Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  “Your nuptials and estate are now confirmed, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher. The fee, please,” the clerk said.

  Mr. Fletcher slid a small stack of coins to the clerk who counted them carefully, twice.

  “Thank you. And congratulations,” the man said absently.

  Mr. Fletcher rose and took my hand, pulling me behind him. I followed him to the street. I felt like I was going to faint.

  “Lily? What’s wrong? You’re absolutely pale!”

  “Are we…are we married?” I stammered.

  “Here,” he said, pressing a vial of laudanum in my hand. “Take just one drop. It will calm you. Of course we are married. How else do you think I can ensure you’ll inherit my estate if, god forbid, I die? Now, bottom’s up.”

  I did as he instructed. The laudanum hit me hard. Moments later, I was lost in a fog. I vaguely remember being loaded back into the carriage. The ride home over the bumpy cobblestone jostled me.

  Mr. Fletcher, my father, kept his hand on my inner thigh the entire ride. “You see,” he said, “I promised you I would take care of you. I taught you everything I know! What a pair we will make! Maybe we’ll even have a child, Lily! What-ho! Can you imagine what fun that will be?”

  The carriage stopped outside our flat. I stumbled when I got out, scrapping my knees on the cobblestones.

  “My goodness, Lily. You can’t even hold a drop. Strong stuff though. I try not to use it much, but once it gets you by the nose, it doesn’t let you go. Let’s go upstairs and celebrate. Here, my girl, I’ll carry you,” he said and hoisted me up.

  My head was a confused mess. I thought maybe I was dreaming…or maybe I was dead. In what seemed like moments later, I was standing before the fireplace in our flat. Mr. Fletcher, my father, was lying in the bed. He was calling my name. When I did not respond, he rose. He wrapped his arms around my waist.

  “Come now, Lily. I’ll be easy,” he whispered.

  “No.”

  “Ah, my girl, there is no need to fear. I’ll be gentle. Come now.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t make it come to this,” he whispered in my ear. “We love one another.”

  “You’re my father!” I wailed.

  “Actually, Oleander was the one who officially adopted you. Come on now, Lily. Be smart,” he said, his hands roving between my legs. “You stand to gain everything. Who could ever love you as much as I do?”

  “Please don’t,” I whispered.

  Before I could stop him, he turned me and slammed me, face down, on the table, my cheek pressed against the tabletop. I wailed miserably. “Please! No!”

  In that same moment, the door to the loft opened. Mr. Fletcher had given Angus the key so he could drop off the fares.

  “I’m sorry, Sir. It was dark. I thought you were out—for Christ’s sake, what’s happening here!” Angus exclaimed.

  I slipped from Mr. Fletcher and ran to Angus, clinging desperately to him.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Mr. Fletcher yelled and grabbed me, pulling me away from Angus.

  “No! Please don’t go! Don’t leave me here,” I pleaded, reaching out to Angus.

  “This isn’t proper! That’s your daughter there!” Angus exclaimed.

  “It’s not a bit of your business! Get out or find a new situation!”

  “Come on, Lily. Come with me, lassie,” Angus called and reached for me.

  I pulled out of Mr. Fletcher’s grasp. He came rushing after me. Trying to get away from him, I moved aside. Mr. Fletcher lost his balance and fell out of the open door and down the stairs. He landed on the street below, his body twisting awkwardly.

  I ran to the bottom of the steps. Several people had already gathered around him.

  “Call the surgeon! Call the surgeon!” someone screamed.

  “What happened, Lily?” someone asked. I looked up. It was Rheneas.

  “He fell!” I exclaimed. Tears ran down my cheeks.

  I knelt beside Mr. Fletcher. He was still alive. His hand, jutting sideways, twitched oddly.

  A constable came running up. “What happened?”

  “She said he fell,” someone repeated.

  “What’s his name?” the constable asked.

  “That’s Mr. Fletcher, the air jockey.”

  “Mr. Fletcher? What happened?” the constable asked.

  Mr. Fletcher’s eyes were already growing dim. A shadow seemed to hover around him. Blood trickled from his ears and mouth. It took him considerable effort, but he made eye contact with me. After a moment, he breathed, “I’m an old man, and I’ll die like an old man. Slipped and fell,” he whispered then he died.

  I looked up at Angus. His dark blue eyes met mine. He set his hand on my shoulder.

  My whole body shook. My father had tried to make me his wife, body and soul. Now he lay dead at my feet.

  In the end, Mr. Fletcher, just like my mother, had seen me as someone to do with as he pleased. My entire life, I was always someone to be used or not, kept or left, at another person’s will.

  A shuffle from below deck startled me from my memories. Byron reappeared from the galley looking paler than usual.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him.

  He turned and looked at me as if he were surprised to see me there. “Lily,” he said, his voice sounding hollow.

  I didn’t need to ask Byron what he had seen or what had happened. By instinct, I had known, through and through, that Byron needed to see the Aphrodite. And from the look on his face, I was right. He’d seen what he needed to see.

  “Let’s go back to your ship,” I said, taking his hand.

  Once we’d boarded the Hercules, we stopped and looked up at the starry sky. We stood, hand in hand, in quiet contemplation.

  “Athens!” a crewman called from overhead.

  On the horizon, the airship towers of Athens were coming into view. The Hercules began to drop altitude. In a matter of moments, we would be docked.

  Byron looked down at me, kissed me on my forehead, and stroked my cheek. “Don’t forget me,” he whispered.

  “Never.”

  He pulled me into a tight hug, and I soaked up his warmth, knowing it would be the last time I would ever feel him like that. From now on, my heart belonged to Sal. It was time to leave the past behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  There was complete mayhem on the airship towers in Athens when the Hercules arrived at port, the Bacchus in tow. I couldn’t find Sal anywhere. The platform was flooded with Greek soldiers, English ex-pats, and travelers trying to dodge trouble. In the midst of all that confusion, Celeste found me.

  “We need to get the Aphrodite off the ship!” she said, wringing her hands.

  “Have you seen Sal?”

  She shook her head. “Oh my god, Lily. It’s like we are in the lion’s den! How are we going to smuggle her out of here?”

  I smiled at Celeste. The Bacchus had already been pulled into a docking bay, and a repair platform had been cranked out underneath. Byron was shouting instructions to his crew.

  “Stay with Byron. He will see her safely transported.”

  It was not until that moment that Celeste realized my role in her quest was done. “Lily! I…I don’t know what to say.”

  I shrugged. “It was fun.”

  “Your broken nose doesn’t look like much fun,” she said then smiled.

  “I like you like this,” I said, grinning at her. “Natural joy suits you. You should try it more often.”

  She laughed and pulled me into a hug. “I am happy, but Roni won’t be. Her ship! Can you send word when you reach Venice? Let her know we’ll be making a few minor repairs? I spoke to her crew. They want to stay in Athens until the ship is fixed.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m afraid the Dilettanti may still follow you,” she said as she released me.

  “I sense that Byron might be able to handle that as well. After all, what can I tell them? I don’t have the kaleidoscope,” I said, and then pu
lling the kaleidoscope from my bag, I handed it to her. “And I don’t know the whereabouts of any ancient sculptures.”

  “Just…please…be safe.”

  Celeste pulled me into a hug again.

  “Celeste?” I heard Byron call.

  We turned then to see him waving her to the Bacchus.

  “May the Goddess of Love bless you,” she whispered in my ear then disappeared into the crowd.

  I waved to Byron.

  He lifted his hand, smiled at me, held my gaze for several moments, then turned back to the ship.

  My transport to Venice had already been arranged. Now I just needed to find Sal. I worked my way through the platform traffic to the tower where the European ships were debarking. From a distance, I saw Sal talking to the pilot of a Swiss ship. I was puzzled.

  I walked down the platform toward him. “Sal?” I called.

  He turned, spotted me, then spoke a word to the pilot who nodded. Sal walked across the platform toward me. As he neared, he kept his gaze on the landing. My stomach began to knot.

  It was not until he was standing in front of me that Sal looked me in the eyes. The expression on his face was one I had never seen before. He looked anguished.

  “Sal? What’s wro—”

  “I’m taking a transport to Zurich,” he told me.

  “What?” I searched his face. While he tried to pull on his mask, he could not. He looked like a man destroyed. “I don’t understand, Sal. I thought we…Look, Byron and I—”

  “My Lily,” he started. He reached out to take my hand but pulled his hand back. “Lily, I can never be a Byron. I will never drop out of the clouds and save you. I’m just a tinker and that is…not enough,” he said then turned to go.

  “Sal? Wait! Please!” I said and walked after him. I grabbed his arm, but he did not turn toward me.

  “I understand your choice,” he said, his voice cracking. He shook my hand off and strode down the platform. Nodding to the Swiss pilot, he boarded the transport. The ship pulled up her anchors and lifted out of the dock. Moments later, Sal was flying away from me. I stood on the platform all alone. Only Asclepius, astride across the night’s sky, was there to see me weep. I had gone on a quest to find the Goddess of Love only to return home empty-handed. And I had been discarded—again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Two months later, I stood on the pilot’s platform looking out across the green grounds of the Champs de Mars below the Paris airship towers. Thunder rolled in the clouds overhead. Cloud-to-cloud lightning cracked ominously. A cool fall wind blew across the field. Behind me, Angus swore under his breath.

  I looked up at Etienne. He had sucked in his lips and was tapping his finger on his chin.

  The crowd below was waving the Union Jack and chanting “Star-gaze-r-Star-gaze-r-Star-gaze-r.”

  “No pressure,” Jessup joked sarcastically.

  On my other side, Alejandro Fernando was arguing vehemently with his team.

  “Attention!” a voice crackled from a huge brass horn at the Marshalls’ platform behind us. We all turned. “L'équipe Américaine s'est retirée!” Cutter’s team had withdrawn.

  The mainly European crowd cheered jubilantly.

  “Well, that’s a great fucking vote of confidence!” Angus swore.

  Angus was right. While Cutter had taken first in New York and London, I had deftly trounced him, and everyone else, in Valencia. I’d come in a full mile before him. Apparently racing sober, something I’d never done before, significantly improved my piloting skills. Cutter’s team was banking on me to fail.

  I saw Cutter and his crew following behind his well-shod sponsors who had, no doubt, made the final decision not to risk the Double Eagle. They headed toward the observation platform. To describe his expression as angry would have been an understatement. He gazed over at the pilot’s platform and flashed me a thumbs up.

  Despite their certainty that I would botch it, I knew better. What Cutter didn’t know was that my team had been in almost continual training since Venice. Well, that and the fact that I was, in fact, sober. I spent the first month home killing my habit. It hadn’t been pretty. Every ounce of me wanted to bury my broken heart under a bottle of absinthe and in an opium fog, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Not then and never again.

  As if constant sweating, vomiting, headaches, body pain, and irritability were not enough, Angus had hauled me to his little cottage in Scotland where there was nothing to stimulate me except the trees. I suspect I sobered up quickly just to get back to London before I died from boredom.

  Sal had not come back. When I returned to London after the stint in Scotland, I went to Tinkers’ Hall. His stall was still closed. In that moment in Athens, I didn’t fully understand why Sal had left me. As I reflected later, I realized that what had really happened was that the deep wounds inside both of us had rubbed against one another. Sal, who had been schooled his whole life that he wasn’t good enough, had felt eclipsed by the blinding sun that is Byron. When I had not followed Sal to the deck of the Hercules that night, he must have assumed the worst. I wish he had trusted me to do right by him, but after a lifetime of being dismissed as worthless, what else would he expect?

  I went to Zurich to set things straight. I’d hoped to find him at the workshop of Master Vogt. Sal had been there, but by the time I’d arrived, he’d left for Rome. Something told me Sal was sorting things out. I went back to London. I would wait. If he came back, he came back. If he didn’t, my heart would heal in time.

  To my great relief, Byron had understood my decision. His letters still came as regularly as ever. We were still the greatest of confidants even though we were no longer lovers. And through Byron, I learned that the Aphrodite had been safely stowed. In that, I felt a sense of peace.

  I looked again at Etienne. “Well?” I asked him.

  He blew air through his lips. “It’s Paris.”

  Lightening cracked on the horizon before us.

  Etienne sighed. “Mon dieu…we’ll probably die, but let’s race,” he said, raising the French flag, wagging it in the air.

  The French crowd below burst into a loud cheer.

  Etienne kissed me on both cheeks. “Be careful,” he told me then headed to the Étoile.

  A light rain began to fall. Lightning cracked again.

  I turned to Alejandro and stuck out my hand. He was the only one close enough to me on the points’ board, besides Cutter, to be a threat. “Vaya con Dios,” I said with a half-smile.

  Alejandro sighed, kissed my hand, and turned to his team.

  Angus raised the Union Jack.

  Alejandro’s crewmate waved the Spanish flag.

  The crowd below screamed.

  “Fly low,” Angus said as we made our way to the Stargazer. “We’ll need to win on speed alone.”

  The announcer started listing the teams still in the lineup: France, Spain, England, Italy, Austria, and Germany. All good crews, but no one was better than us.

  I looked up at the sky. There was a strange yellow hue on the horizon. My scalp tingled with the feel of electricity. Maybe Etienne was right. Maybe we would all die. Lightning cracked nearby; thunder rolled toward us in waves.

  Angus and Jessup strategized as we walked down the platform.

  “The new configuration has us running faster than anyone else,” Jessup said. “Low and tight. It’s a straight shot to Le Mans.”

  “Lily! Lily!” I heard someone call from the notables’ platform. Had Byron come?

  I scanned the platform. To my shock, Sal was trying to push his way to the front of the crowd.

  “Sal?” I whispered.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Angus and Jessup exchange a glance.

  “Sal!” I yelled. I rushed across the platform. “Let him through!” I called to the guards.

  They released him.

  “Lily,” he more breathed than said as he grabbed me by both arms. “Lily…I am so sorry. I crossed paths with Byron in Rome. He told me�
��Lily…”

  I’d waited months to hear those words.

  “Mademoiselle Stargazer, we need you on your ship,” a Marshall said from behind me.

  “Please, come later,” I told Sal, taking his face into my hands.

  Lightning crashed nearby. It made the ground shake.

  “Here,” Sal said, pushing a bundle toward me. I recognized the harness and roll of silk. “Let me put it on you,” he said and quickly dropped the harness around my shoulders and under my arms, belting it around my waist. He pulled the belts tight. I relished the feel of his hands on my body. “The chute at the back will open if you pull here,” Sal said, guiding my hand to a pin on the vest. “It should lower you safely down. God forbid, Lily. But this weather…please be careful. Lily…”

  “It’s okay. I love you, Salvatore,” I whispered.

  “My Lily.” He pressed me against his chest. Sandalwood.

  “Mademoiselle Stargazer?”

  “I’m coming!”

  “Good luck. Be careful,” Sal called.

  I walked to the deck of the Stargazer with tears in my eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The ring of the cannon signaled start. The Stargazer’s propellers kicked over hard, and she leapt out of her tower. I watched from the wheelstand as the other ships lifted toward the sky. Everyone went up except us. Low and fast. Low and fast.

  Lightning rocked the horizon. We had barely moved from the green of the Champs de Mars, the official race gateway, when the sky flashed white. I winced. My ears rung as the lightning rocked my body. My god, had we been struck?

  The Stargazer’s propellers stopped. I heard the door to the gear galley clap open. “Are we hit?” Angus called.

  “Fuck! It was close! No, we’re okay! Lily?” Jessup called down.

  I opened my eyes and scanned the horizon. In the sky above us, the other ships were turning, moving back toward the airship towers. All of the ships were turning, that is, except the Étoile. In the sky above me, Etienne’s airship was on fire.

  “Oh my god…oh my god! Jessup! Take us up!” I screamed.