by Heidi Heilig
“What can I say?” I shifted, fists clenched, on guard. “I’m a fighter, not a lover.”
Her laugh was light, like chimes. “Your father used to say the opposite. Would you like some tea?”
Part of me wanted to flee back to my room; another part wanted to rush after Kashmir, though would I be able to say the words he needed to hear? Instead, I took one step, then another. The third came easier still. Finally I was close enough to set the candle down on the table near the chaise, where a tray held a fine porcelain tea service. “Okay.”
Lin poured the water into the teapot and flipped two cups; their gold rims shone in the glow from the fire. She didn’t bother with the saucers. As the tea steeped, she glanced up at me with her dark eyes, so like mine. There was a sharpness in them, as though she was trying to add me up. She dropped her gaze as she filled the cups; fragrant steam purled in the candlelight. Then she sat back, resting the other hand across her belly. “Sit?”
I sank into the chair opposite her; it was so soft, it made my body ache. I took my cup and held it close to my chest. “Thanks.”
For a moment there was silence. She lowered her eyes again, giving me the courtesy of indirect scrutiny. “Are you up early?” she said delicately. “Or late?”
To my own surprise, I blushed. Had she thought Kash and I had been together all night? She’d been raised in the nineteenth century—but in an opium den, and despite Slate’s commitment to her, I knew they’d never had a chance to marry. What would she think of the way my father had raised me? And should it matter? “It’s hard to sleep with everything going on,” I said, deliberately vague. “You?”
“I’ve missed too much already.” She tilted her own cup and took a delicate sip, watching me over the rim. “Tell me about Kashmir.”
I bristled. “I don’t want to talk about Kashmir.” There was an edge in my voice. I thought she would push back, but she only nodded a little.
“That’s all I need to know.”
Still, I frowned. “Did Slate say something about him?”
“Only his name.” She tilted her head. “But I saw the way he looked at you last night.”
“And how was that?”
“Like nothing else is real.” At her words, my heart ached, but her smile deepened, just a touch. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“You’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t.”
“Of course not. Let’s talk about something else,” she suggested. And then she waited, watching me.
Clutching the cup in my hand, I shifted in my chair. It was very difficult to look at her, and I did not know what else to say. Still, I wanted her to talk. I wanted to listen to her voice. “What happened?” I said finally, as though to the tea. “After you . . . after I was born?”
She was still for a long moment, but I couldn’t lift my eyes to see her face, to try to see what she was thinking. “I held you as long as I could,” she said at last. “When Joss told me a doctor had arrived, I knew something was wrong. Then for a while . . . nothing.”
“Nothing?” I frowned. “Where did you meet Crowhurst?”
“He was the doctor.”
I almost spilled my tea. “What?”
“He came in and gave me medicine.”
“Penicillin?”
She only shrugged. “I drank it. It must have helped. But for a while . . . time disappeared. One moment there, the next, here. I lost so much and I didn’t even know it, not until I woke.” There was a quaver in her voice, a hitch in her breath; I was close enough to hear her swallow. “That was yesterday morning.”
“Yesterday?” I looked at her then—really looked—taking in the slowness of her motions, the careful way she held herself. Still recovering, a new mother—and I, her daughter, already sixteen. As much as I’d lost, hadn’t she lost the same things? Then I blinked. “What day was it, do you know? When you . . . when I—”
“Nineteenth of January, of course I do.” Her dark brows swept down. “Why?”
A stinging sensation arced across the back of my mouth, like I’d swallowed a jellyfish. I cleared my throat. “I just . . . never knew my birthday before.”
Politely, she took another sip, waiting for me to collect myself. Then her eyes flicked toward the full cup in my hands. “You don’t drink tea.”
“I like coffee.”
“Your father does too.” She leaned back and sighed. “But tea reminds me of home.”
“Of Hawaii?”
“Of the shop.”
“You mean the opium den.”
“Yes.” No matter how I tried, she was unruffled; it was disconcerting—so different from the captain. “Joss always said tea tasted like truth. Bitter comfort. We would shape the tar and drink tea, always tea.” She smiled at the memory. “Sometimes the patrons would ask me to read the leaves. and I would have to make something up. Only good fortunes for our customers.”
A flicker of hope popped to life like a struck match. “Did Joss invent fortunes too?”
Her smile fell, and the spark guttered out. She sighed again, and the steam over her tea wavered. “On the rare occasions she told fortunes, it was always the truth. I never let her tell mine.”
I nodded; I knew. Joss had told me that much. “Would you have done things differently? If you’d known what would happen?”
“Done what differently? Not fallen in love?” She laughed, a low, round sound. “Some people think life lasts longer when lived without joy, but I think it only feels that way. I have always tried to make the most of the time I have. Joss told me that, when I was very young.”
I squinted, trying to imagine it. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
“She was a cautious person herself. But perhaps she wanted me to have a better life than she did. She hated everything about your father, except how he made me feel.” She took another sip and sighed. “Love is a beautiful drug. Very addictive.”
I nearly smiled. “Are you going to tell me to just say no?”
“Too late for that, don’t you think? It’s interesting.” She inspected the bottom of her cup, then scraped the wet leaves out onto the tray. “The moment a new patron walked into the shop, I could always tell whether or not they’d be able to leave. I was never wrong. That’s how I knew I could love your father.”
I couldn’t help it: my mouth twisted. “Because you knew he wouldn’t leave?”
She looked up, surprised. “Because I knew he could—if he chose to.”
“But he never did.”
“When a captain goes down with his ship, it isn’t because he doesn’t know how to swim.”
I made a face. “That’s heartening.”
“I think so. Because it’s never up to you what happens. Your only choice is what to do when it does. What kind of person will you decide to be?”
“You saw the tattoo.”
“Yes.” She poured a fresh cup, her dark hair falling over one shoulder. We were quiet for a while. Coals glowed in the ashes as the fire died. I tried the tea. It was warm and mellow. “It must have been a hard life for you,” she said then. “He kept a place for me. All these years.”
An understatement. “He did.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t have.”
“What? No.” The response was immediate, and very different from what it might have been yesterday. Was Kashmir right? Had I ever wished Slate hadn’t loved her? “No,” I said again, more strongly. “Why would you say that?”
“I see on his face what these years did to him. I see in your eyes what they did to you. How different would your life have been if John had forgotten me?”
Tears threatened again at the thought; my throat closed, trying to shut them off. Different . . . yes, but not better, not now that I knew what he and I had missed. I couldn’t say so, so I tried to laugh. “John?” The word was strange in my mouth: short, chipped. “I’ve never heard anyone call the captain that.”
“Is that what you call him? Captain? Not Father?”
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“Sometimes I call him Slate.”
She hooked a finger behind the long fall of dark hair and tucked it behind her ear. “And what will you call me?”
In her black eyes, a guardedness like a bird with its head cocked, peering through the branches. I tried out the words in my head. . . . Mother. Mama. Mom. “I’d like to call you Lin. For now.”
She nodded—on her face, relief mingled with disappointment. “Now is what we have,” she said, and I blinked at her, surprised to hear my own words echoed in her voice. “Then again,” she added, giving me a small smile. “Perhaps now is all we need.”
Was it true? It felt that way. Something in my chest eased, and I dared to smile back. Then I downed my tea and stood.
“Where are you going?” she said to me as I went to the door.
“Back to my ship.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KASHMIR
I had stormed out of Nix’s room like a child, but the winter wind cooled my temper, and by the time I reached the wharf, I had almost put her words out of my head—almost.
Then I saw the Temptation gleaming like fool’s gold on the black water, and my anger returned. The ship was hers too; everything was hers. The room where I slept, the life she had saved . . . had she created it in the first place? And even now, my heart. All hers.
I was not a jealous man—it wouldn’t bother me at all if only I had something of my own. So what was mine? The coat I wore? Bought with stolen gold. The money in my pocket? Taken from the harbormaster. I pulled out the handful of tarnished silver; it gleamed dully in the moonlight. I cast the coins into the harbor like dice, like bones. They tumbled into the water and I watched the ripples disappear as though they’d never been.
What would Nix do if she learned how to change the past? The fact that I might not remember was not a comfort to me. But I was a man from nowhere, with nothing to offer her. Maybe I would be easy to forget. I stared at the Temptation, listening to the waves assault the walls of the city, but I couldn’t bring myself to climb the gangplank. Instead, I continued down the pier to board the Dark Horse.
I did it just to spite her captain. Though the yacht was sleek and rich, I didn’t want to keep anything Crowhurst had touched. But I hated the man—his smug face, the smokescreen of generosity that clouded his machinations, and most of all, the fact that he had brought us here.
Ready to do damage, I barged into his cabin, but I stopped just past the stair. The room was beautiful—teak and chrome, with wide windows, soft bunks, and a wooden desk. But the shelves were covered with ticking clocks.
There were dozens of them, of all makes and models. They hissed and whispered, cursed and hushed. The movement of their hands was like the scuttling of insects, and none were set to the same time. My skin crawled; it took all my willpower not to turn around and race back to the Temptation.
To steady my nerves, I started picking locks—cupboards, drawers, and ah, the liquor cabinet. A sip of scotch settled me further. I thumbed through his bookshelf: The Odyssey, The Voyage of Vasco de Gama, The Last Flight of Amelia Earhart. The Odyssey I knew—the myth of Odysseus—Nix spoke of it often. The other names were only vaguely familiar—I was sure she had mentioned them, but I couldn’t remember why. No matter. Calmer now, I pawed through Crowhurst’s closet, trying on his finest jacket—combed wool and black buttons, too short in the arms.
I was not careful. I didn’t bother watering the scotch, and I tossed the jacket in a heap in the corner. I even spat a clove onto the floor. It was reckless; it was freeing. I had left my mark. I had been there—I existed.
Taking the bottle with me, I sat at Crowhurst’s desk. I had half a mind to scratch my name into its glossy surface. Instead, I riffled through a stack of papers weighed down by a rough chunk of stone: maps, all in red, just like the one Dahut had given us back in New York. Boring. Next, I went through his drawers for coins; in the top one, I found a gold watch—mercifully wound down—a fancy pen . . . and his logbook.
Should I write a curse in the margins? Flipping through the book, I glared at that ugly black writing. My hand slowed when I recognized her name.
There was a lamp on the table. I flicked the switch and read.
Why name a child Nix? A cipher, nullity, oblivion. Portentous.
If life is a game, is she my opponent?
Mathematical calculations spattered the rest of the page, side by side with a snippet of terrible poetry.
Nix, the word, means nothing, or just no.
But there is something I must learn, or know—
Will my choices cause her soon to go . . . ?
My lip curled back. The man’s mind was clearly diseased. Shuddering, I took another swig of scotch as I turned the page.
The game we call chess is a simplistic version of the Great Game which I shall call COSMIC CHESS the game that is played over and over with infinite patience and no malice. God against the devil, and humanity the pawn.
Each piece has a proscribed set of movements—fate? But the hand moving them—free will?
The rules are complex, but the ending is the same: the game ends when either side captures the king. When the king is threatened, the queen must move.
Queen: Nix.
King: Grandlon?
That was crossed out. Beneath he’d written:
King: James.
I hold the king in check.
I AM A COSMIC BEING.
That last sentence was written in letters two inches high and pressed so hard into the page that they marked the next three. But below, the handwriting changed again—precise and neat:
James has three days; on the fourth, the Friendship sails without him and the game is over. Day One: My Arrival. Day Two: My Return.
Day Three was left blank—but that was tomorrow. Or technically, today. Automatically, I glanced at the nearest clock, but it read just after eight, which was certainly wrong. Still, it was long past midnight.
Considering, I rubbed the paper between my fingers. What did it all mean? It would have been easiest to dismiss the whole thing as mad ranting. But there was something there, something compelling. I turned back in time, past more poetry and mathematics and some notes of the wind speeds and weather, and then—
It is a blessing and a curse to know too much. When knowledge overflows the cup, there’s no room left for faith.
I can see my machinations. Without him, I could not have found Ker-Ys.
Without him . . . without who? His god or someone else? But the rest of the page was blank. I flipped back farther and found more poetry—if you could call it that. A horrible ode to the sea.
Then another sound came—her voice, soft as perfume on a breeze. “Kashmir?”
I sat back in the chair, considering whether or not to answer—half a moment, then another. But why was I pretending I had a choice? I longed to see her face. Even now, the tension in my chest was easing, just knowing she was near. I couldn’t fool anyone if I couldn’t fool myself. “I’ll be right there, amira.”
I stood, hesitating. Then I locked the drawers. I hung the coat back in the closet, watered the scotch, closed the cabinets. I was looking for the clove I’d spat when I heard her footsteps on the stair.
“What in the world?” She ducked through the doorway, peering around the cabin, her expression part fear and part excitement. She shivered as her eyes swept over the clocks on the shelves.
I picked the clove off the floor and slipped it into my pocket. “You knew he was mad.”
“It’s one thing to say it, and another to see it.” Her voice was distracted as she peered at one of the clocks. Then she cursed.
“Is this a bad time?” I said—a silly joke. But she shook her head.
“This one’s not a clock, it’s a barometer, see?” She pointed at the face of it. “The needle’s dropped since yesterday.”
“A storm coming?” I shook my head. “Poetic.”
She only sighed. “What were you doing down here, Kash?”<
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I considered my answer. “Drinking, amira.”
“Twice in one day?” Her jaw tightened. “Now who sounds like the captain?”
I barked a laugh. “Did you come all the way down here to fight with me?”
She opened her mouth and closed it again. “No.”
“Good. Because I got you a present.” I pointed my chin at the desk, and she followed my eyes. The frustration in her face gave way to delight as she reached not for the logbook, but the maps.
“Cantre’r Gwaelod?” She shuffled through the pages. “And Atlantis! Sunken cities . . . did Dahut draw these?”
“It seems that way,” I said, nonplussed. “But look what else there is.”
She blinked at me, then turned back to the desk. After a moment, she picked up the stone paperweight, holding it to the light. “Boeotia.”
“What?”
“Ancient Greece,” she breathed, running her fingertips over the flat surface of the chunk of marble, which I now realized was another map. “Crowhurst said he met another Navigator there. Look . . . the cave of the oracle, and the twin mythic pools of Mnemosyne and Lethe. This is second century if it’s a day.”
“Very valuable, then.”
“Definitely!”
“Well. You’re welcome. But look what else there is.” I picked up the logbook and put it directly in her hands, lest she look next at the lamp.
“This is Crowhurst’s?”
“You told me he once filled a logbook with wild rambling and formulas for time travel. I found the rambling parts. Perhaps you can find the formulas.”
Nix scanned the pages, engrossed. “King James . . . like the Bible?”
“Possibly. The man is obsessed with playing god.”
She heard it—the bitterness in my voice—and her hands stilled. After a moment, she sighed and shut the logbook, tucking it under her arm. “You think I’m scared,” she said. “But you are too.”
I only shrugged. “I won’t bother lying, amira. Not to you.”
Her hand went to the pearl pendant at her throat; in the silence, the ticking of the clocks. “Can we go back to the Temptation?”
