Secrets (The Steamship Chronicles Book 1)

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  One toe twisting in the straw-coated dirt on the floor, Nat kept his gaze down. “I didn’t mean to be arrogant.”

  The craftsman took hold of Nat’s shoulder with a surprisingly firm grip. “That there’s a fine line, ‘specially in your type.” He shook his head, “But here now, don’t be so cowed by a mistake. The measure of a man is not in his book learning or lack of it. You show your worth by what you do, and how you appreciate what I do.” The man’s solemn expression split into a gap-toothed grin. “You did aright by me. Keep that dumb look going, and you’ll have the lot of us eating out of your hand. Not a one doesn’t appreciate a visit by some young pluck who can recognize quality when he sees it.”

  12

  As the carriage built up even more speed than before, a whoop of delight came from the coachman.

  Sam managed a smile, worn out and starving after her work. She half-lay on the seat, confident her new mechanical would take them to the port with enough time to fill her aching belly.

  The speed kept building, faster and faster.

  Outside the window, scenery changed from well-spaced farms to more frequent houses, the wheels ringing against hard-packed roads. Then the view grew blurry, and the coachman’s cries changed from joy to worried shouts of “Make way.”

  Sam levered herself upright, the momentum threatening to keep her down.

  Houses and businesses flashed by now, showing them entering Dover proper. People jumped from their path with screams, but the carriage barely slowed.

  Sam started to worry.

  Had she, in her desire to arrive in time, created something too much for the coachman to handle? They showed little sign of easing off their speed, though she caught a wisp of sea salt in the air. The engine only wanted to go fast. It did not care beyond that.

  A crack sounded sharp enough to cut through everything else.

  The world seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.

  Their carriage buckled to one side and rolled half onto the roof before it crashed back down and slid forward despite none of the wheels touching ground.

  Sam stared up to see bright blue sky and realized she’d been thrown against the other wall.

  She turned her head to find cobblestones but a hands width from her cheek, the edge of the window jouncing and cracking whenever one stone rose higher than the rest. The whole carriage shuddered and groaned, but still did not halt.

  Then, with a sickening crunch, they met an immovable object.

  Shouting, cursing, screams, and a million other sounds assaulted Sam’s ears.

  She curled into a ball at the bottom of the carriage and shook with fear.

  They would be sure to come for her now. Lily had been right to send her away. She was dangerous. Just look at what she’d done the first time she’d been let out on her own.

  “I swear I don’t know what happened, officer. I’ve been driving the steam carriage for weeks now without a problem then all of a sudden it wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t slow. It wouldn’t do anything but charge ahead. I’m only happy it ran into the side of a building. It could have killed someone.”

  “Yes, yes, it could have. You’ll have to come down to the station with us and give a full report. There will be damages.”

  “Damages? I’m a simple coachman, officer…”

  The voices moved away, taking the coachman with them so she didn’t hear the rest, but from the sound of it, the man had forgotten all about her. Sam huddled against the floor, waiting for the police officers to open the carriage and discover what caused this disaster. Though she’d met Henry when he served on the London force, she had little doubt of their reaction to a Natural on the loose. Henry had been special.

  After what seemed like forever, Sam opened her eyes to see the same patch of blue above her, or rather a different one with the sun higher in the sky.

  No one had searched the carriage. No one came to drag her off to an asylum where she would slowly go mad. No one seemed to be paying the least attention to the carriage or its potential occupants.

  She waited a little longer, listening hard to be sure, then climbed the seat as though it were a poorly made ladder. When she reached the top, Sam pushed the door open and poked her head out.

  “Hey, you. Get out of there. You’ve got no business playing in that.”

  Sam glanced up to see a police uniform and the scowl on top of it.

  She shrank back.

  “Oh no, you don’t. This isn’t a play yard for you street children.” He lifted her out of the overturned carriage with little difficulty and planted her firmly on the ground. “I don’t know how you got past us, but you’d better be on your way right quick or we’ll have to take you down to the station.”

  Though his words made a stern warning, kindness showed in his eyes, enough to tell her she got off lightly.

  Sam didn’t wait for him to change his mind. “Thank you, Officer,” she said in her politest voice then turned and ran through the crowd, the imprint of his startled expression on her memory.

  Once she’d achieved some distance, she slowed and finally stopped in an alley to assess her condition.

  She’d left her cloak in the carriage and had no idea what had become of the letter, not that she knew how to find Henry’s man on her own anyway.

  She still had the wallet Henry had given her stuffed in her skirt pocket, but even he’d said it didn’t contain much.

  Her dirty hands and torn skirt, not to mention the distinct stench of wet sheep, had probably saved her life. The police officer thought her a street child rather than the passenger, or worse the cause. Now, for all practical purposes, she had become a child of the streets.

  Her stomach rumbled, breakfast a long way behind her with a lot of hard work between then and now.

  Sam realized she had more in common with the street children than just her lack of cleanliness. If she didn’t take care, the workhouses would catch her. She’d heard enough of those places from Henry to know they were to be avoided, but she didn’t know of any nice person in Dover who would give the burnt or stale breads to the orphan children without anyone to care for them as Lily had in London.

  Sam straightened her shoulders and gave herself a mental push to put away tears. She had more than most street children would dream of, especially if she could find Henry’s man and her ship.

  A salty taste in the air told her she’d stayed down near the docks despite her frantic run. There couldn’t be that many ships heading for the Continent. She would just have to search hers out before the tide turned. Surely they’d arrived in time, despite how the carriage ride had ended, and Henry’s man would still be waiting for her.

  13

  Taking the craftsman’s advice to heart, Nat allowed himself to be guided from one section of the engine yard to another, always taking care to praise the work before him. He didn’t have to try hard as everything they displayed seemed wondrous, from the stamping machine that put out gears with sharp teeth able to join to others of their kind, to the journeymen responsible for filing down those self-same teeth to prevent wear or breakage, and every other step on the path to building a steam engine.

  His cheeks felt sore from grinning, and his eyes ached from the many times they’d opened wide in amazement, but Nat wouldn’t have traded the experience for a position on the grandest of Her Majesty’s fleet.

  “And this here is what you need, boy,” his guide announced, stopping beside a collection of tools and parts.

  Without him realizing it, the steam engineers had been probing him for information on their engine difficulties. Each had offered something of their efforts to enact the repairs and improvements.

  Again, Nat felt his lips spread into a grin even as he shook his head in bewilderment. “I’ve never even seen the engine. How can my words have any meaning? You need to talk to Mister Garth. He’s our engineer.”

  The first craftsman snorted. “He’s not worth the least of these parts we’re offering you. All telling us what to do and ho
w we’re doing it wrong. You’ve the right of it. Let a man do what he’s good for and step out of the way. I tell you these are what you need, and we’ll give you a good price as well. Most who come here are like that one, and we can’t stomach them. All full of their own importance and belittling ours just because they ride the waters. These are meant for the fancy fleets, but will serve your vessel well enough. Just hope he has more skill with the engine than he does with other engineers.”

  At that moment, Mister Garth rejoined them, his bald head tinged pink from where his beard ended well up to the curve of his domed skull. “This shipyard’s the worst of any I’ve been to. Not a one can hear what a man has to say. Our captain’s going to be disappointed, and he’ll hear exactly why.” The engineer raised his voice at the last, clearly trying to embarrass the others.

  The craftsman who had guided Nat laughed in Mister Garth’s face. “Your captain’s going to be cheered with the good work this here boy did.” He slapped Nat on the back. “Now let us tally up the costs and get you on your way. You make sure to tell him what we said, now, boy. Peter. Yes, you, you lazy carry boy. You help this one out with his load. It’s more than one man can carry.”

  “I’ll carry my share,” Mister Garth interrupted in an effort to regain some of his standing.

  “That you will.” The craftsman bundled up the last of the pieces and split the load between Garth and Peter. “This one will lead you back to the ship, as is his right. We’ll send the manifest on to your berth.”

  Garth spluttered and growled his way across the shipyard, Nat keeping out of his sight as a precaution. The men had been good to him, both in letting them have better goods than Garth would have warranted, and in saving face after the disaster of their arrival. Still, the ship didn’t have enough space to keep from encountering the engineer.

  Besides, Nat still nursed the hope that someday he’d see her engine room, something impossible unless Garth forgot about this humiliation. The sooner the better.

  As they passed through the gate, Nat strode forward to split the load properly, but when he tried to take something from Mister Garth, the engineer jerked away.

  “Oh, no, you’ve done enough already, Mister Bowden.” He managed to make Nat’s name into a curse. “I will not have your hands on my materials. And you’d better keep your nose out of my engine room as well. If I catch you down there even once, I’ll grind those pretty fingers between the gears.”

  14

  Sam followed her nose to the ships, the salt in the air growing along with the noise as the morning grew near midday and many gathered to take passage. The alleys she followed widened until she could see some distance along them. The packed dirt turned into cobblestones beneath her feet, and storefronts opened onto the streets from which workers eyed her carefully until she’d gone past.

  As much as she wanted to say she had money to pay for some of the mouth-watering meat pies displayed before one such store, she knew the quality of Henry’s purse would name her a thief even though she came by it honestly. Who would believe her in a tattered dress and grubby hands? Without the coachman or Henry’s man of business to vouch for her, even something as simple as a stale roll was out of her reach.

  Turning her back on the food she craved took as much strength as ignoring a transformation. Sam looked toward the most unstructured noise in hopes of a distraction.

  Random passengers seemed more likely to create chaos than trained workers, and so she’d find Henry’s man in that direction.

  The victory of her deduction proved short lived as Sam stepped out onto a crowded section of the docks. People of all ages, shapes, and sizes wandered the well-worn boards, elbowing their way through or carrying sharp-edged luggage.

  Sam ducked in time to avoid being scraped by a wood box only to bump into an old woman who waved her cane and screeched something Sam couldn’t make out in the overwhelming cacophony of sound and movement.

  A shrill voice called as if for a pet, over and over, piercing the deeper noise of largely male tones directing, commanding, and organizing.

  Sam glanced at one well-dressed man after another, wondering just how she was to identify the man in Henry’s employ. She dismissed the ones shepherding others, but that still left more than a handful, and those were only the few visible in a constantly shifting pageant of passengers.

  “Make way,” a loud voice said from above her, not offering enough time to react before a thick hand shoved her hard enough so Sam stumbled.

  The crowd took little notice of her, and she scrambled out of the way of sharp boots, got her fingers squashed under lady slippers, and managed to press her back against a wooden cart wheel that offered some shelter.

  Then the cart moved. The safe wheel turned dangerous as it almost ran over her already bruised fingers.

  Sam sprang to her feet, eliciting a startled cry from the cart man, and dashed toward the ships. Her best chance lay in learning where each was headed. At least then she’d know where to look.

  She’d barely made it half way to the first gangplank before someone stepped too close, and she tripped over the out-thrust boot.

  Firm hands gripped her shoulders and put her back on her feet, but when she turned to offer thanks, the man’s scowl terrified her.

  She jerked away and ran for the nearest gangplank in the hopes of finding shelter, but a sailor caught her this time, hefting her off the ground as if she weighed nothing at all. Her feet kept moving beneath her, but without the ground to push against, she flailed uselessly.

  “Can’t go any further without a ticket, missy. And I’m guessing you don’t have one.”

  Sam stopped moving entirely except to jerk her head from side to side. “I’m meeting someone. He has my ticket.”

  The sailor’s face creased into so many wrinkles it took a moment for Sam to recognize the smile. “Sure you are, missy. There’s better places to look for a patron than down here. These men have themselves fancy ladies. They don’t need some flat-chested dock girl. You head further along that way, and you’ll find more luck at the worker docks. Get along with you.”

  He set her down and gave her a light pat on her backside.

  Sam twisted, about to protest, but he wagged one finger at her and pointed once again.

  Her shoulders sagged with a sigh, and she stepped back into the crowd, knowing no amount of words would convince him. A dock girl didn’t sound much better than a street child, though maybe one such as that wouldn’t be taken to the workhouses.

  Something changed around her, and the press grew greater until Sam felt as though she could hardly breathe. People and luggage shoved her toward the ships and the open water between them. She tried to duck through, then fought, hands thrashing about, but still the crowd surged forward.

  Calls, both from the ships and people separated in the crowd, battered her ears along with the thump of many shoes against creaking wood boards, the curses when a foot met another rather than the dock itself, and more noises than she could identify.

  She wanted to curl up with her elbows pressed to her ears until they all just went away, but she’d seen what happened to anyone who dropped below the crowd level and had no wish to be trampled twice in one day, or three times if she counted the sheep. She needed to get out, to get free of the crowd, to breathe something other than sweat and salt.

  The need built inside her, climbing through her bones and into her throat as a scream that threatened to burst free.

  Sam could hear it already, a long, high screech that sounded like “my train.” It battered her ears over and over again though Sam could have sworn she’d kept her lips compressed together.

  Another shove, and she met a hard wood carton, the frame cutting into her upper back.

  Though painful, it offered refuge long enough for Sam to recognize the cry didn’t come from her mouth but from a young boy, at least so she guessed. And as soon as she’d made that realization, she heard the train.

  Demanding and strident, the co
mmand flowed in a path only she could hear. The boy had lost his train, but Sam knew exactly where she could find it, caught between two suitcases not far from where she stood next to the collection of luggage and cargo sailors were busily loading onto the ship behind them. Just as Henry had laid claim to his grandfather’s watch, the young boy had carved a connection to his train, making it so much more than a simple toy.

  Sam didn’t hesitate, any restraint lost in the battering she’d received.

  She dove for the toy before it could be lifted into the net with the suitcase that had snagged its string. Her aether-driven fingers snapped the pull cord in two, and she held the train to her chest. Its demand for transformation pounded against her as hard as the noise of the docks. She was no more able to block it out than she’d been the rest.

  The baggage offered temporary shelter as she bent to her task, but Sam no longer had the attention to consider such needs. Aether wrapped around her, filling her blood with its desires and none of her own. Despite her hunger, despite the weakness left over from her earlier transformation, she could not resist its call.

  Distantly, she knew the crowd kept moving forward. The amount of cartons, crates, and suitcases around her diminished. The boy’s frantic cries grew more strident.

  None of that mattered.

  Her head filled with the train’s longing to be able to find its person. Its wish to turn well-crafted wheels under its own power, drawing on the aether as a full-sized train would depend on steam, wiped out everything else.

  A detailed plan for these changes stretched out before her, and Sam set to work. She adjusted and changed the mechanism, using the remaining length of rope and some nails pried from the crates to make the train’s dreams a reality.

  “My train!”

  Sam gave a final twist and backed away as the well-dressed young boy raced over to snatch the toy from her. She brushed the hair off her face and raised both hands to show she had no intention of keeping the train.

  “Get over here, young man.” The face that had frightened Sam before now loomed over the boy with a scowl just as deep.