by Mary Weber
That a young woman hanging around the midday market is appropriate if, like Seleni, she has prospects. But for me? It’s further proof of why I couldn’t hold on to a shop maid apprenticeship at her husband’s “fine letters and script” store. “Apathy is unbecoming for a woman of any position,” she’d told a client within my hearing the day before I was let go.
Seleni flashes me a glance that says she’d speak up if it didn’t expose my secret—that it was never a matter of apathy. That words and letters have shifted order in my head for as long as I can remember, and cleaning trays of letter blocks day in and day out was a mix-up waiting to happen. I misplaced the arrangements one too many times and got fired within two weeks.
“No wonder she and her husband drink a lot,” Lute says quietly, conscientiously not looking at me.
Seleni snorts.
“As I was saying,” Beryll interrupts. “I’d like to get home and wash up.”
Seleni shoots him a look. “I can’t go home with my shoes like this—Mum would fall into fits. And Rhen’s house won’t have enough water for washing her clothes and hair.” She grips me and screeches. “And tonight’s party! Mum’ll be horrified if we’re late, especially with members of parliament there! We need to fix ourselves now, Rhen.”
I wave toward the wharf. “It’ll be fine. We’ll take a quick dip in the sea. Fully dressed,” I add as Beryll turns five shades of berry.
“Because Mrs. Holder’s right about one thing.” Seleni keeps talking as if I’ve not spoken. “Vincent can’t see you like this. We have to make you presentable.”
“Vincent? As in Vincent King?” Lute peers from Seleni to me.
I grimace and note the wary shift in his countenance.
She nods.
I grip the vial tighter and wish she’d stayed quiet, even though I don’t know why it matters or why I care what Lute thinks, but for some reason I do.
“He’s pursuing Miss Tellur’s hand for courtship,” Beryll blurts out.
“Beryll, don’t—” But it’s too late. My lungs fall as I watch Lute’s mood from earlier return and cloud his countenance.
He studies me a moment, as if absorbing this information and analyzing my expression. Whatever he finds there, it’s as if the shutters close on his thoughts and his lips pucker in disdain.
He straightens from me and looks to the distance. And when he glances back, his own expression is an ocean away. “That reminds me. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some business to get to.”
He strides off quickly—almost as if he can’t escape fast enough—and I am left staring after him, wondering what about Vincent had upset him. Or was it the fact we’re attending Seleni’s rich father’s party?
Both, probably. The Lowers don’t take well to the indulgences of the rich.
I swallow and ignore the squeezing in my chest that says I of all people should know.
“We have to hurry.” Seleni yanks my arm as Lute disappears into the crowd.
I push back the urge to go after him—because really, what would you say, Rhen?—and, instead, allow her to pull me toward the walkway between the textile maker and millinery booths while Beryll discreetly points out the herbalist nearby. He’s got his fingers clamped over his nose and his red cap is askew. He rakes his gaze up and down us as his eyes grow round from his spot in the rickety grey stand that, up until we arrived, probably smelled delightfully of medicinal mint and sweat.
I tuck the vial of stolen blood along with my gloves into my coat’s inner pocket—the secret one I sewed into the lining a few months ago after thieves grabbed a bottle from my hand and dropped it on the cobbles whereupon it shattered. They didn’t know exposing blood like that is a good way to spread the plague.
“Soldiers, help! Beasts!” A voice roars through the rows of market stalls behind us. “Robbers! Someone tore open a body and—”
We don’t wait for the sexton to finish. We plunge down the alley toward the fork that splits the hill, where one side leads up for home and the other leads down to the ocean. Turning onto the latter, we bolt along the shadowed, serpentine stone path that winds past the sloping houses peering out to the sea beyond. More specifically, peering out over our town’s livelihood and Lute’s dead father’s boat.
To the old wharf of Pinsbury Port.
3
There’s something about knowing death is on the horizon. About knowing life hangs on a few strands of genetic material, and knowing the only hope for a cure might currently be sitting in a little glass vial inside the toe of my shoe up on the beach, forty paces behind Seleni and her beau. On the shore of the only town I’ve ever lived in.
According to Da, aside from the abnormal death rate, Pinsbury Port is just like any other place. We have the usual fare of rich and poor, old people and babies, gossipy constables and cat-dressing biddies, all neatly tucked away along the lower tip of a tiny green kingdom called Caldon, also known as King Francis’s Emerald Heart. It sits in the middle of a much larger collection of kingdoms commonly referred to as the Empyral Lands.
Mum says Caldon’s greenery wakes with the morning along the Rhine Mountains and spends the day stretching down the valleys and hillsides until it reaches our little town along the Midian Sea, where it likes to lick away the last of the afternoon sun rays and also a few more lives. Because apparently green and death are what we excel at.
Did I mention my mum’s a real cheerful sort?
A knot of tears catches in my throat at the image of her saying that, and my chest squeezes as I drift on my back in the ocean among the all-too-real awareness that right now, in this very moment, her life is being licked away along with a host of others. The reality of which just about hollows the breath out of me and keeps me frantically working with Da.
Or hiding out here.
I blink and try to refocus. I don’t want to think about it.
A Whitby falcon screeches overhead, and Seleni hollers from the shore, “Rhen, how’s your mum feeling today? Did your da figure out anything new?”
The waves froth around and over me, and I let the questions dissolve with the bursting bubbles as the water’s foamy arms push me toward shore before they tug me back out to the ocean’s glassy surface.
I pretend not to hear her, partly because my answer is always the same—“Not good. Not yet, but we’re hopeful. I don’t know”—and mainly because I don’t know how to explain the insidious fear and grief that come with such questions. They’re not the kind of thing you can dip your toes in, then run away from. The emotions crash together in a wave and dash you against the rocks until you’re drowning and screaming, and sometimes you just want to dissolve too.
I swallow. If I start down that path today, I won’t know how to come back, and I can’t afford that.
Instead, I inhale and kick my ankles and float on my back beneath the sun’s rays reflecting off the marina, and mentally retreat to the logical steadiness of blood counts and stem cells. I turn the problem over and under in my mind, trying to find the key to what Da and I are missing. How our town can produce such vibrant life—and yet, for the past ten months, can’t figure out how to halt a person’s crippling death.
“The key is there in the blood cells,” he keeps saying. “We’ve even isolated the strange mutation that’s creating this recent disease.”
Only every time we think we’ve clicked a cure into place, another subject dies.
And soon it will be Mum.
Then, he fears, me. Because this new disease seems to hit with no rhyme or reason, other than being centered among the poor of the Port.
“Rhen!” Seleni’s voice rings garbled and now irritable in my ears. “For gnat’s sakes! I’ve been talking to you!”
I lift my head and find her in the water up to her ankles, skirt pulled up to her knees. She’s frowning and waving me in. “You said you’d hurry! Sun’s fading and the party’s soon. If you don’t dry out, you’ll get home wet and your hair will be unbearable to fix!”
I
nod and peer across the blue expanse of sky to the sun’s spot hedging toward the golden ocean ledge. Then at the falcon diving along the dale that drains into the Tinny River, where the knights of old used to camp during wartime. We have an hour left, but with little heat in my house, dressing will already be miserable—and once night falls, the sea sirens will be awake, and anyone who values her life wouldn’t be daft enough to be this far out in the bay.
With a sigh I tip my head backward to let the water lap over my face until only my chin is above salt water and let the cold finish leaching away the smell of cadaver from my nose, my skin, and my clothes. Washing the dead away. Washing everything away for a few precious moments. Then I right myself and, after a last dunk, swim close enough to let the current carry me to where my toes can touch the crunchy sand and I can walk to my cousin and Beryll.
Seleni has just finished wringing out Beryll’s waistcoat while the large water spots on his breeches and shirt suggest he’s been scrubbing them to avoid immersing his full self in the water. When I stroll up, he glances at Seleni, then blushes like a beet before his gaze shifts to a far-off spot.
I chuckle and flick a handful of water at him. “If wet clothes and bare ankles mortify you, you’d best avoid a mirror, Beryll.”
“Don’t mock him for being a gentleman,” Seleni chides. “Would you rather him look at me like those two men are down the beach? No wonder they’ve not caught a single fish, with all their ogling.”
I glance toward the two cads fishing from the shore not far from us. I frown and refuse the urge to wrap my arms around my flat chest. “Or maybe they could just look at women as if we’re regular people,” I mutter. There’s a thought. The way Da does. Straight on, as if we’re all just his friends.
Seleni gives a hard shake to the waistcoat and utters the type of fake sigh old Mrs. Mench does when I forget to wear stockings under my skirt. She mimics the woman’s high-pitched voice. “Rhen Tellur, your head’s so full of man ideas you’ll forget your place among the proper ladies. Clearly, your mum and da are to blame for this.”
I laugh and grab my rinsed coat from the crook of her arm, then climb up the shore, wringing out my skirt and hair as I go. With a burst of chuckles, Seleni and Beryll follow to the sand beside our pile of shoes, where I double-check that my vial is still tucked away safe. Then pause a moment to soak up the last bit of warmth the scorched beach offers, before I tug on my stockings and slide the vial and scrubbed gloves back into my soaked coat pocket.
Seleni and Beryll’s giggling continues, and I stand to leave when my cousin asks, “Did you two finally get your Labyrinth Letters?”
The waves crash and hiss, trickling around her voice. I drape my coat over my arm and move to slide on my shoes. “It came yesterday,” I say, and, with a last wringing of my thin skirt, turn toward the busy, steaming wharf and begin to walk.
“My family’s arrived two days ago.” The white sand crunches beneath Beryll’s feet as he and Seleni jump up and fall in behind me. “What about yours, Miss Lake?”
Seleni squeals. “It came last night. I can’t imagine what the delay was this year, but it arrived on stamped linen paper with a lovely seal. Mum has already ordered a variation for our winter solstice invites. She says a person’s stationery is as important as their fashion—both tell your position, piety, and how well you think of yourself.”
I keep my mouth shut.
“Wonderful. Your families will both be attending the event, of course?”
I keep walking toward the landing and let Seleni answer, since Beryll’s question is more for her anyway. She’s been excited for weeks. My cousin, who is in every way nearly the same as me—same seventeen years, same brown hair and tan skin color—except when it comes to our family stations and interests. She’s the socialite and I’m the proletarian scientist. Meaning, she likes to talk about thrilling things happening. I like to experience them.
And now her reply is breathless. “Of course we’re attending! We’ve already plotted our spot to sit out the competition. And Beryll, you’ll be a magnificent competitor. Just imagine what it’ll be like! Oh, I just know you’re going to win.”
“So my father hopes.”
I stiffen and feel the dull ache of jealousy rise, of what it must be like to compete for such a thing.
“Beryll Jaymes,” Seleni crows. “You’ve got all the smarts to pull it off. You know numbers and equations just as good as anyone. And you’re strong too.”
“Yes. Except so are the rest in my grade—as my father keeps reminding me.”
I fall back to walk beside them, eyeing Beryll. “Maybe. But the fact that you’re aware of that will work for you. You’ll not go in overly confident. And you’re one of the smartest people I know, Beryll. Even if you do scream a lot.”
He laughs and gives me a shy, warm nod. “Thank you, Miss Tellur. I suppose it’s just the practical experience I fear I lack.”
My cousin tips a slender hand at me. “Which is why Rhen took you to the undertaker’s today. And why her father gave you his old lecture notes and let you sit in on their experiments last week. Think of all that knowledge no other contestant will have. You even examined a dead body!”
“Miss Lake, you flatter me.” But Beryll’s countenance lightens with appreciation, and he lifts his hands to tug confidently on his water-spotted waistcoat as we tread through the sand. “I’ve surely not had enough preparation, although you are correct—I’ve had more than many my age. And were I to be pursuing a degree in medicine, this would serve me even better. Alas, business studies it is.”
I bite my tongue and refuse to let his words keep feeding my hunger. And decline mentioning that if preparation is the measure, I’ve had at least as much as a good many of the Stemwick scholarship applicants in the science, engineering, technology, and math areas the competition tests for. Instead, I keep trudging and pretend the whole thing doesn’t prick at that space inside my chest. The one that can’t help wondering what I could do with the type of education Beryll and the young men like him are headed for. What kind of things I could learn. What kind of diseases I might study or cure.
I trail my gaze along the skyline to the boats making port at the wooden docks where Lute’s is already moored, gleaming cleaner—as always—than the rest.
“What about your family, Beryll?” Seleni chatters on as a mum with two small children toddles by. My cousin’s eyes follow them with a wishful mien. “Will they be attending the Labyrinth examination?”
There’s a sudden twinge in her tone, and I don’t have to question her to know what it’s from—what she’s hoping. It’s half of what she’s talked about the past seven months since she and Beryll have officially been seeing each other, even though he’s been a side fixture in our lives since the age of thirteen. Her desire is well known between the three of us—to have his family care enough to spend time with her, and perhaps welcome her like a flower into their fold with open tendril arms.
Sometimes I think being Beryll’s wife and having kids is her highest aspiration. But there are certain things even money and status can’t buy—like approval of a person or marriage. No matter how high standing one’s perfect family is. Especially when in Beryll’s father’s eyes, apparently no one is high standing enough for his only child.
Beryll’s hesitation is so long I finally swerve to glare at him as we step up onto the wide wharf front with its smelly fishing carts and rows of white-curtained shanties stretching on for forever, crossed with the main street leading home. His demeanor is as tight as his voice. “Yes. They’ll be attending.”
Seleni’s sweet, hopeful grin stays, even as a flicker of disappointment and hurt shades her eyes.
I bite my cheek and don an innocent expression. “As will the Schaffer and Newton families,” I say casually. “Seleni, your father mentioned they’re both keen to get to know you. I hear their boys are hoping to earn more than just your parents’ approval.”
Beryll coughs and nearly trips over h
is feet. “Miss Lake—I don’t think that’s necessary. I doubt—”
“Oh, it’s quite necessary if my father wishes it. Just like you do everything your father desires of you, Beryll.” Seleni’s previous mood dissolves as she flashes gratitude my way, and despite her father never having said any such thing, I feel confident he would’ve. I smirk as she lifts her chin. “I shall very much enjoy getting to know them better.”
A loud shout shuts down whatever Beryll’s daft reply is, and a crowd converges along the inclining street ahead of us. A commotion has kicked up between a couple of fancy-dressed financiers and a group of stubble-faced fishermen who’ve just finished unloading their cargo. By the sound of their voices, neither side is happy.
I quicken my step, but by the time we reach the men, their voices have hushed to murmurs. “No need to upset the town with unproven news,” someone says.
“This is a Port matter,” another mutters.
“This is rumor is what it is.”
I frown and glance back at Seleni and Beryll. Is it more of the disease?
“I’ll tell you what, though,” one of the fishermen growls. “If it’s true? I’ll kill them.”
4
I press against two women to get us nearer as the words float up and over me from the red-faced men whose hair and heavy coats smell of salt and seaweed. The tidbits being talked about are muted so quick I can’t catch their context, other than there’s no mention of the disease. Whatever it is, it has to do with the wharf.
“See how their families like having to support their kids on so little,” the larger of the fishermen says.
I peer around for Lute. Maybe this is what his mood was about earlier.
“There she is!” someone shouts. “Eh, Rhen!”
Will and Sam Finch rattle the air behind us with their boisterous voices. I spin to find them striding up in tight tunics above breeches that are a bit too saggy for propriety and wide-mouthed smiles that promise they’ve already been up to no good. I snort. Someone in the Upper sector will probably find their cattle tipped over by tomorrow morning.
