The Golden Specific

by S. E. Grove

  “I don’t understand,” Sophia said.

  “Agua,” the woman said. “Agua,” she repeated for emphasis. She made a motion with her hands, placing one over the other as if, Sophia thought, she were climbing a rope. No, she realized—drawing water from a well!

  “Oh! Thank you.”

  The woman held up her finger, signalling for Sophia to wait. A moment later the little boy reappeared, and he held up to his mother a brown loaf dotted with raisins. The woman smiled, kissed the boy on the top of the head, and whispered something. Obediently, he turned and offered the loaf to Sophia.

  Clearly, the exhaustion was making her weepy. She felt tears in her eyes for the second time that hour as she reached out to take the loaf. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I will never forget your kindness. Thank you.”

  The boy gave her a shy smile and folded his hands together over his stomach. The woman smiled as well, pointing again down the street.

  With another effusive expression of thanks, Sophia waved and turned away. She bit into the loaf of bread as she walked, and even though her mouth was dry and she had difficulty swallowing, it tasted delicious. The loaf was sweetened with honey, and the raisins seemed to explode on her tongue. As the narrow street curved, she found herself entering a tiny plaza. At the very middle of the deserted plaza was a stone well. Sophia hurried toward it with a gratified cry of victory. Placing the precious, unfinished loaf in her satchel, she hooked the bucket onto the clasp and lowered it into the well. The sound of the bucket hitting the water was more exquisite than she could have imagined. She drew it up, hauling hand over hand, and seized it as soon as it was within view. The water was wonderful. Drinking her fill, she placed the bucket on the stone lip of the well and sank down with a sigh. She felt immeasurably better. Her circumstances no longer seemed quite so dire; after all, she had food and water, and wasn’t that the most important thing?

  Sophia got up to retrieve the planter and her pack, and as she did so she suddenly thought about the plants. If she was parched from the heat and sun, how must they be? Sophia hauled up a full bucket of water from the well and carried it out of the tiny plaza and along the narrow street. Pouring the water in through the perforated lid required a little creative climbing, but once she had a foothold on the window ledge of the abandoned map shop, she was able to empty the bucket. She peered down into the small, round holes and thought she could make out some green stems here and there.

  After returning the bucket to the well, Sophia again began to feel exhausted. She had no idea what she would do next, but having secured food and water felt like sufficient accomplishment. Finding as much shade as she could behind the planter in the doorway of the abandoned shop, Sophia curled up against her pack. Within minutes, she was fast asleep.

  —6-Hour 42—

  SOPHIA AWOKE TO an unpleasant prodding sensation, and she opened her eyes to a street that was already gray with dusk. Standing in front of her and speaking urgently in Castilian was an old man. He jabbed her shoulder with a long pole. “Ow,” Sophia said, seizing the end of the cane. “Don’t do that. I’m awake.”

  The man responded angrily in Castilian, and Sophia got to her feet. “I don’t understand you.” She frowned, and the combined effect of her frown and her words seemed to temporarily silence him.

  “La-pe-na?” he asked very slowly and distinctly.

  “No,” Sophia replied emphatically, shaking her head. “No, I’m not sick. I’m just tired.” She tucked her hands beside her head to mime sleeping, and then for good measure she threw in the gestures for food and water. Perhaps if the old man was concerned, he would want to help.

  Instead, these gestures seemed to make him immediately lose interest. Placing the end of his pole firmly on the cobblestones and glaring at her with the full weight of his bushy eyebrows, he said something dismissive and turned away. Sophia watched him limp slowly down the street and sighed. She wondered if the young woman who had given her bread was the only kind person in all of Seville. The old man walked a few more paces, then raised his pole to the nearest streetlamp. With an expert movement he passed a tiny flame into the lamp, lighting the candle within. He lowered the pole and moved on.

  Sinking down again in the doorway, Sophia rubbed her eyes. Even with the lamplight the narrow street was getting dark. It had not yet grown cold, but the declining sun had left the air cool and dry, and Sophia had no wish to spend the night out of doors. Nor did she want to ask for help again from the kind young woman. Rising to her feet, she looked both ways and tried to gauge her chances of finding shelter in one of the empty homes. She squinted. It was really getting dark, she realized.

  Suddenly, a shape at the end of the street near the plaza caught her eye. Was someone standing in one of the doorways? It looked like a woman—Sophia could see the shape of her skirts. For a moment Sophia thought it might be the woman who had helped her, but then she realized that it was a different door. The figure began to move, gliding along the cobblestones in Sophia’s direction. Sophia stepped out into the street, a little flicker of hope lighting within her. Perhaps someone had seen her sleeping and would take pity on her. “Hello?”

  The figure moved closer, but it remained in the shadows. Sophia squinted. “Hello?” she repeated. Then the figure made a gesture, and Sophia recognized her.

  “Is it you?” Sophia whispered. The pale figure took another step. “You followed me here?” Her voice shook. She paused, and the word slipped out like a secret breathed into the ear of the Fates. “Mother?”

  Sophia drew closer. Though she could discern Minna’s pale outline, the details of her face and dress were obscured. Her face lifted slightly, and more by this than by any expression she appeared to smile. “The falconer and the hand that blooms will go with you,” Minna whispered.

  “What?” Sophia replied.

  “The falconer and the hand that blooms will go with you.” Minna raised her hand, stretching it outward.

  Sophia took another step forward, her arm raised in response.

  Without warning, a sound like a whistling reed hissed past her ear. At the same moment, a whir of movement disturbed the air. The object that had hurtled past her collided directly with the pale figure, embedding itself deeply and soundlessly, like a knife plunged into a pillow. The apparition collapsed and disintegrated.

  “No!” Sophia cried, rushing forward. She ran to where the figure had fallen, but all that remained was a long stem of a pale green wood with a blunt point: a rude arrow cut fresh from a branch. It was unmarked, intact, as if it had hit nothing at all. Sophia looked down the street and saw the man with the gray hood, his hood now pushed back, walking toward her with his bow in his hand. “What have you done?” she cried.

  “Nothing of consequence,” he said brusquely.

  “Where is she? She might still be here.” Sophia looked wildly up and down the street.

  The bowman took her firmly by the arm. “Stop,” he said. “She’s not here.”

  “Let go of me! I have to find her.” She tried to shake him off.

  “I said stop,” the bowman repeated evenly. “Listen to me. That specter in the shadows is not what you think it is or who you think it is. It is an illusion.”

  “How do you know?” Sophia realized she was weeping. “How do you know? You know nothing about her. I have to find her.” She tried to pull away against the bowman’s grip.

  “I can tell you for sure.” He took her shoulders in his hands so that his face was directly in front of hers. “I promise you on my life,” he said slowly, “that the thing you saw a moment ago was an illusion. It was sent for one purpose: to draw you away and into oblivion.”

  Sophia cried and shook her head.

  “I can prove it to you,” he said softly. “Would you like me to prove it to you?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Look over my shoulder.” He knelt on t
he cobblestones so that Sophia could easily see the street behind him.

  She gasped and started, but the bowman held her fast. “Look carefully,” he insisted. There was a pale figure in the shadows several houses away. Tall, broad-shouldered, and with a slightly drooping head, it stood languidly by the wall.

  “Who is it?” Sophia whispered.

  “It is no one. Watch.” Without rising, he swiveled on his knees. He took the freshly cut branch that lay at Sophia’s feet, drew his bow, and loosed the arrow. It struck home, plunging soundlessly into the pale figure, which disintegrated as if it had never been. The arrow clattered onto the cobblestones. “Did you see that?” the archer asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And do you know how I know that specter is no one I have ever loved or wished with all my heart to find?” he asked, his voice hard.

  “How?”

  “Because I have sent my arrow into its heart every night for the last two years.”

  23

  Doubting the Champion

  —1892, June 6: 9-Hour 00—

  During the first half of the century, most members of parliament lived on Beacon Hill. Its proximity to the State House makes it convenient, and its views are not unpleasant. After 1850, MPs began acquiring homes on Commonwealth Avenue, near the public garden. The promenade, the flatter walkways, and the greater space for erecting palatial residences have drawn wealthier residents of Boston—MPs and ordinary citizens alike.

  —From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

  THEO APPROACHED NETTIE Grey’s house with high hopes. He had spent the night pondering the case, and while he could not quite see the connections yet, he knew they were there.

  The Eerie whom Miles had told him about, Goldenrod, had been attacked by a Sandman. The Sandmen were working for Broadgirdle. Goldenrod had been convalescing at Bligh’s house. And now Bligh was dead and Goldenrod was gone. The connections lay somewhere in the questions he still could not answer. How had Broadgirdle come to work with the Sandmen? Why would he want to attack an Eerie woman? Where had Goldenrod vanished to? What did she have to do with Bligh’s death? Theo shook his head. He wished, for the hundredth time, that Sophia were there to help him think it through. She always saw the connections before anyone else did.

  But he hoped, as he approached the window of the Grey residence, that Inspector Grey had discovered something in the last twenty hours that would make all the connections clear.

  Nettie was practicing scales again. Theo watched her with a bemused smile. She played a scale, stopped, stared out over the piano, twirled her hair around one of her fingers, stared some more, and played another scale. Theo tapped on the glass.

  He was rewarded with a look of wide-eyed excitement; she had been expecting him. She gave a little wave. “Good morning!” she said happily, as she opened the window. “Is it already nine?”

  Theo smiled broadly. “Good morning, Nettie. It is. I wanted to arrive earlier, but we said nine and I waited until nine. I was ready to see you hours earlier.”

  Nettie gave a pleased little smile in response and opened the window more widely. Then her face collapsed into an expression of dismay. “I’m so glad you’re here, because I have the most shocking thing to tell you. I’ve been going over it and over it in my mind, and the weight of it is almost unbearable.”

  Climbing deftly over the sill and guiding her over to the poppy-patterned sofa, Theo said with concern, “Of course, Nettie. You can tell me anything. What is it?”

  Nettie fanned her face, as if the unbearable thoughts were breaking out like blisters on her cheeks. “Charles, I am so worried. I knew when my father began this investigation that it would relate to Matters of State, but I had no idea how much. Now I’m afraid Matters of State have come crashing down upon us like a tidal wave, and it has fallen to my poor father to somehow turn the tide.”

  Theo shook his head sympathetically. “Your poor father,” he echoed.

  “Oh, Charles, you have no idea.” She dropped her voice. “New Occident is on the brink of disaster, and my father is the only one who can prevent it.”

  Theo’s face obligingly took on an expression of awe, admiration, and anxiety. “What in Fates’ name do you mean?”

  “Here is the thing,” she said, pausing for a moment in order to draw out the suspense. “Father spoke yesterday to the prisoners who were arrested for murdering Prime Minister Bligh.”

  “Yes?” Theo asked encouragingly.

  “At first one of the prisoners resisted and would not speak to him at all.”

  He pursed his lips. “How rude.”

  “But finally Father won them over, and persuaded them to tell him everything.”

  “They confessed?”

  “No.” Nettie shook her head, and her curls bounced. “But he learned that Prime Minister Bligh was trying to prevent the New Occident parliament from declaring an embargo on the United Indies.”

  “You mean the Indies embargo on New Occident,” Theo corrected her automatically. “How shocking.”

  Nettie stood up and crossed her arms. She looked down at him with narrowed eyes, her expression entirely altered. “Yes, shocking.” Her voice had lost its high-pitched lilt. “I am shocked that you already knew that the embargo would be an Indies embargo. I am shocked that you’ve pretended not to know anything about any of this, when you clearly know a great deal.” She gave him a shrewd smile. “Who are you? And why are you so interested in the investigation into Bligh’s murder?”

  Theo looked up at her, thunderstruck. He hardly recognized the girl who stood before him. She had the same elaborately ribboned shoes and the same frilly dress with the same smattering of pearls, but her pretty face was twisted into a fierce scowl. “I . . .” He was momentarily lost for words.

  “You thought I was a brainless brat who would spill information to a stranger. You thought it was an easy way to get to Inspector Grey. I can see that. It’s quite obvious, Charles. What I can’t see is why. Are you working for the murderer? Are you the murderer?”

  “No!” Theo exclaimed, aghast. He jumped to his feet. “No, I’m not the murderer. I knew Bligh; I liked him. I . . .” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ll be straight with you.”

  “Please,” Nettie replied.

  “I work for Shadrack Elli. He’s my employer—and a friend. And he is innocent. I know he is. I’m just trying to do everything I can to prove it. He and Miles didn’t commit this murder, but someone else did, and that person has to be found.”

  “Why not leave that to the police?”

  “I’m sure the police will conduct a good investigation. But what if the person who murdered Bligh is smart enough to make it seem like Shadrack and Miles really did commit the crime? The police don’t know them like I do. It’s their job to suspect anyone and everyone. Just by doing their jobs, they might accuse the wrong people.”

  Nettie listened to him pensively, and when he was done she tapped her fingers on her arm as if playing rapid notes. Then she sighed. “As it happens, I agree with you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I don’t think Elli and Countryman are guilty. The evidence is both neat and partial in a suspicious way. And they really have no motive. I don’t believe the hogwash about Bligh changing his entire political outlook. He wasn’t the type. His political philosophy was formed over decades, matured deeply through personal experience. He would not throw it over for expedience or ambition or greed.”

  Theo stared at her with genuine astonishment.

  Nettie laughed. “I wish you could see your face.”

  “I just . . .” He shook his head. “The act is very convincing,” he said with admiration. “You’re a real pro.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling slightly. “I appreciate the compliment. This one is sincere, apparently.”

  “It is.” Theo grin
ned.

  Nettie gave a little pout, seeming for a brief second like her old self. “I know my piano playing is monstrous.” She sat on the couch. “But it helps me think.”

  Theo joined her. “So if you don’t think Miles and Shadrack are guilty, do you think your father will figure it out?”

  Nettie waved her hand dismissively. “My dear father! He is a sweetheart, but he is the most literal-minded man in New Occident. He has no imagination. He thinks of evidence as little building blocks, to be stacked up into a rigid tower, when they are really pieces of a story.”

  “But then how is he so successful?”

  Nettie looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Really? Still haven’t figured that out?”

  Theo was newly shocked. “You?”

  “There’s a reason he’s done so well in the last three years.”

  “How do you do it?”

  She sighed. “I can’t injure his pride, poor man. So I break into his study. I read all his notes on a case. And I see what’s there—what’s really there. Then I make little suggestions. Oh, believe me, it is tricky,” she continued, fully engaged. “Most of the time he only gives me an overall sense of the case, and it taxes my ingenuity something awful to think of ways to point him in the right direction without letting on that I know as much as I do.”

  Theo whistled. “Wow.” He sat up straighter. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  Nettie sat back and twirled a curl around her finger. “Because I could use some help. Someone on the ground. I don’t have the mobility you have.” The fierce scowl was back. “On the night of Bligh’s murder I tried to go out and investigate, and look what happened. Mrs. Culcutty worked herself up into a frenzy.” She shook her head with frustration. “This is going to be the most important crime of the decade, and I want to solve it.”

  Theo considered her, impressed. He had no doubt that Nettie Grey would make a formidable ally or a formidable foe. It was far better to have her on his side. “Well, I am mobile.”