by Gaie Sebold
She stood in the dark, crouched, heart pounding. No sound but her own breathing. Moving more carefully, she went on, a faint flush of light beginning to show the treads as she moved downwards.
Whoever it was had left the bottom door open a crack. Lantern-light. The chug-clonk of the pump, water splashing into something, the clink of crockery. Setting up the tea things, probably. Which meant the woman would have to go into the pantry for the tea.
The sound of a match, muttered curses. She was lighting the oven, or trying to. She’d have her back to the door. Humming, some soft romantic tune.
Eveline fled across the kitchen in her stocking feet, clutching her bag to her chest so it wouldn’t rattle, not sparing a glance at the hunched shape by the fire. Into the pantry, bag out of the open window, a faint thud-clank as it dropped.
The humming stopped.
Eveline boosted herself onto the sink, hands slipping and scrabbling on the enamel, grabbed the frame, flew through like a circus acrobat, landing on her hands, rolling. Scooped up the bag.
There was a red line in the sky.
Down the garden, skidding on wet leaves, she realised she’d left her boots under the window, looked over her shoulder. No light in the pantry, no cries of alarm, and dammit, they were good boots. She scooted back up the path. Where the hell were they? There, over to the left. She grabbed them by their laces.
She was about to rise from her crouch when she heard Harriet exclaim, directly over her head.
Arse.
“Who left this open?” The creak of the hinges as she pulled the window shut. “No wonder it was cold. Oh, and look at that, the pane’s gone. Wind must’ve took it...”
Don’t look closer. Don’t notice the treacle on the frame, or the way it broke so neat with all the glass outside...
The window-shaped glow of the lantern on the path faded. Without pausing to put her boots on, Eveline fled.
“WHERE HAVE YOU been?” Beth said. “Oh, never mind. Get in, do, or we’ll never get back in time.” She hauled Eveline into the machine by her arm, and began turning levers. The Sacagawea started to purr, as though she were happy to be leaving. “Did you get them?”
Eveline half-fell onto the hard wooden bench. “What?”
“Your mother’s notes! The thing we came for!”
“Oh, yes,” Eveline said. “Yes, I...” She started to shove her wet, numb feet into the boots, and that made her think of Charlotte, her poor little soaking feet, and she began to shake, and then to cry, ridiculously, noisily, a great storm of tears as though they had all been saved up from that single dreadful year.
Beth tried to steer with one hand and pat Eveline’s shuddering frame with the other. “What is it? What happened?”
But Eveline could only shake her head and cry harder than ever, great brutal sobs like someone breaking stones in her chest.
“Eveline, I don’t know what happened, but please, please try to calm down,” Beth said, keeping her voice calm and staring straight ahead. “Because there are people now and they’re looking, and whatever’s wrong, it’ll be worse if we’re caught.”
Whitehall
THADDEUS HOLMFORTH WAITED in the corridor, which smelled of pipe smoke and the nervous sweat of supplicants. Thin-legged chairs with creaking seats stood along the wall, but he declined their uncertain support.
The door of Rupert Forbes-Cresswell’s office opened and he ushered out a flushed, well-fed looking man accompanied by a cadaverous, sickly one; it was as though during their meeting with him one had fed off the other. Forbes-Cresswell, as usual, looked as glossily healthy as a prime racehorse.
“Ah, Holmforth, dear fellow. Sorry to keep you waiting about.”
Holmforth gave a stiff nod, and followed his beckoning hand.
“Sherry?” Forbes-Cresswell said, lifting the gleaming decanter.
“No, thank you.”
“A little early? Quite right, too. So, how are things? How is your little protégée?” The shadow of a wink passed across Forbes-Cresswell’s face.
“My... oh, the girl. I have not visited the school yet.”
“Indeed? Perhaps you are wise. Showing too great an interest...”
“Oh, I intend to. I believe she may be useful. That is what I wished to discuss with you.”
“Indeed?” Forbes-Cresswell sat down and motioned Holmforth to a chair, which he took, sinking into a marshy embrace of leather cushions. “Useful how?”
“In Shanghai, I discovered something I believe to be of great importance.”
Forbes-Cresswell looked bemused for a moment. “Shanghai? Of course, you’re posted there, aren’t you? This thing you discovered, you couldn’t write to me? It’s a dreadfully long journey to take, after all.”
“I did not feel confident in committing it to paper, in case it fell into the wrong hands.”
“Oh, don’t tell me one of our brethren has been caught doing something untoward? Really, can’t they sort themselves out? Besides, it is Shanghai. Hardly up to us to drag some businessman out of the mire, they usually seem to manage quite well without troubling us.”
“It isn’t anything of that nature. It is a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Forbes-Cresswell looked startled.
“A hugely powerful weapon that uses Etheric science, and with which, I believe, it will be possible to conquer the Folk.”
“Conquer the... I see.” Forbes-Cresswell steepled his fingers before his mouth.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure you won’t take a sherry?”
“Thank you, no.”
Forbes-Cresswell sighed, and leaned back in his chair. “You know, Holmforth, I’ve every confidence in you. However, this business... there’s no evidence, old chap, none whatsoever, that ‘Etheric science’ is anything other than a combination of natural ability, like... oh, singing at perfect pitch, say – quite apt, that – and myth.”
“I have reports I consider reliable that the machine is effective.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” They had made uncomfortable reading, if one was inclined to be upset by that kind of thing. But the subjects were not human, after all. “Here.” He passed the papers across the desk.
Forbes-Cresswell flipped through the pages, paused, flipped through again. “You had this from one of the locals?”
“Yes.”
“Reliable, you say.”
“I have found him so. I pay him extremely well. And other reports he has brought me have proved accurate.”
Forbes-Cresswell went back to the report. “Hmmm. Well, I must say, this Chink seems to have something, what? I’d better keep this,” he said. “Is there any more?”
“No. Everything is there.”
“Good. Well, well.” Forbes-Cresswell clasped his hands on the desktop and leaned forward. “I have to say, Thaddeus, I’m impressed.”
Holmforth flushed. Forbes-Cresswell had never used his given name before.
“I really think you’ve found something here. However, this must be handled with the utmost discretion.”
“Of course.”
“I don’t just mean where foreign powers are concerned. I mean within the department. Does anyone else know?”
“No, I came straight to you.”
“Good man.”
“You don’t think there are foreign agents within the department?” Holmforth said.
“Spies? It’s always a possibility. But also, one must take into account simple incompetence, lack of impetus – there are those who consider the Folk a spent force, not worth the trouble of invading, for all their riches. There is also, I regret to say, a certain personal pettiness. I’ve been putting your name forward for promotion, though of course I should be sorry to lose you, but...” He tailed off, with the faintest of shrugs.
“I appreciate that you’ve taken the trouble,” Holmforth said.
“Not at all. But your, shall we say, your particular connections in this matter might be seen as interfering with y
our judgement.”
“This is nothing to do with any personal campaign, I assure you,” Holmforth said, forcing the words out past the stiffness in his throat.
“I understand entirely. But it might be seen that way, you understand? And there are those who would be more than happy to take this out from under you – dismiss it, and then steal your discovery for themselves. We need conclusive evidence, solidly backed up. I suggest you keep this absolutely under your hat for now. You mentioned the girl...”
“Yes. Do you remember James Lathrop? Lathrop had no idea what he had stumbled upon. The girl is his niece, and I believe she has inherited the ability.”
“And that is why you wanted her at the Britannia school.”
“Yes.”
“Is she aware of your plans?”
“No. I thought it best to ensure she has the ability before telling her anything. I plan to return to the school shortly to see how she is getting on.”
“Good, good. Let me know. I tell you what. What we need is a demonstration. I’ll come over, see for myself, report back – and then that will give sufficient weight to make whatever other arrangements are necessary. How does that sound?”
“Excellent. The maker, though, Wu Jisheng – I doubt it will be possible to persuade him to give up his creation to another country. He seems to be fanatically loyal.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, I’m sure we can think of something. If he can’t be bribed, a couple of battalions should be sufficient to persuade him, what?”
“Could that be done?”
“In the interest of Empire, dear boy, anything can be done. There could be a commendation in this for you, you know, if we can keep it to ourselves until the moment is right.”
And Holmforth left the office with a lightness to his step, and a small, pleasing glow about his heart.
Woking
BETH STEERED THE Sacagawea carefully among the throng. A small boy, his legs so bowed with rickets you could have used him for a harp, pointed and grinned gappily. “Thass a magical carriage!”
“It’s not magic,” Beth said, “it’s engineering.”
“Giss a ride!”
“Another time, all right?”
His small sickly face fell and Beth felt a moment’s desperate guilt. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but he was already swept away in the crowd.
So many of them. Little brown sparrow-children among the crowlike adults. Beth had grown up in a small country town, and had gone straight to Miss Cairngrim’s. She had never seen so many people, and all of them looking so grindingly tired, so ragged and ill. They stank and shuffled and barely spoke. She felt terribly conspicuous, terribly privileged up here in her magical carriage. She glanced at Eveline, who had got control of herself, though her eyes were dreadfully swollen and her breath hitched and caught. She had been one of these ragged wanderers. What had happened to her in that house that had hurt her so, after everything she must have survived?
Once they were out of the town, racing the rising sun down the still empty road, Eveline broke her silence.
Beth kept an eye on the coil, which was going a shade of green she hadn’t seen before. The persuasive fluid, which was a concoction of her own, and which was why this machine was less than half the weight and around twice the speed of that crude creation of Jackson’s, was overheating. But then it had never been worked so hard for so long. “I’ll have to create a more efficient cooling system,” she said.
“What?” Eveline said.
“Well, if we’re going to go all the way to Bedlam, to rescue your mama, we’ll need it,” Beth said, without taking her gaze from the road ahead.
“I’d not ask you,” Eveline said. “We’d never get there and back, not in the time.”
“You don’t have to ask me. I don’t want to stay in Miss Grim’s for the rest of my life.”
“What about your pension, and travelling in an airship?”
“I’ll build my own airship one day, and as to a pension... well, I’m not sure I want a pension for helping out the Empire.”
“I don’t understand,” Eveline said.
“All those people... They’re not in India or China or wherever, are they? They’re right here. And what’s all this Empire business doing for them? You’d better hold on, it’s straight here. I’m going to push her.”
Halfway down the woodland track, the sun already cutting shadows through the woods and the frost melting off the leaves and dripping down on them, something went clang, Beth shrieked and the Sacagawea shuddered to a halt.
“Beth?”
“Ow, dammit!”
“What is it?”
“That blasted ratchet arm... I thought I’d tightened it enough.” Beth had clamped her left hand under her right armpit and was white under the smudges of soot. “I think...”
“Let me see.”
Beth, grimacing, held out her hand. The little finger hung crooked.
“Ouch. That looks broke.”
“Hurts.”
“Yeah I ’spect it does. Bugger. Can you fix that ratchet thingy?”
Beth peered into the engine. “Oh, no. The coil’s gone. Oh... bugger.”
Eveline, despite everything, couldn’t quite repress a smile at the fact that Beth, who only gave a broken bone a dammit, could find a bugger for the machine.
“That’s bad, is it?”
“I can’t fix that even if I had two working hands. Not without tools and things I haven’t got.”
“Right, come on.” Eveline jumped down and reached up to help Beth follow.
“Come on where?”
“Well we got to get back, haven’t we – past sunrise and one of ’em’ll be coming round to bell us out of bed soon enough. Right, nightgowns.” She started to strip off her working clothes. “Remember, you were sleepwalking, I woke up and saw you were gone. You were in the woods in your nightie. You fell and broke your finger, I’m bringing you back. Reckon we can keep our boots and shawls on, they’ll believe I had that much sense to bring ’em with me.”
“But... the Sacagawea. I can’t leave her here!”
“Can we push her off the path, into the wood? We can make shift to cover it with branches and leaves and stuff...” Eveline had a moment’s memory of blanketing Charlotte’s pallid little body with leaves, and bit down on it. “You can come back, when it’s safe.”
“But the dogs...”
“I’ll deal with the dogs. We don’t get going now, we’ll both be caught and you’ll never get to drive her again. Come on.”
The Sacagawea being mostly frame and engine, she was just about light enough for them to move, but it was hard work, especially with Beth unable to use her left hand. They got her off the path and mostly behind some trees and flung armfuls of leaf mould, bracken and broken branches over her, Beth wincing with every thump and slush.
Eveline stood back. If no-one got curious, it’d do... at least, if the wind didn’t get up. Anyway it would have to.
“We’d better run,” Eveline said.
“Wait.”
“We can’t wait. Come on!”
“Eveline, the notes!”
Eveline stopped. The notes. The notes in her bag, that was on the ground next to the machine and that she’d almost forgotten. She had forgotten. And if it had come on to rain, or a fox had found the bag and hauled it off... She hugged Beth fiercely, making her squeak, dragged the bag out of the leaf mould and slung it over her shoulder. They started to run towards the house.
The dogs began to bark as they emerged onto the lawn. “Bugger, bugger, bugger,” Eveline said. “Didn’t give ’em enough.”
“What do we do?”
“Keep running,” Eveline said, glancing over her shoulder. The dogs were barking, but they couldn’t run properly; they staggered, weaving. The front one abruptly sat down, and the one behind cannoned into it, sending them both sprawling. They started to snap and snarl at each other.
The girls made the kitchen door. Eveline shoved her bag
down behind the outbuilding just as the door swung open, and Miss Cairngrim, glaring like a gargoyle, grabbed her by the arm. “What are you up to, you bad, wicked girl?”
“Please, Miss Cairngrim, she’s hurt!” Eveline said.
“What have you been doing?”
“I don’t remember, Miss Cairngrim,” Beth said. “I woke up and I was in the woods. My hand really hurts, Miss Cairngrim.”
“Come with me.”
She kept them in her office for half an hour, going over their story, as they got colder and colder. Eveline kept her head and kept it simple; it was just like facing a nosy peeler who wanted to know what you were doing, walking past that house at three in the morning. Pity Miss Grim wasn’t a peeler, Eveline thought. She’d be just right for it.
Beth had the sense to keep her story even simpler. She’d woken up, on the ground, in the woods, her hand hurting and Eveline shaking her.
“And why didn’t the dogs chase you on the way out?”
“I don’t know, Miss Cairngrim. Maybe they’re sick or something,” Eveline said. “They weren’t half running funny when they come after us.”
“I shall...”
Something thumped against Eveline’s shoulder, and she caught Beth just in time to stop her hitting her head on the corner of the desk as she fainted.
“Wretched girl! Stop playacting!”
“She ain’t playacting, miss, she’s out like a candle,” Eveline said, lowering Beth to the floor.
“Isn’t! Isn’t, not ain’t!” Miss Cairngrim. “Hastings! Hastings!”
“Sacagawea,” Beth muttered.
“What? What is she saying?”
“Something from History, miss,” Eveline said. “She’s worried about lessons. Don’t worry, Hastings, I’ll get it dealt with,” she said loudly. Beth’s eyes flickered open and sought hers, and Eveline nodded.
Miss Cairngrim called for two of the girls to take Beth to the sickroom, and dismissed Eveline with a glare. “I’ll deal with you later,” she said. “Whatever’s going on, I know you’re up to your neck in it, Duchen. Now go wash and dress properly, put that disgusting garment in for the laundry, and get to class.”