The Crimson Skew

by S. E. Grove

  “I never knew them,” Bittersweet put in, “but my mother is full of stories. Some are good stories.” He smiled. “Once, my mother said, the three sisters helped lead a pair of lost children out of the wood by sending them a cloud of fireflies.”

  “Not everything they did was so charming,” Smokey continued. “Borage, in particular, the most talented of the three, grew vengeful as she grew older. She hated the way people of the Territories treated the old one, and once, in her fury, she brought a weirwind that left more than a dozen settlers dead. The Elodeans cast her out for it, and she came here. For a time, we accepted her. There were some who called her a murderer and would not look her in the face, but we pride ourselves on taking in outcasts here, and most tried to countenance the three sisters. Until Borage revealed her plan for Oakring.” Smokey shook her head. “She decided that it was not enough to speak with the old one and influence its actions. She wanted more. She wanted to be an old one herself.”

  Sophia caught her breath.

  “But what would that even look like?” Theo asked skeptically.

  “That is the part we do not know, for we forbade it. Borage wanted to claim Oakring and the land all around it, making it her own. We banished her. She went north, with her sisters, to the Eerie Sea, and it is there that she attempted to create and inhabit an Age of her own.”

  “What we hear,” Bittersweet said, “is that every tree and rock and blade of grass there is an animated expression of her consciousness. Even the animals—and there are also creatures of her own making. But it is hard to say, for few have ventured there. Ash and Sage spend all their energies attempting to contain her.”

  Although Sophia found the portrait Bittersweet and Smokey had painted unsettling, she could imagine worse. She thought about other ways the armies of New Occident might be stopped, and all of them seemed more outlandish and more dangerous: surrounding the grove to protect it; provoking the army to march elsewhere; persuading the commanding officers on the strength of her conviction alone. Traveling into the Eerie Sea still seemed the better option.

  “It sounds strange but not dangerous,” Casanova said, voicing Sophia’s own conclusion. “I will go.”

  “The three of us can go,” Theo said. “Her grudge is against the Eerie and all of you from Oakring, right? So we should be fine.”

  “You, Theo, are not ready to travel,” Casanova objected.

  “He may not be,” Bittersweet said, “but Theo is likely the only way you will find them. It is quite difficult to find the shores of the Eerie Sea. We have no maps, and none of you is Eerie.”

  “What do you mean, I’m the only way?” Theo asked.

  Bittersweet and Smokey exchanged a glance. “You have the Mark of Iron, do you not?” asked Bittersweet.

  Theo held up his hand. “Yes.”

  “Well, what did you think it was for?”

  “For?” Theo echoed.

  Nosh let out a breath that sounded uncannily like a laugh. “That’s unkind, Nosh,” Bittersweet remarked, but he was trying to control his smile. “Many people in the Baldlands don’t know its meaning.”

  “What did he say?” Theo asked indignantly.

  Bittersweet hesitated. “He finds it amusing that you don’t use the Mark,” he said, clearly editing Nosh’s comment.

  “The Mark is a compass, Theo,” Smokey said, reaching out to press his scarred right hand. “People in Oakring with the Mark of Iron use it for way-finding. That’s what it’s for.”

  • • •

  THEO WAS INCREDULOUS, then furious, and finally, after a time, elated. Though it seemed a disgraceful waste to have lived almost seventeen years without knowledge of the Mark’s power, he decided that the most important thing was to waste not a minute more. The lethargy brought on by the strain of recovery vanished. Insisting that time was short, he persuaded Smokey to take him into Oakring.

  True to the story Lichen had told them, there were both people with the Mark of Iron and people with the Mark of the Vine in Oakring. Sarah Smoke Longfellow, as the town’s medic, knew them all. She decided that they would ask a man named Everett, a renowned tracker, to teach Theo how to use his hand. Theo could hardly contain his excitement. As he headed off with Smokey and Casanova, leaving Bittersweet and Sophia behind, he seemed to have forgotten his injured shoulder entirely.

  “You and I have our own work to do,” Bittersweet said as he joined Sophia at Smokey’s kitchen table. “Do you have the tree ring?”

  Sophia took it from her satchel and put it on the table. “Here it is.”

  “Have you been able to read it yet while waking?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Try again. You may find a new purpose in doing so.” He touched the wheel of wood. “When I looked at it the other night, I saw something interesting. This tree has memories of the three sisters.”

  Sophia’s eyes widened. “It does?”

  “It would be an advantage to you, I think, to see them in this way before you venture north into the Eerie Sea.”

  Sophia regarded him. “What will you do while we head north? Will you stay here with Smokey?”

  Bittersweet shook his head. “Thanks to your uncle’s map, I have a fair idea of where Datura will be next. I aim to get there ahead of her this time.” He stood up. “I will leave later today, and I have plans to make with Nosh. Good luck with the reading,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be back to say good-bye.”

  Sophia turned her attention to the disc of pinewood before her. Every time she had tried to read the map while awake, it had remained silent. Maybe now it will be different, she said to herself, trying not to struggle against a sense of frustration. Maybe now that I have seen the grove and understood what it means to perceive rather than see.

  She rested her fingertips on the wooden surface. Closing her eyes, she focused on the texture of the pine. It felt the way it always did. She willed herself to lose track of time, so that the moment expanded loosely, making a protective room all around her. Her arm felt heavy, then surprisingly light. The pine was smooth and slightly warm, but the warmth did not register as temperature; the warmth was something else.

  Sophia paused in her observations, realizing that something important had happened. Warmth was not warmth; wood was not wood. Her fingertips no longer seemed to rest against a solid surface. In a way that Sophia did not understand, in a way she urgently, deliberately did not question, her fingertips were touching memories. She could feel them brushing up against her skin like filaments of fine thread. It was the memories that made the heat.

  The memories lay before her. She could see them just as she would in a memory map made by human hands: snowfall, spring mornings, summer storms, autumn evenings, another snowfall. People came and went. A girl climbed the trunk and clambered up the branches, laughing. An old man rested against the exposed roots, tired and aching, catching his breath. A furtive boy dug and dug in the ground, making a deep hole and dropping a sack into it before covering it again with dirt. The wind howled; the moon waxed and waned.

  Then three women of middle age sat on the ground side by side, looking out over a town, which Sophia now recognized as Oakring. She could see only their backs. They were laughing. The bright colors of sunset were spread across the horizon, and the air smelled of clover. One of them reached out to cup a firefly, and the action sparked Sophia’s memory. The three sisters, she thought. “Don’t let it go to your head, Borage,” one said to the woman holding the firefly.

  “And why not?” came the light reply. Her voice was low and rich, with a pleasing musicality. “It’s true. We can see thoughts as they take shape. We can call on the wind and the rain. The old ones love us. Through our guiding hand, they shape the future. It’s not just that we seem like the Fates. We are the three Fates, sisters.”

  30

  Four Pawns

  —1892, August 10: 9-Hour 50�
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  As it is with the study of the earth, so it is with the study of flora and fauna. Both had made significant progress before the Disruption, but the event itself has changed the nature of the pursuit. Now, the preexisting assumptions no longer hold. It is not just the proliferation of other species and other land masses. As explorers have demonstrated, the very categories we once considered stable are now unstable. James Hutton’s groundbreaking geological work just prior to the Disruption has been largely questioned—or rendered elementary, at the very least—by geologists in Nochtland, just as Carl Linnaeus’s excellent work, however influential, seems less and less adequate to describe our New World.

  —From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World

  SHADRACK DID NOT wait to digest the significance of his discovery, nor did he wait to discuss it with the other plotters. Leaving the warehouse as soon as he could graciously extract himself, he took the trolley into town and hired a carriage that would take him to Lexington. The trip took a good hour, and it was close to midday when he arrived at the town’s center. There, he paid the driver for his time and his lunch, asking him to wait until he returned. “If I don’t return by thirteen-hour, go to this address,” he said, writing Mrs. Clay’s name beside the East Ending Street address. “Tell the housekeeper where you brought me, and she will do the rest.”

  He was grateful for the clear skies and for his sturdy shoes as he trekked across Lexington Green in the direction of the farm he had seen listed as one of Broadgirdle’s properties. As he did, he mulled over the consequences of his discovery at the warehouse. Broadgirdle had arranged matters so that he could not be blamed for anticipating a war. That blame would fall to Shadrack. What else would he be implicated in? If Broadgirdle was capable of planning such a thing so far in advance, what other plans lay unseen, waiting to reveal their results? Which of them involved the missing Eerie?

  Shadrack arrived at the farm at half past ten-hour, and he approached it with caution. He did not know what he would do if he found himself confronted by Sandmen with grappling hooks. A long avenue lined by oaks led to a farmhouse at the top of a slight hill. The fields on either side seemed untended, as if they had not been mown for many summers, and they were coated with a layer of ash. But the fence all around the property was in good repair, and the latch on the gate was well-oiled. Shadrack opened it and stepped onto the avenue.

  The farmhouse was silent as he drew near. Most of the windows were open, and pale yellow curtains fluttered in one of the rooms. Shadrack took a deep breath. He walked up to the blue door and knocked. Almost immediately, he heard a quiet shuffle inside. A minute passed, and then another. Shadrack looked around him and noticed that while the fields grew wild, the gardens in the immediate vicinity of the farmhouse were well tended. A blueberry bush by the door was starting to bear fruit, and a gnarled apple tree showed signs of being well picked over. Herbs grew against the house in tall clumps: verbena, mint, and lavender. Shadrack knocked again. He leaned toward the open window nearest him, where a box of creeping thyme was in full bloom. “Hello? This is Shadrack Elli. Is anyone home?”

  The shuffling sound came again, and this time he heard footsteps. A latch was thrown, and the blue door creaked slowly open. Shadrack found himself looking down at an old man with wispy, white hair and a pointed beard. His eyes were filled with tension. The furrows of his brow seemed engraved by the sharp point of some vexing burden. “Shadrack Elli, the cartologer?” the old man whispered.

  “Yes. I am Shadrack. Are you Gerard Sorensen, doctor of botany, by any chance?”

  Fear flashed in the man’s eyes, but he nodded.

  “I mean you no harm. I have been looking for you. May I come in?”

  Sorensen hesitated. “I do not think you should,” he said quietly.

  “I want to help, Dr. Sorensen. Can’t you tell me what has happened?”

  “Will you ensure my family’s safety?” Sorensen asked, his voice pleading.

  Shadrack swallowed. “Are they in danger?”

  “I am here against my will, Mr. Elli,” Sorensen said, with rather more firmness in his tone. “If my children and grandchildren were not under threat, I would not be here at all. And if speaking to you imperils them in any way, everything I have done will be for naught.”

  “Dr. Sorensen, I am only beginning to understand this puzzle, which your predicament is part of. I know that Gordon Broadgirdle is somehow to blame, and I know that unless we stop him, the lives of many more people will be forfeit. If you will only explain to me your part in this, I will do everything in my power to make sure your family is safe.”

  The indecision was plain in Sorensen’s face. Finally, he opened the door with a little sigh. “We are lucky it is a Wednesday,” he said. “Come in. Perhaps we can do this without anyone being the wiser.”

  Shadrack stepped into the farmhouse kitchen and found himself in a room that reminded him immediately of Martin Metl’s laboratory in Nochtland. Soil lay everywhere. Empty pots were piled high on a worktable, where a watering can and a pair of gloves had been hastily put aside. Plants covered almost every surface and much of the floor. Among those that Shadrack recognized were potted orange trees, papyrus, a miniature willow, and ferns: more ferns than he had ever seen in a single space. There was nowhere to sit.

  “I will tell you quickly,” Sorensen said, “and then you must go.”

  “That is all I could ask,” Shadrack agreed. “Thank you.”

  “It began in late winter of this year. I was approached by a man named Gordon Broadgirdle who said he would pay me handsomely to examine a plant specimen he had acquired from the Eerie Sea. I am interested in the plants of that region, so I accepted. He invited me here, to this farmhouse. To my dismay, I found . . .” Sorensen touched the orange tree nearest him with a distracted air. “I found that the specimens he had were not plants. They were people.”

  Shadrack nodded as the pieces came together. “Three people: an old man, a woman, and a girl. Three Weatherers of the Eerie.”

  “Yes!” Sorensen said. “How could you know this?”

  “One of them managed to send a message, despite her captivity.”

  “I see,” Sorensen said, relieved. “I am glad to hear it. But apparently it was not enough. The one of most interest to Broadgirdle was the girl, for her hands bloom with flowers known as datura—a flower that is toxic. Once the flowers are loosed from her hands, their vapors cause terrifying delusions. They are dreadfully poisonous.”

  “The crimson fog,” Shadrack said, shaking his head. “Now I see.”

  “I did not,” Sorensen said quietly, “until it was too late. I demanded that the Eerie be set free, and I refused to participate in what Broadgirdle had planned. He said, in reply, that he would send his men after my family.” Sorensen put a hand over his eyes. “From then on, I did everything he asked. I confirmed what the flower was capable of, and, once I did, Broadgirdle ordered me to place the other two Eerie in winter sleep. I know very little of the Eerie, and I have only read about such sleep in written accounts—but Broadgirdle said that if I did not, he would end their lives. So I did my best. The girl was taken away, I dread to think for what purpose, and the other two remained here.”

  Shadrack was galvanized. “They are still here?”

  By way of answer, Sorensen turned and left the room, leaving Shadrack to follow him. In the adjoining chamber, dark curtains were drawn to block the sunlight, and Shadrack had to wait in the doorway while his eyes adjusted. Once they did, he could see that the room was empty except for a stack of wood beside the open fireplace and two long crates that looked like coffins. They were closed. Sorensen shuffled over to them and gently removed their lids, tucking them back behind the crates. “See for yourself,” he said.

  Shadrack drew closer, a sense of dread creeping upon him as he did so. It was still difficult to see in the darkened room. As if hearing his thought, So
rensen rose and walked to the fireplace, where he took a candle in its holder from the mantel. He struck a match and lit the wick, then knelt by the nearest crate with the candle in his hand.

  Shadrack peered down into the crate and saw that Sorensen had told him the truth. It was filled with dirt. A pair of white hands, one folded over the other, interrupted the soil near the middle. Three white flowers, delicate trumpets upon a dark vine, were entwined between the limp fingers. And at the top end of the crate a woman’s pale face—eyes closed, her expression tranquil—lay waxy and still in the black soil.

  31

  Half a Lie

  —1892, August 11: 12-Hour 22—

  On balance, it is clear that other Ages love their gardens more. Nochtland, the capital of the Baldlands, would be aptly dubbed “a city of gardens.” Even the Papal States, asphyxiated as it is by the plague, pays more consistent care to the fountain gardens of its cities. Travelers to New Occident often remark that the rural areas are lovely enough, but the cities are choked with bad construction, cobbled streets, and too few trees. Boston has its Public Garden, but apart from that, the largest parks are cemeteries. As one illustrious visitor remarked, “Wouldn’t it be better to have more gardens for the living and fewer for the dead?”

  —From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World

  SHADRACK HAD RACED back to Inspector Grey’s office; he had persuaded the inspector and twenty of his men to follow him to Lexington; he had compelled Grey to guarantee Sorensen and his family police protection; he had convinced Sorensen to wake the two Weatherers; and he had taken charge of the Weatherers himself, placing them with a friend in Concord so they could recover fully from their long winter sleep. Then he returned to East Ending Street, exhausted, and reported to the plotters what had happened. Winnie and Nettie were furious, but they forgave him when he explained what was likely to happen next. At last, his tasks completed, satisfied that he had done all he could, he waited.