Dax’s words assaulted her senses one more time. “I miss Bishop, too. I would do anything to bring him back, but I can’t.”
His voice cracked at the end, and Raleigh’s vision cleared. For the first time, she saw the anguish in his face. Dax lost just as much as she did when Bishop died in that explosion—maybe more. A bloodshot rim tinged his eyes, and his lips quivered when he spoke. He summoned all his resolve not to break down in tears.
“We can’t get him back,” Dax croaked. “He’s gone, and we can’t sit around here. The Guild will come after us to get the twen back. We have to get to the zeppelin. We have to get back to the house.”
Raleigh let out a shuddering breath. He was right, of course. Bishop was gone, and she was left here, alive and alone—alone except for Dax. She had to help him and let him help her. She had to go on, no matter how much Bishop’s loss stabbed her in the guts.
She compressed her lips to swallow down her sobs. She couldn’t break down now. If Dax could hold himself together, she better brace up and do the same. Neither of them could get through this without the other.
She dragged herself to her feet and gave Dax’s hand a squeeze. “I’m all right—at least I will be once I get moving.”
Now that she recovered somewhat, Dax’s resolve wavered. He spoke with the voice of a frightened little boy. “What do we do now?”
That voice acted on Raleigh’s nerves. It banished all her anguish to the bottom of her soul. It would stay there until she found a safe place to release it. “We’ll go back to the tavern. We’ll get the rest of our stuff, and then we’ll go back to the house.”
“What about the twen? What will we do with it?”
She set off down the street. “I’ll have to look through Bishop’s papers to find a source of blue mussels to feed it until we can hand the twen over to his broker. We’ll find all that information back at the house, so come on.”
He didn’t argue. He strode at her side back to the tavern. They couldn’t put all their spare supplies back in the loaf of bread. Bishop still had the compressing device in his coat pocket, so Raleigh selected a few key items and left the rest. They got to the square just in time to board the zeppelin.
All Hinterland looked different on that long, lonely ride back to the village. Raleigh didn’t rest her forehead against the glass. She didn’t want to see the countryside stretched out to the open sea. She never wanted to see Hinterland again, even when she knew her destiny remained bound up with it forever. She would always have to come back here.
She sat by Dax’s side on the trip. They held hands, but that simple gesture contained no romance. They would never be lovers. He was her new partner, in death and heartbreak. She belonged to Bishop for all time, and he wasn’t here. She could never love any man again the way she loved him.
Neither of them said a word all the way back to the Gingerbread House. They strode through the grass and up the stairs. Dax opened the door, and they stepped into the saloon in the middle of the evening crush.
All the patrons turned around to stare at Dax and Raleigh when they stepped through the door. Layton’s eyes flew open when he saw Bishop wasn’t with them. Raleigh squared her shoulders and marched between the tables. She hated these people. They went to great lengths to make Bishop’s life as difficult as possible while he was alive. Now he was dead, and not one of them understood what he was or what he’d done.
Not even Dax could understand, not even when Bishop helped him the most. Only the outcasts outside Hallbreck could truly comprehend the impact Bishop’s life had on the world. He helped so many people. He offered them succor when no one else would even look at them. He brought them to safety and community when the rest of the world turned its back on them. Poor Dax. If he only knew!
Raleigh paused outside the Gingerbread House. Every few minutes, she raised her hand to touch the small box tucked inside her shirt. The twen was alive and well in there—for now, at least. What would she do with it? How could she care for such a rare and delicate creature, even for a little while? What if she made a mistake and accidentally killed it before she had a chance to fulfill Bishop’s contract?
While she stood there pondering, Dax brushed past her. He raised his arm, and a cab rolled up to the sidewalk. He held the door open while Raleigh climbed in. They came up to the kitchen door as the dusk settled over the house.
Raleigh turned to Dax. “Thanks. Thanks for being there.”
He opened his mouth, but his lips twisted in an agonizing grimace. He turned his head away to hide his emotion.
She gave his hand a squeeze. “Come on. Let’s get inside. We’ll get something to eat and maybe a good night’s sleep. Then I have to look through Bishop’s papers to find a source of blue mussels. If we can’t order them, I’ll need you to come down to the market with me. Someone there is bound to be selling them.”
He nodded and stepped into the kitchen. Raleigh came after and bumped into him standing in the doorway. “Hey!”
He didn’t turn around, and when she peeked over his shoulder, she saw what he was looking at. She gasped out loud. The table lay on its side in front of the dead remains of the fire. The stew pot sat upended in the ashes. Foodstuffs and utensils scattered over the floor. Broken dishes and crockery crunched underfoot.
Dax and Raleigh rounded on each other at the same moment. “Mrs. Mitchell!”
“Find her!” Raleigh cried. “She could be hurt.”
She raced one way, and Dax rushed the other. They burst into every room. Everywhere they found the same mayhem and destruction—couches slashed open and the stuffing strewn over the carpet, bookcases knocked down and the pages of priceless antiques shredded, the glass panels of Bishop’s crystal cabinet smashed and the contents destroyed.
Raleigh had to dig deep for the strength not to collapse in tears at this latest affront. Losing Bishop was bad enough, but to lose the only home she had left in the world—she couldn’t bear that.
She made her way down the hall to her own room, but she hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. How could she go into that room again? How could she sleep in that bed without Bishop in it? He would never come to her there again.
She pushed into the room. To her surprise, she found the place untouched. The bed was made, the grate clean, and the curtains all in place. She even found a spare shirt hanging over the chair where she left it.
She took a step forward. She ran her hand over the counterpane covering the bed. The whole place oozed Bishop. She didn’t blink, but a tear streaked down her cheek against her will. She could fight them back all she wanted. They would come, and when they did, she couldn’t contain them.
That counterpane caressed her hand the way his skin used to when she touched him. His mustache and stubble used to brush her forehead when he kissed her. His hair spread around his head when he leaned back on that pillow. Those sheets stroked his legs and his stomach and his chest.
The pain almost broke its banks and overwhelmed her, but she crammed it back down when she heard Dax coming down the hall. She hurried out of the room and shut the door behind her. That pain, those memories, that sensation of holding him even when he wasn’t around anymore—those were all hers. She would never share them with anyone else, not even Dax, no matter how much she loved him and shared with him. If she never set foot in that room again, she would hold it sacred to Bishop’s memory forever.
She met Dax coming down the hall. “They’re all the same,” he breathed. “Every room. They left nothing—absolutely nothing! What were they looking for?”
“No sign of Mrs. Mitchell?” she asked.
Dax shook his head.
“Keep looking.” Raleigh froze. “Wait a minute.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
“The armory!” She dashed for the stairs. She paused only long enough to light the lantern.
She and Dax hopped down the stairs, and Raleigh raised the lantern to look around. Not one piece of B
ishop’s arsenal lay out of place. All the guns stood in their racks. All the swords and cutlasses and rapiers glistened in their slots.
Raleigh frowned. “They must not have found this place.”
She turned to leave when a muffled sound came out of the corner of the basement. Dax’s hand migrated to his pistol. He yanked it out and trained it toward the sound. Raleigh crept forward and held the lantern out in front of her. She scooted around the armor shelf in a sudden rush.
Lying there on the floor, bound and gagged in the remotest corner, lay Mrs. Mitchell. She mumbled behind her gag. Raleigh went down on her knees next to the stout lady. “Mrs. Mitchell! Thank God you’re all right.”
Dax pulled out her gag, and she burst into loud, wailing cries. “The master! The master! Where is he?”
Seeing Mrs. Mitchell collapse in front her blew away the last shred of Raleigh’s anguish. She could hold it all together now. Even Dax relaxed. They untied Mrs. Mitchell, but when they helped her to her feet, her knees buckled. She wailed and sobbed. “Oh, I always knew he wouldn’t come home one of these days. Where is he? Don’t tell me he’s lying in some unquiet grave somewhere. Tell me you at least brought him home for a decent burial. Oh, please, tell me you brought his body home.”
Raleigh couldn’t look to Dax for help with this. She took one of Mrs. Mitchell’s arms and Dax took the other. They hoisted her into the kitchen and set her in a chair. Raleigh got the fire going while Dax tidied up the room as best he could.
After they straightened up the kitchen, Raleigh found a haunch of ham not too damaged in the destruction. She cleaned a place on the table and carved off a few slices. She and Dax nibbled them, but Mrs. Mitchell still sobbed and wrung her hands over ‘the master’.
“What happened here?” Raleigh asked. “Who did all this? Who threw you in the basement?’
Mrs. Mitchell rocked back and forth. “I don’t know who they were. They burst into the kitchen and surprised me. I never even got a chance to shout. They bundled me downstairs before I knew what happened. I could hear them thrashing around up here, but I couldn’t do anything. I’ve been down there all this time.”
“When did it happen?” Dax asked.
Raleigh’s head whipped around to stare at him. In spite of everything, he still rose to the occasion. He still thought of that sort of thing when she couldn’t think of one decent question to ask.
“I came back here and found the master’s note,” Mrs. Mitchell replied. “He mentioned the time you left, which was ten o’clock in the evening. I got back at midnight. I was just fixing up the fire and banking the ashes for the night when it happened. It couldn’t have been more than three hours after you left.”
Raleigh frowned. “Three hours? That would have been long before we attacked the Guild. They couldn’t have known we would steal the twen. They must have been looking for something else.”
“Maybe they weren’t looking for anything,” Dax remarked. “Maybe they just wanted to terrorize us.”
Raleigh shook her head. “They couldn’t have known Bishop would…. you know, and no one would want to terrorize Bishop. They must have been searching for something.”
“How could they know we were gone?” Dax asked.
“Maybe Layton told them. Anybody could have seen us walking through town, or someone could have seen us going into the Gingerbread House. Someone from Hinterland could have seen us get on the zeppelin, or someone from Pernrith could have passed word up here that we were down there and no one was home. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter much. We’ve got bigger fish to fry right now. Come up to Bishop’s office with me. I’ll need your help to work out what to do about the twen.”
They left Mrs. Mitchell in the kitchen. The fire already started to calm her down. She still rocked and stared into the flames, but she didn’t weep or cry out the way she did.
Raleigh climbed the stairs. The weight of the world rested on her shoulders. The closer she got to Bishop’s territory, the harder she found the work of lifting her feet off the carpet. Every step demanded all her concentration. She wanted to crawl into bed, go to sleep, and never wake up. She wanted to wake up in her old room back on her father’s farm and find this was all a dream. She wanted the love she shared with Bishop to vanish from her life so she didn’t have to face the pain of never experiencing it again.
She peeked into Bishop’s bedroom first. That didn’t hurt so much. She never spent any time with him in there, and she relaxed when she saw the picture in its place on the far wall. Whoever broke in never found his secret weapons cache.
The intruders left a path of destruction through the rest of the room. They slashed open Bishop’s pillows and overturned the mattress. They ripped up the carpet so Raleigh could barely get into the room. They shattered the lamp and several windows. They tore down the curtains and even stripped the wooden lining out of the window frame.
Raleigh’s shoulders slumped. She would never find what they were looking for here. She had to concentrate. She had to carry on Bishop’s investigation. Even if she left here to return home, she had to hand over the twen before she did anything else.
She took the glass box out of her shirt. The little creature studied her with its head on one side. It gurgled bubbles out of its nose and swished around its little home. Did it have a clue she didn’t know the first thing about taking care of its needs?
Bishop told her these creatures were sentient, that they kept written histories of their population in the deep ocean. How was that possible when they were so small and helpless?
Never mind. One job and one job only mattered now. She had to find some blue mussels, and she had to figure out how to feed this thing.
She went back down the hall as Dax came up from downstairs. Despair and grief pinched his face, but he held it back. He followed her to Bishop’s office, where she pushed the door open.
She saw from out in the hall the horrendous mess inside. The intruders piled all Bishop’s papers and books on his work table, poured the bottles of potions and experimental concoctions over the top, and set fire to it. A mountain of broken glass obstructed the path into the room.
Raleigh kicked it out of the way and swept her arm across the table. She pushed all the ashen papers and sopping old books onto the floor and set the twen’s glass container in the empty space. She gazed down at the little thing one more time.
Dax came to her side and stood looking, too. He raised his head to ask her something, and the words died on his lips. His eyes flew open, and he pointed back over her shoulder. “Look!”
Raleigh whipped around. Bishop’s desk tucked into the corner behind the door, and his wall safe stood open above it. A few papers lay flat on the bottom of the safe. Raleigh recognized the file folder from the blue mussel farm, so that was a crucial piece of the puzzle that remained untouched.
She crunched through the refuse, but she didn’t need to see to know the truth. The tiny bound book, the book which Bishop consulted multiple times for every job, wasn’t there. Bishop’s father’s notebook was gone.
To Be Continued…..
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