“Arabella, we depart in…” I check my pocket watch. “Less than six hours. We both need to be very careful. Stygian would like nothing better than to dismiss us. I will walk you to your cottage.”
She glances to the spot where the figure disappeared and sighs. “Very well. But my life is getting more complicated every day.”
We quickly walk to her cottage.
I check that we are not being watched and then usher her inside, sighing as I picture her tiny frame, stalking her stalker. Mad, she is.
I start to shut the door, but she places her foot in it, slowly re-opening it for my departure.
“Who do you think that was?”
“I have several ideas,” she places her hand on my chest and eases me back onto the porch. “But we will discuss it tomorrow.”
###
Next day
Bella
The steamship is anchored and sailors scuttle up and down the gangplank like sea-crabs, loading trunks and equipment.
Stygian and Earnest chose well; they hand-picked the vessel because of her size and ability to house the entire team, our equipment, and…the hand. A chugging, steaming home base, capable of a quick departure should the situation degrade.
Another ship glides past, garnering my attention. The river was always full of ships as its mouth culminated in New York, and the ocean.
I search for Henry, my eyes picking through the crowd lining the ship’s railing.
Violet and Dr. Watson arrive, instantly veering toward me.
My mind replays childhood days with Mary, John’s first wife, and then my recent teener years with Violet. The time with them was never enough. It felt stolen. I always wanted more.
I see Violet’s arms open, and steel myself for the hug.
I’m quite sure I’ve never had so much affection. I’m trying to grow accustomed to it.
I hand her Newton’s leash. “You’re sure you don’t mind, Violet? He’s a rather active dog?”
“No, not at all. I love animals, my dear.” She smiles slyly. “I married John, didn’t I?”
John laughs. “My dear. I will miss you so. At least you’ll have the dog to keep you company.”
I give his ears one last scratch. I hate to leave him.
Animals, only love you. They never disappoint, never judge.
“I will miss him so.”
“We’ll be back before he realizes you’ve gone.” John says bracingly. I search his face, thankful for him. To John, my concerns have always been valid.
A familiar laugh echoes behind me and I experience a brief falling sensation. Henry has arrived.
His voice simultaneously thrills and terrifies me.
Father said our years apart were for our own good. And yet here he is, back by my side.
I turn toward his voice and murmur, “Sherlock Holmes, thwarted.” And I smile.
I almost hear one bolt on the heart-box throw open. I may have to add him to my list of obsessions.
Henry eyes the leash in Violet’s hands.
“So this means…” He gives his father a meaningful look.
“I’m coming, my boy. Don’t try to hide your excitement—let it run free.”
Henry briefly closes his eyes and swipes a hand across his face. However, in seconds, he’s recovered.
“Wonderful.”
I hear a tinny, forced laugh behind me. Priscilla. Perfect time to make my exit. “Excuse me.”
I pick through the people on the deck and linger at the railing.
I watch their exchange. Henry’s strained expression, and Priscilla’s rapturous joy, just to bask in his presence.
Her eyes find me for the briefest of seconds, and she scowls. She leans in forwardly and pecks Henry on the cheek. His face goes instantly scarlet.
I turn away, fighting the nausea.
A flutter catches my eye. Across the river, on a tree limb. My heart trips.
A whole line of them; their wings beating in a synchronous tandem. A cluster of black butterflies form an eerie congregation.
“Why must you vex me?” I square my shoulders, but goose bumps explode on my arms, just the same.
My perpetual mystery. Driving me mad to solve it.
They flit through my past; silent observers running alongside my childhood memories.
Following me down to the river.
Landing on my knee while I was swinging.
Almost watching Henry and I, while we climbed trees, playing pirates.
Henry arrives beside me, and follows my stare.
“That’s very odd, Arabella. Their formation.”
“Yes, I know. They follow me.”
Henry’s eyes cloud, his face explicitly worrying for my sanity. “Could you explain that in more scientific terms? Lest I recommend a visit to my father? Or perhaps a physician more focused on the mind?”
I grin. “Oh, I know how that sounds. They are the perpetual thorn in my side. The singular puzzle I cannot solve. I actually told father about it.”
Henry’s eyes light with familiar excitement. He loves deciphering and deduction. “What did he say? He didn’t think you mad?”
I nod. “At first, yes. Then he began to watch, and saw them too. We conducted many experiments about them over the years.”
“And the conclusion?” Henry stare returns to the flock. They lift from the limb in tandem, exploding in a black cloud, and then dispersing across the Hudson.
“We never solved it completely. Father’s hypothesis is that I exude a certain chemical that attracts them—like specific flowers do.”
Henry rubs his face, nodding. “Fascinating. You’re a butterfly magnet.”
I roll my eyes.
“Arabella. Henry. It’s time to go inside. A meeting is assembling.” Dr. Watson strides inside, not waiting for a response.
Stygian and a burly man are shuffling up the deck, lugging a colossal black chest between them. The hand must be inside.
Henry notices, too and grabs my elbow. “Let’s go.”
I glance behind me one last time. A singular black butterfly sits on the exact spot my hand vacated.
Slowly beating its wings.
Chapter Ten
The First Party’s Fate
The Ship’s Bowels
Bella
My stomach lurches with the rolling of the steamship. I stare out the window, searching for the horizon. My inner ear adjusts, and with it, my breathing. I still fear I may vomit all over Henry’s boots.
His fingers drum lightly on my chair as he fidgets. John sits beside him, one leg draped lazily over the other. His cane rests languidly across his lap.
I know better. That cane, in the hands of John Watson, is a deadly weapon.
Something is making him nervous.
Henry notices, too. I watch his eyes dart to his father’s cane, and then around the room, searching for the source of danger.
“Welcome.” Stygian spreads his long arms dramatically. “We are headed up the Hudson, where last month’s storm has unearthed more possibilities.”
With considerable effort, Earnest stands, and shuffles to his side. “We know there is heated scientific debate as to the skeleton’s origins, but for now—our primary objective is to recover it, and get it back to the Mutter.”
Stygian continues, “We will divide into teams. Dr. Watson, Arabella and Henry shall form one, and myself and Dr. Montgomery on the other. You may be curious why we’ve asked Dr. Watson to join us…as his specialty is not antiquities, but crime.”
“And medicine,” Earnest adds.
“Yes. The previous team, Marston and Klink, Sully and Archival; who unearthed the hand…never returned. A portion… of Marston’s body surfaced in the Hudson only yesterday.”
A murmur of horror ripples through the scientists drowning out the waves lapping against the boat. The voice of the Hudson. Which silenced our predecessors.
A picture is bei
ng passed back through the rows. I track its approach by the ‘its-a-shame’ head shakes of acquaintances’ and horrified expressions of the team’s closer colleagues.
It arrives at Henry and he grasps it, holding it still for John and I to see.
Marston’s bespectacled, somber stare catches my eye first. His hair streaked with gray, the oldest and undoubtedly the team’s leader.
Sully’s arm is draped around Archival’s shoulders in an obvious friendship. They make an unlikely pair: Sully’s unfashionable long hair, tied in a leather strap, in stark contrast to Archival’s clean-cut altar-boy looks.
And Klink rounds out the team—smiling so wide his gold tooth showed.
“Were you well acquainted?” Henry asks quietly.
“Only in passing. They were in and out on expeditions since my arrival.”
People begin speaking out of turn.
“What happened to them?”
“How did they deliver the hand?”
Stygian raises his hands for calm. “Quiet, please. We cannot explain over the ruckus.”
Earnest’s bushy eyebrows waggle up and down like wooly caterpillars. “They shipped back the hand by courier, and never returned.”
“How long ago? How many days?” Henry asks, not raising his hand.
“Is his body available for examination?” I eye John, his mouth half-open. I know I’ve beaten him to the question. He hides his half-smile and shakes his head.
“Already buried,” Ernest answers.
“That’s convenient,” John murmurs.
“Like you’ve never exhumed a body,” Henry quietly retorts.
“I can tell you that the wounds were clean, perhaps a knife or axe.” Stygian’s black eyes scan the audience.
I shiver as déjà vu takes over.
The ghost of his hot breath tickles my ear. His insistent hand on the back of my corset. The flush spreads down my chest and I bite my lip.
The meeting has disintegrated into chaos; men gather into small groups, lamenting and gesticulating their frustrations at their colleagues’ demise.
John and Henry are whispering, oblivious to me.
While the chaos continues, Stygian finds my face in the crowd. His stare is not cold or hard, but dead.
And wicked and lustful. Still.
His eyes are inanimate, like a puppet.
I do not think he is done with me. There is much more to his obsession.
I flick my thumbs as Shakespeare pops into my head. “Something wicked this way comes,” I whisper. The words slip out.
“What did you say, Arabella?” Henry has turned back to me.
Stygian smiles; an ugly, twisted curling of lips. It reminds me of my old cat—a big wooly Tom who would torture his prey, paralyze them, play with them, before finally devouring them.
Stygian breaks the staring contest, his face reanimating to its professional façade.
“Meeting adjourned for this evening. We wanted to keep you abreast of the turn of events, to have your guard up, and keep your staterooms locked.”
Sailors milling outside the door murmur amongst themselves. One of them looks skeptically toward Stygian.
I overhear one say, “Nice of him to tell us this after we’ve left port.”
We walk back down the hall, toward the stateroom.
Henry and I are alone in the hallway, and an inky blackness gathers outside the porthole now.
“Why, fancy that. My room is right next to yours,” he smiles mischievously.
“How did you manage that?”
“Father traded with me.”
“Really? I’m very shocked at his allowing temptation.”
He half-smiles and bites the inside of his mouth before teasing, “You think you’re a temptation, Miss Holmes?”
“I. I don’t know. Am I, Henry?”
I don’t move. I’ve never, ever attempted to entice a man. Not one has ever held my interest. I hold perfectly still, willing him to me.
Henry steps very close. Too close for propriety. “I believe Father’s more concerned for your safety than your chastity at this point.” The grin fades from his face as something dark crosses his mind. “Do you want me to sleep with you?”
“Henry!”
“Don’t be daft.” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “It’s Stygian. I don’t like the way he regards you. He makes no effort to conceal his…lust.”
I nod. I won’t deny it.
His expression is black. “I. I’m afraid I want to hurt him. So—I will not be getting a wink of sleep, even next door to you.”
I open my stateroom door and take one step inside. Henry places his hand on the door, long fingers splayed. “Bella, I am going to have to insist. For your safety, of course.”
“No. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. I escaped his advances once, didn’t I?”
“That gives me no solace.”
I step inside, shutting the door till only an inch of his face is visible through the crack.
His blue eyes wrinkle in frustration, “Please, Arabella. I know I’m vexing you—but I am deadly worried. I promise to be the perfect gentleman.”
“I don’t know if you’re capable of that, Henry. What if we’re caught? Your presence alone would be enough for Stygian to dismiss the both of us. That my feminine wiles are distracting you into fornication.”
“We will not get caught. On my honor. Open the door.”
I sigh, trying to ignore his beautiful, pleading face. No wonder the silly girls fawn all over him.
“Fine, but only because you said please. Henry, I will never forgive you if we are dismissed.”
I step aside for him to enter, and look out into the hallway to assure we are unseen.
He slides past me, his chest brushing mine in the tight space as he eases into the room.
He halts, our bodies blistering against one another. He stares down at me. “We won’t get caught.”
I shove him inside, close the door and throw the bolt.
He stoops and steals a kiss and my breath, and is on my bed before I’ve managed a word.
He folds a hand behind his head. “Shall you sleep with me, then?” He pats the covers beside him.
I snap my gaping-aghast mouth shut and pelt a pillow at his head. “Get on the floor.”
###
Midnight
Henry
I wake as the boat lurches, assailing my stomach. I am momentarily disoriented and take deep breaths as I wait for my brain to categorize the most recent events.
I squint around the stateroom, which is utterly black, as is the porthole on the wall.
“Arabella?” I whisper.
Nothing. Complete graveyard silence, except for the rush of the waves past the bow.
I pat the top of the bed, my hand searching for her warm body. As I’ve been doing every hour on the hour since my head touched the pillow. The bed is smooth.
“Oh, please.” I hurry to stand and light the lamp. Her bed is empty. “She is a lunatic and is going to take me down with her.”
I reach inside my bag, extract a tiny pistol and jam it in the top of my trousers.
I crack open the door and immediately hear the ruckus.
I see the flash of her auburn hair as she rounds the corner.
“Blast.”
I bolt down the corridor, pistol drawn.
She’s made it outside and is walking in tight circles with a smallish man. He lunges, swiping within an inch of her forearm. I inhale sharply. The knife flashes; he charges her.
Volcanic anger erupts, incinerating all other thoughts.
I bolt forward, my thighs burning.
She swipes a knife at his face. He blocks, grasping her forearm.
Her hand rotates forward, loosening his grip.
If I weren’t so utterly terrified, his face would be comical; it screams, A woman who can fight?
Her boot juts skyward, c
onnecting with his jaw.
I had no idea her body moved like that? Like a contortionist?
Almost there.
Bones crunch as his jaw snaps shut and blood trickles out the side of his mouth as his face turns murderous.
He lunges, and manages to grasp a handful of her hair.
“Ah!”
She screams and is still.
His face is triumphant. “That’s right, lovey. My word, you’re a petal.” He licks his lips.
The whole scene flares to red as I burst onto the deck, panting.
His eyes dart to me.
Arabella seizes the distraction; her boot flashes up again to strike his gut and his breath exhales in a whoosh.
He releases her, but yanks, ripping out a handful of auburn hair.
“Ah!”
A droplet of blood falls to the ground as every movement slows to a crawl in my horror.
I’m bolting toward them; he’s moving her away, toward the railing.
No. No, not over the side.
She rushes him, her face contorted with pain and rage, her knee connecting with his crotch.
“Oof.”
He doubles over.
Hatred twists his face into a leer. “That’s it, missy.”
He jabs right, into her shoulder, knocking her off balance. Her head snaps back with the force.
Arabella rights and her boot swings into the air.
I hear a catch snap and see another flash of silver as a knife pops from the toe of her boot.
She slashes, cutting up and across his thigh.
“Ahh—you little wench!”
His head swivels as he registers my footsteps.
He gives her one final shove, sending her sliding bottom-first, across the deck.
He limps for the railing.
I launch forward but he dives, down into the black waves, and disappears.
I reach down to haul her from the deck and we both rush to the rail, searching.
In a moment, his head breaks through the black water and he begins to swim for shore.
Chapter Eleven
Both Wonderful and Terrible
Steamship Mess Hall
Boneseeker Page 9
