by Geoff Rodkey
There’s no honor in this. Heroes in books don’t kill men this way.
But was there honor in the way Birch tried to kill me?
And who said I have to be a hero?
It’s got to be done. He’d do it to me if he could.
No. He’d have someone else do it. That’s the rich man’s way.
No honor in that, either.
Two feet away… The knife was over my head. One step to the side, one step forward, and I could plunge it into his chest.
Maybe it’ll be easy.
Maybe I’ll even like it.
Fat chance. I was shaking so badly I had to hold the knife with both hands.
What if the first thrust doesn’t kill him? What if I have to pull it out and do it again?
Got to get it right the first time. Left side of the chest. Straight through the heart.
One step to the side. One step forward.
Just do it.
I forced myself to move.
As my body crossed the plane of the chair and I made the turn toward him, starting the knife on its downward arc, I saw the glint of honey-gold hair.
And I froze.
“AAAAAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!!!”
You could have heard Millicent’s scream all the way to Blisstown.
I stumbled backward, trying to hide the knife behind me as she leapt to her feet, her heavy book thudding to the floor.
“Egg! What are you doing?”
“Nothing! I was—”
“Are you trying to murder me?”
“Course not!”
“Then what were you doing with that knife? Combing your hair with it? And why aren’t you wearing any clothes? Have you gone mad? And who on earth are YOU?”
Guts’s good hand was cocked back, ready to take a swing at Millicent. I shook my head vigorously, waving him off as a door slammed somewhere in the recesses of the manor.
“Millicent…!”
Mrs. Pembroke’s voice rattled through the great hall from an upstairs corridor, sending a bolt of panic through me.
Millicent ignored the voice, spinning back to face me. “What are you doing here? And where have you been? Were you on the boat? How’d you get past the soldiers?”
“What soldiers?”
“The ones who searched the rescue boats when they came in—”
“MILLICENT!” She was on the stairs now.
“Blast! She’ll wake the houseguests.”
“What houseguests?”
“From the boat. Hide yourselves! I’ll deal with her.” She ran from the room, calling to Mrs. Pembroke as she went. “It’s nothing, Mother. Just reading a ghost story—”
She slammed the heavy door behind her on the way out, reducing the rest of their exchange to a series of muffled grumblings.
I took cover behind a couch along a side wall. Guts stared at me like I was crazy.
“What ye doin’?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Cowerin’! We’re dead men stayin’ ’ere!”
“We’re not—”
“You heard ’er! Gonna bring soldiers back to kill us!”
I shook my head. I hadn’t completely understood what Millicent was talking about, but I felt safer trusting her than not.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Wot if she does?”
“She wouldn’t. You’ve got to trust her.”
“Nuts to that! Gimme my knife back.”
“Promise you won’t use it?”
“Wot’s the point o’ havin’ it?”
“Only in self-defense, then.”
“Whatever. Give it.”
I handed it back to him. He glowered for a moment, looking around.
“Goin’ out the window—”
“Just give her time! Please.”
“Why ye so sure ye can trust her?”
I probably should have thought it over, at least for Guts’s sake. But I didn’t want to live in a world where Millicent would give me up to her father.
“I just am.”
“She the one ye gonna marry?”
“Don’t talk about that.”
“Wot? Don’t she know it?”
“I said don’t talk about it! Just forget I ever said that.”
He snorted, shaking his head. “Wot we gonna do? Sit here?”
I looked at the shelves behind us. “You could read a book.”
“Shut up.” He joined me behind the couch, twitching and scowling as he glared at the closed door.
A minute later, it creaked open. I kept my head above the back of the couch long enough to see that it was a maid, plodding sleepy-eyed toward the fireplace.
As I sank back down, I saw Guts was readying his knife. I grabbed his arm and shook my head no.
He brushed me off with a scowl, but let the maid live. A moment later, the shadows stopped dancing on the walls as she put the fire out. Then she was gone, and we sat in the darkness for so long I had to put down three or four mutinies from Guts.
Finally, Millicent slipped back into the room. She was carrying an armload of clothes, a rucksack, and a pair of shoes.
The shoes were mine, the ones I was wearing when I first came from Deadweather. She had the rest of my old clothes with her, too, and I was surprised at how glad I felt to put them on, even the itchy shirt. I left the other outfit, a much nicer one that Pembroke had given me, to Guts.
“You’re lucky,” Millicent said as she relit the candle and locked the door behind her. “Mother had those laid out to take to town in the morning. There’s a terrible shortage of clothing ever since the tourists came back.”
“From the Earthly Pleasure?”
She nodded. “If these hadn’t been laid out to donate, I would’ve had to sneak past Lord and Lady Winterbottom to get them. They’re staying in your old room. They snore like bears, you can practically hear it downstairs. But they’re not as bad as Lady Cromby. She complains about everything. Yesterday at lunch—”
“How many of them are here?” I finished tying my shoes and stood up.
“Six… no, eight. Sorry about the shoes, by the way. There’s just the one pair.”
Guts gave a twitchy shrug. “Don’t wear ’em.”
“And there’s food and water in here.” Millicent handed me the rucksack.
“Why are they all staying here?”
“Daddy said it was the least he could do. They were all horribly shaken—”
“Where is he?” Guts barked at her.
“Excuse me?”
“Where’s yer dad?”
“Guts—” I tried to cut him off.
“You’re quite rude, aren’t you?” She turned to me. “Is he one of your field hands? One of the hands with no hands? Because that’s no way for a servant—”
“I’m no servant, ye———!” Guts rattled off a string of vile words, tying them up with a snarl as he tightened his grip on his knife.
I quickly moved to stand in between them, wishing I’d never given Guts the knife back, as Millicent curled her lip at him.
“What are you, then? Certainly not a gentleman.”
“This is Guts,” I said. “He’s my… partner.”
“Partner in what?”
“Just… things. Where is your father?”
“Offshore, at an emergency meeting. The pirates who attacked the Pleasure are going to pay for it, I’ll tell you that.”
I felt a wave of relief spread through me at the news that Pembroke wasn’t even on the island. “When’s he back?”
“In the morning.” Then her voice turned quieter. “Is it true, Egg? Did you really murder Mr. Birch?”
“I didn’t have a choice. He tried to kill me.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. Guts broke up the silence.
“’Cause yer dad told him to.”
“Guts—”
“That’s ridiculous!” Her voice rose in anger. “My father lov
ed Egg! And who are you to speak like that? In clothes my father paid for? You’ve got no right—”
“Let’s not talk about this,” I said quickly. “In fact, why don’t the two of you not talk to each other at all?”
“Egg—” Millicent cupped my face in her hands, forcing me to stare into her eyes. The feel of her skin on mine sent a shiver through me. “You don’t believe that rubbish, do you? Daddy loved you! He told me he wanted to make you his son.”
The look in her eyes said she believed it. And the look in my eyes must have been easy to read too, because she dropped her hands to my chest and shoved me.
“Don’t be stupid! Why on earth would he want to kill you?”
“Because of the treasure.”
“What treasure?”
“The Fire King’s. It’s on our land. Back on Deadweather.”
She laughed. “That’s ridiculous! Even if it exists, the legend says it’s on Sunrise.”
“The legend’s wrong. My father found it. That’s why your father got rid of him.”
It took her a moment to answer. Whether it was just because she was sorting out the implications of what I’d said, or because a part of her was wondering if it was true, I couldn’t say.
“Ridiculous! That was an accident!”
A sudden, metallic rattle made us all turn at once toward the entryway. It was the doorknob, and it was followed by a pounding on the door itself.
“Millicent! What are you doing in there?”
Guts raised his knife. I put a hand on his shoulder—carefully, because I didn’t want him stabbing me—and motioned for the window. Reluctantly, he headed over to it.
“Good-bye,” I said. “Thanks for everything.”
I shouldered the rucksack. Mrs. Pembroke was pounding and yelling on the other side of the door, and Guts was halfway out the window, the knife in his teeth, but I lingered for a second anyway, trying to memorize as much of Millicent’s face as I could in the dim light.
She was scowling at me. But I thought, or maybe just hoped, there was more than anger in her look.
“You can’t stay on Sunrise. They’re looking for you.”
“I know,” I said.
“How will you get off?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“MILLICENT!”
I’d never heard her mother so angry. As she began to call for a servant to get out of bed and come force the door, I hurried to the window.
“Good-bye,” I said again. I tried to catch her eye to say more than that, but she was already turning away.
“Be careful!” I heard her whisper as I swung my legs out the window.
GUTS WAS LOOKING highly annoyed as I dropped to the ground next to him.
“Ye stop fer tea?”
“Shut up,” I said. There was a lump in my throat that made the words hard to get out.
We were halfway to the trees when I heard her voice.
“Wait!”
Millicent was bounding across the lawn toward us in her nightgown, hair streaming behind her in the moonlight like a nymph.
I was dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your life,” she said. “Follow me.”
THE BOAT
‘Oo’s she think she is? And where’s she goin’?”
Guts and I were struggling to keep up with Millicent, who was racing up a footpath that snaked through the wooded hills above Cloud Manor. It was almost too dark to see the ground, but she knew the path so well that she could hurdle the various rocks and fallen tree trunks without so much as looking at them.
Guts and I, on the other hand, kept running headlong into things and falling on our faces.
“Nuts to this!” Guts was angry. I was just confused.
“Millicent, could you stop so we can talk about this?” I pleaded.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” she called over her shoulder. “The servants will be out looking for us in no time. Probably on horseback. And possibly with dogs.”
“What?!”
“You know how Mother is. She’ll probably send half the household after me.”
“You’re going to get us killed!” Now I was getting angry too.
“Don’t be stupid! I’m saving you!”
Guts stopped running. “I’ve had it. Not chasin’ her no more.”
I stopped too. “Millicent…”
She was so far ahead I couldn’t even see her in the darkness. But I heard her stop and snort with exasperation. She came back down the path, fading into view like a ghost in her billowing white nightgown.
“Egg, you’ve got to follow me. Every man on Sunrise is looking for you—”
“I know! I’ve seen the poster.”
“Brilliant picture, wasn’t it? I drew that,” she said proudly.
“That’s terrible!”
“What do you mean? It looked just like you.”
“It’s a WANTED poster! Couldn’t you have made it not look like me?”
That caught her short. But only for a second. “Whatever. The point is, you’ve got to get off Sunrise. And you can’t go by the port, because Daddy’s got soldiers searching every ship top to bottom for you before it leaves.”
“So what can you do?”
“I’ve got a boat.”
“But you just said the port—”
“It’s not at the port! Come on!”
She started off again. Guts and I looked at each other.
“This island’s hundred-foot cliffs all round,” he said. “No port but the port.”
“Worth a look,” I said, and ran off after Millicent.
Once he finished cursing, Guts followed us.
THE FOOTPATH ENDED half a mile later, somewhere along the upper reaches of the shore road. We crossed over to the cliff side and followed the road for a while as Millicent studied the shallow line of trees fronting the cliffs. Twice, she stopped and doubled back, which made Guts roll his eyes and snort in disgust.
I asked her if there was anything I could do to help.
“Yes,” she said. “Make him shut up.”
“Didn’t say nothin’, you——.”
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Speak of ’er again, I’ll slit yer—”
“Oh, good! Here it is.”
She stepped between a pair of large pines to a barren, unremarkable spot at the top of the cliff. As Guts and I followed, she picked her way over a few big rocks to reach the edge, which seemed to plummet straight down to the sea below.
“Follow me,” she said. Then she stepped out over the edge into what looked like thin air.
We watched, dumbfounded, as she slowly disappeared, half a foot at a time.
“Come on!” she called to us as her head sank out of view.
“Yer first,” said Guts.
I gulped and followed Millicent’s path to the edge. On the seaward side of the rock, invisible to the eye until you were almost on top of it, was a narrow row of a dozen steps cut into the side of the cliff. Millicent was at the bottom of them, leaning lightly against the side of the cliff and smiling up at me.
As I started toward her, she took a few more steps and disappeared from view beneath an overhang. By the time I reached the end of the first section, the next one had come into view, leading down the cliff’s face. Millicent had paused again to look back at me.
“Is he coming?”
I looked up. Guts was on the steps behind me.
“Keep movin’! Got nowhere to go.”
I started down the stairs toward Millicent.
“Whatever you do, don’t look left,” she said as she started moving again.
I looked left—and immediately went dizzy with terror, because there was nothing but air between the side of the step and the sharp rocks rising out of the sea a hundred feet below me.
I clutched the side of the cliff with both hands and pressed my head against the rock wall to try and make the dizziness go away. Behind me, Guts le
t out an annoyed grunt.
“What’d ye stop fer? Almost ran into ye!”
“Sorry!” My voice sounded like someone was strangling me.
“You looked left, didn’t you?” Millicent called out brightly. “Try not to do that.”
We were on the stairs for maybe two minutes, but it felt like an hour. Finally, about twenty feet above the waterline, they turned sharply inward, disappearing through a little archway that we had to crouch down to squeeze underneath.
Inside, it was pitch-black and ten degrees colder.
“Hand me that sack,” I heard Millicent say from somewhere just in front of me.
I held out the rucksack of food and water she’d prepared for us, which I’d been carrying on my back since we left Cloud Manor. She took it from me, and a few moments later, she struck a match, lighting the immediate area.
We were on a platform cut into the wall of a narrow, high-ceilinged cove. A small, single-mast boat bobbed in the water below us, tied up to iron cleats hammered into the rock.
“Give me a minute. I’ll find the lantern,” Millicent said. She was halfway down the steps to the boat when her match went out. I expected her to strike another right away, but she knew her surroundings well enough that the next one she lit was to fire up a lantern she’d retrieved from somewhere on the boat.
She beckoned for us to get on board.
“Oars are under that bench. Keep to starboard getting out of the cove—there’s some nasty rocks just under the waterline to port, but it’s a deep channel otherwise. There’s a jib and a main in the cabin, but the jib might be more trouble than it’s worth. Wait till you’re out to raise the main. All right?”
She had her foot on the deck rail, ready to step off the boat.
“I’m not sure I got that,” I said.
“Which part?”
“The jib and the… raising the…”
“Don’t you know how to sail?”
“Not really, no.”
“For Savior’s sake, Egg! You grew up on an island!”
“I grew up on a mountain! That happened to be on an island. We didn’t exactly leave very often.”
She turned to Guts. “What about you?”
He shrugged. “Know from a jib an’ a main. Don’t mean I can sail.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Didn’t you live on a ship?”
“Yeh, moppin’ decks. Loadin’ cannons. Weren’t the pilot.”