by S. E. Grove
“Was it an orphanage, then?” Calixta asked.
“That’s right,” Theo said. “Run by nuns. They pretty much left us on our own, though.”
Sophia put her watch away, suddenly alert. Theo’s lying, she thought, with a strange sense of tightening in her stomach.
“Were you very young when your parents left you there?”
“Not so much.” Theo’s voice was light; he didn’t sound like he was lying. “They were traders. I was six when our house was crushed by a weirwind; killed them both. I made it, just barely.”
“What a sad story,” Calixta said, with feeling. “Is that how your hand was injured? When you were six?”
“Yup. The nuns took me in after that. All the kids called me ‘Lucky Theo,’ because our house was a pile of rubble, but I’d survived.”
“No doubt it was the nuns who made you such a little angel,” she said slyly. “Risking your life to help the girl you love. It’s charming. I suppose you’d go anywhere for her.”
Theo gave an awkward laugh. “Sophia and I just met.”
“Oh, you can’t deceive me, Lucky Theo,” Calixta said sweetly. I don’t want to hear this, Sophia thought, the tightness in her stomach giving way to a dull heaviness. “You may have just met,” Calixta went on, “but here you are, rescuing her uncle.”
“Nah,” Theo scoffed. “I’m not rescuing anybody. I don’t do that.” The heaviness seemed to move through Sophia’s whole body until she felt immobile. Or maybe he’s not lying. Maybe he was lying to me. He just says whatever people want to hear. And everyone believes him. She felt flooded with shame and her face grew hot. I told myself that I shouldn’t trust him, but I did anyway. What an idiot I am.
“Oh!” Calixta said with faint surprise. “Here I was, under the impression that you and Sophia were riding into the Baldlands to rescue her uncle. It certainly sounded that way.”
Sophia knew that she should sit up and put a stop to the conversation, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Theo went on. “Sophia’s uncle ran off a few days ago with an actress from Nochtland. He even left her a note saying the beautiful actress had stolen his heart and he would never return. Obviously,” he put in expertly, “Sophia mistook you for a beautiful actress.”
Calixta chuckled, acknowledging the compliment. “Is that what happened? Well, that makes it all clear.”
“If you ask me,” Theo continued, unstoppable now that his story had taken shape, “it’s a cruel thing to do. Abandon your niece, who has no one else in the world, for an actress?” Sophia’s face was so warm that it seemed to burn, and the heavy weight in her stomach had begun to ache. “But that’s the kind of man he is.” He sighed. “Of course this whole journey to Nochtland is hopeless. Sophia’s not going to find him, and if she does, he’ll just tell her to go home. I’m not sticking around to see that,” he grimly concluded. Sophia felt her eyes fill with tears—from the truth and the lie both—and she brushed them away angrily as the train began to slow.
“Well, better wake the poor girl. We’re finally getting to New Orleans.”
Theo’s head appeared at the edge of the bunk. “I’m awake,” Sophia said, her voice choked.
He smiled innocently. “Get up, then. We’re here.”
The train began pulling into the station and Calixta opened the door to the compartment to call for a porter. As Sophia climbed down, her pack on one shoulder, the man came into the compartment and began carrying out Calixta’s trunks.
“I’m taking a coach to the dock,” the pirate said, putting on her hat. “And, if you like, I’ll take you to the depot where you can negotiate for horses. If that’s really what you want to do.”
Theo was about to follow her out, but Sophia grasped his arm. “I heard everything you said about Shadrack.”
He grinned. “Pretty good, right?”
“Pretty good?” Sophia exclaimed, tears again filling her eyes despite her effort to control them. “How could you say that about Shadrack? An actress?” To her dismay, Theo laughed. “It’s not funny!”
“Come on, lighten up. You’re taking this way too seriously.”
Sophia felt her cheeks once again turning bright red. “I don’t see anything wrong with being serious. This is serious! I heard what you said about not sticking around. I never asked you to stick around. You can leave whenever you want. I’ll go by myself.”
“Hey,” Theo said, taking her arm. “Calm down—it was just a story I told her. You said not to tell her about Shadrack. I thought it was a pretty good way to distract her.”
“Were you lying? About all of it?”
“Of course I was lying—that’s what you said to do.”
“I didn’t tell you to lie. I just said not to tell her anything. How am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth?”
“Sophia, what I told her didn’t mean anything. Trust me.”
She gave a short laugh and looked away. “Right. Trust you.” She realized that new passengers were boarding. “We have to go,” she said tersely, turning on her heel to leave. Theo shook his head, then followed her.
Sophia stalked off the train and saw Calixta at the far end of the platform, directing the porters as they tied her trunks to the top of a coach. As Sophia started to walk toward her, she heard a sudden shout. She wheeled around and saw them instantly: three—no, four—men with identically scarred faces running along the platform. For a moment she stood frozen. Then she gripped her pack and burst into a run, her feet pounding against the wooden floorboards.
Theo soon reached and then passed her. It took Calixta, whose trunks were now securely tied to the roof of the coach, only a moment to grasp the situation. With one easy motion she threw open the door and drew her revolver. “Get in!” she shouted. Theo dove in first and Sophia scrambled after him. Calixta put her foot on the step of the open coach and grabbed the luggage rack with her free hand. “Drive!” she cried.
The horses sprang into motion and they jerked forward as Calixta leaned gracefully out and fired a single shot at the platform. Sophia watched as the men changed direction and scrambled toward the line of coaches; the horses were rearing in confusion, panicked by the pistol shot. Calixta ducked into the coach and closed the door. “Help me with my hat again, darling, would you?” she asked.
Sophia put her pack aside and tried, with trembling fingers, to pull the pins from Calixta’s hat while the coach jolted madly along the road. “They’re out,” she finally said, tucking them into the hat ribbon.
Calixta shook out her hair and leaned through the window. “Driver,” she called. “Triple the fare if you get us safely to the end of the dock. The ship with the red and white sails.” She pulled her head back in. “They’ll have gotten into a coach by now.”
The streets of New Orleans rushed past. The driver had taken them along the edge of the city, but there was still a fair amount of traffic, and the shouts of people dodging the racing coach could be heard clearly. Sophia glimpsed a fruit stand toppling unceremoniously to the ground as the horses sped by, and a number of yapping dogs set upon them in pursuit.
“Only another minute,” Calixta said, peeking out through the window. “When we get there, leave the coach at once and find the ship with red and white sails.” They nodded. “And watch my hat,” she told Sophia. “Don’t look so grim, sweetheart.” She smiled. “I’m an excellent shot.”
The coach jolted and then jumped as it suddenly reached the dock. “Get out of the way,” the driver shouted. The horses swerved around an upturned cart and a pile of crates collapsed behind it.
Suddenly a loud crack exploded at the rear of the coach, just between Sophia’s head and Calixta’s shoulder. “That’s them,” Calixta said. “Keep your heads down.” She leaned out the window and fired two careful shots. Then they came to a clattering halt. Calixta threw the door open. “Come on then,” she called. “The red and white sails. Tell Burr to come himself, because I’m certainly
not leaving my trunks behind.” She stood with her feet planted firmly apart and her eye on their pursuers.
Sophia stumbled out carrying Calixta’s hat and looked anxiously for the sails. Where were they? Where was Theo, for that matter? He had vanished. There were crates everywhere, sailors, a horse with a gleaming black saddle pulling agitatedly on his reins, and two barking dogs with long red tongues. Was Theo hiding somewhere? Sophia crouched behind a pile of wooden crates and glanced down: sawdust and half of a dead fish. For some reason, the air smelled of rum: as if it had rained rum. She looked up; where was the ship with red and white sails? The sails were all red and white—and blue, and green, and yellow.
Then she saw a number of deckhands running toward Calixta; they had to be coming from her ship. A shot and then another rang out behind her, and she peeked out from behind the crates to see the pirate standing calmly, defending the coach with precise shots while the deckhands slid the trunks off the roof. Sophia stood and prepared to run after them.
But as she turned, she saw Theo some distance away, gesturing urgently to her with one hand; he held a pistol in the other and was walking backward, firing steadily, while a heavyset man beside him carried one of the trunks. Theo could shoot?
Then, suddenly, Calixta was no longer by the coach. In fact, Sophia realized with horror, the dock was nearly deserted. And there the pirate stood, on the deck of a ship with red and white sails. The ship had been anchored only a stone’s throw away, its sails tightly furled. Now they were catching the wind, fluttering like ribbons. Theo stood beside Calixta on the deck, pointing. He was pointing at Sophia, who was separated from the ship by a line of Sandmen.
I lost track of time! Sophia realized, aghast. Worse still, she noticed with agitation, she didn’t have her pack. She still held Calixta’s hat, but the precious pack was nowhere to be seen. I must have left it in the carriage, she thought frantically. The Sandmen fired toward the ship; they had not yet seen her. With the hat balanced on her head, Sophia began crawling on hands and knees back toward the coach. Theo, Calixta, and two other pirates were still exchanging volleys with the Sandmen, one of whom was readying his grappling hook.
To Sophia’s relief and surprise, she saw one of the pirates wearing her pack securely on his shoulders. Calixta must have found it. Now if I can only get to the ship. She could see the gangway. Five quick dashes would take her to it.
She stood up to run, burst forward, and collided with a tall, slim man wearing a hat even wider than Calixta’s. He held a revolver in one hand and a long sword in the other. With the tip of the revolver he pushed his hat back, revealing a handsome, bearded face and a wide grin. He looked Sophia over appraisingly. “When my sister said to keep her hat safe,” he said, “you really took her at her word.”
“I—I’m sorry,” Sophia stammered.
“Wisest thing you could have done,” he said cheerfully. He tucked the sword into its sheath, took Sophia’s hand, and led her, running, to the gangway of the ship with red and white sails. As they ran, the Sandmen sighted them and immediately changed course. Sophia heard footsteps pounding on the wooden dock, then a spattering of sharp cracks as something splintered. There was silence and then shouts from all sides. A grappling hook bit into the wooden board just beside her foot. Sophia found herself stumbling across the gangplank and onto the deck.
She turned, breathlessly, as the ship pulled away. The dock was abandoned apart from four strange figures: the Sandmen, mired in a thick, black syrup that had trapped them like flies in honey. Sophia squinted, not comprehending. Then a wave of violent dizziness washed over her. She reached for the deck rail and found it had vanished. She sank to her knees. Then her cheek lay against the polished wooden deck, and the whole world had tipped on its side.
16
Seasick
1891, June 24: 16-Hour 46
If the lands of the New World remain largely unexplored, the seas remain even more so. Philosophers of New Occident have considered the question: if a patch of ocean belonged to the thirtieth century, would we ever know it while sailing through it? Pragmatically speaking, there is no proven method to determine the various ages of the oceans.
—From Shadrack Elli’s History of the New World
AFTER THE INITIAL dizziness that pitched her to the deck passed, Sophia propped herself up and watched with queasy awe as the ship swung into motion: Calixta’s men trimmed the sails, shouting to one another across the deck until all the sails were taut with wind. The sun faded behind a passing cloud, and the smell of the ocean suddenly engulfed her. Sophia took a deep breath. When she could speak, she tried to apologize for having risked their departure by losing track of time, but no one seemed to think she had done anything wrong. “You’ll want to thank this lad here for spotting you,” Burr had said, throwing his arm around Theo with a grin, “as I’ve thanked him for being such a fine shot. Molasses, eh? You must have hit four barrels. Those are some sticky scoundrels you left behind on the dock. Natural-born pirate, you are.” Theo beamed, seeming almost bashful in the face of Burr’s compliments.
Furthermore, any inconvenience Sophia might have caused apparently paled alongside the tragedy suffered by one of Calixta’s trunks, which arrived on deck with two bullet holes. She vented her fury on the pirate who had carried it and on her brother for failing to carry it himself. Burr strode across the deck as they left the harbor, calling out casual instructions and shaking off the abuse that Calixta hurled at him.
“Would it make you feel better to put a few bullet holes in Peaches?” Burr asked. “Do, by all means.” He cheerfully gestured toward the unfortunate Peaches, an older man who was tugging on his frilled cuffs with a woeful expression.
“I should,” Calixta roared. “Do you know how difficult it is to find petticoats of the right length?”
Peaches shook his head disconsolately. “I’m sorry, Captain Morris.”
“Rather than telling us all about your petticoats, dearest,” Burr said, “perhaps you should check the damage.”
Calixta glared for a moment longer and then opened the trunk. She inspected the clothing in silence with Peaches standing warily in attendance, and finally she looked up with a mollified expression. “Well, it seems my powder-box stopped the bullets. Peaches,” she said icily, “you owe me a new box of face powder.”
“Certainly, Captain; the moment we arrive in port,” he replied, greatly relieved. Calixta went off to her cabin after her trunks. As the pirates moved about with easy laughter and efficiency, Sophia held her head and tried to control the waves of nausea that swept over her.
The pirates were not in the least as she had imagined them. They seemed more like wealthy vacationers, with their extravagant clothing and their nonchalant air. All of them spoke with the precise, almost quaint locution of the Indies. Even the lowliest deckhand seemed to Sophia more like a fancy footman than a sea-toughened bandit.
Theo was already a favorite after his display of marksmanship, and he had been pulled away into conversation with the deckhands at once. “Hey, you all right?” he asked now. Sophia, knowing it was petty but too angry to care, took refuge in her seasickness and would not speak to him. Finally he shrugged and drifted off.
She was rather more inclined to count on the pirates than Theo, since Calixta had saved her pack and Burr had saved her; though it would have been simple enough to leave her stranded on the dock. I’ll have to ask the pirates for help getting to Nochtland, Sophia decided, trying to quell the anxiety that only worsened her dizziness. She could only hope that in Nochtland she would find Veressa and that then, somehow, they would rescue Shadrack before something terrible happened to him.
Even after hours of sailing, the violent seasickness would not recede. She resigned herself to sitting inertly, watching the horizon and battling nausea. As evening fell, they reached a spot of calm weather and the air grew pleasantly cool. Calixta called to her from across the deck. “Sweetheart, dinner in my cabin.”
“I’m going to stay h
ere,” Sophia replied. “I feel worse inside. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“Poor thing. All right, feel better.”
Calixta withdrew, and Sophia made an effort to rise so that she could get a better look at the sunset. Overhead, the stars were beginning to appear and the sky curved in one continuous descent from purple to blue to pink. Sophia stared hard at the pink edge of the sky and momentarily felt her nausea subside. A moment later she heard footsteps and turned to see someone walking across the deck toward her.
“They sent me up to keep you company, dear.” Sophia looked curiously at the old woman who stood beside her. She was no taller than Sophia herself and almost as thin. Though she held herself straight and spoke in a clear voice, she looked older than anyone Sophia had ever seen. Her white hair was braided and pinned up on her head in a long coil, and she wore a neatly pressed lilac dress with innumerable pleats in the skirt and sleeves. “I’m Grandmother Pearl,” she said, laying her wrinkled hand on Sophia’s. “Even though I’m nobody’s grandmother.” She smiled, holding Sophia’s hand in both her own. “And you, they tell me, are seasick, poor child.”
“Yes,” Sophia said. She realized suddenly, from the gentle pressure of Grandmother Pearl’s fingers and the way she held her head, that the old woman was blind. “It won’t go away.”
“Ah,” Grandmother Pearl said, smiling. Her small, white teeth shone—not unlike pearls themselves. “I know why. I can feel it here in your palm.”
Sophia blinked. “You can?”
“Of course, love. It’s plain to anyone who takes your hand. You’re not bound to time. Of course, the way you’ve heard it explained probably makes it sound rather worse. No internal clock, is that what they say? No sense of time?”
Sophia felt herself blushing in the growing darkness. “Yes. It’s true that I have—I always lose track of time. It’s not something I’m proud of,” she mumbled.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, love,” Grandmother Pearl said, still smiling. “It’s a rare gift to be unbound from time. Think of it—you are free to drift, free to float, like a ship with no anchor weighing it down.”
