Deadweather and Sunrise

by Geoff Rodkey

  “I can’t wait to tell Millicent she’s got a brother.”

  The pen froze in my hand, an inch from the paper.

  You can’t marry your sister. It just wasn’t done. Not even in books.

  In an instant, all the new fantasies that had been forming in my head went poof, gone when I realized that I couldn’t have them and still hold on to my other, bigger fantasy. I set the pen down and stepped back from the desk.

  “What’s the matter?” Pembroke’s mouth was turning down at the sides.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Take some time. I’m sure this all seems very sudden.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  Pembroke was no fool. “If you’re thinking of Millicent, trust me. This is best for you both.”

  I shook my head and stared at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

  His voice was turning hard and chilly. “What do you think? That you’ll grow up and marry her? That’s not possible. In fact, it’s completely impossible. Now, be sensible.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Stop saying that!”

  He paused for a breath. When he continued, his voice was quieter but just as hard. “Egg, you’re a wonderful young boy with a very bright future. But whether you’re her brother or not, you will never—NEVER—marry my daughter. So why don’t you—”

  “What if it’s not up to you?” The words flew out before I could stop them.

  “EVERYTHING IS UP TO ME!”

  The question had hit some nerve deep inside him, and he exploded in a red-faced fury.

  “IT WILL NOT HAPPEN! What the devil is the matter with you? Don’t you see what you’re being offered? And after everything we’ve done for you?”

  “I’m sor—I—won’t be any more of a bother. I’ll leave immediately.”

  “YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!”

  We both fell silent as Pembroke slowly pulled his anger back in. He pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring as he forced himself to breathe deeply. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully measured, but the burning look never left his eyes.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs to your room? We could both stand to do some thinking. Stay there until you’re called.”

  A butler was at the door, attracted by the shouting. Pembroke motioned for me to leave. I was almost out of the room when he called to me again.

  “And, Egg—this is between you and me. If you speak so much as a word of it to Millicent—or to Edith—you’ll regret it.”

  I nodded and followed the butler out.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room. At first, I just lay on the bed, curled up in a ball while that horrible image of the balloon coming down in a dark sea ran over and over in my head. It made me sick beyond words, and I hated myself for having spent the past three weeks living like a careless prince, not once stopping to think about how my family must have suffered. Somehow, it felt like it was my fault—like if I hadn’t enjoyed myself so much, maybe they wouldn’t be dead.

  And for the first time, I wished they weren’t gone, even my lousy siblings. But especially Dad. I’d never known quite where I stood with him—he wasn’t intentionally cruel like Venus and Adonis, but I couldn’t exactly say he loved me, either. Even so, he took care of things. He was my father. And now he was gone. There was nobody left to take care of things.

  I cried over it some. But eventually, I realized I was in a fix, and no amount of feeling awful, either for my family or myself, was going to change that. The only person who could get me out of it was me.

  So I made myself get up, and I tried to think the situation through as I paced back and forth across the room.

  It seemed impossible. I couldn’t imagine getting right with Pembroke by doing anything short of giving up my hopes for Millicent. And I just couldn’t do that.

  So I figured I’d be kicked out of Cloud Manor, which terrified me, because I didn’t know where I’d go. Back to Deadweather, probably. But I didn’t have any money to hire a boat, and anyway, what was I going to do when I got there? Run the plantation by myself?

  I was being crazy. I didn’t have to be alone in the world—Roger Pembroke, the richest and most powerful man I’d ever known, had just offered to adopt me. He’d more than take care of me—he’d make me rich! And I turned him down? Ridiculous!

  I decided to accept the offer immediately. It was the only sane thing to do.

  Except I couldn’t do it. Every time I contemplated signing that adoption certificate, Millicent popped back into my head. The thought of living with her, spending all our days together… and having to think of her as my sister, and me her brother… it was unbearable.

  There was no way out, so I eventually gave up and went back to fantasies of killing pirates. It was the only option that seemed to have a happy ending. If I saved Millicent’s life from a pack of bloodthirsty killers, all bets were off. So when it got on toward evening and I heard distant shouting downstairs, I dared to hope my dreams had come true. But the shouts never turned to screams, and eventually they died away completely.

  A little while after that, a butler came to fetch me for dinner. When I got to the dining room, Pembroke was gone, Millicent’s eyes were red with tears, and Mrs. Pembroke wouldn’t look at either one of us.

  We ate in silence, broken only by the clink of silverware and an occasional sniffle from Millicent. The gloom was so heavy I could barely get up an appetite for even the jelly bread. Whatever was happening, I was sure it was my fault.

  Finally, Mrs. Pembroke excused herself from the table. Millicent watched her go.

  “Beast,” she hissed as her mother disappeared through the door.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “They had a huge fight—I’m sure she started it, she always does—then Daddy went out to a meeting, and he not only didn’t invite me, she wouldn’t even let him tell me what it was about! It’s ALL her fault.”

  “No—it’s my fault. I’m sorry.” I’d meant to follow Pembroke’s order not to say anything to Millicent, but I couldn’t stand seeing her blame her mother.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Egg. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. Why would it?”

  “Your father… got angry with me today.”

  “Pffft.” Millicent waved the idea away with her hand. “Daddy gets mad. Then he calms down. I’m sure it was nothing. He thinks the world of you.”

  I was desperate to believe this, and hearing it gave me enough hope to finish my jelly bread. I stayed up late that night, reading in the library while I waited for Pembroke to come home so I could confirm for myself that his anger that afternoon was short-lived.

  But he never did, and around midnight I finally went up to my room, holding tightly to Millicent’s last words. If Pembroke really did think the world of me, then maybe I hadn’t ruined everything after all.

  I’d just gotten into bed when there was a soft knock at my door.

  It was Mrs. Pembroke. She wore a long silk nightgown and held a candle in an iron holder.

  “Egg… may I speak with you?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  She came over to sit on the edge of my bed. Her hand trembled a bit, which made the candle flicker, so she set it on the nightstand.

  Then she reached out and brushed a wisp of hair from my eyes. “You’re a very sweet boy, and I think the world of you.”

  I was starting to well up, not just from the words, but from the gentle touch of her fingers on my forehead, when her next sentence made all the emotion stick in my throat like a rock.

  “But you need to leave here. Immediately.”

  She went on, her voice turning cold and pointed.

  “Do you have any family besides your father and siblings?”

  “No.”

  “Any friends? Older ones who could take you in?”<
br />
  “No.”

  She drew in a deep breath, and for a moment, her eyes looked like they might take pity on me. Then she exhaled, and the coldness returned.

  “Then I think what’s best… is for you to go back where you came from. I’ll make arrangements first thing in the morning.”

  I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, but I couldn’t find any words. Just then, the heavy creak of the front door echoed up to us from the entrance hall downstairs. Mrs. Pembroke startled, rising quickly to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Egg. It’s what’s best for you.”

  She shut the door behind her, quickly and silently, and it wasn’t until she’d been gone awhile—and the meaning of her words had settled heavily into the pit of my stomach—that I realized she’d left the candle behind.

  I stared at the light until it guttered out and died. Then I lay in the darkness, and tried hard not to think or feel anything at all.

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of the front door again, slamming hard like a thunderclap. I dressed slowly—I figured I’d be leaving for good within the hour, and while the sensible thing would be to wear my old, itchy clothes from Deadweather, I put on one of the silk shirts the Pembrokes had given me instead. I wanted to feel the luxuriousness of the fabric against my skin one last time.

  Then I tiptoed down to breakfast, taking the time to appreciate every detail of the grand staircase and sumptuous entrance hall. When I reached the dining room, I was surprised to find Roger Pembroke—who was usually up and out by this hour—chatting away with a big, rough-looking man who sat at Millicent’s usual place.

  Seeing me, Pembroke smiled—his best, most charming smile, the one that made me feel both special and desperate to live up to whatever he expected of me.

  “Morning, Egg. Come join us.” I sat down. The rough-looking man nodded at me. He didn’t look like the type to smile.

  “Millicent and Edith have gone to visit some friends north of Blisstown,” Pembroke continued. “I thought this would be a good time for you to meet Mr. Birch. One of my most trusted and capable associates.”

  “Hello,” I said, guessing that Mr. Birch would be taking me down to the port, and wondering if they expected me to hire my own boat back to Deadweather.

  Birch nodded in reply. A butler put breakfast in front of me. Pembroke and Birch had already finished theirs. I started to eat quickly, eyes focused on my food.

  “Egg, I want to apologize for my behavior yesterday.”

  I’d imagined a lot of different versions of this conversation, but none of them started with an apology from Pembroke.

  “You don’t need—”

  “I do, actually. I think I’m perhaps a bit too used to getting my own way. So much so that I sometimes forget to see things from the point of view of others. Even those for whom I have only the best intentions.”

  The special smile returned. “I understand why you couldn’t accept my offer. And the more I think about it, the more respect I have for your integrity. I remember what I was like at your age. In many ways, you’re miles ahead of where I was.”

  It was cold comfort, hearing a speech like that right before I got kicked out the door. But I did appreciate that he wasn’t yelling at me.

  “As you probably know, I’ve built a rather successful business organization. But its future health depends on my ability to find the right sort of men to help me run it. I know you’re quite young, but I see great promise in you. So if I can’t have you as a son… I’d like very much to recruit you as an apprentice.”

  My jaw started to drop, and a mouthful of half-chewed food nearly dribbled out onto my lap before I had the presence of mind to clamp my teeth down. Which somehow caused me to start choking, and before I knew it a butler was hovering over me with a glass of water and a towel.

  Pembroke smiled indulgently at me as I tried to recover.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I… did Mrs. Pembroke… say…?”

  Pembroke chuckled and rolled his eyes ever so slightly. “Mrs. Pembroke’s a bit emotional. Because, to be totally frank, she’s long harbored the ambition of marrying her only daughter to a Rovian nobleman. And given the obvious mutual affection between you and Millicent”—I got a little dizzy when he said that—“she’s rather concerned about the implications of your staying in our lives.

  “Now—again, I’m speaking plainly, and apologies for that—I’ll admit that at first blush, I shared her concern. But the more that I’ve thought about it… there’s something special about you, son. You’re a rare talent. I’d be a fool to let you leave us.”

  As my head spun, he took a sip of coffee. “What do you say? Will you come and work for me?”

  “I’d love to, sir.” All the gloom of the past day vanished, and I almost laughed out loud from happiness.

  Pembroke and Birch traded looks of satisfaction. “Excellent. I’d like to begin straightaway. Birch here will take care of you—starting with a tour of some of our local interests.”

  Birch winked at me. “Eat your fill. You’ll need it.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, Birch and I were on horseback, climbing one of the winding trails that led up the forested hills toward the timberline of Mount Majestic. We were farther up the slope than I’d ever been with Millicent—since our rides usually started in the afternoon, we couldn’t get this far and still be back by nightfall—and as the trail switched back on itself, I got an occasional peek through the trees at the towering pile of rock looming ahead.

  Birch had barely spoken during the ride. Early on, when I realized we were headed up the mountain, I asked if we’d be seeing the silver mine.

  “Eventually,” he said. “Few other stops first.”

  “Is it all right if I ask where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  I got the point and kept my mouth shut after that, my head swimming with fantasies that now seemed entirely realistic. There didn’t seem anything too far-fetched about Millicent marrying a young businessman with bright prospects, especially one who was a trusted associate of her father’s.

  I decided that as soon as I got back to Cloud Manor, I would give up novels—silly entertainment, suitable for women and children, but of no use to a young empire builder—for the self-improvement books I’d seen in Pembroke’s library, like Letters to a Young Tradesman and Rules of Gentlemanly Conduct. I’d memorize these, following them to the letter until I became a man—not a boy, a man—of such impressive character that people who met me would be shocked to learn I was raised not on the vast estate of some Rovian duke, but as a lowly planter’s son.

  I was designing the mansion Millicent and I would raise our six children in when Birch stopped at a sharp bend in the trail, where it turned away from a steep cliff on the edge of the ridge we had been following.

  We were close to the timberline, and the trees were scarcer here, hard-pressed to thrive in the rocky soil. Birch dismounted, motioning for me to do the same. Then he tied both horses’ reins to a gnarled branch and stepped off the trail toward the cliff.

  I followed him the thirty feet to the cliff’s edge. Above and to our left was the craggy face of Mount Majestic. From a distance, it had always looked serene and peaceful—but from this close, it looked much darker, rough and threatening. It had an almost vertical face that plummeted for a mile or more, straight down from the summit into the gorge below us.

  “Take a good look. Down there.” Birch pointed past his boots, hundreds of feet down to the bottom of the gorge.

  There was a tree next to me, so close to the edge I could see a cluster of stray roots sticking out into the air from the side of the cliff. I put my hand on a branch to steady myself and peered out over the side.

  The bottom of the gorge was nothing but rock, a few giant boulders on a bed of shale. At the dead end where it terminated, there was a dark hole—tiny from this distance, but maybe five feet high and equally wide. Near the mouth of the hole were a wagon drawn by mules and three men—
two soldiers with rifles and a man in work clothes. They were watching the entrance of the hole.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Exploring party. Looking for silver,” Birch said. “Keep watching.”

  I did as I was told. In a moment, a Native came out of the hole—wearing only a ragged cloth over his midsection and carrying a bucket of earth. He dumped the bucket into a trough and disappeared again inside the hole. The man in work clothes stooped to examine the contents of the trough.

  As I watched him, from the corner of my eye I saw Birch step backward. He moved casually enough, but in the last half second before he disappeared from my field of vision, he started to shift his weight lower, bending his knees slightly.

  I knew that motion. It was the beginning of the crouch Adonis used to go into before he attacked.

  Without thinking, I dropped to my knees, grabbing at the tree trunk for support as the full weight of Birch’s body hit me from behind. I didn’t have time to get my arms solidly around the tree, but going to my knees left me low enough that he couldn’t push me clean out into the air, which would have meant certain death.

  He had to hit me two more times to knock me over the edge, and by the time I went over, I’d managed to claw my fingers into the tree roots sticking out of the cliff. I almost lost my grip when the weight of my body swung down under me, but the momentum of his last blow had almost taken Birch over the side himself, and I had a moment to firm up my hold while he recovered his balance.

  I kicked my legs in front of me, searching for a toehold, but found only air—we seemed to be on a thin overhang that jutted out some distance from the body of the cliff.

  As the toes of Birch’s boots appeared in front of my eyes, I flailed my legs desperately, bringing my knees up until I hit something—not wide and flat like the lip of the cliff, but tangled and uneven.

  It was the tree’s roots. From what I could feel with my legs, there was a thick mass of them under there—the lip of the cliff must have been so skinny that they grew out from the soil into thin air. As I started to probe them with my feet, looking for support, I saw Birch’s foot draw back to kick me in the face.

  “NO, MR. BIRCH, PLEASE!” I didn’t expect mercy. I just needed an extra second. And begging had always bought me time with Adonis, because he loved hearing it so much. It might work with Birch, too, if he liked his cruelty the way my brother did.