by Eli Brown
“You’ve just told the girl our plan,” Auburn said sourly.
“She deserves to know what is to become of her. Clover is more valuable than any of the oddities we’ve acquired at highway checkpoints. It would be folly to lose her to vermin.”
“Age has made a hen of you,” Auburn said, but he turned to Clover, his eyebrows raised. “The honorable Colonel Furlong here, whose counsel I’ve trusted for decades, insists that you’re more valuable on the battlefield. ‘Unstoppable,’ he says.”
“After what just happened in that inn,” Hannibal pleaded with Clover, “you can’t deny being a fighter. First the Heron, then Smalt. Some of my men saw it with their own eyes.”
“Well?” Senator Auburn asked. “Are you the secret weapon Hannibal says you are?”
Clover understood, at last, that Hannibal had been arguing for her fate like a lawyer at trial. He was afraid for her and now Clover was afraid too. She was caught up in something much larger than herself, falling in a capsizing wagon, and Hannibal was trying to guide her to safety. The wise thing would be to follow his voice as she had before, to accept the arrangement he offered.
The kettle began to tick and hiss, but no one moved to take it from the stove. Hannibal and Auburn waited for her answer.
The idea of helping Auburn made her stomach clench. The groans of those ambassadors echoed in her mind. What would the world have been like if he hadn’t poisoned them, if the first war hadn’t happened? How could Clover hope to resist this murderer on his way to the presidency, this manipulator of mobs and nations? She could not risk taking part in his deadly schemes.
“I’ll never fight for you, Senator,” Clover heard herself say. “You’re a liar and a warmonger and worse . . .” She clenched her teeth as words failed her. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew what she couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Hannibal,” she whispered.
Auburn wrinkled his nose as if he’d smelled something rotten and reached for a silver cigar box. “She’d rather be eaten alive by vermin,” he said. “She’s practically feral. I can see why you’re fond of this brazen girl, Hannibal, but she has made her own decision.” He lit a cigar and sat back, puffing thoughtfully. “On the other hand, if she is as valuable as you say —”
“She is, sir,” Hannibal said hopefully. “I assure you.”
Clover flushed with rage and humiliation, listening to them haggle over her like a piece of market beef.
“Then we must lock this Clover away immediately and send the witch something tempting,” Senator Auburn said. “One of Clover’s fingers should do. Wouldn’t that be enough to convince the Seamstress to come to us?”
Hannibal closed his eyes and shook his head wearily. “You can’t mean it.”
The senator chuckled, “Does the hero of a hundred battles blanch now at the loss of a single finger?” But his smile became savage as he pointed at Hannibal with the smoldering cigar. “You have frittered away precious time while the French sharpen their bayonets! The Seamstress cannot fall into Bonaparte’s hands, and if this misguided mountain girl is what you say she is, she must remain in our control.”
“I understand,” Hannibal said.
“Leave the witch alone,” Clover said, her voice quavering. “Leave us alone, you miserable man.”
Auburn turned to Clover, his voice icy. “Your sacrifice will not be in vain. The Seamstress is the key to our victory. Without her, we will be overrun by the endless army.” He looked again at Hannibal. “I will have that witch. Are we quite clear, Colonel?”
Hannibal held very still, looking for a moment like a stuffed trophy. Then he said, “Yes, sir. Leave it to me.”
“Hannibal you can’t —” Clover started.
“Shut up, Clover!” Hannibal barked with such authority that Clover was stunned into silence.
Senator Auburn drew on his cigar contentedly. “It would be an unfortunate end to your glorious career if a hill-born brat clouded your duty to your country.”
“Nothing of the sort, Senator.”
As Hannibal and Clover stood to leave, Auburn delivered a final warning. “Though, if you are ready to retire, I’m sure we can find a barnyard worthy of the fabled Hannibal Furlong: clean straw and a bevy of hens, plenty of cracked corn, and a farmer willing to postpone the butcher block for a few years. After all, you’ve served us so faithfully.”
Hannibal received this insulting threat with a stiff nod. “I will secure the asset.”
As Hannibal and Clover stood to leave, Auburn delivered a final warning. “This girl,” he said through a cloud of smoke, “and everything she carries are now your responsibility.”
“Don’t you see it’s madness?” Clover pleaded.
In a meadow outside the city, a camp of fifty soldiers scrambled like a kicked anthill, saddling horses and rolling up tents. Clover and Hannibal watched from a low hill as bugle calls and the glint of armaments lit the air.
“We could have purchased Louisiana, all of it, with no bloodshed,” she said. “Bonaparte wanted to sell it to us. The war could have been avoided!”
“The time for political theory is long past,” Hannibal said soberly. “We have no choice but to face the challenge of the present. There is still time for us to secure our advantage. The Seamstress has hoarded her oddities in the abandoned silver mine at Harper’s Ridge. Now that her location may be on the wind with the rest of Smalt’s secrets, we must make our move before Bonaparte does. It will take my platoon eighteen minutes to break camp. In that time, you must decide: will you be escorted to a training camp or to a dungeon? I would rather have you as a comrade than a prisoner.”
Clover shook her head. “I think Auburn knows what Bonaparte’s oddity is, the one that makes the endless army,” she said. “He wants it for himself. Auburn doesn’t just want to be president. He wants to be emperor!”
“Would you rather be ruled by Bonaparte?”
Nothing Clover could say would penetrate his plumage. She looked at the soldiers pulling up stakes, smelled the scorched stews dumped over cook fires, heard the clicks and whistles of tenders luring mules into their yokes.
Most were young men, not much older than she was, proud in federal coats with brass buttons, their chins high and brave. Could it be that there really were fighters like this just beyond the border, waiting to attack, the Louisiana army, with their blue coats and yellow sashes, all of them proud and young and ready to die?
“All this time I’ve trusted you,” Clover said. “But you were planning to hand me over to that madman so he could sacrifice me to the Seamstress.”
“Isn’t it clear by now that I’ve risked everything to protect you, to find a better role for you? We all must play our part!” Then he softened. “We do not get to choose the body or world we are born into, only what we do with them. You have greatness in you. If half these men had your mettle, I’d have Bonaparte rowing back to France in a pickle barrel. The war is coming. You can help us win. You can help me.”
“I didn’t meet you by chance, did I?”
Hannibal sighed wearily. “During our search for useful oddities, we became aware of a rumor, whispered among the older Society members. A fireside yarn that Dr. Constantine Elkin had pulled a baby out of the inferno before riding off into the night, whispers that a Russian doctor was still tending to the sick in the mountain villages, that there was a girl with him. Auburn tasked me with dispelling that rumor. I expected to find old fishermen and spiders and more tall tales.” He looked kindly at her. “Instead I found you.”
Soldiers were beginning to gather in a loose group at the edge of the meadow, making last-minute adjustments to their bags and harnesses, a small army to take on a single old woman.
Clover spotted five of Hannibal’s elite squad guarding a wagon covered with a canvas. A breeze lifted the sheet just enough for Clover to recognize the Society logo stamped on one of the crates beneath. Nearby, a soldier held a heavy chain attached to a smoldering iron box just big enough to hold the Ember.
/> “The Heron!” Clover said. “That belongs to Mr. Agate!”
“Temporarily commandeered for the just cause of defense,” Hannibal explained.
“You’re no better than a poacher!”
“Quite an accusation from someone wearing the Hat.”
Clover snatched the Hat off her head in embarrassment. She had already forgotten it was there. “I’m going to give it to Mr. Agate,” she said.
“Don’t bother.” Hannibal sniffed. “It is my responsibility to oversee all our tactical assets. That includes your own collection. I’d say you have five minutes left to make your decision.”
“Tell me this: what weapon does the Seamstress have that Auburn wants so badly? What could possibly defeat Bonaparte’s endless army?”
Hannibal shook his head. “It’s enough to say that the witch is key to our strategy.”
“No,” Clover growled. “No more riddles. No more secrets. If you’re asking me to play a part, I deserve to know.”
Hannibal sighed and stretching his neck uncomfortably. “The senator wants the technique, the . . . method used to create vermin.”
“But the French won’t be intimidated by tin-bellied skunks and dead-eyed crows.”
“Indeed. Not skunks and crows,” Hannibal said, refusing to look her in the eye.
“You don’t mean soldiers?” The horror of it hit Clover all at once. “Auburn wants to turn people into vermin?”
“To pick soldiers up when they fall,” Hannibal said quietly. “To make the brave sacrifice of our boys mean more. Once dead they will not suffer, you see. Will not feel pain . . .”
“Look at them!” Clover pointed to the young men in the knee-high grass. “Those boys trust you. You plan to sew them together with whatever limbs you find on the field, stuff them like scarecrows, and send them back out to be shot again and again. They will keep marching, won’t they, even if a cannonball whistles through them?”
“We hope it won’t be necessary. War demands distasteful decisions.”
“It’s a nightmare! The infinite army against the unkillable army. Hannibal, a war like that would never end.” Clover’s voice quavered. “We can’t let it happen.”
Hannibal regarded her with tired eyes. “The senator did not invent vermin. If we don’t obtain this advantage, the French will. Better for us to have the method than Bonaparte.”
“And after she’s told you the secret,” Clover asked, “what will become of the Seamstress?”
“We’ll take her into comfortable custody, to ensure that her powers can’t be used by the enemy.”
“And when she refuses?”
Hannibal shook his head.
“You’ll kill her.” Now Clover was crying.
“Weigh your next steps very carefully, Nurse Elkin. Would you really sacrifice your future to protect a witch?”
“She’s my mother!” Clover said between clenched teeth.
Hannibal stared at Clover with shock. So he hadn’t known. It didn’t matter.
Clover wiped her cheeks. The decision had made itself. “I will not help you create an army of the undead. I will reach the Seamstress before you,” she said. Remembering the Society motto, she added: “Custodia Insolitum.”
The platoon was now lined up in five clean rows, facing the shrouded mountains, as still as wooden soldiers.
Hannibal sighed. “It breaks my heart, but I will have to arrest you to keep you from meddling. A few days in a cell, I hope, will clear your head.” He nodded, signaling to the guards who had been watching from a distance. Immediately, three soldiers came forward on horseback to seize her.
“I don’t intend to be arrested,” Clover said, summoning her courage.
Sweetwater emerged from the neckline of her shirt, rose up tall on her shoulder, and swayed there with cold-blooded focus. The soldiers’ horses reared and snorted.
“Anyone who touches me will feel Sweetwater’s kiss. She’s got plenty of venom for each of you. And Hannibal, you know I carry another friend in my bag.”
Hannibal waved his men back with a flick of his wing. He regarded Clover with a jewel-bright eye. “We will reach the silver mines before you, of course. You don’t even have a horse.”
At his signal, the lieutenant blew a whistle. The entire platoon started off toward the blue-stained mountains, their footfalls making a drum of the earth.
Before following them, Hannibal said softly, “You are choosing the wrong side, Nurse Elkin. If I don’t bring you in, Senator Auburn will send someone else. But you know the mountains. You can disappear. As your friend, I beg you, do not interfere with our mission.”
“I saved your life.” Clover placed the Hat back on her head.
“And I saved yours. Please don’t make me remove you from the field.”
“The world won’t survive the kind of war you’re making,” Clover said. “Despite everything, I know you have a good heart, Hannibal. Consider it.”
Clover kept the snowy peaks of the Centurion Mountains on her left as she trudged northwest.
To bring the entire platoon to the mine at Harper’s Ridge, Hannibal would have to take Abbot’s Highway, the only real road to the peak. It was wide and safe for heavy wagons, but it threaded through the foothills, switching back so often that frustrated travelers called it “the snarl.” Clover couldn’t hope to travel the same highway and beat them. She’d have to cut through the wilderness, a direct route, but one with no roads to aid her.
She glanced back at the mustard-colored chimneys of Brackenweed, wishing she had time to see Widow Henshaw again. Her heart ached to think of the old woman camping alone in the strange city.
“I’ll set this right,” Clover whispered, knowing in her gut that there was no solution for the ice on the lake. Then she turned her attention back to the race against Hannibal.
The borderlands were teeming with bandits, and Clover’s route would also take her through Sehanna Indian territory. What would they make of a mountain girl cutting through their land? There was more than one kind of Indian in that area, and not all were tolerant of strangers. The Ormanliot were known as friendly traders, bringing their canoes right up to shore loaded with pelts, wampum, and bottles of maple syrup, but the Quamit were said to shoot from the trees without so much as a “hello.” Her father had described the Sehanna themselves, the tribe the Sehanna Confederation was named for, as fiercely loyal to their friends and “rather unkind” to their enemies. Clover’s best bet was to move quickly and hope she wasn’t noticed.
Clover found that crumpling the Hat did not squeeze secrets out, so she shoved it into her father’s bag. She wanted to leave the thing under some rotting log, but she had a fear that oddities wanted to be found. She couldn’t let some new villain pick it up. The world didn’t need another Smalt. When the wind stilled, she thought she could hear the Hat’s sinister whispers.
Sweetwater’s grip around her waist wasn’t the same as having a friend to talk to, so Clover pulled Susanna out of her pocket and set the Doll on her shoulder. Susanna braced herself by holding on to Clover’s braid, seeming satisfied to be riding high. She peered at the mountain peaks with button eyes.
“Mean old Missus.”
“Yes. We’re going to the Seamstress. No one else can tell me who I am, what I am. I have to go. If Hannibal reaches that mine first, he’ll kill her. I can’t let that happen.”
“Mean old bird.”
“He’s right in some things,” Clover said. “If I am not a soldier, what am I? Blood sister to a snake, keeper of a cursed Hat and a foul-tempered Doll. I mean . . . you can’t deny that you are foul tempered.”
Susanna didn’t seem offended.
“We’re sisters, you and I,” Clover continued. “Both of us made by Miniver.” She thought about the tools in her father’s bag. “What is a scalpel? Only a blade. And a blade can be used to kill or to cure. And you, Susanna, you are practically a hurricane, but you’ve saved my life. Oddities are like that. Full of harm or help, depending on
their use. Auburn wants to chop me up as bait. Hannibal wants me to be a weapon. But maybe, if I know where I came from, I can find a better purpose.”
Winter’s breath rolled down the mountain. Clover pulled her shawl tightly over her shoulders. She was small in the shadow of the peaks, but she felt a strong sense of direction for the first time since her ordeal began. It had felt good to argue with Hannibal, to speak the truth, even if he refused to hear it.
“I almost have the whole picture now,” Clover said. “There are only a few questions left, but I know where to find the answers.”
“You’re not scared,” Susanna offered helpfully.
“Oh, Susanna, I’m terrified. I don’t know if we’ll make it to that mine, or what will happen when we get there. Even if I get through Sehanna territory and the Wine Marsh, we’re liable to see more vermin. Sweetwater has to come with me or we’ll both get sick, but you have a choice. I know you tried to put the Seamstress behind you.”
Susanna crossed her arms, pouting.
“There is no shame in it,” Clover said. “I am afraid of fire, even though it can’t kill me. It still hurts, and I am still scared.”
Clover didn’t tell Susanna that, right now, she was more afraid of the Seamstress than she was of anything. Compared with the shadowy creator of vermin, even Smalt seemed like a feeble old man. Something horrible had transformed Miniver Elkin. If the founder of the Society hadn’t been able to defend herself from it, it must have been terrible indeed. Clover needed to find her mother, but she might never be ready to see the monster she’d become.
“You need me,” Susanna said.
“You have saved my hide already,” Clover agreed. “But I won’t have any hard feelings if you want to part ways now. You could just tell me how to get there.”
“Not scared,” Susanna said, and she gripped Clover’s braid tighter as the slope became steeper. The hunting trail they were following narrowed as they approached the border of the state of Farrington, and then it disappeared completely. Clover was leaving the Unified States and everything she knew behind as she pressed on into the no-man’s-land between the US, Louisiana, and the Sehanna Confederation. Her breath made fleeting clouds that she broke through as she trudged ahead, step by step. She longed for Nessa’s rumbling wagon.