Unlikely

by Frances Pauli

  Chapter One

  Had she cared at all about this town, she might have warned them not to wear the Shades’ colors, not to mess with gangs at all. Maera swiped her rag across the rough boards and watched the inn door through the veil of her dark hair. A kid entered wearing a black bandana, a thing he didn’t understand for a second. He looked just like his father, had a swagger that didn’t match his eleven-year-old frame. She sopped up the puddle of ale and moved to the next mess while the town’s richest brat picked out a chair by the huge hearth.

  He pushed it around and used it for a stair, sitting instead on the table’s edge and dangling a pair of new leather boots in front of the fire. Black, she noted, sueded by hand and stitched with the fine, even rhythm of a Gentry needle. His father, it seemed, made an exception of the no consorting law when it suited his own family’s needs.

  She might have known.

  Most of the town ignored the rule, but usually they did so in secret. Now, Miller Ramsten perched on the inn’s best table and swung his indiscretion leisurely back and forth for all to see. On purpose, she guessed. The gesture had the flavor of a brag to it—or maybe a dare.

  Maera knew better than to take the kid’s bait. She knew better than to give any attention to the actions of the young and idiotic. Hellfire, she’d been both of the above not too many years ago. The memory made her cringe even now, and she went back to wiping with more fury than the sticky ale required. Five years hadn’t softened her shame much. Her life since fleeing Westwood had offered little chance at redemption.

  She ignored the bandana and scrubbed the floor, biting her lower lip and keeping one eye on the door. They didn’t get much business this time of day. The men had long since wandered into the hills or tunnels, and their women would be busy about their own cleaning and tasks. While their younger counterparts mined or hunted, the older citizens would take to the shores of the frigid lake to fish for thin, snaggletooth fish and spend the few warm hours of the day engaging one another with stories of the Old Kingdoms.

  Such was life at the foot of the Shadow Mountains. Life in Ramstown didn’t change any more than the snowline just above the narrow band of forest surrounding it. It was cold and dreary, harsh and a fair ways better than any other town she’d wandered through since Westwood. If the people were coarse, they’d earned it with hard labor. If they treated her with the cool disdain reserved for anything foreign, and therefore uninvited to their town, Maera felt she deserved it. It eased her guilt, the soft thread of hostility. It felt just and, even though it’d dimmed a bit when she’d refused to move on, she welcomed each nasty look, each “accidental” bump or jar in passing, as her due reward for previous sins.

  The citizens of Ramstown could serve as her jury and her sentence in ways the friendly faces from her history would never have deigned to oblige her with. The Goodmother—she cringed again at the memory—would have forgiven her. Her family would have blamed the gang. The rest of them, too, perhaps. Justice would have never come, and Maera’s guilt would have devoured her in the face of their sympathetic, forgiving hearts.

  Here, at least, she could dwell inside the misery she deserved. Here, she could wipe up beer and vomit, endure the nasty glances, and maybe, someday, earn herself a reprieve. In the lee of the mountains, the jagged black peaks that dominated all views from Ramstown, she could let her own heart freeze and die.

  The inn’s door swung outward, and a blast of icy air swirled in, as if it heard her prayers and arrived just in time to answer them. Four ragged children slipped in through the gap. They swung their eyes around the room and focused immediately on the boy by the fire.

  Maera stood and gave them each a good glare. The first three ignored her and wound their way through the chairs to their lead delinquent. The last shuffled his feet and hesitated. His eyes drifted between Miller and the spot where Maera tapped one, barely booted toe at him.

  “Jaymi Fayer,” she closed in on him, deliberately positioning herself in the path he’d have to take to rejoin his crowd. “You take that hideous thing off your skull this instant.”

  “Aw, Maera.” The ginger haired boy lowered his voice, peeked around her to see if his friends witnessed the shaming, and flashed her a pleading look. “Miller’s dad supports them.”

  “Miller’s dad’s no more a Shade than fat old Tilly is.” She snatched the black cloth from Jaymi’s hair with one swipe. He flinched more than the gesture warranted, enough to soften her tone when she continued. “He’s never even met one, I’d bet. And it’s ridiculous to pretend he has.”

  Ramstown had little to offer either magical gang. There were no ruins to be had this far north, no magic that she’d witnessed. The villagers boasted a natural fear of it, and loudly proclaimed an aversion to anything associated with the Gentry, Miller’s boots notwithstanding. Even the mines only squeezed out enough coal and metal to keep the town itself running smoothly.

  She liked it that way, had run north on purpose and found exactly the deficit she’d desired here. They had nothing any gang would want, and so, everything she desired.

  Unfortunately, the mayor had a dramatic streak. He had a romantic idea of gang warfare and an overdeveloped sense of power. Not a month after she’d decided to stay on, Ramsten Senior had declared the town Shade turf. He’d painted the symbol on everything, even taken to wearing the customary black and silver and encouraged the rest of his town to do likewise.

  Despite her initial urge to bolt, Maera discovered quickly enough that the man’s affiliation was all bluster. The markings faded, other colors wove their way back into fashion, and her nerves had settled.

  But the young still clung to the idea, and here was Jaymi, sporting a Shade bandana as if it were a badge of honor. She liked Jaymi. Of all the village children, he’d been the kindest to her, had wormed his way into an ally of sorts. At least, the closest thing to an ally she had in town. She waved the colors at him again for good measure.

  “He doesn’t know what this means any more than you do.”

  “And I s’pose you do?” He reached for the cloth, but she lifted it higher.

  Her nineteen years had given her enough growth to keep the thing out of his reach. Five years since Westwood. She didn’t like to think about it, in particular, she wished the intervening time a quick and silent death. “Yes, I do.”

  “Come on, Maera. They’ll tease me horribly.”

  “Tell me you won’t wear it, Jaymi. Promise.”

  “What about the mayor? He ‘spects us to wear them sometimes.”

  “Fine.” She let her arm drop, and the wrap fluttered like an evil flag. “But I don’t want to see it on you, hear me? Don’t wear it around me.”

  “I promise.” He leapt up and snagged the thing, casting a glance toward his buddies before hitting the boards again. “Are you free at all later? We could take a walk?”

  “After work.” She nodded and tried to squash the urge to smile. “I’ll meet you at the well.”

  He scurried to rejoin his group. The boys clustered around Miller, had probably missed her chat with Jaymi, missed his delay completely. Still, she remembered what it was like to have friends, to have that kind of pressure. She should cut him a break on the colors. She shouldn’t have embarrassed the poor kid.

  Except the idea of any gang touched off her own guilt. The sight of that stupid symbol, even if it was the wrong one, took her straight back to her own stupidity. She growled and tossed her rag into the bucket of filthy suds. The boys’ voices squeaked their impressed reaction to Miller’s boots. She was due a break, stormed to the kitchen and past the larger hearth raging inside. Old Tilly hunched over a pot of vegetables, paring knife flashing, and dropping chunks into yesterday’s broth. The woman didn’t even look up, only grunted something unintelligible but derisive just the same, as Maera slid out the back.

  She let the door slam in answer. The air stung her cheeks and hands. Ramstown didn’t tolerate much in the way of exposed skin, and not ju
st because of the climate. Her sleeves had grown rapidly, and the high hems she’d taken to wearing on the road had had to come down again. It didn’t bother her. A fourteen-year-old on her own learns quickly how to adjust to suit a group. She’d learned how to blend and more, more she didn’t care to relive, after abandoning her life in Westwood.

  The inn backed up to a courtyard. The stones paving it looked Old Kingdoms, but she couldn’t be certain and didn’t talk enough with anyone to ask. A block of shops all shared the space, and a sturdy, recently renovated well occupied the center. Once, perhaps, the ring of buildings had taken their water from its bowels. Now it provided only a ledge for tired bottoms to rest upon between shifts.

  Maera trudged to the stones and tucked under a few folds of extra skirt before sitting. The chill still worked its way through the homespun, but with less ice in its touch. A light breeze brought enough of that down from the snowy tips, and she spared a scowl for their distant outlines. So far north that Westwood could never chase her down. She supposed it was far enough to consider permanent.

  She didn’t need to feel restless now, didn’t need the twitch in her feet that had kept her one step ahead of one gang or the other. Even the smudged outline of the Shades symbol on the back of the inn didn’t push at her any longer. Maera eyed its four wedges, pie pieces inside an invisible circle, and felt only the kiss of frigid wind.

  It hissed at her, a soft, wavering breath. It almost said her name, and then it was her name, and the wind couldn’t possibly hold the blame. She turned her head from side to side, found a stout silhouette crouched outside the weaver’s back door. Its owner hissed again, waved one arm out from under a lacey shawl and called aloud, “Maera, stupid girl. Move!”

  “What?”

  The shop woman only waved madly in answer. Her hand stabbed at the air, one finger pointing toward the well until Maera understood and looked closer at the stones. A short stack of silver teetered only a few feet around the rim from where she sat. She might easily have knocked the coin into the depths, and wondered even, if that had been the plan. Who left that much coin perched on the lip of a well?

  “Move!” The hiss lifted to a shout. Whatever the woman was up to, she didn’t care for Maera’s proximity to her offering. The shawl dropped to the ground as her arms started in again, waving wildly now, making a dance of the warning.

  Maera sighed and stood up. She adjusted her skirts without hurry and earned another hiss from the weaver’s wife. Stupid as it was to leave money lying about, leaving it here went even farther. It wouldn’t take much of a bump to knock that tower of silver into the well, and just for a moment, in the wake of the incessant hissing, Maera considered it. She pushed the evil thought aside and took one step away from the stones, glancing back just to make certain she hadn’t done the deed on accident. Her eyes fixed on the flash of coin, confused for a moment and unwilling to register what she saw. Her heart held a beat. Her breath froze like the mountains and refused to move.

  A hand reached for the coins. It emerged from thin air, trailing a stubby wrist that simply cut off in a perfect line as if it belonged to no body. The skin had a gray cast, reminiscent of Westwood’s impish resident but darker and with dirt caked into each knuckle, lining every wrinkle and tinting the long, pointed nails as the knobby fingers stretched toward the coin. They found it easily without the aid of visible eyes. They snatched the money and pulled, vanishing into the ether again.

  Maera’s breath rushed out. She took another step away, stretching the stride to put more distance between the well and her person. A patter of steps approached, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the spot where the hand had been.

  “Stupid!” The weaver’s wife snarled beside her now. “If you’ve done scared him away with my…”

  “Look!” Maera’s hand came up on its own. She pointed now, feeling foolish but unable to resist the urge.

  The impish hand had returned, this time with its twin and both held a package between them. They still had no body, and her mind adjusted enough now to venture a guess why and exactly what purpose the well might still serve in Ramstown. The hands laid the bundle on the stones and retreated back into what had to be a pocket. She’d enough experience with those to guess that was what faced her now. She’d been through one, even, once upon a time.

  “A pocket.” Speaking the word out loud fixed the idea in her mind. It had to be. “There’s a pocket here?”

  “Agh.” The weaver’s wife snatched up her bundle and held it to her chest. She didn’t leave, however, only looked at Maera with a frown creasing her forehead. “Secret pocket.”

  She shifted her weight back and forth. The bundle she’d purchased was wrapped in thin cloth, but Maera saw the bulges and the shapes, guessed that there were spools inside. The old woman didn’t appreciate the appraisal. She growled and stamped one foot against the stones.

  “Come on, then, with me.”

  The woman only came up to her chest, and she had a slighter frame than Tilly, if just as much ire. Maera had no good reason to obey her command, and yet, she followed without thinking, her curiosity too bent on the strange exchange to consider diverting anyway.

  She’d left it all behind her, of course. The pockets meant magic, and her fantasies about that had led her into nothing but trouble. She’d outgrown them, had made herself outgrow them, after she betrayed her entire town for their sake.

  Or had it really been for the man? For Vane? She didn’t know anymore, but she knew enough to feel a sense of dread as she stepped up onto the weaver’s porch. She’d stumbled into it again, into power and Gentry and things that she had no business paying attention to. Maera knew what sort of creature owned those gray hands, and she wanted no part of it, no contact. She didn’t want to remember.

  Her feet stalled at the back door. She blurted out a desperate attempt. “I should get back to work.”

  “Agh.” The weaver’s wife waved her inside and stared, waited for her to obey with the mystery package hugged close to her body and the glint of secrets in her eyes.

  She should have turned and run. If anyone knew that, it was Maera. Ramsten’s rule was no contact with the Gentry. Officially, Ramstown was magic-free, but she’d seen infractions more often than not. This last bit shouldn’t have surprised her. It shouldn’t have lured her in. She knew better.

  And yet, she followed, step by step, in the weaver’s wake, followed the mystery package into the shop with the memory of gray hands fixed firmly in her mind, and a spark she’d meant to kill flickering in her chest.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading, Unlikely. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on the site of your choice. If you have any questions, concerns or comments, my email is: author@francespauli.com

  About the Author

  Frances Pauli writes speculative fiction with touches of humor and romance which means, of course, that she has trouble choosing sides.

  She’s always been a fan of anything odd or unusual, and that trend follows through to her tales which feature aliens, fairies, and even, on occasion, the assortment of humans.

  Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and e-zines. Her romances are published through Devine Destinies, and her Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction series are published by Mundania Press LLC.

  You can find all of these along with: free reads, a few web serials, some podcasts, and other surprises as well as various means of following or contacting her on her website.

  https://francespauli.com

  Also available:

  THE CHANGELING RACE

  A Moth in Darkness

  The Fly in Paradise

  Spiders from Memory

  SHIFT HAPPENS

  The Dimensional Shift

  Aspect Ratio

  Echo Location

  Space Slugs

  Roarke

  Lords of Oak and Holly

  New Canterbury Affair

  Friend
or Foe

  Thrice Shy

  Twelve Dances

  Divine Intervention

  Man on Fire

  A Little Short for an Alien