Freefall

by Roderick Gordon

  “But a ship … down here?” Chester asked. “How’s that possible?”

  “I don’t know. And how did Martha get here?” Will posed just as she floated back into the room.

  “Still haven’t got that log on, have you, dearie?” she prompted Chester. There was nothing unpleasant about the way she was asking, as if a mother was reminding her son to get on with his chores.

  “Sorry, Martha,” Chester said with a smile. “I’ll do it right away.”

  “Good lad,” she said, then turned to Will. “So you’re curious how I came to be down here?”

  Embarrassed that she’d overheard him, he flushed, and looked awkwardly at his feet.

  “I was pushed down the Pore by my husband,” she said abruptly.

  “Oh …,” Will floundered, stunned by her forthrightness.

  “We were Banished from the Colony and lived in the Deeps as renegades for years. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, bringing up a young child in that forsaken place. Then, one day, I suppose my husband simply decided he’d had enough of us,” she said as she opened the lid of a basket and pulled out some blankets. “You could call it a divorce, of sorts.”

  Martha was so matter-of-fact about it that Will began to feel less embarrassed. “Did you know any of the other renegades?” he asked. “Elliott was one of them — she went around with a man called Drake. Maybe you knew him?”

  Martha straightened up with the blankets in her arms and looked at Will thoughtfully. “Drake … no, don’t know the name. Probably after my time.”

  “What about Tom Cox?” Will tried. “He was like this archenemy of Drake’s.”

  Martha tightened her arms around the blankets, her face hardening into a mask of pure hatred. “Oh, I knew that scum, all right. I’ve always reckoned my husband fell under his spell … and it was Cox told him to do it … to get rid of us,” she hissed, her words tight, as if she was suddenly out of breath. Then her expression turned to one of despondency and she relaxed her grip on the blankets. She sniffed loudly, blew her nose on her sleeve, and continued. “Bring the girl so I can have a proper look at her.”

  Will carried Elliott into a small side room. Although there was a sizeable bed in the center with a pair of lank-looking pillows, it had clearly been used as a storeroom of sorts. A pile of oddments was heaped against one wall, as if Martha had just haphazardly thrown them there. Will could see a jumble of leather suitcases, an old tin trunk with ornate writing just visible on its lid, and many rolls of fabric. There was the slight scent of oil in the room as the lantern hissed gently, shedding its light.

  “On here,” Martha said, as she finished spreading the blankets over the bed. Once Will had put Elliott down, Martha sat beside the girl. She undid the rope that bound her broken arm to her chest and very carefully laid it out.

  “She’s taken a bad knock,” she said as she examined Elliott’s head. Turning her attention back to the broken arm, Martha burbled on to herself the whole time, and Will could only understand the odd snatch of what she was saying. “No, not a pretty sight,” Martha commented, then inspected Elliott’s hand, peering closely at the ends of her fingers. “But the circulation is still there. Good.”

  “Do you know how to fix her arm?” Will said. “Can you put a splint on it or something?”

  Martha mumbled but didn’t look up as she laid a hand on Elliott’s forehead and then nodded, as if relieved. “No fever.”

  She made sure Elliott was in a comfortable position by arranging the pillows under her head, then went over to the window. She stared at something for several seconds before speaking. “I need a cup of tea.”

  “Tea?” Will said in disbelief.

  But back in the main room, as the kettle boiled, Martha really did have something that appeared to be tea, which she spooned into a blackened kettle from a battered tin caddy. And she also had sugar, coffee, and a startling range of spices in square wooden boxes in a cupboard by the hearth.

  They took their tea in chipped porcelain cups over to the table and sat in the wheelback chairs arranged around it. In the center of the table was a life-sized bust of a boy, which seemed to have been carved from a section of one of the old beams. The boy was smiling serenely as he looked skyward. And by the bust was a smaller maquette of two figures, an adult and a young child hand in hand. It hadn’t been finished, and there were a couple of chisels and a little heap of shavings on the table by it. As Will studied it, he realized the larger of the two figures could have been Martha.

  The new log on the fire began to burn, long red flames licking up from its underside. Their glow mingled with the yellow light of the oil lanterns in the room.

  “It’s nice here,” Chester said as all three of them watched Bartleby make straight for the threadbare rug in front of the fire. Extending his claws, he pushed one paw then the other into the rug, over and over, pumping and kneading it as his massive shoulder blades seesawed under his hairless skin. Then, purring at an impossibly loud volume, he finally flopped down onto the rug. He rolled over on his back and stretched himself full length with a cavernous yawn.

  “Bart’s happy. He’s found his place,” Will said, grinning.

  It was so reminiscent of the time Will had first seen the colossal cat at the Jerome house in the Colony that he was strangely moved. It almost felt to Will as though he was home again. Glancing at Chester, he could see that his friend, too, had forgotten all his worries for the moment. As if the boys were visiting an aunt, there was something so domestic and familiar about the situation they found themselves in, particularly with the taste of sugared tea in their mouths — even if it lacked milk.

  “Where did all the stuff in this room come from?” Will ventured. “Was it really a ship?”

  Martha nodded. “Most of it was here already, but Nathaniel salvaged some more from a galleon in one of the Seven Sisters,” she replied.

  “I thought it was a galleon,” Will said, nodding. “But do you know how it got there?”

  Martha shook her head, not looking at either of them. She cleared her throat so loudly it made Chester sit up in his chair, then she blew her nose on her sleeve again.

  “Can you take us to it?” Will said, determined to find out as much as he could about what was down here.

  “Nathaniel found other vessels, too. He would go off for weeks on end and come back with all manner of items, and then work on them here. He was so clever with his hands. All the materials for our barricade were salvaged from a metal ship.”

  Will frowned at Chester, mouthing the words “metal ship?” but now didn’t seem the right time to inquire further — there was something more pressing he needed to find out.

  “And Nathaniel,” Will asked. “Where is he now?”

  Martha groaned with the effort of getting out of the chair. She waddled over to an oil lantern and lifted it down from its hook, then beckoned the boys to follow her. She paused on the porch to glance down at the various flower beds and, putting her head back, inhaled deeply through her nose. Will sniffed, too, catching not just the smell of Aniseed Fire but an abundance of other, sweeter scents. “Glorious,” Martha declared, then led the boys from the porch and onto a winding path toward the higher ground at the rear of the cavern.

  They were passing a bed of what looked like smoldering lupins, their tips emitting a glow that alternated between an intense red and a more subdued orange, when she said, “Mind you don’t go near the Spitting Caps. They can be nasty blighters.”

  Neither of the boys was certain if she’d meant what she said, but they weren’t going to take any chances, so both kept to the far side of the cinder track. Appearing from nowhere, Bartleby slipped in behind the boys, evidently not wanting to miss the outing.

  Seconds later, they found they were standing before a carved wooden angel. It was as tall as a man, with a tranquil expression on its face and long tousled locks that draped over its shoulders and its swanlike wings, which were folded behind its back. “Nat … Nathaniel,” she whispere
d. “This is where I laid him to rest.” She dropped her eyes to the carefully arranged stones below the angel.

  “Then … then he’s … uh … dead,” Will said, his voice hollow.

  “Yes, two years ago,” Martha replied huskily, her eyes still downcast as Bartleby backed up to the angel. He began to cock his hind leg. Will and Chester watched, both of them mortified at what the cat was obviously contemplating. He became aware of their intense interest in him and seemed to hesitate. Then he snorted and lifted his leg higher, and Will knew he had to do something to stop the inevitable.

  “Bart! No!” he whispered, frantically making small pointing movements that the cat should leave.

  Bartleby got the message. Glowering at Will, he lowered his leg and slunk away to the back of the shack. Martha appeared to be none the wiser as Will, feeling he should say something to fill the long silence, spoke up again.

  “Did you make the angel for him?”

  “No, it came from the ship — from the prow — but I carved his face into it … my boy’s face,” she said distantly, as she scratched the back of her head. “I chose this spot because it’s where Nathaniel liked to come and sit. It was his place. And by the wall, over there,” she said, tipping the lamp so the light fell on the ground past the angel, “there are other graves. Nathaniel always reckoned the men who built the shack are buried here.”

  She turned on her heels as if she had said all she was going to say and was about to return to the shack, when she stopped and held very still. “There’s something you should know. Nathaniel was on one of his foraging trips when he fell down a crevice. He broke several ribs. The spiders swarmed. They seem to be able to sense when something is hurt or weakened, and they came at him, scores of them.”

  She looked at Will and Chester in turn. “Nathaniel hadn’t taken enough Aniseed Fire with him, but he still managed to escape from them and get home.” She didn’t speak for several seconds. “I can take care of most things … illnesses and wounds. You have to learn fast in the Deeps.” She frowned. “Nathaniel’s ribs were healing and he was doing just fine when … when he was suddenly taken with a fever. A bad one. I did everything I could for him.” She let out a quavery breath and brushed the front of her skirt with her dirt-encrusted fingers. “That’s all there is to it. He was nineteen years old and my only child. He just faded away.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chester murmured.

  Martha’s mouth clamped shut as though she was fighting back tears, and the silence stretched out. Although Will wanted to offer some words of condolence to the woman, he couldn’t think of what to say. Then Martha spoke again, her voice steadier.

  “Nathaniel was older than your friend, and strong as an ox, but there’s something foul in the air in these parts. Like the spiders, it waits until you’re hurt, then it creeps into you. It got a grip on him, and I just hope the same thing doesn’t happen to her.”

  “So, let me get this straight — you’ve been a Styx all along,” Dr. Burrows said as he sat across from the Rebecca twin.

  “I’m Thtyx by birth. You don’t thuddenly become a Thtyx,” Rebecca replied, her temper flaring.

  “You lisped again. Is there something wr —?” Dr. Burrows began to ask.

  “Broke a few teeth when I fell down the Pore,” Rebecca interrupted, now enunciating very precisely as she did her utmost to control her lisp. “And I jumped down it because I wanted to help you.”

  He was silent for a second or two, regarding her a little skeptically before he continued. “So, you were a Styx from birth, and Will was a Colonist….” Taking off his glasses, Dr. Burrows kneaded the bridge of his nose. “But you … he … you are … he was …,” he said, his words tripping over each other. Finally, as he replaced his glasses, it was as if his various thoughts were also coming back into focus. “Then how did we end up adopting both of you?”

  “Luck of the draw. You and Mum took Will in, and the Styx Panoply decreed I should be there, too, to keep tabs on him,” the Rebecca twin said, giving Dr. Burrows a half smile. “Why, do you disapprove or thomething?”

  “Well, quite frankly, yes … I think we should have been told,” Dr. Burrows huffed.

  The Rebecca twin laughed snidely. “But you didn’t tell Will or me we were adopted,” she fired back, playing with him. “Don’t you think we had a right to know that?”

  “That’s not the same at all. It seems you knew all along that you were adopted — but that aside, your mother and I were going to tell you when the time was right,” Dr. Burrows said. He frowned and inspected a broken fingernail as he tried to deal with what he’d just learned.

  Rebecca had told him as much of the story as suited her, but nothing like the whole story. And she certainly wasn’t going to reveal that she had an identical sister.

  “It all seems a bit irregular,” Dr. Burrows finally stated, squinting through his crooked glasses at the taciturn Limiter, who was lingering behind the Styx girl’s shoulder. “We went through the proper channels for adoption, so I really don’t understand how we got you as well.”

  “You talk about me as though you were buying a used car.”

  “Don’t be silly, Rebecca. It wasn’t like that at all,” Dr. Burrows said in an exasperated tone. “I just don’t understand how it could happen.”

  “And I honestly couldn’t care less how it happened,” the Rebecca twin replied, beginning to look slightly bored. “We had friends in the adoption agency. We have friends everywhere.”

  “But I feel as though we’ve been tricked … as though your mother and I have been horribly deceived,” Dr. Burrows continued. “And I don’t like that,” he added categorically.

  “And I suppose you don’t like my people, either?” the Rebecca twin prompted.

  “Your people …?” Dr. Burrows began, not failing to notice the edge to her voice.

  “Yes, my people. They didn’t treat you badly in the Colony, did they? Are you saying you disapprove of their methods?” The Rebecca twin was bristling now, the Limiter stirring behind her.

  Dr. Burrows held up his hands in alarm. “No, I didn’t mean that at all. It’s not my place to judge. My role is to observe and record — I don’t get involved.”

  The Rebecca twin yawned as she got to her feet, brushing herself down. “So you’re my adoptive father, yet you’re saying you’re not involved. How does that work?” Her mood seemed to have suddenly changed, as if her anger had been put on purely for effect.

  Dr. Burrows, his mouth open but with no idea how to respond, was all at sea now. Heaped upon his chronic confusion, this person before him — who he’d thought was his little girl — was someone formidable, and although he didn’t admit it to himself, he was actually quite intimidated by her. Particularly since the Styx soldier was staring at him from the shadows with his dead eyes, the eyes of a killer.

  “So, Dad,” the Rebecca twin said, emphasizing Dad as if she had absolutely no respect for the title, “I’ve made sure you’ve been fed, just like in the good old days, and I can see you’re feeling like yourself again. So tell me about these,” she demanded, producing the small stone tablets from inside her jacket. Dr. Burrows immediately touched his own pocket, finding it empty. “They look like a map of some sort, and that’s just what we need right now,” the twin went on. “You’re going to find us a way out of this place, and we’re going to help you to do it.”

  “Oh, great,” Dr. Burrows replied tepidly, taking back the tablets she was proffering him.

  8

  “HI, JEAN,” Mrs. Burrows puffed as she answered a call from her sister on her cell phone. She was looking flustered as she hurried along Highfield’s Main Street.

  “Out of breath? Yes, just been to the gym,” she said, hiking up a shoulder to stop the strap of her bag from sliding off. She held the phone away from her ear in response to a hoot of laughter from Auntie Jean, which was loud enough to be heard by a man passing in the opposite direction. “Yes, can’t tell you how good it makes me feel. I’ve
booked a month’s worth of sessions with a personal trainer. You should give it a try.”

  This elicited another piercing hoot, which sent a nearby pigeon flapping away.

  But as Mrs. Burrows tore along the sidewalk, Will would have been amazed by the change in his adoptive mother’s bearing. There was a lightness to her step that he wouldn’t have merited possible. She already looked years younger.

  As her sister chatted on, Mrs. Burrows glanced at her watch. “Look, there’s no news from the police and I really can’t talk now. Expecting a delivery at the apartment,” she said, ending the call before her sister had the opportunity to respond.

  As she came around the corner, she saw that the mover’s truck was already there.

  “Oh golly, sorry I’m late. Got held up,” she called out as she broke into a run toward a man in blue overalls who was just about to get back into his truck. Once she’d opened up the apartment, he carried a whole batch of cardboard boxes inside. She wasted no time slicing the tape on one to inspect the contents.

  “New place?” he inquired as he heaved yet another box onto the top of a pile.

  “Yes, I put all this into storage until I found somewhere to live,” Mrs. Burrows replied distractedly as she took out several of her old videotapes and tossed them straight into a trash bag. “Time to clean house. To really clean house.”

  After the man had brought in the last of the boxes, she spent the whole afternoon going through them. There were so many that there was barely any room to move around, but she eventually came to a batch that had Bedroom 3 scrawled on them with a felt marker.

  “Will’s,” she said as she opened the first of these. She unwrapped the white paper from the precious finds that had been on the shelves in his room — his “museum,” as he had called it. There were so many Victorian pâté dishes, broken clay pipes, and Codswallop and perfume bottles that her lap was soon full of items and she had to find space on the floor for the rest.