Thunderstruck

by Shannon Delany

  Jordan took a sip of the water that was always nearby on the ship—the water that allowed her to Draw Down. “Water seems to always be the key,” she whispered.

  “Which is why it is so very good that it is plentiful in this country,” the Wandering Wallace said. “Cheers,” he toasted her.

  She drank and he turned to the discarded guitar. “Now that we are so full of somber thoughts, let’s change things just a bit and make things better. Music is a wonderful tool for shifting a soul’s perspective.” He walked around the edge of their group, strumming and retuning as he went.

  “Let’s see, let’s see … Oh.” He fixed his gaze on Evie. “I shall use your crew as inspiration, my dear. I took a brief walk aboard a ship like the Tempest once and my little journey has led me to believe that this song is quite suitable for your consideration when it comes to disciplining your crew.”

  He had only hit three notes before Jack, Evie, and Rowen all laughed, recognizing the tune.

  “What do you do with a drunken sailor

  What do you do with a drunken sailor

  What do you do with a drunken sailor

  Early in the morning?”

  He leaned in toward Evie and she shouted:

  “Put a sparrow down his britches!”

  Leaning back, he picked up the suggestion and sang it, encouraging everyone to join in.

  “Put a sparrow down his britches

  Put a sparrow down his britches

  Put a sparrow down his britches

  Early in the morning.

  “Weigh hey and up she rises

  Weigh hey and up she rises

  Weigh hey and up she rises

  Early in the morning!

  “What do you do with a drunken sailor

  What do you do with a drunken sailor

  What do you do with a drunken sailor

  Early in the morning?”

  The Wandering Wallace made his way around the group of them, dancing, singing, and gathering their creative suggestions for sobering up (or disciplining) sailors. By the end he had gotten nearly every person, from Caleb to Maude, to add their wild suggestion and nearly all of them were singing and tapping their feet or fingers in time.

  Nearly all.

  Jordan’s feet tapped the rhythm—that she could not help. But singing? Her mouth was clamped as tight as the lobster-claw-inspired suggestion Maude made.

  It was only as the final verse was spinning itself out and she felt certain he would not pressure her that she began to hum.

  The clouds overhead began to change in both color and form. They lightened. Brightened. And the more she hummed, the more light was reflected off the clouds.

  Yes, lightning still played there, but it seemed more like sparkles adorning the clouds—or dew drops pinned onto their soft fluffy forms.

  She felt the faintest sensation of a smile tilting her lips and her jaw unclamped, her mouth softened. For a moment she was silent, but mouthing the words. Not singing, but she enjoyed the music and—as much as she hesitated to say it, the camaraderie of the people seated and standing nearby the Topside dais of the Artemesia.

  Camaraderie she had never expected. And all because of Meggie’s determined interference.

  And Rowen’s guitar playing.

  Chapter Six

  Was it a vision or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

  —John Keats

  Aboard the Artemesia

  The Wandering Wallace clapped a hand across the strings and brought the music to its end, and Jordan’s mouth clamped shut again. “I believe it is time for a bit of an education. Perhaps we can find a Reader and quickly, yes? There is much to be done before we send Rowen and Jack to Philadelphia and more before we set down ourselves.” He handed the guitar back to Jack and motioned for everyone to stand. Jordan felt his gaze fall on her, and he asked, “Can you set the ship to glide?”

  “So I might come with you?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Then yes, I can.” She stepped to the controls, and squinted at the sky briefly. Motioning with her fingers, she cleared the clouds from a small patch of sky, taking her bearings. She nodded, adjusted the wheel by inches and leaned into the lever at its side.

  Never far away, Caleb chuckled. “I think it’s the grunt you give when you set the lever that makes the ship know you mean business.”

  Jordan’s lips pursed.

  Caleb’s chuckle became briefly nervous. “It is simply not a very lady-like sound to come from such a lady as yourself,” he amended.

  There was a groan and the Artemesia’s massive wings adjusted, air catching them differently and helping to pop them into position.

  “I do not often feel lady-like, so perhaps it is fitting I do not seem something I am not.”

  Caleb frowned and, looking away in sudden shame, Jordan rubbed her hands together, focused herself and announced, “We are ready. Lead on, oh great Wandering Wallace.”

  Rowen’s eyes on her, she stiffened, her lips straightening out of their brief smile. He watched her as if he waited for something. Or someone.

  Perhaps he was looking for a glimpse of the old Jordan.

  The Jordan who quit existing—who died—sometime between the Tanks of Holgate and the takeover of the Artemesia.

  Her spine stiff, she followed the Wandering Wallace and his entourage, allowing herself to be packed into the elevator with the rest of them.

  They descended in the dim light provided by a single stormcell lantern, pressed so tight together Jordan thought she felt everyone’s heartbeat pressing against her. The different decks of the ship each registered with a ding as they passed by, and when the shared atmosphere grew most stifling with the scents of humanity and whatever floral perfume Miyakitsu was anointed with, the doors opened and they nearly fell out into the hallway, breathing deeply in relief.

  “I suppose you’ve identified a Reader?” Jordan asked.

  “Not completely,” the Wandering Wallace admitted. “But …” He pulled the refilled pouch out of his vest and untied it, spilling a handful of stormcell crystals into his palm. “But they know. Soul stones know and shine more brightly when in the presence of a Reader.”

  “Why is that?” Meggie asked, standing on tiptoe to see the glimmering gems.

  “Because every soul wants its story to be told,” the Wandering Wallace whispered, leaning over to pinch Meggie’s cheek. “Just as every heart beats with a desire to be understood and loved.”

  Meggie nodded sagely, watching as he straightened and held the sparkling handful of stones before him, staring at them intently through the eyes of the peacock mask.

  “Watch,” he whispered.

  The crystals all glowed faintly, but a few nearest the Wandering Wallace’s index finger glinted more strongly.

  “Here we go: forward,” he said, heading in the direction the glowing crystals seemed to be.

  The rest of them followed him, all watching the stones to see which way they instructed the man holding them to go.

  In a few yards, all the crystals in the right side of his open palm glowed brightly and they paused outside one of the many doors lining the long hallway. As the Wandering Wallace turned and approached the door, the glowing lights shifted, colors brightening at the front of his hand.

  “This is it,” he remarked, placing a hand on the door’s knob. “The guards wander the entire ship in shifts, so who has a key?”

  Jordan dug into the folds of her skirt and withdrew a ring of iron keys. “It must be one of these,” she said, thrusting them at him. “I took the liberty of recovering them.”

  The Wandering Wallace nodded and flipped through the ring of skeleton keys with his left hand, searching for one that looked promising. He slipped one into the lock, tugged it free, and tried another. That one also failed, but with the third he announced, “The third try is the charm!” Tumblers clicked and rolled and the door unlocked, opening a crack. The Wandering Wallace looked at Caleb, Ro
wen, Jack, and Marion, “At the ready, boys. There might be some within that are not greatly pleased by being under house arrest.”

  The largest of them stepped forward, prepared to help restrain people if necessary, and the Wandering Wallace slipped into the room, the rest of them fanning out around him.

  Inside, a single Wraith and Warden staggered back from where they had been standing in the room’s center, moving so far away their backs brushed the room’s walls. They stayed there, frozen and staring.

  In a corner sat a few members of the Grounded population—people considered unable to summon the elements of weather. Only a few people knew the truth that Jordan did: that anyone could be forced into the strange mold magick made.

  By a set of cots sat a young girl, a small dark-haired boy, and an older woman, her back stiff, an ornate hat with perfect feathers topping her silver curls as if she was merely waiting for a chauffeur, not a prison guard. She fixed her eyes on the intruders, glaring at them. She and the children were well dressed, and, considering that they had been contained in a room with both Wardens and Wraiths for a few days, well kept.

  The older woman was obviously unimpressed by her surroundings and even less impressed by their sudden arrival. “What do you want now,” she snapped, tipping her chin up in an attempt to peer down her nose at the people towering above her.

  The Wandering Wallace ignored the question, opening his hand again to display the crystals. They glowed most brightly in the direction of the boy, girl, and old woman. He took a step forward. And another, watching as the glow trembled and adjusted.

  The woman pulled the boy to her. “What are you doing?” she asked, her eyes so narrow in her wrinkled face they were barely visible.

  “Good lady,” the Wandering Wallace asked slowly, “might you be a Reader?”

  “A reader?” she scoffed. “I am quite well educated, as is my grandson and his nanny.”

  Jordan’s gaze flicked to the girl. She seemed young to be a nanny, but her large eyes told Jordan nothing.

  “We are all readers,” the woman said imperiously.

  “Ahhh, but I mean another type of Reading,” the Wandering Wallace corrected, taking another step forward. He stretched his hand out further, watching carefully. “Capital R,” he specified.

  Her brow wrinkled. “Capital R?”

  The Wandering Wallace held his hand by the girl, then shifted his position to compensate for the glow, watching the way the boy squirmed away, pressing back into his grandmother’s lap. Held before the boy’s bright eyes the entire handful of crystals lit up like they had each swallowed a sun.

  “And this, good gentles, is a Reader,” the Wandering Wallace said. Jordan heard the grin in his voice. “One I’d wager does not even know his own abilities yet….”

  The boy squinted at him. “My abilities … ?”

  “Good grandmother,” the Wandering Wallace whispered, “we mean you no harm. As a matter of fact, if your grandson might briefly assist us, I can guarantee that your living quarters will be upgraded—made Weather Worker free,” he specified.

  The woman shook her head. “They have given us no reason to fear. But you—you have allowed this ship to be overtaken and you have let people be cast overboard like so much flotsam. Why should I trust your intentions and allow my grandson to fall into your grasp in exchange for a more private room … ?”

  The Wandering Wallace straightened, tipping his head as he pondered. “There are ways to make this happen,” he said drawing each word out slowly. Jordan’s heart thumped painfully in her chest, imagining.

  She stepped forward, mouth open, hand out, but Bran slid in front of the Wandering Wallace and, facing the woman, knelt.

  The Wraith and Warden hissed, their backs hunching and fingers flexing, curling at their sides.

  In so charming a voice that Jordan shuddered, Bran generously offered, “Perhaps a private room with meals and tea the same as we are served Topside, your belongings returned, and the opportunity to depart at a port before we reach our desired destination of Philadelphia so that you will not be associated with our actions?”

  The woman’s eyes twinkled. “No threats, no going back on your word. You will provide what you promised and, most importantly, no harm will come to my grandson at any point in this … activity?”

  Bran nodded.

  The Wandering Wallace set a hand on his shoulder and tugged Bran back, saying, “Yes, grandmother. All that and the safety of your entire party. It is all guaranteed. But only if you allow us to borrow your grandson for, at most, an hour.”

  Her pale lips pressed together in a thin line and she ran her rheumy eyes over them all. “Agreed—so long as I bear witness to this thing you ask him to do and am allowed to stop it at any point I feel he is in danger.”

  The Wandering Wallace sighed. “Yes, yes of course. We can do it all here. Now.”

  The boy wiggled, his mouth slipping around his face in doubt. “Gramma,” he whispered, sliding his hands beneath one of her arms. “What do they want me to do?”

  The Wandering Wallace was all showman again, and he bowed, reaching out a hand to the child. “Why, you, my boy, will tell us all amazing stories! Short and astonishing tales of people long gone—or perhaps more recently departed. You will help to assure that they have a little life well beyond their expectations.”

  The child allowed himself to be pulled out of his grandmother’s lap and he stood face-to-face with the man in the mask. “How? How can anyone do such a thing?”

  “Quite naturally, you will find,” the Wandering Wallace said. “Here. Sit yourself down. Be comfortable. This will not hurt at all,” he promised.

  The child obeyed.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Lawrence,” the boy said with a gravity beyond his years.

  “Well, Lawrence, I am the Wandering Wallace but you may simply call me oh-most-wonderful-and-wise-Wandering-Wallace if you prefer.”

  Lawrence smiled and shook his head.

  “Too much?” the Wandering Wallace asked.

  “I can remember Wandering Wallace,” Lawrence said.

  The Wandering Wallace sat before him and motioned to the others in his group to follow suit and sit.

  They settled around him, Jordan’s eyes roaming the room and watching the Wraiths and Wardens at least as much as she watched Rowen, Bran, and the Wandering Wallace.

  The Wandering Wallace spread the crystals out before Lawrence, the tiny gems sparkling in a wide array of soft colors, though many glinted clear as dew or white as pearl. The boy grinned.

  “Have you ever played hide-and-seek?” the Wandering Wallace asked.

  Lawrence looked at him and said with a haughty laugh, “I am seven. I am a master at hide-and-seek.”

  “Excellent!” the Wandering Wallace proclaimed. “What you will be doing is playing hide-and-seek with the stories inside each crystal. You will hold each one and find its story.”

  “How do I win?” Lawrence asked, his brow furrowing.

  “You win by telling us the story within,” the Wandering Wallace concluded.

  The boy picked up a crystal, weighing it in his hand, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated on the tiny gem. A crease appeared between his eyebrows. He stared.

  After three long minutes, he blinked and looked at the Wandering Wallace. “I think I am losing….”

  The Wandering Wallace flexed his long, slender hands in his lap. “You cannot find the story?”

  The boy shook his head slowly.

  “Hmm.”

  Evie scooted forward. “Hello,” she said, sticking her hand out for a hearty shake.

  Hesitantly, the boy took her hand and let her shake his until his arm was loose and he was laughing at her antics.

  She stretched forward, saying, “I think it has been a long time since the Wandering Wallace played hide-and-seek. He has forgotten a few of the important steps.” She released his hand and said, “Hold the crystal, but close your
eyes. And when we start to count to ten, you start to imagine finding the crystal’s story—inside a beautiful sparkling crystal room. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes!” he said with a laugh. “I can do that!”

  “I will need each of these stories found—every single one,” the Wandering Wallace said, lowering his head to stare straight at her through the eye holes of his mask.

  Evie nodded solemnly. “Now watch what good captain Elizabeth does,” the Wandering Wallace instructed, grabbing Meggie by the waist and scooting her onto his lap.

  Meggie giggled. “They are pretty,” she whispered, watching the boy rifle through the stones with a single fingertip, rolling some gemstones over, and pushing a few aside. “But how will he know?” Meggie asked, leaning out to whisper into the Wandering Wallace’s ear. “How can he tell?”

  The boy looked at Meggie and blinked a few times.

  The Wandering Wallace answered for him, “Each stone holds an energy that is specific. It is like investigating how a person signs his name on a letter. Each signature is different, and if you understand why in some people’s signatures their letters loop and link differently than in others’ you might understand a bit more of that person. This stone holds an energy signature. And he knows how to read it.”

  “Ready?” Evie asked. “I will count with you! Close your eyes and when we reach ten you’ll be standing outside a line of crystal cottages. All you need to do is walk inside each crystal house at a time.”

  Lawrence obeyed and together they slowly counted to ten, Evie inserting calming instructions between each number. Jordan knew that more than simple counting was going on—this was what some called hypnosis.

  At ten, Lawrence’s face went slack, and when he began to speak it was with a slower cadence and a deeper voice. And with greater authority. “Alymyssa Georgine of Massachusetts. So sad—a young woman, her husband was lost in a Wildkin raid.” His eyelids opened and Meggie gasped.

  Only the whites of his eyes showed for a moment before the irises dropped back down and he peered out at the Wandering Wallace from dilated pupils. “She will serve you well,” he whispered, the strange pace and timbre of his voice dissipating as his face regained its plump and childish appeal.