Aether Spirit

by Cecilia Dominic

  So did that mean Chad needed rescuing?

  Claire ascended the stairs to the quartermaster’s office and turned when Chad’s and Patrick’s heavy footsteps met the wooden stairs.

  “Oh, hello, gentlemen. I didn’t realize you were in need of supplies as well. Or are you going to try to talk me out of writing to Aidan?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Patrick said before Chad could get his sputtering denial out. “And we were summoned to meet with the general.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks turned a rosy pink.

  Chad stopped himself from teasing her about how easily she blushed as he would have in the past and instead held the door open for her. “After you.”

  He inhaled the scent of old paper and paint after he closed the door. The major did love his books, and Chad knew he had a small art studio somewhere in the house, hence the sharp oil paint odor.

  “Oh, there you are,” Major Longchamp said after he admitted them to his office. “And I see you brought Doctor McPhee.”

  “Splendid,” the general said and turned from the window. Chad always forgot how large a man he was, well-built with a clean-shaven square jaw and mane of bullet-gray hair. His black eyes missed nothing. “I have been curious about Doctor McPhee since I heard about the wondrous cures she could work on soldiers’ broken minds.”

  Chad found himself reacting to the skepticism in the general’s tone, although he had shared it at first. He still wasn’t sure Claire could do anything miraculous or in a short amount of time, but she did seem to have had some good effects already. He kept his hands relaxed in spite of their wish to ball into defensive fists.

  “I’m doing my best,” she said. She didn’t seem to be affected by the general’s challenge, but rather looked back and forth between him and Major Longchamp, her brow wrinkled in analysis. Chad wondered what she saw—Major Longchamp certainly looked uncomfortable under her scrutiny—and spoke up to draw the general’s attention from her.

  “I received a message from the hospital after lunch that Sam Plunkett, who hasn’t been able to eat more than a spoonful at a time, was able to keep an entire bowl of broth down after she spoke with him.”

  The look Claire gave him mixed pride, relief, and joy, and he wanted to pick her up and spin her around, but he maintained his composure. This was no place for a scene.

  Longchamp watched him with a moue of amusement—he couldn’t possibly know what Chad felt, could he?

  “So it’s a start,” the general said and tapped a finger on his cleft chin. “I’m happy to hear it, but do you know how long it will take to affect permanent change in these battle hysterics? I don’t mean to alarm you, but we’re going to need them sooner rather than later.”

  “The process takes time, General Morley,” Claire said. She glanced at Chad, then looked away. He caught her unintentional message—back me up on this—and his heart warmed when he considered that she was looking to him for reassurance as she had in the past.

  But that was a different time and under non-war circumstances. He didn’t allow his sigh to show as he asked, “What do you mean by ‘sooner rather than later’?”

  General Morley looked from Patrick to Chadwick to Claire. “Dennis, are these people trustworthy?”

  “They are,” Longchamp said and favored Claire with a long look as he said, “I would trust any of them with my life.”

  The general closed the window blinds and walked to stand behind the desk with the major. “This is in the strictest confidence because I don’t want it getting out, but we will be attacking Fort Temperance in less than a week’s time.”

  Claire sagged against Radcliffe. “But why?” she asked. “I won’t have had time to treat any of the soldiers in a meaningful way by then.” She looked at Chad, and he put an arm around her waist to steady her. He knew better than to challenge the general, but he could at least support her.

  He watched for signs of swooning, but she stood firm, and she didn’t pull away. Longchamp coughed, and Chad suspected it was to hide a laugh at his expense.

  Let him think I’m taking advantage of the moment. He doesn’t know how she feels about further fighting.

  He didn’t like it, either, but he recognized it needed to happen. Otherwise he and others like him would be in constant danger from those who felt any person of color was fair game to be sold south.

  “The president doesn’t want to negotiate with the Confederacy no matter how much the Cotton Mouth Democrats are putting pressure on him to,” the general told them, and the hardness around his mouth said he wouldn’t back down from this course of action. “He’s concerned they will have rallied enough public support by the election. We need a decisive victory to end this war, and that’s why I wanted to speak with you gentlemen.”

  Claire tensed, and Chad knew what the general was going to say. Still, hearing it made it real.

  “I need the two of you to finish that aether weapon for me before the battle. Dennis has sent the supplies he ordered for you to a different site on base, hopefully a more secure one. He told me about the lock at the first workshop.”

  “Thank you,” Patrick said, “but I don’t know if we can have this done by the end of the week. My knowledge of lenses isn’t that good, but the only person I know of who I’d ask has died.”

  “And who is that?” the general asked.

  Patrick looked at Claire. “A man named Allen McPhee. Claire’s father.”

  Claire tensed further. The general, his face grim, turned his javelin gaze to her.

  “Then I count on whatever knowledge you may have gleaned from him, Doctor McPhee, even if this isn’t your area.”

  She didn’t say anything, and Chad wondered what she was thinking. He was well aware that she didn’t favor further military action. For some reason, she seemed very sensitive to the experiences of the soldiers, more than he would expect given her profession. They’d all heard stories, seen things they would rather forget. But Claire could handle it.

  Or could she? Had her treatment taken away some of the toughness he remembered?

  “And our second time constraint is more urgent,” the general continued and gestured to a base map spread on Longchamp’s desk. “I fear there is a traitor in our midst. If you look at the locations for the shelling, you’ll see that aside from a few stray ones, they seemed to center around your former workshop.”

  Now that Chad saw it laid out, he had to admit the general was correct. Thankfully the men’s barracks had been missed, but the General’s House had a large “x” over it. He wondered again how Claire had escaped but Mrs. Soper hadn’t.

  “We can’t afford to waste time looking for the spy, although I suspect it is someone who’s close to one of you.”

  “I can’t imagine who,” Patrick said.

  “Regardless, I’ve brought another doctor with me to take over your duties at the hospital while you assist Mister O’Connell with this, Doctor Radcliffe. I understand that you’re one of the few people in the world who has worked with this new force.”

  “Yes, sir.” He dragged his mind back to the office although it wanted to run away with plans for how his patients would be covered.

  “I know it’s difficult for you, and you take your duties seriously, Doctor,” the general said. “I do not take your talent from the base hospital lightly. The upcoming battle needs to be not only a victory, but a rout. Otherwise the union, the United States of America, will be lost, as well as countless numbers of men, women, and children who will continue to be enslaved in the South and at risk in the North.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Fort Daniels, 27 February 1871

  Claire didn’t know what to think, and she smarted from O’Connell having mentioned her father’s work. After the general’s pronouncement and warning, he and Longchamp had ushered them out of the office, but at least she had managed to secure a few
sheets of paper and a pen and ink. She’d folded the paper and stuffed it with the other things in her reticule.

  Radcliffe’s hand didn’t leave her waist until they were outside and she stepped away from him. She rounded on O’Connell, not caring who heard her.

  “How dare you?” she snapped. “You know I can’t remember any of my work with my father.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” O’Connell asked. He took a defensive stance.

  Radcliffe stepped even with the two of them, but O’Connell motioned him back. Claire looked imploringly at him—he seemed to understand her, at least—but he didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t,” she told him. “At least not enough to help you. And even if I could, I don’t know if I would.”

  “Then you’re a traitor.”

  She halted, his words sinking in. “You can’t accuse me of treason. I haven’t done anything!”

  “You grew up Catholic. You know about sins of omission.”

  “Then I haven’t not done anything.” She hugged her reticule to her chest, where an ache had bloomed at the thought of trying to remember her father and what they had worked on together. “Why are you being so cruel, taunting me with what I’ve lost?”

  “Because you could get it back if you wanted to. If you could bring yourself to help us.”

  “What makes you think I won’t?” She looked at Radcliffe, who wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Fine. Be that way.

  “You’re too busy chasing your own past to care about the future of millions of others,” O’Connell told her.

  She would have slapped him for assuming the worst of her, but she thought of Calla and of course Radcliffe, both of whom would be in danger of slave hunters should the Confederacy be allowed to continue, and those who waited with hope to hear they were free.

  Then she thought of Bryce and the two young men she’d spoken to that morning. How many more would be damaged on either side if there were to be a “rout” as the general wanted? Could she help be the author of the dreaded telegrams or letters from the front to mothers, fathers, and families? Of course her name wouldn’t be signed with the commanding officer’s, but it might as well be.

  Could she balance the unseen lives of the enslaved against the suffering she’d have to live with every day?

  Bryce has already lost his arm, and the others their senses of safety and sanity. And I can help them. I can’t do anything for the enslaved aside from aid in developing this weapon.

  She looked at Patrick, who waited with arms crossed.

  “You’re right,” she said, but she couldn’t bring herself to be agreeable about it. She hated admitting when she was wrong. Plus, she would have to deal with the general’s daughter’s ghost again. The girl was another casualty of the war since disease killed as many as battles did.

  I wonder if she’ll help me contact my father again.

  “He’s annoying like that,” Radcliffe murmured, and she gave him a small smile.

  “I’ve been too focused on my work.” As much as I’ve been allowed to. “I won’t say myself because I still don’t think you give me enough credit, but I’ve been concentrating on the soldiers I was sent here to help. So forgive me if I haven’t signed on to your cause like you want me to. I just need some time to see about recovering my memories, especially if you want me to dig back for details about my work with my father.”

  “We don’t have time,” O’Connell said. “But there is something that might help you.”

  Radcliffe stepped forward. “Patrick, no, we haven’t tested it on someone who’s been hypnotized. We don’t know if fright-induced hysteria produces the same blocks as hypnosis.”

  Now he jumps in. But she kept her mouth shut. Let them argue it out. If there was anything she learned in Europe, it was to let the men do most of the arguing, then jump in with a decision and make it seem like it was their idea.

  “I’m not saying for you to recover her memories around the accident. Go for something in the farther past, like what she was doing with her father the year before. I remember seeing his preliminary papers, but I know there was more that was never published or patented.”

  “But it could be dangerous.”

  O’Connell threw up his hands. “And not doing everything we could to defeat the Confederacy is more dangerous to you! Don’t you think there are a dozen slave traders just over the line salivating to get their hands on you, a trained physician? Do you know how much you’re worth? And if they were to kidnap you and drag you behind the lines, you’d be lost forever.”

  “And you don’t think I can defend myself?” Radcliffe asked, but Claire felt his dread of losing his freedom. There was a certain despair to it, like she felt whenever she recognized just how hard and painful it would be to recover her memories.

  Yet he was here, working within snatching distance of those who would take everything from him. If he could risk his own freedom to help others, she could risk her memories and sanity.

  I’ve already survived the asylum once.

  She couldn’t suppress the shudder at the thought of being confined again, losing her own liberty to those who thought they knew best for her mind and the strange treatments they would try, but she said, “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  “Claire, er, Doctor McPhee,” Radcliffe said. “Be sure you know what you’re doing.”

  She stood toe-to-toe with him and took his hands. “I do.” The two words brought a rush of warmth to her chest, neck and face and a sense of familiarity like she’d imagined saying those words to him in the past. “And I’m willing to risk it because I know there’s something on the other side that we both need.”

  “What?” He let her hands go and held her away from him. “Don’t be foolish, girl. You don’t know what it could do to your brain.”

  Even now he was sacrificing what he most desperately wanted to keep her safe. Standing this close to him, in contact with him, she knew what he needed, what he craved. He was so courageous. Her present attraction to him joined the echoes of her past feelings and what she sensed from him now, the simultaneous desires to protect her but also to be able to love her again. She leaned in and kissed him. He didn’t resist.

  She had just a moment to recognize how their lips fit together perfectly. Then everything went black.

  Claire swooned in his arms, and Chad caught her to him. The worry line on her brow was back—or maybe it was pain—but her lips curled in a slight smile. It took every bit of his will not to kiss her again to see if he could rouse her.

  What was she thinking, foolish girl? My silly, stubborn Claire.

  Was he fooling himself into thinking she might still love him? She had kissed him, after all. Or was she overcome with the moment and thinking of what he risked just by being this close to the border?

  “You have no choice now,” Patrick said. He shielded them from the curious glances of the men around them.

  Momentary panic caught in Chad’s chest—if they thought he’d done something to her… Black men had been lynched for less.

  As for Patrick, Chad would have hit him if he had a hand free both for putting him in this situation and for provoking Claire. “What the hell were you thinking? Who knows what sort of damage has been done to her psyche?” His words brought to mind a frieze in an underground temple in Rome, of Psyche and Eros. Could Eros heal Claire’s psyche? There was no choice now but to try. They needed the knowledge she carried from her past, and he needed his Claire healthy and whole.

  “I didn’t provoke her into kissing you,” Patrick said. “And you both think she’s more fragile than she is. She’s been moving toward this moment since she arrived. You’re the only one who couldn’t see it.”

  “I doubt that. Help me pick her up. I can’t get her in my arms without her falling. Why do women wear so many damn skirts?”

  “That, my friend, is a questio
n for the ages. Do you want me to carry her?”

  “No, just help me, please.”

  Patrick placed Claire in Chad’s arms—she certainly felt delicate and fragile—and Chad carried her to the workshop the general and quartermaster had set up for them. He ignored the boxes, which stood in a pile not unlike the one Claire had disturbed in the previous space, and put her on a bench with Patrick’s coat pillowed under her head.

  “Are the components for the aether device in the boxes?” he asked.

  “They should be. I gave Longchamp a detailed list, so it should assemble easily.”

  “You what? Are you mad? I haven’t patented yet.”

  “Don’t worry about it—they won’t know what all your tubes and whatnots are for.”

  “You don’t know that. And what of the spy the general mentioned?” Chad gestured around them. “This could all be lost, the target of another attack.”

  Chad rubbed his eyes. He was becoming delusional now, seeing betrayal and phantoms where there were none. His main concern was Claire.

  “If you want my opinion, I think the spy is someone associated with the hospital,” Patrick said. “It’s too coincidental that the attack happened right around when you noticed the morphine missing, and your staff are the only ones who have access to it.”

  The thought of one of his people betraying not only the base but their patients made Chad’s stomach twist.

  Who would be coldhearted enough to do such a thing? Perkins? No, he was dedicated to his work even if he was an ass. Nanette came to mind, but Chad dismissed her. She liked her position as top of the social heap too much to jeopardize it. But she had disappeared the day after the attack. To make a report to her handler? He made a note to mention her to Longchamp, and he’d watch her more closely too. Once he got through this predicament with Claire.