I nod to the hillside. “Back at the pyrotechnics.”
“What is your plan?” Jonesy requests, removing his violin from its case. Maestro Plimpton has boarded the boat, looking like a rotund water buffalo rather than his intended costume of a Viking.
“For now, to survive this performance. We are still planning. Nothing is decided.”
He nods, indicating the deck. My heart sinks. Sarah, standing tall and beautiful on the deck. Even at this distance, I can see the tears on her cheeks.
She lifts her long-fingered hand in farewell.
I wish to blow her a kiss, but fear others will notice.
“Oh, my dear girl. Please, tell her I love her.”
Jonesy clears his throat. “You tell her yourself. The cruise is but an hour.”
The final patron boards, the deck so crowded I’m worried the mighty boat shall capsize.
Silas climbs to a newly erected stand and raises his hands for silence. The excited voices drop to whispers.
“Welcome to Charleston’s Fancy. While the country bickers over succession, slavery and sin, I give you this one night, a respite from all your worries. I implore you to lose yourself in the dream that is our establishment.”
Thunderous applause erupts.
“Here, here!” yells a man nearby, holding up his drink in ascension.
“Without further ado. Please direct your eyes to our amusement park. Our Shoot-the-Chute will be open to the public tomorrow, so I recommend you stay at our very own guest house, to get an early start to assure your seat. And afterward, a ball, to begin at the stroke of midnight.”
A hundred sets of masked eyes stare across the bay. I swallow.
Something, something is afoot. I cock my head to listen.
A whining hum, like I’ve never heard before, is an undercurrent of sound.
“How better to dance your troubles away than…with light!”
He flips his hand, and like magic, the whole of the shore alights. Dotted bits of light shine across Charleston’s Fancy as if he has stolen the stars from the night sky. Stronger than lantern light.
Jonesy leans over once again. “I have never seen so much light at one time. I worry it is not safe.”
My mind wanders a few months back, which seems like a lifetime, to Silas and Brighton arguing on the thoroughfare. A flash of Brighton’s words, ‘My father traveled to other times, with more science. Our time is not ready for what lies ahead.’
Jonesy’s eyes tighten as he stares at the shore. “It will never work.”
Snippets of their argument return to me, now making sense.
‘I have seen you do it. Seen you use such devices. I want them here. If no one else in all the world has them, we will become a worldly spectacle.’
Brighton had confessed his father, who used the portals without consideration of consequence, had stolen the idea from a man named Tesla.
He intended on introducing the light earlier, to further imbue Morelands with coin. Consequences to space and time be deuced.
I press my lips together, praying the world around us shall not fold from some untold time paradox.
Plimpton raises his baton and taps it for attention.
The crowd hushes. My chest sears and I whimper, but quietly.
Only Jonesy’s eyes flick to mine. Sarah is gone. Tonight, Silas will keep the boat docked, to allow the curious to come and go between the performance and the magical lighting of the Guest House.
I raise my eyes to the sky and wait. A very long moment drags on.
Just as I hear the intake of the crowd’s breaths about to murmur as to the delay, the first white jet shoots across the blackened night sky.
I pull my bow across the strings and the dance begins. My eyes never leave the sky, not needing my sheet music, only needing the synchronicity of Brighton’s beautiful showers of light which ride on the wings of my notes.
The rest of the orchestra hums to life and I hear and feel violin, and horn and shudder with ecstasy. The Elementi’s enhancements; the experience of sound is now sheer jubilation.
Blasts of cornflower blue and deepest purple pop and fan as celestial flowers in bloom above us.
Our music matches; every burst of light a staccato blast of sound, every showering light-rain, a smooth, slow adagio.
It is like the perfectly timed rhythm between man and woman. One who reads your soul as well as your body.
My mind tries to stray.
“Katherine?”
That voice?
No, it cannot be. A shudder of revulsion alerts every inch of my body to terrored attention.
I shake my head, ignoring the wildfire of gooseflesh erupting on my bow arm. It cannot not be. The burning in my chest is a hot coal of pain and I wrench it out to rest upon fabric instead of skin.
“It is she. Katherine!”
I keep playing but whisper frantically. “Jonesy. Oh merciful heaven Jones, he is come. My father is come. Save me.”
Jonesy halts, taking the violin from beneath his chin, his eyes wide with fear.
Silas notices. His eyes have never left my face since the song’s beginning.
His mouth twists in fury and he hops from the platform, snaking his way through the crowd toward us. The orchestra and music plow forward without me.
The floodgates of dread break. Hands grip above both my elbows, hard enough to bruise as I am hauled away from Jones, who is swinging, brawling like a wildcat.
Plimpton notices but conveys the rest should keep playing.
My eyes lift slowly to behold my father’s maniacal, dead gaze.
He grasps my one arm, my brother the other, as they drag me toward the back of the boat.
The soldiers brawling with Jones leave him as my father walks away. Following loyally in his wake.
Jonesy hesitates, the indecision reflected in his eyes which flick between me and the hillside. He sprints in the direction of the fireworks, no doubt to summon Brighton. He will not make it in time. I shall be gone or dead.
We are alone on the back deck, the other patron’s enthralled with the show and the magical lighting of the house.
Father shakes me, hard enough to rattle my teeth. His eyes ticking to take in my face, my hair.
“Thought you could escape me? Thought you could embarrass me? You should have known I would find you. So help me, you had better be intact, Miss Mary Marvel. I not only have an entire tour of Germany and France booked, but I have an equally agreeable suitor ready, willing and able to implant an heir in that useless womb.”
I am struck numb. Like time and space have opened to swallow me whole. “No. No. No. No.”
No tears. I am beyond tears. Awe and horror at what awaits me drive all sorrow from my soul, leaving behind a numb void.
“I am afraid that shall not be possible, Lord Manners. You see, Miss Teagarden now belongs to me. Permanently.” Silas has arrived, flanked by three burly workers. His white cane taps menacingly in his palm.
Father snaps his fingers and four soldiers shuffle out of the shadows, rifles raised.
“Who do you think you are? You are nothing. A peasant to be squished beneath the toe of my boot.”
Silas lunges at my father and I dive and roll out of the way.
Gunfire, shouts and screams echo amidst the snap of fists pummeling jaws. The deck is chaos and I scuttle away like a crab to the deck’s edge. And consider…jumping.
The pendant burns like never ever before. As if my mother calls.
I gasp as it lifts off my chest, pulling toward the crowd.
Hesitantly, I follow the pendant’s pull, crawling through the battle, heeding the call of the metal towards…metal.
My father’s sword clashes with Silas’. My eyes steal up to the blade. Embedded in the hilt is…my other earring.
My magnolia stands out, glistening in the night.
It all but sings with the proximity of the other. My stomach free-falls, but I force myself forward into the bloody fray.
&nb
sp; Clink, clash. Slice. “Ah! You fool!”
My father drops the sword and it skids across the deck. In mid-slide it alters course, skidding to a halt at my feet.
My brother leaps before father, shielding him and resuming the fight with Silas.
I rip the chain from my neck and place the earring against the hilt.
The two glow white-hot and fuse. I wriggle, hard, with all my might and it pops from the sword. Thunder erupts overhead.
Lightning flashes.
I slide backwards, counting. “One, two, three.”
Lightning strikes. It strikes the guest house. A huge, flaming orange blaze erupts.
The Elementi pond behind the house…
Silas whirls. I am forgotten. His one true love…is burning. “No!”
He bolts through the battle, charging toward the guest house, now completely ablaze.
Father sees me, his gaze instantly assessing my actions, falling to my fisted hands. He crawls toward me, cradling the slice in his arm. Crimson overflows it, leaving a bloody trail across the deck.
“The only way you will ever escape me…is if you follow your mother. In death, “he spits.
I raise my fist high and the lightning flashes again. “Five, six…seven.” I raise my hand high, like a lightning bolt, daring it to come. As it did for George.
Let the lightning take me.
A hot white bolt strikes the water not three feet from the boat. A tiny circle of fire lights in the bay.
“I would gladly follow her anywhere,” I scream, the tendons in my neck popping out with the fervor.
My strength and confidence return, emboldened by The Elementi.
Father lunges, clutching me, pushing my head over the deck railing. “Go to her then. Find her in the watery deep. You deserve one another.”
I flail, my boots leaving the deck for a second and I push them back down. The black water waits below.
“Allegra!”
My heart lifts. Brighton’s voice. High overhead?
The festive red and white stripes of the aerial balloon are a bizarre contrast against the battle below.
He throws out a rope. I try to snatch it, but father grasps my fingers.
I laugh. I know he would break them, but he needs them for music. Always for the music.
Jonesy has returned at my side. He grabs the rope and tethers it to the deck rail. The boat moves with the force as the storm wind blows against the hot air balloon.
Father wraps both arms about my chest, pinning me to the railing.
I squeeze my fist tighter around the earrings and…I blink.
A strange, swirling of clouds has begun, directly below the balloon.
The heat in my hand is unbearable, but I clap it firmly closed, picturing a branding iron in the shape of a magnolia against my skin.
Brighton sails into the dark air, almost suspended for a moment before leaping to a crouch on the deck.
One soldier, two, attack. His fist cracks one across the face and he flies backward, crumpling, instantly motionless to the deck.
The other hesitates, but slices his sword toward him. Brighton’s boot connects with his wrist, snapping it instantly so that is hangs like a broken tree branch.
He falls to his knees clutching it. Jones arrives, delivering an uppercut, laying him flat.
“Jones,” Brighton’s voice is thick with emotion.
“Go! Go my friend! This isn’t goodbye.” He turns to deliver another punch.
But something in Brighton’s expression makes me doubt.
The lightning is a constant strobe light of flashes and booms with barely a space between. Too many to count.
Brighton hauls on the rope, pulling the basket down beside us.
“Go darling, go now.” His voice is eerily calm.
I don’t hesitate, I scramble onto the railing and my hands find the top of the basket. With a speed as fast as the lighting, Brighton vaults into the basket, hauling me up and in, in a single movement.
Jones lets loose the rope and we rise toward the storm.
But my brother rushes the rail, reaching it at the last moment to snatch the dangling rope in the air, halting our ascent.
“Help me!” he calls as four soldiers rush to his aid.
“Go Jones. Now is the time.”
Jonesy’s black eyes are uncertain, but Brighton nods and he nods back…and turns and is gone. Running toward the dock.
Toward Sarah. Toward Lucy.
My brother has managed to secure the rope to the railing once again. His lithe body now slithering up the rope toward the basket.
The balloon shakes and lurches to and fro in the wind and from the weight of him putting it off balance. It tips dangerously and I cry out.
I open my hand to show Brighton The Elementi.
They glow like the white in his father’s eyes. He quickly plucks them from my palm to gently place them in my ears.
The glowering sky shifts, the odd churning dropping into the bay below.
His eye light with revelation. “Of course.”
“What, I don’t understand.” Images flick across the small, tight circle in the water below.
“The earrings. They are forged with the highest amount of the element.”
I stare into the water. My brother moves up; ten feet, six feet, four feet away.
“Your mother. Your dear mother understood what I could not. With great concentrations, the lightning and voltage are far less important. The element forms the doors. With this much in one place, you may open a door in any water, no matter how trace the amount of the element. She knew. She had these made for you, intending to take you with her. So you could always find your way home. To her.”
I chew my lip, working through it. “These were her fail safe. To draw me to her, or to a better life, a different life, if something went wrong.”
He nods, vigorously. Triumphantly.
He gestures below.
The balloon lurches hard as my brother’s hands appear on the basket’s rim.
I swallow and nod to the churning, whirl of water and wind below. “A door?”
“A door. Do not be afraid my love. I shall be with you.”
The earrings burn as if answering my question.
Brighton pulls off a sandbag, wrapping one first about his leg, then one about mine. We shall…sink beneath the waves. Very, very quickly.
Thunder and lightning call above.
He hoists me to stand on the baskets edge as I clutch the rope. He does the same.
My father catches sight of us. “You cannot!” He screams.
He believes we shall take our lives, like the Romeo’s and Juliet’s before us.
My brother falls into the basket on the opposite side.
Brighton takes my hand. “Now, my love.”
I clasp it and we leap.
For a moment, we free-fall and all time halts.
The sandbags hurtle before us, hitting the water with a splaaash.
For a moment my life whizzes past in music, through the frolic of childhood and quickly to the present requiem of impending death.
But it mourns for the passing of this life.
Surely, if we drown, if the door does not open—there is elsewhere, something better. Something more to come.
Where Elementi’s are prevalent as the flowers of this earth.
We hit the water. The cold. But Brighton’s hand and the element are both warm against my skin. We sink, farther and faster.
Above the surface of the water, the lightning stops. The winds cease.
A gentle breeze blows across the bay as the balloon takes flight in a billowing festive red and white puff, blowing across Fire Isle.
I feel the pressure. The cold. And keep my eyes on Brighton as my chest begins to constrict.
Epilogue
Am I dead?
Blackness. The all-consuming pressure of the sea against every bit of my body. My lungs next to bursting.
The creaking of sunken sh
ips.
The far off call of whales, lamenting to one another, humming throughout my deadened skull.
Water. Brighton. The balloon.
I feel a pressure grip my fingers and I slowly turn to see Brighton’s pinched, pale face for a second only, because with his free hand he is struggling madly toward the surface, his massive strength propelling him upward as if he had fins.
But still, I am holding him down. I must have lost consciousness—but he held fast to me, risking his own life to carry me through.
I release his hand and he halts, fear heightening his expression—but seeing I now swim of my own accord, he resumes his furious kicking toward the light. Our salvation.
Colors like I have never seen cast across the surface above. I would weep at their beauty were I not below water.
Voices. Voices call, filtered and murmured and altered by the layers of water which blanket us.
“Brighton!”
Sloshing through the shallows. Boots, both masculine and feminine. Three pair.
The light is brighter, air is very close. I command my legs to kick harder.
Brighton reaches down and grasps my hand, giving me a final lift and shoving me upward.
The water parts, breaking across my face and I instantly relish the sun against my cheeks and suck in a five second gasp.
Nothing has ever felt so good. I cough and sputter and blink, trying to see.
I blink and the world, this world, comes into view. Everything looks the same, but different—more vivid, more beautiful, more perfect.
“Brighton! Oh thank Providence, Brighton!” The voice is sonorous, deep, like the sound of my cello.
Brighton has reached the shallows and stands on shaky legs. “G-George?”
His voice is full of pain and wonder.
His younger brother rushes forward, grasping him in a bear-hug. “I cannot believe you are here. I never thought I would be so fortunate twice.”
“G-George?” Is all Brighton can muster.
His diction is perfect, no trace of confusion or abnormal muscle tone exists. He looks like the most perfect specimen of mankind I have ever seen.
“George. Oh, Georgie.” Brighton is weeping. Weeping like a small boy.
“Allegra.”
My head turns, slowly. Like time has frozen.
I know the voice, but I can scarcely believe. Scarcely hope.
The Violet Hour Page 19
