The captain nodded. “Yes, and in that way they are given life. Speaking of which, now that the storm has died down, I am sending Ty with the news of your return to your father. If you would like to add a note, which I recommend, you should have it ready by early tomorrow morning.”
“I will.”
“Good. If you need to talk about anything at all, you know you may speak freely to me. I know you left behind people important to you in that future. Also, what has happened to your eye, it can’t be easy.”
“I would like to set up sessions with Drent,” Karigan replied.
The captain showed her surprise. “So soon?”
“I have got to learn to fight with this.” She touched the bandage over her eye. She did not add that the physical exertion would help her cope with the rest.
“Very well, I’ll inform Drent. But remember, Karigan, you do not have to carry everything alone. Your Rider family will help.”
• • •
As much as Karigan knew her Rider family would help, she spent the rest of the afternoon in the solitude of her room away from the new Riders who stared at her and whispered behind her back. It was difficult being looked upon as strange, and as a stranger, by her own. They’d no doubt heard stories about her past adventures that made her seem even more outlandish. Other. They would, Mara reassured her, get over it with time.
Karigan read through the transcript. It was disjointed, sometimes providing only the name of a person or place. Dakrias had given her a fresh pile of paper, pen, and ink, and now she made notes on her notes, adding more if she saw a flash of a face, or recalled even the most innocuous of details. Bad air, she remembered. The air had been bad in Mill City.
There was mention of time, one of the most valuable pieces of information she had recalled. If events continued in a certain way, they had roughly two years to deal with Amberhill to prevent the fall of Sacoridia and the rise of the Serpentine Empire. Would her coming home already have altered the timeline, or would it march on largely unchanged, the fall of Sacoridia inevitable? How would the king and his advisors use the information she had brought them?
She did not have the answers, and for once was relieved to let others take responsibility for them. At least for now.
She continued looking over the transcript, lingering on names. Sadly, she could barely remember the people except for what was written: Mirriam, head housekeeper. Lorine, former slave and maid. Professor Josston—uncle?
Then there was Cade. She had the briefest of flashes, and they were like smoke, impossible to grasp and hold onto. She wrote his name in big letters across a sheet of paper. She had his name. At least she had that much.
She set aside her notes and began her letter to her father and aunts. A brief “everything is fine” would not pass muster, not this time. She started and stopped, started and stopped. How did one explain to a worried parent about Blackveil and the future? How was she supposed to break it to her father she wasn’t dead? Such news would bring its own shock.
Dear Father,
Contrary to what you may have heard, I am alive and well.
• • •
Then what?
She welcomed the interruption of a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she called, and pushed away from her vanity, which had served as a desk. Garth, apparently, was still searching for a suitable desk for her.
She had expected a Rider, but the man in her doorway was not that. She stood and bowed. “Your Majesty.”
He took one hesitant step into her room. A pair of Weapons lingered in the corridor.
“Hello, Karigan.” Not Rider G’ladheon, not Sir Karigan.
To her, his face had grown more careworn. She now saw a scar across his eyebrow. Mara said he’d led forays against Second Empire. He was more careful in his movements, and thinner than she recalled. The assassin’s arrow with its poison had taken its toll on him.
His near death, his marriage to Estora . . . Karigan did not know how she would have handled it all had she been here and not in Blackveil. Perhaps the gods dealt in backward mercies after all.
“The queen wished me to deliver her fondest greetings.”
It had been explained to Karigan that the forester of Coutre—sent with the expedition into Blackveil with orders to murder her—had not, in fact, been sent by Estora but by her cousin, the misguided Lord Richmont Spane. He’d wanted nothing and no one to interfere with his cousin’s betrothal to the king.
“How is the queen?” Karigan asked.
“Resting in bed as ordered by Master Vanlynn. We are expecting twins.” Like a force he could not control, he smiled, a light shining in his eyes.
“I heard,” she said. “Congratulations.”
It was odd, but in her notes, Karigan had seen a reference to Estora having had only one child. All had changed, unless one of the babies did not make it. Karigan said nothing about it, but it must have occurred to Zachary as well. “Please return my greetings to the queen.”
Their conversation was stilted, had an unreality to it.
“I will. I have advised Captain Mapstone that you are to take as much time as you need to recover.”
“I hope to be back on duty as soon as possible.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Truly? After all you’ve been through? Your eye?”
“Yes.” She needed to work, to keep her mind occupied. She was not sure how long she could stand to remain in the castle with him married to Estora and all the anticipation of the babies. She needed to move on. She did not want to sit around and stew over what was or might have been. She’d become stuck, unable to function. She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think Cade Harlowe would want that for her.
Cade, Cade, Cade . . .
The king studied her for some moments. She could tell there was much he wished to say, but prudence prevented him.
“I do not know why fate has chosen to put you through so much,” he said finally. “I would change it all if I could.”
“I know.” She glanced down at the toes of her boots. “But I would not want to change all of it.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “No?”
“Cade.” His name slipped from her tongue when she had not meant to speak it aloud. Hastily she added, “The people. I don’t remember much, but . . . I’d not have met them had I not gone forward in time.” Despite the little she remembered, she felt certain that her time with Cade had been profound, complete in a way that her connection with Zachary never would be. Never could be. She’d always known it to be impossible to have such with him, and it only intensified her sense of loss. Her loss of both men. Maybe Zachary was right to think it better if none of it had happened.
“This Cade, he was—?”
“No! I don’t—” she began harshly. When she saw his stung expression, she took a breath and said in a softer tone, “I mean, I don’t remember. Not much. But he was important. To me.”
Various emotions flickered across his features. She could see him wondering about Cade, a hint of jealousy perhaps? He quickly masked it and settled on concern once again, and reached for her as though to comfort her, but she stepped back, away from his touch, and his hand fell to his side. His forehead crinkled, and once again he looked hurt. How easy it would be to go to him, to be folded in the strength of his arms, to feel his heartbeat against her. She wanted nothing more than to be comforted by him, but too much had happened. It was impossible, too dangerous. She’d already lost too much.
The king nodded in acceptance. “I think you know how I feel, in any case. About you.”
Karigan looked away. Found she could not reply. After a painful moment passed, that felt so much longer, he pulled an envelope from his pocket. He held it out to her.
“I—I did not read this,” he said. “I refused to believe you were gone. I think I would have known.”
&
nbsp; It took Karigan a moment to realize what it was, but once she saw her own handwriting on it and the green wax seal, there was no mistake. It was the letter she had written to be given to him in the event she did not return from Blackveil. It let him know her heart, all the things she could never say to him while she lived. She did not know whether to feel relieved he had not read it, or disappointed. Relieved because then all she held inside would have been exposed in no uncertain terms. Disappointed for the same reason. It was for the best, she supposed. She did not need that letter adding fuel to the longing between them.
He cleared his throat and said more brusquely, “I’ve something else for you. Ellen?” The Weapon stepped in briefly to hand him a rolled up paper tied with a ribbon. “A very strange thing. The journal that Rider Cardell took into Blackveil was being catalogued to be filed with other records. His drawings are very good, and I am sure the images and maps he drew will be helpful in the future.” He paused, but very briefly. “The odd thing was, a picture we had somehow missed earlier came to light, tucked into the back of the journal. Apparently Rider Cardell wanted you to have it.”
He passed her the rolled paper, and she held it with trepidation. What in the world had Yates drawn that he wanted her to see?
Preoccupied by the rolled paper in her hands, Karigan barely noticed King Zachary receding from her chamber. She did not see how his gaze lingered on her, his expression wistful and suffused with regret and his own loss. She did not register the door closing silently and soundly behind him.
She moved to her chair and undid the ribbon. She was glad she was sitting because when the paper unrolled, she saw the gift for what it was, a gift from the spirit of Yates Cardell. He’d be smiling right now, she knew he would.
At the very top of the page was written, For Karigan. Drawn in ink were portraits of people, people she’d met in the future. Even without their names labeled, she knew them like a shockwave: Mirriam looking stern as always and peering through a monocle. Lorine and Arhys holding hands as they walked down a cobbled street. Professor Josston looking magnificent in his evening clothes. Luke with his hand on Raven’s neck.
Drawn in the center of the page was a portrait of Cade, a bemused smile on his face as if he was telling her she could never possibly forget him. At that moment, she remembered everything they’d been through together, and everything they had meant to each other. Everything.
Thanks to Yates, Cade would live in her memory and she would never forget. Not ever.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
On Inspiration and the Real Mill City
Art is the handmaid of human good.
—Motto of the City of Lowell, Massachusetts
I shifted the lever into place to engage the flywheel of the 1901 Model E Draper Power Loom with the whirring belt hanging down from the spinning ceiling shaft. The loom surged to life, slamming the shuttle containing the bobbin of weft yarn back and forth. While the bobbin unspooled and laid down the weft, heddles threaded with warp yarn rose and plunged, rose and plunged, in their own mechanical rhythm. Beaters rammed the lines of weft and warp together into a tight weave. It was the spring of 1989, and I was a ranger at Lowell National Historical Park, located about twenty miles north of Boston, Massachusetts. I was leading a tour through the park’s Suffolk Mill Exhibit and demonstrating the manufacture of cloth as it had been done on a mass scale in the 19th and 20th centuries—with water power.
1901 Draper Power Loom located in the Suffolk Mills. Author photo.
About two hundred years ago, entrepreneurs arrived on the banks of the Merrimack River to exploit its strong currents. As brick mill complexes transformed a farm village into an industrial center, Irish immigrants dug out canals that would deliver water to the breast wheels, and later, the turbines, used to power all the machines involved in the clothmaking process, from carding and spinning, to weaving and finishing. The Suffolk began producing cotton cloth in 1832.
A shuttle with bobbin and thread that would have been used in a loom. Quarter indicates scale. Shuttles could be deadly missiles for mill laborers if they skipped their tracks at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Author photo.
Lowell was one of the first planned cities of the American Industrial Revolution, conceived as a sort of experimental urban utopia, a sight some European visitors considered as worthy of being seen as Niagara Falls. Its fortunes rose and fell over the years, and the vision of utopia quickly tarnished. With its rich history, mills, canals, and machines, Lowell inspired aspects of Mirror Sight’s “Mill City.” In fact, Lowell was often referred to as “the Mill City” at the height of its influence.
During my demonstration in the Suffolk Mill, my tour group witnessed how the kinetic energy of water, fed into a turbine beneath the mill via a canal, transferred power to a system of gears, belts, pulleys, and shafts, all the way to the loom. As the loom worked, they felt the vibration of the wooden floor beneath their feet, heard the clamor of all the moving mechanisms, smelled and tasted the metallic tang of machine oil thick in the air. I asked them to imagine two hundred of those looms on just one mill floor (there were five floors) all running at the same time. It would have been deafening. In fact, many mill workers suffered hearing loss, among other more gruesome injuries, in the line of work. The mills had been developed in an era when there was little or no consideration for worker safety, and all the moving machine parts were left exposed with no protective casings to prevent mishaps. Today, visitors to Lowell National Historical Park can get an even better sense of what an active mill floor was once like by exploring the Boott Cotton Mills Museum.
As a ranger at the park, I was required to learn all about Lowell’s stories in order to interpret its history to visitors and students. I learned about water power, and those who came to Lowell to labor in the mills. I learned about the owners and managers of textile companies. I had to know the technology behind the machines and weaving. My learning was hands-on—I got to clamber through old gate houses, their gate hoisting mechanisms shrouded in cobwebs. I explored the back sides of mill complexes where tailraces had once spilled expended water back into the river. I stood on expansive, empty mill floors where machines once hummed and clamored.
Water power! Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River, Lowell, Massachusetts. Author photo.
Lowell’s bricks and cobbles and canals, its multifaceted stories, have lingered with me all these years, but for all of Lowell’s inspiration, it is important to remember that Mirror Sight is a work of fiction and Mill City is not meant to be a replica of Lowell. Any inaccuracies concerning the workings of textile mills or the machines within are either the result of artistic license or my own error.
It was a privilege to experience Lowell’s myriad stories and pass them on, and the National Park Service will continue to protect and preserve this important piece of American history for future generations. I am grateful for it all, especially the inspiration.
I encourage interested readers to discover more about Lowell and other sites of industrial history by visiting Lowell National Historical Park’s website at www.nps.gov/lowe. The park itself provides many exhibits and tours that offer a vivid exploration of Lowell’s past and present, and is well worth an on-site visit.
Empty mill floor, Boott Cotton Mills #6 in 1988. Author photo.
Urban ranger. The author standing before the Boott Cotton Mills complex in 1989. The torn up parking lot is now a grassy sward known as Boarding House Park. Visitors can get a real feel for a 19th century working cotton mill by touring the Boott Cotton Mills Museum at Lowell National Historical Park. Photo by Karen Sweeny-Justice.
Kristen Britain is the author of the best selling Green Rider series. She lives in an adobe house in the high desert of the American Southwest beneath the big sky, and among lizards and hummingbirds and tumbleweeds.
Kristen Britain is the author of the best selling Green Rider series. She lives
in an adobe house in the high desert of the American Southwest beneath the big sky, and among lizards and hummingbirds and tumbleweeds.
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