breeze as I finally got through the crowd and over to Ebenezer. “Mr. Coughlin! Oh, Mr. Coughlin, let’s get you inside …”
“She bit me! She bit me!”
“Come to the side of the street.” People were watching us from the surrounding doorways. I caught the empty sleeve of Ebenezer’s coat and started to lead him in the direction of a nearby hat shop. I heard doors slamming, more screaming. “Help us! Someone, help us! He’s been hurt!”
“She bit me!” he warbled, voice tight with fear. “And she ate it!”
I stopped in my tracks, every muscle freezing, including my heart. I slowly looked to Ebenezer’s arm. He continued to sob about how someone had eaten it, just gnashed it up and swallowed it whole …
There was blood. A lot of blood. And a chunk missing out of his forearm.
My parasol clattered to the ground. I dropped his coat and put my hands over my mouth.
That’s when I saw her.
She was stumbling up the street, a young woman with copper hair, skin the color of molding trash, eyes jaundiced yellow. A low, continuous moan escaped her throat. She was walking on a broken foot, her ankle twisted to the side, useless. It might have been funny if it didn’t look so painful, if it didn’t tell me that something was dreadfully wrong.
Ebenezer saw her, too, and started shrieking. He ran, blood splattering the asphalt behind him. I heard more people shouting, my own mother among them, but I was rooted to the spot.
This is what the illness did. The stories were true.
The shouting attracted the sick girl, and suddenly she was moving with lightning speed, honing in on me. She hit me before I could even think of running, forcing me to the ground, her teeth snapping at my head. She was like a mad dog.
Now screaming myself, I tried to push her off by the shoulders, to keep her mouth away from me. Fueled by some mysterious rage, she was impossibly strong. I struggled blindly, adrenaline surging through my limbs, my mind a wasteland of terrified emotions and jumbled ideas.
Then my eyes fell on my parasol and I took a chance.
I let go of her with one hand, grabbed it, and started hitting. Whether it hurt her or not, I couldn’t tell, but she was distracted enough to flail at the parasol instead of me. I was able to fight her back just far enough to squirm out from under her and struggle to my feet. Panting, I clutched my parasol like a baseball bat.
She came at me. I hit her, hard. It kept her at bay. But no matter how hard I tried to swing it, the parasol wasn’t heavy enough to seriously injure her. I tried running, but she was so fast that she was able to catch me by my gown, just as my mother had, and I had no choice but to turn around and face her again. Soon she had me backed up against the wall of a building, helpless prey. As I watched her approach, crouched low and hissing, I realized I was going to die.
I’ll never know what possessed me in that instant—what part of my brain was calling the shots. Perhaps Nora was dead and her spirit was screaming instructions at me. But in a final, pathetic attempt to save myself, I turned the umbrella out like a javelin and thrust my weight behind it in time with her next animalistic lunge.
Whether guided by luck, or by the will of the universe, or by Nora’s phantom hand—when the woman ran at it, the spiked metal gas lamp on top went right through her eye. I screamed like a warrior of old, like the rampaging Punks in Nora’s stupid holos, and bore down on my improvised weapon.
I heard a sickening crack.
She went down, twitching, at my feet.
I dropped the parasol and staggered to the side, trembling. My limbs felt like blancmange. I looked up. People were staring at me from windows and doorways. I heard pounding footsteps and then Michael was there, not ten feet away, looking at me as if he didn’t know me.
I’d just killed someone.
I’d just killed someone.
The last thing I heard as I sagged to the ground, the pavement scraping my palms, was the wail of a siren.
I awoke the next morning a little … happy.
It was a bit surprising, given everything that was going on. And I wasn’t sure who Happy Nora was anymore—it’d been so long since I’d seen her last. But I was willing to become reacquainted with her. I let her do her thing.
Happy Nora got out of bed and stretched her arms toward the ceiling, rolling upward onto her tiptoes. Happy Nora suddenly felt there was something to look forward to out there, something large and bright and currently invisible but descending, fast, like a ray of sunshine from between the clouds. No matter how complicated my current situation, the simple fact was that I’d been in danger, and I was saved. I’d been torn back from the edge of disaster. And what’s more, there was the chance, the chance, that I would see my father again, feel his arms around me, hear his voice.
I was angry at him, yes, but at least he was still out there to be angry at.
Things were going to be okay. More than okay. Yeah, there was a lot wrong with the universe just now—but in the end it was going to be okay.
And Happy Nora viewed Bram’s room, I found, not as a curiosity, but as a place where an incredibly brave, honest young man lived. In fact, the thought of Bram made Happy Nora bounce a little on her toes, and that’s when I grabbed her by the shoulders and stopped her, a little embarrassed for both of us.
Don’t get too carried away, there.
I didn’t rifle through Bram’s things again. I made his bed tight as a drum. I got dressed and brushed my hair and then sat, waiting, barely feeling the chair beneath me. I could have just left the room, but I didn’t want Bram to have to come looking for me.
Happy Nora suggested that might be fun, hiding somewhere just to see what he would do. Would he panic, or would he very calmly search every inch of the place, like a hunter? Which would we rather he did?
Thoroughly irritated, I told Happy Nora to scram for the day. We’d not found my father yet, after all—and he had a lot of explaining to do. I still hadn’t gotten to call Pam, either. And the story Bram’d told me last night … the last thing he needed was someone making trouble for him.
He knocked twenty minutes later. I opened the door.
“Good morning, Br—”
He was standing in the hall, a silvery weapon supported against his shoulder. It had two crescent-shaped blades, one on either end, with a rod between them.
“What on earth are you going to do with that thing?” I yelped. I took a step back, my heart rate picking up, wondering if this was it—if he’d come for me, like the Reaper, after all. Oh, how foolish I’d been …
Bram smiled with half of his mouth. “Teach you how to use it.”
My fear and confusion immediately dissolved. “Oh, keen.”
“Yes, they are, so be careful.” He turned his wrist as he handed it over, making the thing twirl. It caught the light like a pinwheel. I took it in two hands. “This is a modified double-loaded spring action scythe. Our version of the usual e-tool. Samedi is a sarcastic bastard, sometimes.”
I s
hortened all this to, “Awesome.”
Bram leaned against the door frame, watching me as I examined the weapon. “I figure that you’re about the tiniest thing I’ve ever seen.” I gave him what must have been a murderous look, and he laughed. “My sisters have to be taller than you by now. How old are you?”
“Almost seventeen,” I grumbled. “Yeah, I’m short. How observant of you.”
“Nothing wrong with being short,” he said. “I think it’s cute. But it’s not so good for fighting. Guns are the best weapon for you, truly, so long as you can keep the undead at a distance. But you’re going to need something like this if you get caught up in ground fighting.”
I momentarily brushed aside the idea that he thought something about me was cute. “Ground fighting? You mean—”
He held up a hand. “No. No army for you. But hey, it’s dangerous out there, and the more you know about defending yourself, the better off you’ll be. I think that’s true for anyone, but especially girls.” He grinned. “Tiny, tiny little girls.”
I squeezed my fists around the weapon as I glowered at him—and ended up on my rear end as the rod shot out an extension on either side. What had been a construct about two feet long was now as tall as me. Bram laughed like a maniac as I struggled to my feet. “How do I make them go back in?!” I asked, my cheeks burning.
He came around behind me and put his arms on either side of mine, still laughing. “There’re two little levers. You slide ’em both at the same time.”
I did nothing of the sort. I was still. He was behind me, his chest almost touching my back. It hit me again how easily he could tear my neck out, how easily he could crush me, how he could—
He let go of me and cleared his throat. “Are you listening?” He wasn’t laughing anymore. I cursed myself. I’m sure he was angry at me for hesitating, for freezing like a hunted deer when he’d never shown me the slightest indication of violence.
Contrite, I worked the levers. The rods snapped back in with a whoosh. I looked up at him, cheeks still pink I’m sure. “Yes.”
There was no anger in his eyes. Instead, he looked frustrated. “We’ll work in the yard together after breakfast. But first, we’re going to visit Chas.”
