The Crimson Skew

by S. E. Grove

  “The cruelest thing about the fog striking at dawn,” Bittersweet said behind her, “is that people are often at home with their families. They turn on each other.”

  Sophia could hardly comprehend his words. “Then the fog is a poison,” she said, trying to reason it through.

  Bittersweet did not speak for a moment as Nosh circumvented an overturned cart and clopped quickly down a side street. “A poison, yes. In small doses it only distracts and confuses, but here . . . the quantities are almost lethal.”

  The red sediment that covered Salt Lick gave it an unearthly aspect: it coated every building, every street, every motionless figure that lay strewn in their way. Salt Lick had no public clocks, as Boston did. Instead, there were thick logs standing on every corner: gradual sculptures carved away carelessly or lovingly, inexpertly or skillfully, by passersby and residents. They were not time markers; they made strange, ornate sentinels that watched the city impassively. The carvings’ ridges, intricate and rune-like, were dusted with red. Here and there, Sophia could see footprints tracking through the red dust, winding through the silent streets. “Small doses?” she asked.

  “Yes. The fog comes from a flower.”

  It made no sense. “This was done by a flower?”

  “No,” Bittersweet said firmly. “This was not done by a flower. This was done by men.”

  Sophia did not understand, but she put aside her questions for a more pressing concern: “Where are we going?”

  “Out of the city—to safety.”

  “My friends will not know how to find us.”

  Bittersweet hesitated. “I hope they will. I am trusting Nosh. He said we were to find you, and that’s what we’ve done. I hope Goldenrod can help the others.”

  Sophia realized that she had not mentioned Goldenrod. “How did you know she was with me?” she wondered, turning to look at him over her shoulder.

  “Nosh knew,” Bittersweet said. He set his mouth in a line. “Nosh is the only one who knows anything these days. The old one will not speak to me.” He frowned. “What is it, Nosh?” He stared over Sophia’s head at the packed dirt road before them. Here the footprints were many, and the red dust had already been worn away, leaving a muddy track in its place. “Very well,” he said, to some silent comment made by the lumbering moose. “Do what you can.”

  “What’s wrong?” Sophia asked.

  Before he could reply, there was a whooping sound in the narrow passage between the buildings to their left. Sophia turned to see a cluster of young men hurrying toward them and recoiled instinctively. She saw before her, suddenly, a flock of guards from the palace in Nochtland, swooping toward her with their obsidian spears. Then they changed, appearing as hooded figures with beaked masks: the Order of the Golden Cross that had pursued her through the Papal States. Sophia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steady herself. She was beginning to understand how the red fog worked, combining sight with imagination and imagination with memory. But understanding it did not stop the sight from making her heart pound. There are no Nochtland guards, she said to herself steadily. There are no clerics of the Golden Cross here.

  Nevertheless, the whooping sound continued. Sophia opened her eyes and looked back. The intruders had turned out of the passageway and were following them down the street. Now she could see them clearly: seven of them, all but one barefoot. They were hardly more than children, and yet they carried heavy sticks; one wielded an ax.

  “Looters,” Bittersweet said in Sophia’s ear.

  Already, they were burdened by their strange spoils. One wore a tall silk hat and a velvet cape and carried a silver-tipped cane. Another wore a glittering array of necklaces. Yet another hauled a finely made saddle on his shoulder; it made keeping up a challenge.

  “Hey!” one of the boys called after them. Nosh picked up his pace and Sophia heard the boy’s footsteps patter. “Hey!” he called again. In a moment, they were all running in pursuit. The others took up the cry, shouting as their feet pounded in the dirt.

  What do they want from us? Sophia thought, panicked. “We don’t have anything,” she shouted over her shoulder.

  “They won’t listen,” Bittersweet said grimly. “They’re just in it for the chase now.”

  Sophia leaned down toward Nosh’s neck as the moose ran faster.

  Bittersweet let out a breath that sounded strained. Glancing down, Sophia saw his hand just beside her. He held it palm up, as if waiting for raindrops. Suddenly a thin, green tendril appeared above his palm. Sophia gasped. Bittersweet turned his palm outward, toward the passing buildings, tossing the tiny plant aside.

  “How far, Nosh?” Bittersweet asked over the sound of the moose’s hoofbeats and the cries of the gang. There was a stone building on the corner with wooden eagles affixed to the beam over the doorway. Their open wings, dusted red, were held high, and their open beaks seemed to cry in silent victory.

  Nosh turned at the corner, and Sophia’s eyes widened. Thick, fronded vines were covering the log buildings on either side, making them into lumped mounds that were hardly recognizable. The vines were reaching and growing, interlacing with one another like serpents, ducking into the narrow windows and burrowing into the chimneys. Unbidden memories folded into the present once more, and she remembered standing deep underground below the city of Nochtland, watching as trees with luminous leaves sprang from the earth. It was the same lithe movement, the same surprisingly silent opening of sprout and leaf. She remembered vines that crawled before her in the dark, illuminating the way upward to an unseen opening, and she felt again the panic of knowing there was someone behind her, in pursuit. Her feet would not move quickly enough. The way was too long; there was no knowing where it ended.

  Sophia closed her eyes and opened them with a deep breath: there was a clear path ahead of them, bordered by green vines. And more—here there was no trace of red sediment, other than in the road below their feet. The vines had overwhelmed it.

  At the next corner, Nosh turned again, and Sophia saw that they had reached the edge of Salt Lick. A lone building, still powdered crimson, stood untouched by the vines. A blue flag attached to one of the strange, carved posts of Salt Lick fluttered uncertainly beside it, marking the town entrance. Nosh galloped past it and down the long dirt road that stretched ahead, toward a cluster of wooded hills. Gradually he slowed his pace. Sophia could feel the great breaths filling the moose’s lungs. She realized that she could no longer hear the looters. “Won’t they follow us?” she asked Bittersweet.

  In response, Nosh stopped and turned. Sophia saw that the road they had taken out of the city was gone. Entirely consumed by vines, the entrance to Salt Lick was nothing but a verdant wall, as if the place had been abandoned and overgrown ages earlier. The fluttering blue flag alone remained visible, the only movement in the green stillness.

  “They won’t follow us,” Bittersweet said. “But we should keep moving nonetheless.”

  21

  The Long House

  —1892, August 10: 12-Hour 00—

  Beyond Salt Lick and Six Nations City, many homes in the region preserve the pre-Disruption style: long houses built of logs, which serve many purposes at once. Over the course of the century the bermed house has become more common, perhaps due to the Eerie influence. Other practices in the region have unknown origins. For example, there appears to be no traceable origin (and no useful purpose) for the birch wind wheels that sprout on every bermed rooftop like mushrooms. As light as paper, the whirling wheels—also called “pinned wheels”—are like miniature windmills, and yet they mill nothing. It can only be concluded that the inhabitants find them visually appealing.

  —From Shadrack Elli’s History of New Occident

  THEO WAS HAVING a nightmare; he was bound to a railway line. He could not move. In the distance, inexplicably, he could hear the conversations of the people aboard the approaching passenger tra
in. They sounded content, their tone calm and conversational. As he came to, the railway ties hovered before him, and he realized that he was looking up at a ceiling made of dark beams and white plaster. Theo turned his head and saw clusters of dried herbs hanging from one of the beams. Along the wall, wooden shelves stacked with innumerable bottles and jars surrounded a stone fireplace. Sunlight streamed in through two mullioned windows on the opposite side of the room. The windows flanked a green door. The door stood open. Theo could see grass and clumps of flowers beyond the open doorway.

  “He’s awake,” a woman’s voice said.

  Theo tried to lift himself up, and pain knifed down his left arm, running all the way from his shoulder to his fingers.

  “There now, one step at a time.” Casanova’s scarred face came into view. Beside him was a woman of some fifty years. Her dark hair was laced with gray and drawn into a long braid; she tossed it over her shoulder as she bent over Theo with a look of concentration. He lifted his right hand to fend her off. Casanova took it reassuringly. “Don’t worry. This is Smokey. It’s thanks to her you’re awake. She is an excellent medic.”

  “I need to look at your shoulder, Theo,” Smokey said.

  Theo found that when he opened his mouth, he could barely croak a reply. He nodded. Smokey lifted the cloth that covered his shoulder. “The infection is contained,” she said, her voice firm. “I think the worst has passed.” She gave Theo an appraising look. “If you can sit up, we could get some food in you, and that would help.”

  Theo swallowed. “Yes, please,” he managed.

  Smokey smiled, altering her face entirely. Her dark eyes shone, making fans of fine wrinkles at her temples. “That’s good,” she said approvingly. “Lift him up, Grant,” she said to Casanova, and turned away.

  Casanova gently lifted Theo’s head with one hand and slipped his other arm under his back. Theo felt the pain in his shoulder again as he tried to shift upward, and he gritted his teeth until he was propped up against the wooden headboard with pillows stuffed under him. “How’s that?” asked Casanova.

  “Good,” Theo gasped. Now that he was sitting up, he took in the room around him. Smokey stood by a wood stove. There was a large table covered with herbs, knives, bowls, and jars. At the back, a darkened corridor led to the rest of the house. The bed he lay on had clearly been temporarily pulled into this kitchen-workroom. Casanova sat down in a wooden chair beside him with a pleased expression. Theo wasn’t sure what to ask first. “Where are we?” he finally croaked.

  “This is Smokey’s house. We’re in southwest New York.”

  “How did we get here?”

  Casanova raised his unscarred eyebrow. “You don’t remember any of the journey?”

  Theo shook his head. “I remember . . .” He winced. “I remember the attack.”

  Smokey approached the bed with a wooden platter. It held a cup of water, a bowl of steaming soup filled with mushrooms and green onions, and a bowl of late-summer berries. “Go slowly,” she said, “and see how it lands in your stomach. You haven’t had much to eat for days now.” She pulled a chair up to the other side of the bed, near the window, and drew a bunch of hand-sewn linen pouches toward her. She began stuffing them with dried herbs from a tray.

  Theo lifted the spoon with his right hand and sipped. He sighed; he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. The green onions smelled of grass, and the mushrooms smelled of earth. “Thank you,” he said to Smokey. “This is amazing.”

  Smokey smiled at him. “I’m glad.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked Casanova after another spoonful of soup.

  “Do you remember how your shoulder was injured?”

  “I only remember seeing the bowmen come out of the woods, and then the mule beside me was struck. I tried to run to keep up with the wagon.”

  “Well,” Casanova said. “Let’s see. The bowmen came out of the woods, and everyone started running every which way. I didn’t see the mule get struck, but it and the other one must have panicked, because they bolted, dragging you with them. You couldn’t run fast enough with that harness attached, so you fell.” He shook his head. “I think the yoke protected you some as you were pulled along the ground. But I had trouble catching up. And trouble getting the harness off.” He gave Theo a grimace. “By the time I finally got you free of it and into the back of the wagon, the mules had carried us away. I thought about going back to the company, Theo. I did.” He shook his head again. “But I wondered whether we’d have any troops to return to. And your wound was pretty bad. I cleaned it and bandaged it with the major’s best napkins, but you had scrapes all over you from being dragged. When you woke up, you seemed poorly. And I realized there might have been something poisonous in the arrowhead. Those are the kind that break on impact, and I hadn’t pulled all the pieces out most likely. I decided then and there we’d head here to Smokey’s. Luckily, we were just on the western side of the border, so all I had to do was ride northeast. Soon enough we were in Pennsylvania and then New York. We got here at dawn yesterday. You’d had a fever for more than twenty hours. Smokey opened up the wound right away and took out all the rest of the pieces. She sewed you up and put you right.”

  “So we’re deserters,” he said when Casanova had finished.

  Casanova looked into his lap. “Afraid so. I’m sorry.”

  Theo tried to smile. “Nothing to be sorry for. Well, maybe. If you regret saving my life.” He felt the blood pulsing in his temple. Casanova had brought him to safety, but at what cost? Would it be impossible to return to Boston now?

  “He’s getting tired, Grant,” Smokey said.

  “I’m fine,” replied Theo. He looked out through the doorway at the green grass. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “This is Oakring,” Smokey said, following his gaze. “We’re in New York, just south of the Eerie Sea.”

  “Is this where you’re from?” Theo asked Casanova.

  Casanova shook his head. “No. But I spent some time here before moving east.” He and Smokey exchanged a glance. “Smokey took care of me once. Just as she’s taking care of you now.”

  “Ah,” Theo said. “She knows about the burns.”

  “I do,” Smokey said, without looking up from her task, “but if Grant won’t talk about them, it’s not my place to.”

  “What if he gave you special permission?”

  Casanova gave a short sigh. “It just so happens that when you were sick, I made a promise.”

  Theo looked at him hopefully.

  “I promised that if you got better, I’d tell you the story.”

  “Finally!”

  “Maybe when you’re a little better. The story’s not one to lift your spirits. For now, you need food and sleep, not tales of misery.”

  Theo felt his eyes closing. “I like tales of misery,” he mumbled.

  “I can see that,” Casanova replied lightly.

  “When I wake up.” He smiled tiredly. “Tell me the story when I wake up.”

  He woke again in the evening, when the setting summer sun made the kitchen a jumble of purpled shadows. Casanova and Smokey were sitting outside, just beyond the door; Theo could hear their murmuring conversation and the occasional crack of a wood fire. For a few minutes, he lay still in the growing darkness, letting his senses waken fully. The pain in his shoulder was no better and no worse, but the overwhelming lethargy he had felt earlier was passing. He smelled the herbs hanging above him from the rafters, and his stomach grumbled.

  Pushing the blanket off carefully with his good arm, he swiveled slowly on the bed and lowered his feet to the floor. The packed dirt felt good, solid beneath them. He levered himself upright. As he tried to take a step forward, the room tipped precariously. Theo grabbed ahold of the bed with his right hand.

  “Theo?” Casanova stood in the doorway. He hurried over. “Sure you want
to get up?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Walk slowly,” Casanova admonished, walking him the short distance to the door.

  It was a warm night, but Smokey had lit a fire in a small pit surrounded by stones. She sat on a wooden bench, and Casanova lowered Theo down beside her. He sighed with pleasure, stretching his bare feet toward the fire.

  “We have cornbread and beans, Theo, if your stomach finds that agreeable.” Smokey held out a plate.

  “Very agreeable,” he said happily. “Thank you.”

  Smokey waited to see that he was eating before she said, “Grant has told me of your connection with Shadrack Elli.”

  “You know him?” Theo asked, his mouth full.

  She nodded. “Most everyone knows him. But I know him perhaps a bit better than most. We’ve been corresponding during the war. There’s a trader named Entwhistle who travels through here and other places. He gathers news and then goes to Boston. When he makes the return trip, we hear from Shadrack, too. Perhaps you’d like to have him take Shadrack a note?”

  “Yes, thank you—I’ve met him. When will he be here next?”

  “He is due any day now.” Smokey watched Theo with satisfaction as he ate. “You are healing well.”

  “It’s no wonder,” Casanova said with a smile. He sat on a tree stump a few feet away, the scarred side of his face in shadow. “He’s in the hands of Sarah Smoke Longfellow, the most skillful medic in New Occident and the Territories combined.”

  Smokey laughed. “Grant likes to exaggerate my talents,” she said to Theo.

  “It’s no exaggeration,” Casanova said firmly.

  “Speaking of Smokey’s talents, you promised you’d tell me the miserable story,” Theo reminded him.

  “This story is not one that is likely to make you feel better.”

  “Come on,” Theo said, his mouth full of cornbread. “I went and got myself shot just so you would tell me the story, and now you refuse?”

  Casanova smiled ruefully, then fell silent. “The truth is,” he said at last, staring into the fire, “that usually I don’t think of that time at all, but lately I have thought of it often.”