Cheating Death

by April White

  “Your ease.”

  “My ease?” I scoffed. “I feel far from easy right now. In fact I can’t remember the last time I felt easy about anything. A lifetime ago, or maybe two.”

  Mary’s expression was wistful. “Ah yes, I understand that feeling. I didn’t marry Bysshe until years after I ran away with him. I was sixteen when I left my father’s house, and twenty-three when Bysshe died. I lived an entire lifetime during those seven years, and another one since.”

  My throat suddenly slammed closed, and my heart threw itself against my ribcage. All questions about Death and War fled my brain, and my inability to breathe must have shown on my face because Mary’s expression grew concerned. “Are you all right, Saira?”

  I nodded silently, and then shook my head when my eyes filled with tears. I wiped them away angrily before they could fall and took a deep shuddering breath to get myself back under control. I felt a sudden kinship with this woman, and the words came almost without thought.

  “I met my husband when I was seventeen, and I watched him die the week after we were married. He’s not really dead, at least I don’t think he is. But I can’t get to him …” My voice trailed off uselessly, unable to express any words that mattered.

  Mary stopped me and took my hands in hers. “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry!” Her voice was hushed, but the force of her sympathy reminded me so strongly of my mother that I literally burst into tears.

  I’d never done that before – burst out crying – around anyone but my mom. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable, and I had absolutely no choice but to give in to it. And then Mary did the one thing I was powerless against while I was in the middle of a snot-fest – she held her arms open.

  I hurled myself into them.

  I was vaguely aware of Tom and Ringo standing far enough away from us that they wouldn’t get hit by flying emotion, but I pretty much lost myself to the feeling, just for a moment, that everything would be all right. Somehow, inside mothering arms there were no problems to deal with, no bad guys to vanquish, no heartbreak to endure. I missed my mom with all the missing I had in me, and I let myself pretend Mary Shelley’s arms were hers, that the murmured words of comfort came from her voice, and the fading scent of roses was her perfume.

  Gradually, the gush of tears subsided, and I pulled back with a grimace to wipe my face. Mary brushed the hair back from my face and searched my eyes. “The strongest people of my acquaintance are the ones who allow the steam to escape before the pressure builds to explosive levels.”

  I barked a humorless laugh. “That seemed pretty explosive to me.”

  She smiled gently. “Merely steam. You’ll feel better now.”

  I returned her smile. “When I can see through my puffy eyes again, maybe. I’m sorry about that.”

  “My dear, it’s what a mother’s arms are for.”

  I straightened my jacket and re-tucked my shirt into the buckskin trousers, which had, miraculously, survived our escape from the train relatively unscathed. “I didn’t know you had children,” I said to Mary. I realized I knew nothing about Mary Shelley beyond the fact that she’d been married to Percy Bysshe Shelley and had written Frankenstein.

  “Of my four children, only Percy Florence grew to adulthood,” she said. “He’s at Cambridge, and is set to inherit his grandfather’s baronetcy.”

  “Three died?” I was struggling with having temporarily misplaced Archer. The idea of losing a child, much less three, was unthinkable.

  “Our first daughter came early. I was so young, and she was so small, it was a wonder she even lived two weeks. It was long enough to love her though, and once I’d felt that love, I couldn’t imagine a life without it.”

  Her eyes were clear, but her serene voice caught on the words. She smiled to see the distress in my expression. “William came soon after, and Clara was born a year after that. Little Clara died of dysentery three days after her first birthday. William was two-and-a-half when malaria took him. He and his father are both buried in Rome, which is one of the reasons I chose to heed Aislin’s vision. It is long past time for a visit.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. It was amazing she could still stand after having endured all that tragedy.

  She must have known my thoughts, because she looked me right in the eye. “One does what one must to survive. Life is the only possible antidote to death, and living fully is the only way to counter the senselessness of loss.”

  I was overwhelmed by her words, and I held my hand out to her. She squeezed it in a moment of pure understanding, then she let go and we turned to face the guys.

  Ringo was close enough to have overheard our conversation, but Tom had wandered off toward the trees. I caught Ringo’s eyes, and he gave me a small, sad smile. I straightened my spine, took a step forward, and then another step. I supposed that’s how a person got through the things that stopped them in their tracks. Take the first step, and then the next, and eventually, momentum would pick up where will had left off.

  The Knowing

  We came upon a village not long after that, and after a meal at the local inn with Mary and Ringo, we emerged to find Tom outside the open door of a coach he’d hired. The coachman sat up in front of the rig with a blanket bundled over his lap, a big heavy coat, and a hat pulled down low over his eyes. The two horses were lively and looked strong, and the coach itself looked like it was in pretty good shape.

  I raised my eyebrows in a question, and he scowled at me. “I’m not getting back on another train, and I’m sick of walking. I found it – you guys can pay for it.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Tom. That was good thinking.”

  He seemed surprised at my thanks, and his scowl deepened. “The coachman will take us as far as Turin, and we can decide whether we attempt another train from there.”

  Mary kissed his cheek lightly. “It’s perfect,” she said. Almost in spite of himself, Tom held his hand out to help her into the carriage. Ringo clapped Tom on the back and then gestured for me to enter the coach, while he walked around it to inspect the wheels and the under-carriage. Mary had taken a seat facing forward and patted the seat next to her.

  “The gentlemen won’t mind,” she said when I hesitated. “It’s hard enough to ride in a carriage for a short trip.”

  Tom climbed in behind me. “I’ll spare you both the backward-facing seat.” He didn’t look at me as he settled across from Mary, but at least he’d lost the perpetual scowl he’d been wearing since we left Paris.

  Ringo was still outside speaking in a halting mixture of French, English, and pantomime to the driver, when a little face appeared outside my window.

  I shrieked and leapt across the space to the opposite bench, and then I started to laugh. Ringo was at the door a moment later demanding to know what happened.

  “An opossum,” I managed to say through nearly hysterical giggles, “at the window.” As if on cue, a little brown, furry face peeked down from above and looked at us through the carriage window. Its long nose twitched furiously, and black beady eyes looked straight at me as if in accusation for having made such a horrible noise.

  Ringo smirked in a way I hadn’t seen him do since … well, since before the bomb exploded. “That’s Barney. ‘E belongs to the coachman’s little girl, Amélie.” Ringo held his arm out to the little opossum. “Come inside and meet Saira, Barney, and she’ll promise not to screech like an owl again.”

  The little creature put an arm through the window to Ringo’s hand, then climbed the rest of the way down and across Ringo’s arm to come inside. I held out my hand and grinned in delight as he reached a tentative hand across to me.

  “Hello, Barney. I’m very sorry for screaming at you.” I peered into his little, beady-eyed face, and his nose twitched as he sniffed my breath. “I’m also sorry I didn’t save you any pot pie.”

  He sat up on Ringo’s shoulder and put one of his hands in mine as if I were forgiven. Then the carriage lurched forward, and little Barney scampered back ou
t the window up to the roof of the coach. I sat back in the seat I’d jumped to, next to Tom, and finally felt the tension begin to seep away as I looked at my traveling companions. “The night began with a train crash and a sighting of both War and Death, but it was an opossum that made me scream.” There was something cathartic in the laughter that little Barney had inspired, and I thought we had all needed it.

  We drove through the night, and just before dawn the coachman stopped to water the horses. Tom came inside the carriage, and with a curt “good night” to all of us, he crawled under the bench beneath me and fell asleep. When we finally stopped at an inn to stretch and eat, I draped a shawl over the seat to protect him from light and casual observation.

  I got a good look at Amélie then. She was maybe five years old, and little Barney sat draped across her shoulders, under her hair, hidden from anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for him. She was a pretty child, with nearly white-blond hair that she hid under a dirty cap. She wore boys’ clothes, and her face was smeared with dirt that looked artfully done, as though she or her father thought the dirt could hide her loveliness. I saw through her disguise in an instant, but it seemed the stablemaster didn’t when he took her money and gave her bags of oats for the horses.

  I almost strode forward to help her, but Ringo grabbed my arm and held me back. “They’ll see yer a woman, and then they’ll look at ‘er. Right now they only see a dirty child, and it ‘asn’t occurred to them to wonder about ‘er beyond that.” I felt a tremor of fear for the little girl whose safety might hinge on how well she could hide in plain sight.

  At sunset we stopped for another meal at a tavern outside Lyon, and Tom slipped away in the darkness to find his own sustenance. I’d never questioned it with Archer, and I certainly didn’t want to know what Tom ate. This tavern was far less clean and well-maintained than the one we’d eaten in the night before, and the vague uneasiness of Monger proximity hit me when we entered. I made a point of finding a table in the corner where both Ringo and I could sit with our backs to the wall.

  We ordered stew from a barmaid missing half her teeth and managed to choke down a couple of spoonfuls before we gave the gelatinous stuff up as a lost cause. Mary’s roast wasn’t too bad, and the bread was decent, but I resolved to ask Michel about stopping at a farm along our route where I might be able to buy some fresh vegetables and maybe some cheese.

  The door was flung open, and a rowdy group of travelers blew in already carrying a jug of whatever they’d been drinking. Mary pulled her shawl more tightly around her, and I saw two older women at other tables get up and quietly slip out the door. The traveling group was made up of five men, all French, and all between about twenty-five and forty years old, if their skin and the state of their teeth were to be trusted. The slight case of Monger-gut I’d been sporting since we walked into the tavern had gotten stronger with their entrance, but so far the loudest thing about them was their laughter. They took a table on the far side of the tavern from us, and a little of the tension left Mary’s shoulders.

  “During the Bourbon Restoration,” she said in a low voice, “the taverns in France were quite dangerous. When Bysshe and I came through France on our way to Byron’s house at Lake Geneva, peasants and farmers were starving, and travelers were well-advised to keep one hand on their purse and one on their sword at all times. A tavern like this one could easily become the site of a riot in those days.”

  “In these days too,” Ringo said grimly. Tom had just entered the tavern and wove his way to our table. His gypsy coloring and dark hair didn’t mark him as particularly different than anyone else in the room, but his youth and slight build seemed to draw attention from a few of the customers. The Mongerness in him was very faint to my senses these days, but the moment he sat down, I sensed his predatory side pulsing as though I was the one he’d been hunting.

  The travelers had noticed Tom, and one of them said something that made the others laugh. I immediately felt like I was in a high school lunch room, and my instinct was to do exactly what I’d always done in school – get up and leave. If I didn’t, there was usually a pretty decent chance things would escalate, because I’ve never been able to back down from bullies, and these guys were shaping up to be classics.

  “Watch yer back,” murmured Ringo, as Tom took the only seat left at our table – the one next to me. In response, Tom pulled the chair closer to mine and turned it so his back wasn’t so completely exposed to the room. There was a spot of blood on his collar, and I wanted to pull his jacket up to hide it, but I didn’t think my touch would be welcome.

  I leaned forward to speak quietly in his ear. “The group came in already drinking. I think there are at least two Mongers with them.”

  “I can take care of myself,” he growled tensely.

  Tom’s general state of annoyance at having to be in my presence was back in full force, and it intensified my awareness of his Monger side. I could feel Ringo’s attention split between the group of travelers and Tom, and my need to leave the tavern suddenly became overwhelming.

  I caught Ringo’s eye and stood up to leave just as a man stepped through the door. A man who smelled of cloves and wore a suit of dove gray wool with a silk cravat, and was way too fancy for this dive. He removed his hat and took in the room at a single glance. His Mongerness came at me like a fist, drove the air from my lungs and buckled my knees. Ringo’s arm shot out to keep me from falling.

  The movement caught Duncan’s attention, and a small smile crept across his lips. His gaze flicked from me to Ringo to Tom, and then drifted across the room to the group of travelers.

  He went to the bar and ordered an ale, and I caught Mary’s eye and jerked my head silently toward the door. She understood and gathered her skirts to rise while Duncan whispered some words to the woman serving drinks. He slipped her a coin and then met my eyes across the room.

  Granted, I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but the coincidence of his notice was too big. I ducked my head and started for the door. Ringo and Mary were on my heels, and I hoped Tom had gotten the message that it was definitely time to leave.

  I reached the door just as the barmaid delivered drinks to the group of travelers. I saw her speak in low tones and then look pointedly at Tom. The energy in the room began to change. Voices got louder, bodies shifted in seats, and the mood was suddenly edgy. It felt as though War’s very presence incited anger and violence. One of the men, a big, barrel-chested guy in his mid-thirties, pushed back from the table and called something out to Tom in guttural French.

  Tom, in his best imitation of a complete idiot, shot something back at the guy in the same language.

  “Oh!” Mary gasped. I spun to find her pale as she stared at the man across the tavern, who was now joined on his feet by two other men in his party.

  “What did they say?” I demanded.

  “The barmaid told them she’s afraid of Tom because there’s blood on his shirt.”

  I scowled. “The barmaid wasn’t anywhere near him.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ringo growled. “Tom just told them to mind their own soddin’ business, and that was exactly the wrong thing to say.”

  And in fact, it was. Barrel-chest had flung a table out of his way and was smashing across the tavern toward Tom, his fellow travelers on his heels. Ringo pushed me out the door, and I grabbed Mary’s hand to pull her with me. Ringo dragged Tom out by his coat just as Barrel-chest reached them.

  “Michel!” I called to the driver as I ran for the carriage, dragging poor Mary behind me. “Allez!”

  Michel took the scene in at a glance and instantly hoisted little Amélie up into her seat before he climbed into his own. I threw open the carriage door and shoved Mary inside before turning to see what was happening behind us.

  Men were shouting, and Barrel-chest had a beefy arm wrapped around Tom’s neck in a headlock, while the others hurled curses and yelled encouragement. Ringo spun a roundhouse kick to Barrel-chest’s head just as Tom slammed h
is foot into the guy’s instep.

  He went down with a sharp cry, but two more men, one lithe and mean-looking, the other young and big, lunged forward.

  The mean-looking one had a knife, and I could sense the Mongerness of him. “Let’s go!” I shouted as I slapped the side of the carriage. Michel understood what I wanted, and he didn’t let the horses bolt as he twitched their reins to go.

  Ringo pushed Tom forward toward the departing coach, and leveled a kick at the Monger’s knife hand before sprinting to follow.

  We began to pick up speed, but the guys were still too far behind us. A thrown knife clipped Tom’s arm. His face contorted in scary rage and he slowed his run, but Ringo urged him forward. A few of the tavern customers gave chase, but Ringo and Tom were faster, and with the departing coach to motivate them, they got far enough ahead that the men dropped off.

  I stood in the open doorway of the coach, and leaned out to call to Michel to slow down, but he was already doing it. Little Amélie faced backward and had apparently already informed her father that the guys needed to catch up. I gave her a quick nod before reaching out to grab Tom’s hand and haul him inside. Ringo leapt into the carriage with his usual effortless grace, and the guys fell onto the bench panting.

  I glared at Tom furiously. “You’re bleeding.” I wasn’t sure why I was so mad. Seeing Duncan had stolen whatever mental comfort I’d managed to carve out for myself, and somehow, all of it was Tom’s fault.

  “So?” he shot back.

  “So, let me fix it,” I snapped.

  His glare had daggers attached. “Why do you need to fix everything? Why is it your job? I’m not broken – I’m not even scratched.” He yanked off his jacket and tore the buttons off his gashed and bloody shirt to show me his upper arm. The slice from the thrown knife was still there, and I recoiled at all the scars on his chest that had bloomed with blood as the small slice repaired itself.