by J. K. Holt
Tulla had finally begun to stand, composing herself for the ordeal ahead. She looked at Tess coolly before nodding and disappearing into the bakery door, likely to check on Emmie and Loren. Tess was grateful- Loren wasn’t to be underestimated.
Tess took a breath, steeling herself, and then turned to take in Dray. An ache took hold of her chest at the sight of him, his aura rippling around him, the vividness of his being lighting everything in the vicinity. And he was staring at her with those intense grey eyes of his, though the guardedness had left them now- in its place was only uncertainty.
He leaned forward, wincing in pain, and Tess reached out a quick hand to steady him only to pull it back self-consciously, worried at appearing too familiar after what had happened between them. But could it have happened, really? It had felt so real. But still.
When she was a little girl, she would have lucid dreams, aware of her presence within them and able to shape them to her will. So often, she’d wake only to wonder what had been real and what was imagined, teasing apart the dream from the reality. Could that be what had happened? She’d somehow dissociated from the stress of it all, and imagined the rest?
Come on. I couldn’t have just imagined it. I don’t know how I did it, but it happened. I could swear to it.
But maybe it was the smashing of the device that had saved Dray, and that alone. It was an alternate, possibly even more likely, explanation.
Dray caught her hand, willing her to look at him, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “Tess,” he pleaded.
“What?” she whispered.
“You need to tell me if it really happened,” he said. “Quickly, please, because I think I might be losing my mind.”
She gasped, catching her breath, and met his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” he cast his gaze about, searching for the words. “I mean that Loren did something to me. It’s the strangest sensation. Like you’re just disappearing. And it was happening to me, Tess. I was being blurred. But you-”
He dropped her hand from his and rubbed both of his own across his face, as if to clear the uncertainty that lingered there. “Ah-” he groaned. “You were in my head. Weren’t you? I felt you there. You brought me back.”
She hadn’t imagined it. She’d done it. Somehow.
What on earth it all meant was beyond her current reckoning. And to admit this to Dray, now, when there was another plausible explanation for it all, felt like too much to ask.
“I smashed the device. I guess I interrupted the process,” Tess said, pulling it from her pocket and offering it to him as confirmation. He took it from her, turning it in his hands, considering her words. He handed it back, resigned.
He didn’t believe her. She could see it in his eyes as it mingled with the hurt of being lied to. But he had no proof, and already she could see that the self-doubt was beginning to creep in. His old companion.
Maybe she was destined to sting him whenever he got too close. The thought of that was like a knife in the gut.
He moved to shift away from her, but she stopped him, hand on his knee. “I don’t know how I did it.” His eyes swiveled back to her, and he held himself still as she spoke. “I have no idea how, but… you’re not losing your mind. I’m just scared about what it all means.”
Could he understand that? Or would it be enough to force him to pull away, this time for good?
He was quiet for a moment more, and took some time to form his words. “You saw… everything?”
Tess considered. “Not everything. But enough, to help bring you back to yourself. Enough to know you better.”
She watched him working his way through it, scrambling to catch hold of the muddled memory of their encounter, and his breath hitched. He winced, a blush blooming on his cheeks, and Tess realized he must be thinking of the last memories she’d viewed- the memories of her.
Desperate to afford him some small semblance of privacy, she pushed on. “But it’s getting blurrier now, harder to remember all of it. Seems almost like a dream.”
Dray’s eyes shot to her face, and she could tell he was deciding whether to believe her. Tess hoped he would understand what she was trying to offer him, and she offered him a shy smile. “Truth be told, I’m just so happy you’re still you. Even if you are a complete pain most of the time.”
And before she could second-guess herself, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. His skin was warm, and his aura crackled slightly at her touch, almost like a charge of electricity, as if it was responding to her. Her lips tingled as she pulled back, and she knew it was only a moment in time before she would have a deep blush of her own.
She didn’t stop to gauge his reaction, smothering her own embarrassment by ducking her head and shifting her weight slowly to get back on her feet. In a moment, Gowan was beside her, helping her up gingerly. She felt a hand beneath her other elbow and knew it belonged to Dray, though she did not look back. Ashe was already returning to help his brother to his feet as well.
“The constable already spoke with me,” Gowan murmured to her. “I’m taking you home now, before he gets the idea in his head to speak with you as well.”
“Do you have so little faith in me?” Tess said. “I can lie, you know.”
“Aye, perhaps,” Gowan said, a flicker of amusement flitting across his otherwise stoic face. “I’m more concerned that he might start to wonder why you happened to be out for a pre-dawn stroll with naught on your body but your knickers and a blanket.”
“Oh,” Tess said. “Right, fair point.”
She averted her eyes, playing the role of the naive victim, until they were clear of the crowd and into the alley.
Tess began to form a question but was cut off by Gowan. “It can wait, girl,” he said. “It can all wait. Right now, you just need rest.”
Tess knew he was right. Everything hurt, and she’d become sluggish again in her movements. Her head was starting to spin, and she leaned on Gowan more heavily as they trundled back towards the Muddy Gull. Home.
He tucked her into bed. “Thanks, Uncle G,” she muttered, cheeky in the way that only the most delirious state can cause.
“Of course, girl. I’d do anything for you.”
“Why’s that?” she mumbled.
“I’d have thought that was obvious,” he said. “Good assistants are hard to find.”
∞ ∞ ∞
Tess slept for the rest of the day and night, waking only to drink and eat at Gowan’s insistence. She felt groggy during the encounters, desperate to fall back onto her cot and succumb once again to blissful unconsciousness. It was as if her brain screamed for the sanctuary of her dreams, where she might begin to process and make sense of all that had happened in the last few days. As if that was possible.
A bleary day had dawned when she finally began to emerge. She coaxed her body into a slow stretch, mindful of all that ached, and then sat up. She needed to clear the cobwebs. “Gowan?” she called tentatively.
It wasn’t he that appeared, though, but Ashe, knocking a few things from the shelves in his blundering haste to get to her. He stood, uncertain, in front of her.
“Hullo, Tess. Glad to see you up.”
“Thanks,” Tess said. “Sorry, I’m a little slow right now. Why are you here?”
“Oh, right. Gowan went out for a bit, so I’m just here until he returns.” He shifted to sit beside her on the bed, but she waved him off.
“I need a change of scene. Go for a walk with me?”
“Sure, yeah.” The hurt that had temporarily appeared on his face disappeared, and he gave her a moment to get fully dressed. The process was time consuming in her current state, but she stuck with it, pride insisting she not ask Ashe for assistance.
She dashed a note to Gowan and left it on the counter, noticing the closed sign still on the window. She wondered with a pang of remorse how much business she’d cost Gowan in the past week.
Once they were clear of the alleys, Tess relaxed a bit. �
�Head towards the piers?”
“Aye, that sounds nice.”
They meandered along the wooden planks, watching the smaller boats bobbing along in the ruddy waters, men shouting encouragement to one another across the blue expanse. The Blackbirder was not on the horizon, which gave Tess some sense of relief. She sat along a rough patch of wood, dangling her feet over edge where the waves frothed and churned several feet below. Ashe lumbered down by her side. He, too, stared out across the vast waters, deep in thought.
Tess let the wind tease the stray hairs around her face, and turned her face to the meager sun, hiding behind flimsy clouds.
“So, you’re still watching me around the clock?” Tess finally asked.
“Eh, not really.” Ashe said. “Or, at least, we don’t think it’s necessary, but wanted you to say you were comfortable with it before we stopped. After all, you were the one who was taken. Seemed only right you should have a say in the matter.”
The fact that he framed it this way spoke volumes to Tess. They were protecting her because they wanted to, no longer because they wanted to pry information from her. She leaned into his side and he placed a brotherly arm around her.
She wondered when it had happened that this place had begun to feel like home. So odd to have arrived in a place knowing no one but to have found herself. She wondered if it was because she knew no one that it had happened. She’d been given a completely clean slate in which to begin her life again, free of the baggage of her past pain, of the crippling narrative of The Girl Whose Mom Died. She hadn’t wanted it to define her, but it had followed her everywhere nevertheless. Every pitying glance, every sympathetic smile, every cautious conversation with old friends held an underlying truth- Tess was unwhole. Broken.
It had been stifling her for so long that she didn’t realize she’d forgotten how to breathe. Until this place.
And she wasn’t alone here in her loss. Everyone seemed to have suffered some sort of blow, but it didn’t define them so much as drive them, weaving just another strand into the narrative of their lives.
“Catch me up, will you?” Tess said.
“Hmm. Where do you want me to start?” Ashe said.
Tess mulled over all the questions she had. “Why were you all waiting there at the bakery when we returned?”
“Where else would we have been?” Ashe posed. “Dray and Fish had gone on some crazy fool’s errand to save you, and we were beside ourselves with worry. Dray told us, successful or not, whoever made it back would return to the bakery, so that’s where we waited. Rosie wandered in around midnight, probably looking to give Dray another black eye for his troubles, but changed her tune quick when she found out what was happening.”
The comment about it being a fool’s errand piqued Tess’s interest. “You didn’t think it would work?”
“Would you have? I mean, I know Dray’s been planning this for months, but-”
“Wait, planning what?” Tess asked.
Ashe sighed. “Sneaking aboard the Blackbirder.” Noting her incredulous expression, he shrugged. “Before you arrived, we’d run out of other options, if you hadn’t noticed. Dray saw this as our only other chance. Sneak aboard, steal information. Of course, none of us liked it, but we agreed there weren’t many other options.”
Tess flashed on Dray’s look of dismay as they’d passed by the desk during their hasty exit of the Blackbirder and realized its significance. He’d been there, in the heart of the beast, but was unable to risk the precious seconds to spy. And in doing so, he’d traded the opportunity for information instead to save Tess. He must have known that it would come to that when he and Fish came for her. The likelihood of him being able to sneak aboard again had just dropped to near zero- Mr. Winslow would never be so foolish to leave those windows open again.
The enormity of Dray’s sacrifice hit her hard, and her heart ached from it, while at the same time the tenderness she felt towards him grew. She thought of his eyes boring into her own, his hand on hers, and her pulse quickened. He hadn’t come for her out of loyalty to a vow he made, though he might be the type to do so. What she’d seen inside the void had told her otherwise.
Some voyeuristic urge hit Tess, and though she knew the information might carry a kick, she had to ask - “did you and the others not want Dray and Fish to come for me?”
Ashe grimaced and turned his head away. Tess leaned into him further, trying to intimate that she would not hold the information against him. It must have been an impossible situation- she saw that. Remorse for the question welled up, and she was about to tell Ashe to forget it when he spoke.
“We- well, none of us knew what to do,” Ashe said. “Gowan supported it, as did Emmie. I was reluctant, though of course I wanted to get you back somehow. But, the odds of this working-” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Honestly, I’m still not sure how it did. Maybe we were just due for one good stroke of luck.”
He’d neglected to mention one person’s opinion on the subject, and Tess thought the omission was likely on purpose. Tulla Reed had been against it.
Ashe read her thoughts and cut in. “Please don’t blame mum. You don’t know, what she’s been through, it- it’s hardened her-”
“I don’t blame her,” Tess said, surprised to realize that it was the truth. “I would’ve done the same thing in her situation.”
Really, who could blame Tulla? Her oldest son had wanted to row out into the sea with his best friend to save a girl she neither knew nor trusted. Any mother would have forbidden it.
“It’s done now, anyways,” Ashe said. “And I think you’ve earned some merit in her eyes just for surviving the ordeal, for what it’s worth.”
“Wonderful news,” Tess said drily, elbowing Ashe. “I’ll expect the invitation to dinner to be arriving any day now, then.”
Ashe sniggered. “Maybe don’t hold your breath.”
Tess laughed.
“What happened with the men, the ones who attacked us?”
Ashe nodded. “Strange story, that. We told the constable they’d set on the three of you outside, and we’d come to your assistance. They’d no identification on them, and no one from the village who’d come to assist us recognized them, so it wasn’t hard to assume they’d wandered in from out of town intent on some light thieving and got more than they’d bargained for when they tried to rob you. One of them was dead by the end of it-”
Tess drew in a breath. “Which one?”
“The one who was on you, who Rosie pulled off. Smashed his head so hard on the cobbles-,” Ashe shuddered, shaking his head at the thought. “Mind, Rosie’s not shook up over it. I think it was some catharsis for her, honestly, to be able to punish the people she saw as directly responsible for what happened to Russ. She’s been a bit more herself since then. So, you know, grumpy as hell but not drowning in rage.”
Tess absorbed this. Like so many things, she knew she’d need time to fully decide how she felt about it all. “And the others?”
“Aye, that’s the strange part. Constable took them all in, locked them in cells. Then, late last night during his checks, he finds them all, blurred.”
“No!”
“Yes. We figure, breaking them out would have raised too many questions- the Lampreys wouldn’t be able to keep up their efforts near the Sea Dimple with so much suspicion. So, they did the next best thing. Seems to have worked too, the bastards… constable told us they must’ve picked up the plague in whatever location they came from. Them all having it together cemented the idea in his thick head.”
“I guess it really was too much to ask that I smashed their only blurring device, huh?” Tess said, remembering that she’d placed it under her pillow for safekeeping before falling asleep yesterday- it was probably still there.
“Aye.” Ashe shrugged. “But, it’s also why we think you’re safe. They couldn’t risk taking you or any of us out, not after all the attention their men drew to themselves. They were the real threat. I mean, imagine if any of t
hem talked, what harm that might do. Now that’s no longer a concern. And, though you’ve seen a lot, and I’m sure you have a story to tell us when you’re ready about what happened, really it’s all just heresay, from a girl who’s new here. Honestly, I’ve no idea why Loren and the others risked coming ashore to jump the three of you as is. Seems a large risk for very little reward.”
Tess thought of Loren and his blurring machine, using it on her only to discover she’d escaped. She could guess why he’d come back for her.
Ashe continued. “Even with us backing you, even with Dray and Fish to tell their side of it. I supposed we might put a dent in their plans at the Dimple, but it’s clear now- they have the resources to take us out. They’d find some way to come back, anyways. I suppose we’re beginning to consider that direct confrontation may not be the way.”
“No?” Tess murmured.
Ashe sagged a bit, sighing. “I think even Dray has to admit that the cost of this approach has become too high for any of us to bear. After Russ… then you- well, there has to be another way. And we might have one, though it’s too early to tell.”
“Oh?” Tess perked up.
He gave her a sideways glance, as if she was being purposefully difficult. “You don’t remember?”
She cut eyes at him. “Clearly not.”
“I’m referring to Loren.”
Tess flashed suddenly on what he meant, remembering now the image of Rosie dragging his body inside the back of the bakery. “Oh, rot! You’ve got him still? And you never told the constable about him?” Ashe nodded affirmatively to both questions. Tess frowned, perplexed. “So, what, he’s just not talking?”
“Eh,” Ashe said. “He’s not regained consciousness. I’m afraid I gave him quite a beating. And, as you can imagine, we can’t exactly call round for the doctor, so Emmie’s just been tending to him. We’re hoping he’ll still come out of it, but-” he shrugged. “I feel badly about it now, but I thought he’d just blurred Dray, and I…well-”
