Secondhand Charm

by Julie Berry

  “Stop!” Annalise cried. “You shall not harm him!”

  And then, in a dreadful moment, I realized. The sea had gone calm. We all looked around, stupefied, wondering what it meant.

  Bijou reared up in the water and pushed his great body onto the deck of the ship, his nether parts coiling up slowly, wearily, after the head and neck. His face was damaged, haggard, and, I almost thought, grieving.

  I searched the water frantically.

  Clair! Clair! Where are you?

  There was no answer.

  Clair! Can you come to me?

  And then, most horrible sight, a flash of white, as Clair’s long belly bobbed to the surface, then dipped below again, a white corpse half-submerged, half-floating.

  I sank to my knees. Waves of nausea and pain swept over me.

  “Evie!” Aidan cried. “What’s happened?”

  “Take the young man, Bijou,” Annalise said, not bothering to communicate silently. She was busy tying the king’s hands behind his back with her ripped-off sash. “Hold him at bay while I say good-bye to my sister.”

  Bijou snaked golden coils around Aidan and pinned his arms to his sides. Aidan writhed against him, trying to reach me, but his knife clattered to the deck as Bijou’s horned head hovered over him, his fangs wet with venom.

  Ronald, flopping over onto the rails, retched into the water.

  I collapsed onto the deck, my pulse ringing in my ears.

  Clair was gone, and I would soon follow.

  “Evie!” Aidan cried. “Evie, wake up!”

  All I could see were Annalise’s slippers standing before my eyes.

  “Perhaps I am to blame for this, Evelyn,” her voice said, far above me, far away. “I didn’t teach you enough. If I had, you never would have crossed me like this. You are still my sister serpentina, and I will forgive your memory.”

  With all my strength I raised my head for a bleary glimpse of her face.

  “I will even spare your loyal stonemason,” she said, “for bravely coming to your rescue.” She smirked a little. “That is, if I can persuade Ronnie.”

  She knelt and stroked my hair. “Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn,” she said. “I loved you dearly. But I have to love Ronnie more. Someday, you would have understood.”

  I lay my cheek back down on the wet deck. Blackness stole around the edges of my vision.

  They’ll throw my body into the sea, I thought. At least I’ll be with Clair.

  Annalise went to Ronald and exclaimed over his bruises, rubbing and soothing him. He groaned and let himself be ministered to.

  Then a voice I thought I’d never hear again sounded in my ears.

  “Release the lad and the king, and help the girl,” it said, “or I’ll drive this through the leviathan’s neck. I’ve killed one before, and I’ll do it again.”

  I tried and failed to raise my head. “Grandfather?”

  Chapter 46

  “You said you’d wait in the boat!” It was Aidan’s voice protesting.

  “So did your mother, but she climbed the ladder the moment you were gone,” Grandfather’s voice replied. “I had to chase after her to make sure she didn’t get into trouble.”

  Aidan groaned. “Where is she now?”

  “Tying up the last of those entertainer folks.”

  Perhaps I’d already died, and this was some delusion or dream, combining the horrid present on The Starlight with my gentler past in Maundley.

  “What is the meaning of this mockery?” Annalise cried. “Who are you, old man? And why do you pretend to bravery where my beast is concerned? It could rip you to pieces.”

  “Ah, but he isn’t now, is he?” Grandfather said.

  Fighting back death, I rolled myself over, the better to see. There stood Bijou, towering over Grandfather yet quailing with pain at Grandfather’s fierce grip on his whiskers—which weren’t, of course, made from hair. Grandfather held a knife pointed straight into the soft scaly tissue directly behind the joint of Bijou’s jaw. His hand holding the blade wobbled, but the tip stayed wedged in place.

  Bijou’s tail thrashed in terror. Annalise tried to rise, but Grandfather pressed his knife in farther, and the leviathan hissed in fright.

  “What’s going on here?” It was Widow Moreau, brandishing the iron skillet she bought from the gypsy caravan. “Lem Pomeroy! You make that snake let go of my boy!”

  “Patience, Eulilly,” Grandfather barked. “Let a man do his own work for once, without you bossing him around three-quarters of the time.”

  “Let the beast go free, old man,” Annalise said, “and I promise no harm will come to you or any of yours.”

  “Look at the child,” Grandfather said. “It’s a bit too late for that.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Evie! No!” It was Aidan, calling from another time and place. I was falling, falling now.

  “Bijou,” I heard Annalise’s voice command. “Let the boy go.”

  “Surrender,” Grandfather ordered.

  There was a long pause, then Annalise spoke. “We do.”

  “Now save my daughter,” Grandfather said. “I watched her mother die this death, and I won’t stand by to see it again.”

  My daughter?

  “It’s too late,” Annalise said.

  The leviathan hissed once more.

  Darkness closed all around me. From across eternity, I heard a voice.

  “Are you sure?”

  Chapter 47

  It was cold in the water. I lay upon the waves, rocking gently, sandwiched between dark water below and dark sky above. It was cold, but that was all right with me.

  As it had on my first swim in the water, the darkness under the sea began to grow lighter, and I could make out, dimly, shapes and currents, plants and creatures, moving, swaying, far below me.

  She was full of life, the ocean. So much more alive than dry ground and harsh air.

  She was full of life, but here on the surface we floated, Clair and I. Dead, and cold, and tranquil.

  I saw my leviathan now, stretching like a cord across the surface of the sea. Even in death he was beautiful. The water caressed him, carried him, let him still sway to the ocean’s dance in death.

  I reached toward him but found I couldn’t really move, couldn’t really swim. I could only will myself toward him, and hope the waves would nudge me closer.

  There was a flash of gold before me, so bright it burned my cold eyes. Like a comet racing across the sky, this streak of gold raced to where my beautiful Clair lay and kissed him.

  Or did it bite him?

  No. Oh, no, don’t do that to my sweet Clair. Leave his sad body be.

  My peaceful cold was broken then by sharp bursts of heat, and pain, and light. I coughed and choked on seawater. My limbs stabbed with needles of pain. My stillness became spasms and jerks that I couldn’t control. The soft sea beneath me became hard, rude, scraping boards.

  I opened my eyes to three sets of flaring nostrils and anxious eyes—loving faces peering over me.

  “She’s coming round!” Widow Moreau cried.

  “Not so fast, Eulilly, those are just tremors,” Grandfather said.

  “No, they ain’t,” Widow Moreau said. “Unless that’s a tremor kicking me in the shins.”

  “You there, Evie?” Aidan said. “Are you with us?”

  My body rose off the deck in a racking cough, but none of them even flinched.

  “Raise her up,” Grandfather ordered, and Aidan’s hands slid under me and lifted me off the floor. I let my head fall against his chest, and felt him tuck me under his neck and cradle me close to him.

  We heard a loud splash. Aidan turned to see what it was.

  The space where the injured Prince Ronald had been splayed was empty. Before I could even cry out, Annalise flashed me a venomous look I would never forget, then vaulted over the ship’s rail easily to join Ronald in the water.

  “She just lifted him up herself, like he was a bag of oats, and dumped him overboar
d,” Widow Moreau murmured, incredulous. “Is she trying to kill him?”

  “Look,” Aidan said.

  Down in the dark water, lit by the sheen of Bijou’s gold scales, we saw Annalise maneuver Ronald onto the leviathan’s back. She straddled Bijou behind him and wrapped her arms around him. Bijou rounded the ship and took off swimming.

  West. Toward Merlia.

  Good-bye, Annalise. Take your lover and your anger back to where you belong. Pray heaven that we do not meet again, for I fear your vengeance.

  And still, my eyes filled with tears.

  That doesn’t mean I will not miss you.

  Chapter 48

  “Excuse me,” came a voice from across the deck. “I don’t suppose someone could release me?”

  “Laws a mercy!” Widow Moreau cried. “Sorry we forgot all about you there, King.” She hurried over and unraveled the knots in the queen’s sash.

  Mistress?

  Clair!

  Help me?

  “Grandfather,” I said, “my leviathan needs help to board the ship.”

  Grandfather hesitated, then leaned over the rail. He lowered a rope, and moments later pulled it up with a small, silver blue Clair wrapped neatly around the knot at the end. He held the rope high, grimacing, unwilling to touch my bright leviathan. Aidan reached for Clair and placed him on my shoulder, where he curled like a necklace around my throat.

  “Let’s get inside,” Widow Moreau said. “C’mon, into this room that used to be so fancy.”

  They climbed over debris and glass and entered the salon. Aidan still carried me.

  “Here, lay her down on these couches,” Grandfather said, but Aidan sat on the couch himself and held me in his lap. I looked around me at the wreckage, and saw gagged and writhing bodies, tied with stout cords, piled up in a heap against one wall. There was the fire breather, the clown, the acrobat and dagger mistress—and Alfonso and Rudolpho!

  “Grandfather!” Even speaking hurt my head. “Grandfather. Those two men with the curly hair. Release them, please. They aren’t our enemies.”

  I felt a rumbly, growly sound rise from Aidan’s chest. “Are you so sure?”

  “Let them go,” I said. “They were heroically helpful.”

  “Heroic,” Aidan muttered. “Hmph.”

  In no time the actor brothers were spitting the lint from their gags out of their mouths and staggering about on jellied legs, massaging their wounds.

  “Signorina the brave,” Rudolpho said, throwing kisses in my direction.

  “Signorina the dangerous,” Alfonso added. “No more do we let a female decide what show we perform. I go to bed.”

  The king went off in search of drugged crew members to see if he could rouse any, and Widow Moreau began setting the chairs and tables back in order and tossing cushions back onto the couches. She found a broom and began tidying up the broken glass, while Grandfather sat next to me.

  I still felt weak and dizzy. Aidan wrapped his arms closer around me.

  “Grandfather,” I said, “why are you here?”

  He thumped his walking stick on the floor. “Well, you didn’t think we were going to sit still and do nothing when we’d gotten word about the coach robbery, did you?”

  “We set out straight for Fallardston, along with the Hornbys, to make sure you were both all right,” Widow Moreau said. I noticed she was sweeping awfully near to the circus performers’ faces.

  “And when we got there, the lady at the inn said you’d gone on her nephew’s ship, which had been wrecked,” Grandfather said. “We feared the worst, naturally. So we had to keep on going to find any word of you.”

  “But that tale you told!” Widow Moreau scolded. “Telling that innkeeper you and Aidan was married. You ought to be walloped, Evie Pomeroy. You ain’t married, are you?”

  I felt very small. “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, we’ll set things right soon enough,” she said. “Anyway, when we got to Chalcedon we looked up the Rumsens. What a relief to know you both were all right. But they were saying strange things about you, Evie, and all they knew about Aidan was that he was working on a building project at the palace.”

  “It took no end of trouble to locate him there,” Grandfather said. “How were we to know we’d be arriving on the day of the wedding?”

  “We found Aidan ranting about you having gone on some ship, so we just borrowed us a boat from that dock there, and Aidan rowed us out.”

  “Borrowed a boat?” I said.

  “We’ll bring it back.” Widow Moreau tipped a serving table upright.

  I leaned against Aidan’s shoulder and closed my eyes. All was well now. Wasn’t it?

  “Grandfather.”

  He raised his tired, sad eyes toward mine, slowly, as if it gave him pain.

  No one spoke.

  Even Widow Moreau’s broom stood still.

  My question hung in the air between us. It didn’t need to be spoken.

  I waited.

  “I was an old man, Evie,” Grandfather said. There was pleading in his voice. “Not as old as now, but old enough to have known better. I met your mother, and I … She … ”

  His eyes clouded over with wet. Widow Moreau fished around in her bosom for a handkerchief.

  “She was like a fire, child. A beautiful flame. And I was an old bachelor who wasn’t prepared for how I felt about her. Nor for how she felt about me.”

  I tried hard to follow the words as he spoke them, but they darted and dove around in my head like barnyard swallows. I couldn’t pin them down.

  “You mean my mother?”

  Grandfather nodded. “That’s right. Your mother was one of my students. Then she became my wife.” He winced. “Not my daughter-in-law.”

  My mind seized hold of the image of Grandfather holding Bijou at knifepoint, and suddenly I felt cold, colder than the ocean could ever chill me.

  I didn’t know how to speak. Grandfather seemed to read my face. He took my hand.

  “She was different from anyone I’d ever known, but even till the end I never knew just how different. The day you were born, child, was so joyful for me, for your mother. But her creature—her leviathan … ” He swallowed hard. “I was jealous of it. Always, from the beginning. Jealous of how she adored it. I thought she loved it more than me.”

  I stroked Clair, lying next to my throat, and felt the thrum of Aidan’s heartbeat.

  “When the creature first saw you, it slithered toward you and opened its mouth, and”—he was working hard to keep his face composed—“I thought it was going to bite you, child. I thought it was as jealous of you as I was of it. And I had my knife handy for just such a time.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I wouldn’t believe Rachel when she told me to trust the beast.”

  Clair uncurled himself from my neck and crawled toward Grandfather. His bright eyes studied his creased and grief-stricken face. Grandfather couldn’t return the leviathan’s gaze.

  I clung to Aidan, grateful for his solid mass while everything else I thought I knew floated away around me. “And that is how my mother died?”

  Grandfather’s hand holding mine trembled. “That is how, child. I swear I never meant to harm her. I just didn’t know.

  “I buried your mother here, in Chalcedon, along with the body of her beast,” Grandfather said, “then I took you and fled as far away from my old life as I could. I found a nurse in Maundley”—here Widow Moreau looked away—“and there I stayed. Townspeople assumed without asking that I was your grandfather, and I saw no reason to correct them. I thought it would be simplest for you to know me as your grandfather. Then you wouldn’t press me for more information about your mother.” He let go of my hand so as to cover his face with both of his own. His voice was choked with sobs when he spoke again. “And I could pretend not to be the man who had unknowingly killed his dear young wife.”

  It hurt me so to see tears trickling out from between Grandfather’s fingers—for I still must call him Grandfather, at least
until I’d had time to work out another name. I reached out my arms to him, and he came to me, and Widow Moreau, too, and there we all sat, hugging and crying.

  Poor Grandfather.

  Poor Mother.

  Poor leviathan.

  We pulled ourselves together finally, and just sat there, tired and weak and spent, and glad that nothing more was expected of us just then.

  The salon door opened, and in came King Leopold, followed by a groggy-looking ship’s captain. He surveyed the damage with a look of mingled horror and headache. I felt suddenly self-conscious sitting there in Aidan’s lap, so I sat up and rose to curtsy for the king.

  “Arrest these four,” the king said, pointing to the fettered Circus Phantasmagoria, “and secure them in the hold until we can take them to prison.” The captain called to some crew members loitering in the doorway, and they dragged the assassins away.

  The king crossed the room to me and bowed deeply.

  “My dear young lady,” he said, seizing my hands and kissing them, “whether you be”—he wrinkled his nose in distaste, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say Annalise’s name—“her cousin or no, you have been my salvation this night.”

  “Not me alone, Your Highness,” I said.

  “Call me Leopold,” he said. “Please.”

  Aidan cleared his throat.

  “I won’t soon forget what you’ve done,” the king went on. “I will spend a long time considering what I might do to repay your loyalty and devotion. But for now, ask what you will of me. I insist.”

  I was too stunned by all that had happened to think clearly. All I could think of at that moment was a wish for a soft, warm bed.

  “I have a wish to make of you,” the king said with a bow, “and that is, that I might have the chance to know you better.”

  I saw in that moment just how young the king was. Priscilla was right. He was far from thirty, and handsomer than any king had a need to be.

  I glanced around me. Widow Moreau was sweeping holes into the parquet floor. Grandfather watched me out of the corner of his eye, and Aidan, whose face was now a fine mix of purple and black bruises, only looked at his calloused, swollen hands lying in his lap.