The Crimson Skew

by S. E. Grove

  “Well, MacWilliams?” Major Merret asked, into the still silence.

  MacWilliams was looking at him now with open hatred. His boredom-turned-smugness-turned-discomfort had crystalized into something else.

  “Are you going to do anything about it?” the major prodded, his tone insolent. “Do you have the decency and common sense to help a fellow soldier being made to eat dirt? A soldier who might well be you next time? Or don’t you?” He stared at MacWilliams, a sneering smile on his face. Then he lifted his boot and stepped back.

  Collins coughed. A moment later he began retching. MacWilliams, with a final look of loathing at Merret, crouched down and gently helped Collins to his knees. He kept his hand on the man’s back as Collins vomited.

  Theo’s brief flare of good feeling evaporated. Instead, he felt a cold repellence at how Merret had manipulated MacWilliams—and the entire company. He had intentionally brought about the anger, the fear, and finally the wish to defend Collins.

  Merret’s lesson had succeeded. They would not fight one another again. They had a common enemy now.

  As the major gave them leave to begin breaking camp, and the soldiers dispersed, fleeing as quickly as possible, Theo stood rooted to the spot. The clouds overhead rumbled, and Theo wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform. “Hey,” Casanova said, putting his hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Come on.” Theo didn’t respond. “I know. Merret is a brute. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  Theo blinked and turned to look at Casanova. “He’s not a brute. He’s a clown. That’s what this company needs to see.”

  Casanova shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a joke. What we have to do is laugh at him. If we can laugh at him, we won’t be afraid of him.”

  Casanova’s good eye narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re planning, Theo, but don’t plan it. Just let it pass.” He pulled Theo back to their tent, a worried look on his scarred face.

  8

  Bark and Bone

  —1892, August 6: 19-Hour 36—

  I have come to the conclusion that there is a fine line between observing the present and predicting what might happen in the future. They seem distinct, but could it not be that through one lies the other? I have seen how a saturated understanding of the surrounding circumstances can be so complete, so all-encompassing, that the supposed future is not so much an unknown element to be imagined or guessed, but a direct and indeed obvious result of the present.

  —From Sophia Tims’s Reflections on a Journey to the Eerie Sea

  SOPHIA KNEW SHE needed to sleep, since they planned to leave Maxine’s house before dawn. But Goldenrod’s words—that she, Sophia, might be like an Eerie—excited her so much that she sat on the edge of her bed, eagerly studying the two objects Maxine had given her. Just for a little while, she told herself, and then I’ll go to bed.

  The flat disc of tree trunk was almost perfectly circular. It had been cut cleanly—so cleanly that the rings stood out crisply from one another, all slightly different shades of light brown. Sophia ran her finger along them, thinking that the tree’s memories might be felt by touch, just as on an ordinary memory map. But no memories woke in her mind.

  She scrutinized the outer edge. A thin, crusty layer of bark had protected the tree. I don’t even know what kind of tree this is, she realized. Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out her notebook and pencils and turned to a clean page. She drew a careful sketch of Maxine’s tree, including the paths she had not taken, and she added the instructions the fortune-teller had given her at the end: the three crossroads. Then she drew the two objects and listed her questions:

  Questions about Maxine’s maps.

  1. What kind of tree?

  2. What was used to cut it down?

  3. Who cut it down?

  4. Does how it was cut / who cut it matter to the map?

  5. Was the map made by cutting? After cutting? During life of the tree?

  Sophia tapped the pencil lightly against her chin. Then she added,

  6. Do these maps sleep and wake like other memory maps?

  7. If so, what would wake a tree map?

  She stared at the ring once more, her thoughts wandering to different possibilities. Water? Sunlight? Soil? She dipped her finger into the glass of water on the spindly table and allowed several drops to fall onto the tree ring. Nothing happened. “I can’t try sunlight or soil until tomorrow,” she murmured aloud.

  On the next clean page in her notebook, she wrote:

  Observations about the tree and antler.

  Tree: smooth to touch apart from bark.

  She pulled it close and sniffed it. Smells as though it might be pine?

  Then she realized what she had not yet done: count the tree’s rings. Running her finger from the outer edge to the middle, she counted forty-three. 43 rings, so the tree was 43 years old when it was cut down.

  Next, though she felt silly doing it, she held the tree ring up to her ear. No sound, she wrote.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she touched the tip of her tongue to the bark. Tastes like wood. Obviously.

  Though she pored over the cross section for some time more, she could add nothing else to her observations. Putting it aside with a sigh, she took up the piece of antler.

  Antler, she wrote. Smooth to the touch, except for where it broke off from the rest of the antler: jagged and fractured like bone. Dark brown, almost like wood.

  She applied her other senses to it tentatively. Tastes like nothing. Sounds like nothing. Smells like old coats.

  She shifted back to her page of questions.

  1. Why was the antler piece broken off from the rest?

  2. Did it break before or after the moose shed antlers for the winter?

  3. How are memories put into an antler?

  4. If this is a sleeping map, what would wake the memories?

  Stumped, Sophia stared off into the distance, considering. She found herself imagining—out of pure speculation, since she had never seen a living moose—what the days of a moose might be like in the wild. Presumably this moose would graze for food and look for water. He might walk long distances. Would there be other moose nearby? Would there be people? Or did moose live in solitude? She imagined green, hilly landscapes and cool pine forests and warm ponds with mud at the bottom.

  Resting her head on her pillow, she stared at the ceiling. She pictured a slow meandering path through a green field. At the far end of it was a forest. Insects buzzed in endless circles over the tall grass, and birds dipped through the air in pursuit.

  The dark curtains shifted gently with a sudden breeze, and the dank air from outside stole into the room. A quiet rumble sounded from the gathered clouds above the city. The antler lay cradled in Sophia’s palm, and her fingers closed over it reflexively. Her breathing slowed. Soon, she was asleep.

  And the dreams began.

  It was raining. She walked heavily along a track through the woods, and she saw the world from an elevated vantage point. Aspen, willow, and spruce grew all around her. She knew them well—each was as familiar and specific as a friend. Their branches brushed her sides gently, the cool water on the leaves soothing her skin. A clearing stood in the distance, and she felt a sense of exhausted relief, knowing home was nearby. As they reached it—she knew without knowing how that someone else was present—the rain stopped, and a thick mist swirled all around them. From out of the mist, a low bermed house appeared. Beside it was a lean-to made of logs. A short spout poured water from the house’s gutters into a stone bowl inside the lean-to. “We’re here, Nosh,” a low voice said in her ear.

  The dream shifted to another scene. She was standing at the top of a hill. A boy stood beside her, squinting into the distance. They were above a valley where a grove of trees grew alone. Something about the trees struck
her as incomprehensibly beautiful. These are not for eating, she thought wryly. She felt drawn to them, but something much greater—some powerful impulse that spoke directly to her heart—told her to stay away. The boy beside her turned his face toward her. “What do you think, Nosh?” He looked puzzled. He was Eerie, with close-cut hair and skin that turned green as it reached his scalp. Under black eyebrows, his eyes were dark, the expression in them pensive. She felt a throb of protective affection for him as he gazed at her searchingly. “Why can’t we go closer?” he asked, echoing her thoughts. The boy put his hand loosely on her shoulder and absentmindedly ran his fingers back and forth over her neck.

  As they stood watching, a distant figure appeared at the crest of a hill on the far side of the valley. Sophia felt the boy beside her tense with interest. As the figure wound its way downhill, it came into closer view, and a faint cry reached them. “A Wailing,” the boy gasped. Sophia’s eye was drawn by movement to her left. Another figure had appeared between the hills to the south; this one moved more quickly, as if pulled forward by a string. Its cries were low sobs that echoed on the wind. She grunted to alert the boy. “You’re right,” he whispered. “Two Wailings.” Both figures converged on the grove of trees and disappeared among them. There was a sudden silence.

  The dream drifted once more, and she found herself running: running hard in the darkness. She could smell fire. Her heart was pounding. The trees that had brushed her sides so lovingly during the day scratched and tore at her now. She felt the unbridled panic in her chest outpacing her, as if it were a separate thing that was running before her, faster and faster. “We’re safe, we’re safe,” she heard someone say. But they were only words, and they seemed to mean nothing. What were words when she had a panic to chase? There it was, light as anything, streaking through the dark woods like a pale malevolent spirit, always out of reach.

  Sophia woke with a start, her own heart pounding. The antler rolled out of her palm. She pressed her hand to her heart and took deep breaths of air, air untouched by smoke. The dreams had seemed so real that it took some time for her to realize where and who she was. There’s no fire, she repeated to herself reassuringly. There’s no fire, and I’m safe. The flame lamp was still lit, and she rolled toward the spindly table to look at her watch. It was almost three-hour. She would have to rise soon to be on time for the train. With a sigh, she rolled back onto her pillow.

  Then she remembered the antler. Searching for it among the sheets, she took up the rough object and looked at it critically. Were those memories of yours or dreams of mine? she asked the antler silently. Putting it carefully on the table, she closed her eyes and tried to take what rest she could before Maxine knocked on her door.

  9

  Wren’s Voice

  —1892, August 7: 3-Hour 51—

  The obstacle in most cases is time. But imagine circumstances in which time was not an obstacle. Imagine watching the progress of a snail along a garden path. Watching the snail wind its slow way toward the cabbage leaf, you are in no doubt as to the future—it is obvious. Just as the snail’s fate is obvious when you see the gardener approaching with a bucket of salt. How is it not the same with us? Could it not be that astonishing prognostications of the future are, more correctly, quite un-astonishing observations of the present made with wisdom and ample time?

  —From Sophia Tims’s Reflections on a Journey to the Eerie Sea

  MAXINE BUNDLED THE travelers into a six-person coach in the early hours before dawn. Already wearing their disguises, they would board the earliest train to Salt Lick, which left New Orleans Station at four-hour, twelve.

  She murmured quick words of encouragement and embraced each of them as they stepped up into the coach. “You look very convincing, my dear,” she said to Sophia.

  “It’s dark out,” Sophia replied with a wry smile.

  “You sound convincing,” Maxine countered. The tiny bells on Sophia’s cape tinkled quietly as she wedged herself in between Goldenrod and Errol. Calixta, Wren, and Burr sat across from them. “Be safe,” the fortune-teller quietly said, and shut the open door. Calixta knocked on the roof. The horses stepped forward and the coach began rolling over the cobblestones.

  The coach was pitch dark, but Sophia had seen her fellow travelers in the light and warmth of Maxine’s kitchen. To her surprise, they did make convincing raiders. The ragged clothes lined with brass bells changed everyone’s appearance. Goldenrod’s mask was a bundle of silver chains covering the upper half of her face. Only her eyes were visible. On her hands were leather gloves dotted with tiny steel studs. Her hair was beaded with bright bells no larger than a fingernail. Errol, curious despite himself, had fitted one of the sets of metal teeth into his mouth and laughed at his own reflection. “Asr wrong ash I jont haf to chalk,” he managed.

  “I’ll do the talking,” Calixta assured him. She wore a costume similar to Goldenrod’s, but upon her head was a crown with tall, sharp points that seemed half ornament, half weapon. Her heavy necklace was made of long, cylindrical bells that chimed with her every movement. The footwear, which she had modified herself—finding none of Maxine’s footwear suitable—was high leather boots with steel caps. “Do I win your bet?” she had asked Burr, delighted.

  He and Wren had dressed almost identically, with threadbare capes over heavy, studded vests. Their trousers had rows of bells along the outer seams. Sophia held her cape, also lined with tiny bells, folded in her lap. She had kept her own clothes—they seemed threadbare enough—and opted only for gloves, a cape, and a sturdy pair of boots trimmed with steel studs. She wore a simpler version of Goldenrod’s mask: three silver chains draped delicately across her face, meeting at a single silver bead on her forehead. She found the thin chains strangely reassuring against her skin; insubstantial as they were, they made her feel protected. That’s probably why raiders wear so much metal, she reflected, looking out through the open coach window at the dark streets of New Orleans.

  The train station lay a short distance from Maxine’s house. They had ridden in silence for some few minutes when the coach ground to a halt. “This isn’t the station,” Calixta muttered. “Driver?” she called through the open window. There was no response. Calixta was reaching for the door handle when a stranger’s voice cut through the darkness.

  “Richard Wren. This is Bruce Davies, agent number six-one-one. Exit the coach alone. I have orders to return you to Sydney immediately.”

  The travelers in the coach froze.

  Calixta leaned toward the open window. “There is no Richard Wren here. We are raiders from Copper Hill headed north to Salt Lick. You have been misinformed.”

  “We are rarely misinformed, Captain Morris,” came the dry reply. “I not only know the occupants of the coach, I know all of your movements for the past twenty hours. We did not approach you at the home of Maxine Bisset for reasons of our own, but we could easily be having this conversation there.” He cleared his throat. “Agent Wren?”

  After several seconds, Wren leaned forward toward the open window.

  “Agent Davies, I will exit the coach and accompany you to Sydney on one condition.”

  There was a pause. “You are not in a negotiating position, Wren. I have four other agents with me.”

  Wren hesitated. “Blast his four agents,” Calixta whispered fiercely. “You can’t go with him. We’ll get rid of them and go on to the train.”

  “I must,” Wren said. “You don’t understand. We would almost certainly all be killed.” He leaned toward the window. “Agent Davies, this could be a costly engagement for you if my companions and I resist. I will go with you quietly if you promise that my friends will be allowed to continue undisturbed. The League will leave them alone. Always.”

  “Look, agent,” came the reply, “you know the process as well as any of us.” There was a pause. “The best I can offer is that we won’t take them in now. But I can’t make any p
romises for the long term.”

  There was another pause. In the sudden quiet, Burr leaned forward and addressed his sister. “Do you remember when we tried to capture Felix to take him back to Havana? What a day that was,” he ended wistfully.

  Calixta chuckled, apparently not finding this unexpected recollection out of place. “How could I forget? It’s the way we met Peaches.”

  “It was a well-played hand.”

  “It was indeed. A little underhanded, but well-played.”

  “Do you mind?” Wren snapped. “I’m trying to decide what to do.”

  “Wren?” the voice from the street prompted.

  Wren shifted to the front of his seat. “Very well,” he said heavily.

  Before he could move, Burr, who was closest to the door, flung it open and jumped from the coach in a single bound. He slammed the coach door behind him. “Ride on,” he shouted to the driver, and the coach jolted abruptly into motion.

  Wren stared, aghast. “Wait!” he cried, rising from his seat.

  Calixta covered his mouth with her gloved hand and pushed him back. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  He made a muffled complaint from behind the glove and began trying to throw Calixta off.

  Perched on Errol’s shoulder, Seneca fluttered his wings in agitation.

  “What good will it do now, Richard?” Calixta argued, pushing him roughly.

  “I can’t let him—” Wren leaped for the door.