by J. K. Holt
“And what about Rosie? Or Russ? Do they want me in or out?” A morbid curiosity drove Tess’s desire to know, coupled with a need to understand the full situation she might be walking into.
“Russ would choose to tell you, I think. Rosie’s less warm to the idea, as you might’ve guessed, but she’ll go with Dray’s decision either way.”
Something about the way Emmie said it made Tess wonder. “Are they together, Dray and Rosie?”
Emmie looked sad. “No, though not for Rosie’s lack of trying. I’d feel I was talking out of turn but for the fact that it’s no secret Rosie’s held a candle for Dray for as long as anyone can remember. Dray’s never seemed to return the feeling, though he holds things close to the chest, at least since… well, for a while now.”
“Since his father got sick?” Tess guessed.
Emmie was taken aback. “How did you know that?”
“Gowan told me. I’m sorry if it seems I was prying, but I didn’t start by asking him about the Reeds, honest. I just needed to know more about what was happening, and… well, I didn’t feel like there was anyone else I could ask.”
“Aye, that makes sense. And it was our own doing that you didn’t ask one of us,” Emmie said, voice tinged with regret.
“Emmie?”
“Mm?”
“Do the others know you’re here?”
Emmie grinned. “Yes. Ashe wanted to come, and Fish too, but I argued that it should be me.”
“Would you still have come if they didn’t want you to?”
The question seemed to pain Emmie, and she sat back, considering for a moment before she answered. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I would’ve wanted to, but… well, there’s too much at stake, Tess. You’ll understand that soon. But,” she leaned forward, grasping Tess’s hand in her own, “I would’ve wanted to. Please believe that.”
Tess did. “Well, I’m glad you’ve come.”
Emmie squeezed Tess’s hand. “Me too. It would’ve been sooner, but it took time for us to convince Dray. We did, though, Ashe and I and the others. So, please, be easy on Ashe next time you see him. He’s a dolt but he’s always looked up to Dray. Dray’s shouldered a lot lately but his opinion is the most important thing to Ashe, even if it’s wrong. Ashe is still finding his voice with Dray. It’s been hard for him.”
The way Emmie spoke of Ash, with such protective tenderness, made Tess wonder if Rosie wasn’t the only one holding a candle for one of the Reed brothers. But, loathe to disrupt the fragile sense of trust that Emmie had placed in her, Tess held her tongue.
Instead, they spoke of others things- the festival, the cold season, the current fashions, and exchanged the idle gossip of town members as the hours passed.
∞ ∞ ∞
Tess’s teeth chattered as she walked quickly east, skirting the larger roads as she slipped down alleys, desperate for an escape from the wind. Maggie had often joked that Tess’s pace was a nearly perfect reflection of the current temperature. In the heat, she’d amble, uninterested in bringing on the sweat that would trickle down her back upon the smallest extra exertion, but when it got colder, she’d pick up the pace, anxious to get back to a place of warmth indoors. “Who needs to read the thermometer when they can just walk next to you?” Maggie would say as she hurried to keep pace with Tess during the frigid weather.
She was meeting Ashe on the docks. Why they couldn’t meet in the warmth of the Muddy Gull or the bakery she had no idea, and she was cursing her agreement to this ridiculous location. It hadn’t seemed problematic when Emmie had suggested it yesterday during their tete-a-tete, but they were warm then, and comfortable. Tess wanted a Mulligan on that decision.
The moonlight glinted off the waves, now visible in front of Tess as the large expanse of darkness that was the ocean yawned in front of her, and she was struck, as she so often was when looking out at the endless water, by her own insignificance. The sea was angry tonight, whipped up with the currents and wind, and the sounds hit Tess’s ears like a warning. Go back, it seemed to scream. Go back before you have no choice but to go forward. There’s still time. Soon there won’t be.
She paused, pulling her winter shawl closer, scanning the expanse of the pier before her. A few isolated silhouettes of larger ships docked in the harbor stood out, visible by the faint auras of the men within them, but only a few people were on the docks that Tess could see. Directly in front of her, a long span of dock ran headlong into the ocean, mooring for larger boats. It was there that she spotted the unmistakable outlines of two tall figures. Ashe, then, and who else?
As she neared, the figures took a more definitive shape before her, and she somehow intuited that the other figure was Dray. Rather than feeling blindsighted by his presence, she rather welcomed it- if there was to be another confrontation, best it not be in front of everyone. She noticed for the first time that Dray’s aura was tinged orange, like the light hue of the clouds at dusk, and the color was so pleasant that it almost made her forgive him for his past behavior. Almost.
Ashe saw her first and took a step forward, while Dray hung back. “Tess. Thanks for coming.” He did not reach out to her, possibly recalling the hostile response he’d received the last time he touched her, but shoved both hands in his pockets and looked up at her through a lowered head, his curls swirling around his face in the wind.
Tess nodded, her teeth chattering. “Hi Ashe. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay out here for long, though. I’m freezing.”
“This way,” Dray said, turning to walk further down the pier. She watched for a moment before realizing what he had in mind, and then, desperate for relief from the wind, she followed, with Ashe taking the rear. They quickly came upon the end of the pier, and to the small, solid structure that squatted there. A shack for the fishermen, most likely, it had wooden slats that hung directly beneath the roof from hinges on all sides, to be lowered or raised depending on the weather. All were lowered now, but Dray raised just one side, opposite the direction of the wind and facing towards the shore, giving Tess the impression that he wanted to keep an eye out for unwelcome visitors. Tess entered first and discovered several small work areas, a long bench, and a stool. She sat on the bench, grateful for the shelter, and waited until Dray and Ashe sat, Dray in front of her on the stool, Ashe beside her on the bench. As an afterthought, Dray reached under the nearest workbench and pulled out a rough blanket that he handed to Tess. It was scratchy and smelled of fish, but she accepted it, noting it for the gesture of peace that it was, and wrapped it around her legs.
“Thank you,” she said.
Dray grunted a response and made eye contact with her for the first time. A flicker of emotion ran across his face before disappearing, and Tess could have sworn it was fear. He was here, but he was taking a risk, his eyes seemed to say, asking her to understand that fact. For the first time, Tess wondered what he looked like when he smiled. Would it soften his face, make him look less burdened? Maybe this was what she seemed like to others after losing Maggie- uninterested in taking part in small joys, in connecting with others, closed off from the human experiences of happiness and love. If you were closed, you remained protected. But oh it was lonely.
No one spoke for a minute, the sounds of the waves and the wind filling the strange silence among them, until Tess broke the stalemate. “So, I’m here. What was it you wanted to talk with me about?”
Half expecting awkward apologies to follow, she was relieved when Dray slid past the social niceties. “That depends on what you’re prepared to hear. The things we know, we guard from others for a reason- they’re dangerous. And it could be dangerous to us, and you, if you told certain others what we are considering sharing with you.”
Tess leveled her eyes at him. “This again? I’ve told you, I’m not sure how else I can convince you to trust me-”
“No, Tess,” Ashe cut in, “all we mean is that after we tell you what there is to tell, if you decide you want nothing to do with it, with us, after that, we
’ll understand. But please, you have to promise not to tell anyone, regardless of your decision. If you can do that, we’ll take you at your word.”
Tess’s glance slid back and forth between both of them. “Yes, I promise.”
Ashe looked satisfied, nodding, but Dray considered. Tess had the feeling that even now, he was still making up his mind about her. Rather than attempting to one-up his seriousness, she took a different tack, and when he looked in her direction again, she dimpled a cheek at him and stuck out her hand. “Shake on it?” she said.
Dray arched an eyebrow but hesitated only a moment longer before extending his own hand to meet hers. A firm handshake and it was decided. Dray looked to Ashe, and she could see he was relinquishing power- he wanted Ashe to take point on this conversation.
“So, about Tom,” Ashe said haltingly.
“Tom’s dead,” Tess said bluntly.
“Yes,” Ashe said. “He was dead by the time we found him, though, Tess. You have to understand that.”
“Did his wife push him off the pier?” Tess asked. For the first time she considered that it could have been near this very spot where she was sitting where Tom’s life was ended. The man whose head she had cradled in her lap- it filled her with a mild sense of despair.
Ashe squirmed; clearly this was not the direction he intended the conversation to go. Tess was inclined not to care. She sat, lips pursed, and awaited a response.
“No, she didn’t,” Dray finally said.
“How can you be certain?” Tess asked.
Dray took a slow breath and looked away. “Because I did it.”
Tess froze. “You what?”
When he looked back at her, sorrow lurked beneath the surface of his face. “I did it. I made a deal with Tom, months ago, that if he was ever blurred, I’d end it for him. He didn’t want to live like that- not himself, but unable to pass through this life to the next. And before you ask, I’ve made the same deal with my brother. We’ve all done it. It’s one less burden to have to carry, knowing that someone will take care of it if the worst happens. I wasn’t sure I could, at first, but I’m glad I had the strength this time… to do what needed to be done.”
Were there other times that he hadn’t? It struck Tess that he could be referring to his own father. There was so much she was ignorant of with these people; it was especially frustrating given how anxious she was to learn all she could about them- it seemed the only way to be best prepared with the decisions she knew she would have to make.
Still, she could not maintain a smug sense of self-righteousness towards Dray, even with what he’d done. It felt too similar to the conversation she’d overhead Maggie having with her doctors, nearer to the end. She’d signed the Do Not Resuscitate order and then looked pleadingly at Tess, as if begging her to understand the decision- she hadn’t wanted to spend what was left of her life as a vegetable. As if Tess could spend one moment hating Maggie for any decisions she’d made- by the end, she was praying that it would be over for Maggie even while she cursed any and all higher powers for the position they’d found themselves in. Dray knew Tom’s wishes, and he’d followed them. She couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been.
“And did his wife know what you were going to do?” she finally asked.
Dray nodded. “She walked him down to me, that night. She held him for a few moments, kissed him… but I made her leave, before. I didn’t want that to be an image she carried with her.”
A small kindness, Tess supposed. She looked to Ashe, prompting him to continue.
“Well, anyways, as Dray’s said now- Tom was blurred. You saw it- the state he was in. People that happens to, well… they don’t recover.”
Tess nodded. “Gowan’s told me that.”
“Has he?” Ashe said. “Well, then he’s probably told you the rest as well, which makes this next bit both easier and harder.”
“How so?” Tess said.
“Because now you might know the official story about the Blue Plague,” Ashe answered, “but you still don’t know the truth.”
“And I’m to assume that you know the truth?” Tess said, skepticism lacing her words.
“Aye, you are,” Dray said, daring her to contradict him with his tone.
“Oi! Give me a chance to lay it out first before you both start brawling again,” Ashe said forcefully.
Tess and Dray both muttered acquiescence.
“So,” Ashe continued, “can I assume that Gowan explained that it comes from the fish, caught out near the Sea Dimple?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Only that’s not really how it happens. The Sea Dimple’s a part of it all somehow, of that we’re sure, but not the fish. It doesn’t follow, not really- not all people who are blurred seem to have any contact with fish at all sometimes, and other times certain men from the boats would get blurred when others weren’t, though the others swore they all handled the fish they’d caught that day. So, from the start, it was suspicious.”
“Sometimes diseases happen that way,” Tess said. “Who gets sick and who doesn’t, it isn’t as simple as drawing a line from point A to point B.”
“Aye, true enough,” Ashe allowed, “but you’ve not heard the whole of it yet.” When he was satisfied that Tess would brook no further argument, he pressed on. “The people who get blurred- well, there’s whispers that before it happened, they were acting funny. Like they knew things they shouldn’t have. The pattern started to emerge then, that people with secrets were being hushed somehow, to silence them.”
“Being hushed? You’re seriously saying that this is being done somehow by other people?” Tess asked.
“Oh, aye,” Dray responded. “Monsters aren’t just in the tales we tell little ones. They’re lurking around the corners, right here in plain sight, but no one sees them for what they are. That’s what makes them so insidious.”
“But why would they do it? And how?”
Dray shrugged. “Why do people do anything horrible? To protect some ugly truth from coming to light, maybe. Or more likely they’ve convinced themselves their cause is somehow noble, and that this is a sacrifice necessary to accomplish it. After all, no one’s the villain of their own story, are they? But it doesn’t matter, not really. What matters is uncovering the truth. Once we do that, they’ll be unable to hide any longer.”
“And as to the ‘how’,” Ashe said, “we aren’t sure. We think they’ve got some sort of device that does it, somehow. There’s a lot we still don’t know.”
A thousand questions swam in Tess’s mind, and she grabbed onto one. “Let’s just say for a second that I actually believed you. Do you have any idea who would be doing this?”
Ashe grimaced, rubbing his hand over his knee. “We call them the lampreys, or lampies. They’re slippery serpents, so the name fits. We know, or at least we suspect, they’re associated somehow with the government, but we don’t know in what capacity. Or even if the monarchy knows what they’re truly up to. They operate under the guise of helping solve the epidemic, but they’ve only used it as an excuse to push people away from the area they’re truly interested in.”
“The Sea Dimple,” Tess guessed.
“Aye,” Ashe said.
“Wait. Does this have anything to do with your borrowing, or should I say stealing, that map from Gowan?”
Ashe looked caught out. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“It would seem not,” Dray said, without malice.
“Aye, I suppose it’s to do with that,” Ashe said. “Information on the whole area has become scarce these last few years. One might say that it’s being systematically erased. But they’ve overlooked Gowan, you see. He’s got a wealth of information beneath his nose, but it’s so lost in all his clutter that most wouldn’t think to look. No offense to your uncle, of course.”
As Tess absorbed the information, a thought occurred to her. “Last time I saw you, you mentioned Gowan’s last worker. I think Emmie referred to him as Loren?”<
br />
Dray’s face darkened. “Yes, that was his name. Least, it’s what he told us it was.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing, insofar as we know,” Ashe shrugged. “We were desperate at that time for information. We’d lost any trail of answers and we thought Gowan might have some hidden, even if he didn’t realize it. So, when Loren appeared, new to town, and was hired by Gowan, we thought to befriend him. I suppose we thought he could help us root out some new information.”
“Instead, he fooled the lot of us,” Dray said, icy in his demeanor. “He asked just enough questions to figure out what we were after. And then he disappeared, likely any information with him.”
“We think he was working for the Lampreys, now,” Ashe said. “It cut us a bit, if I’m honest. He’d probably come in with the same thought we’d had, to see what treasures of information Gowan had hidden away, and to destroy them, or possibly bring them back.”
“So, you tried to use him, and he ended up using you. Or so you think, at least,” Tess said.
“That’s it, more or less,” Ashe said.
“And when you sought me out, at the Muddy Gull that first time, you were trying to do the same to me?”
Ashe paled beside her. In the moonlight, he looked less the confident young man and more the boy, playing make believe, beginning to question what was real and fantasy. “I’m not sure, really. And that’s the honest answer, Tess. I only knew that Emmie had run into you, and liked you, and that you hadn’t seemed the enemy spy that first day in the market. I was playing a hunch that you would be different.”
“But you still intended to use me to your own benefit,” Tess said.
“I don’t know what I intended. Couldn’t I just have liked you, and wanted to get to know you? I might have hoped you could turn out trustworthy, and help us, but you can’t blame me for that. We’re so lost really, and-”
Dray cleared his throat, and Ashe reigned in his hopelessness. “I only mean, friends can be hard to find. I thought we might do you a good turn, and you might do the same. Of course, after that, we really did begin to like you. We do, truly, all of us. And I hope you can see now, by what we’re telling you, that we’re placing an awful lot of trust in you.”
