The Widow

by Love, Aimee

  I knew he couldn’t drink like that every day and supposed he viewed this as a vacation from his responsibilities and therefor a good opportunity to indulge himself, but he must have done it some time before or Sebastian wouldn’t have known to lock us in.

  The second day, I decided I might as well join in the frivolity. By evening, I was giggling at the slightest provocation and came very close to committing a major indiscretion only to realize that my object had already passed out.

  I was hungover as hell the next day and vowed never to drink again, which was just as well since Julian drank the last of the mead for breakfast. He spent the rest of the day laying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “What do you do up here all day?” He finally asked. “I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “I watch the people outside,” I told him, then helped him up to my perch and showed him.

  “God, they’re like a mile away,” he complained. “They look like ants from here.”

  I shrugged. Sebastian had obviously been right about a second thing, Julian got cranky when he was thirsty.

  On the fourth day, I was so sick of watching him do nothing that I was actually relieved when I heard the door open and Titus called a greeting from below.

  “Just me,” he said, climbing up the ladder. “Sebastian made me promise to make sure you didn’t kill him,” he told me with a wink.

  Julian managed to convince him to sit with me for a little while, while he ran out for ‘supplies’.

  Titus saw the backgammon box and set it up, telling me that Julian had told him what I good player I was. I made sure to let him win without making it too obvious that I was doing so, and as he packed it back up he surprised me with a question.

  “Is it true you knocked Sebastian out?” He asked curiously.

  “Not out, really,” I said, shamefaced. “Just down.”

  “God, I’d have loved to have seen that,” he said, surprising me again. “Did it feel fabulous?”

  I grinned. “Yeah,” I admitted. “It kind of did.”

  “I’ve always wanted to wipe that smug…”

  Julian came back then, sparing me the embarrassment of continuing the conversation. Although I spent most days wanting to hit Sebastian, I’d come to view him somewhat territorially. He was my adversary, and the idea that other people might view him with the same annoyance irked me. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, but it was close enough that I decided not to dwell on it too much, least I discover something about my own motivations that I didn’t want to own up to.

  Julian had not only stopped by the distillery, he’d also picked up enough fresh food for a small feast. Once Titus had left, he set it all out on the table and even produced a thick beeswax candle and a little jar with a flower in it for the center.

  Half way through our dinner, there was a loud thunk from downstairs followed by two more in quick succession. I looked over at Julian, alarmed.

  “Is someone trying to get in?” I asked in a whisper.

  He shook his head, untroubled.

  “It’s just the birds,” he assured me.

  “I’ve never seen any birds,” I told him skeptically.

  “Well, they aren’t real birds obviously, but they fly, and the early colonists were lazy about naming things. You won’t have seen them because they hibernate all winter. Our lights drive them crazy, like moths, and they collide with the buildings. Don’t worry, they only stay around shore for a few weeks before going out to sea.”

  There was another loud bump, this one at one of my little round windows.

  “Do you mind if we go down to the big window so I can see one?” I asked.

  Julian looked at me as if I were crazy to be interested in a bunch of animals, but he shrugged good naturedly and went to get up. Unfortunately, he either missed his footing or didn’t realize how much he’d had to drink. He teetered and made a grab at the table to steady himself, but only succeeded in pulling the whole thing over on top of him.

  I was at his side in an instant, slapping his cheek gently, but he was out cold. Then I smelled the smoke. I looked down and saw that the candle had overturned, spilling hot wax all over him and lighting his trousers on fire.

  A head wound and a fire? Really?

  I put out the fire easily with water from the bathroom and Julian came to a moment later, but in my mind, I was already planning how I’d embellish it when I told Sebastian.

  Chapter Six

  Things that go Bump in the Night

  I was so excited when I heard the downstairs door open the next afternoon that I practically flew down the ladder and threw my arms around Quince as he came through.

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling away only to realize that he looked shyly pleased by the gesture.

  “What about me?” Sebastian asked, coming through behind him and putting his arms out mockingly.

  “Maybe she doesn’t like scars,” Julian said from half way down the ladder.

  “I don’t mind the scars,” I told him over my shoulder. “It’s the man attached to them that annoys me.” Then I hugged Sebastian to take the sting out of my words and punish Julian for being such an ass.

  He wrapped his bear-like arms around me and held on until I was finally forced to shove him away.

  Julian laughed and came the rest of the way into the room.

  “Need help carrying?” He asked Sebastian.

  “We’ll bring the rest up after dark,” Sebastian answered, flopping down on one of the beds.

  Julian looked crestfallen.

  “I told Titus I’d check them for contraband before I left,” he said sulkily.

  “I already went through them,” Sebastian told him. “It’s nothing but girly underwear and about a million hats.”

  “There are only three hats,” I said defensively. “I packed according to the Colony Board’s recommendation list for settlers to hyperborean planets.”

  “Then they need to reevaluate their list,” he told me with a mischievous grin, “because I think that white lace job is gonna get you frost bitten in some interesting places.”

  “That was for my wedding night,” I snapped. “You remember, the one I thought I’d be having before you told me my husband, who doesn’t even exist, was dead, which he isn’t.”

  “You can’t seriously still be mad because I told you a fake person was dead,” he scoffed.

  “Watch me,” I told him, climbing back upstairs, closing the hatch, and pushing the bed over it before I realized that I’d trapped Julian down there.

  I groaned, then decided I didn’t care. He’d been eager to be gone anyway and he could come back later for anything he’d left behind.

  I woke up in the morning to a loud pounding from below and realized I’d slept through dinner.

  “If you don’t come down and get your stuff,” Sebastian boomed, “I’m going to let Quince dance around the room in your naughties.”

  I pulled back the bed and opened the hatch.

  Quince was waiting on the ladder with a bowl of soup and a look of commiseration.

  I climbed down and took it from him, looking around with glee at the three large crates that contained all I’d been allowed to bring with me.

  “Property of Chapel Ward,” Sebastian read from the already broken seal of the one beside his bed. “You never told me how you got your name.”

  “You never asked,” I pointed out, then took pity on him. He’d been out on the ice with no one to talk to for a week and I was at least partially responsible.

  “When I was only a few days old, my parents left me at a place called Stiles Chapel in England. The person who found me wrote it on my arm with a marker before giving me to the authorities, in case my parents changed their minds and tried to find me. By the time I got to the found
ling house, which was half way around the world, nobody knew what it meant. They thought it was my name, and since Stiles sounded like a silly name for a girl, they thought it had been written last name first and the comma had washed off so they called me Chapel.”

  “But it doesn’t say Stiles, it says Ward.”

  “Foundlings all get the last name Ward until they come of age. You can have it changed after that if you want, but most don’t bother.”

  “You could change the first one too, couldn’t you? To something that sounded more like a real name?” He asked.

  I shrugged.

  “I could, but I’ve always thought it was nice that there was someone naive enough to believe my parents might come back for me, so I kept it.”

  Quince, ever industrious, finished his breakfast and began lugging my crates up to my room for me.

  “Besides,” I pointed out. “My name is hardly any stranger than Quince.”

  “Quince is a good name,” Sebastian said defensively.

  “It’s a fruit, not a name.”

  “It’s from Shakespeare,” he told me. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and mine is from The Tempest.”

  I thought for a moment.

  “And Titus is from Titus Andronicus, I suppose?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “What about Julian?” I scoured my memory. “There’s a Julius, but no Julian.”

  “It isn’t really his name,” Sebastian told me. “He was called Jacob first but everyones called him Julian for so long that even he uses it now.”

  “Why Julian?”

  “He was a scrawny kid, always getting picked on and one day someone says he should have been named Julian, like the calendar, because his days were numbered.”

  “And he’s proud he lasted this long,” I finished for him. “So he uses it.”

  “Maybe,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “Or maybe he uses it to remind that other kid that he’s one of the powerful now, and he hasn’t forgotten that he still owes him one.”

  I laughed, trying to picture the jovial Julian plotting slow revenge for a silly nickname.

  “I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you,” I joked.

  “Me?” He scoffed. “I didn’t give him the name, Titus did. I’m the one who always got into fist fights defending the little shit.”

  And now Julian was friendly with Titus and treated Sebastian with open scorn. No wonder they didn’t get along.

  As soon as I was alone with my things, I laid them all out on the floor in piles and took inventory, carefully removing the vacuum packaging that had let them all fit. When I’d packed them, I’d wondered how I was going to get by with so little, but after so long with nothing, they seemed like a treasure trove. The clothes alone were enough to send me into a fit of ecstasy, but it was the skeins of yarn, vacuum packed into flat little wafers of vibrant color, that held my attention. I pulled out the two pairs of real wooden needles and ran my hand down their length reverently. Finally, something to do with my spare time. I forced myself to set them aside for the time being, and took care of more serious matters.

  I pulled out the false bottoms of the crates, glad to see that they hadn’t been noticed, and riffled through their hidden contents. I checked batteries, adjusted dials, and overhauled it all, not sure when I’d need any of it but wanting it to be ready just in case. When I was satisfied, I replaced the bottoms and refilled the crates. With their plastic covers removed, the clothes had plumped and wouldn’t fit, but I piled the rest neatly against the far wall and breathed a sigh of contentment.

  When Quince came up with my lunch, he found me sitting on the floor surrounded by piles of yarn, happily at work. He disappeared and came back a minute later with Sebastian in tow. When I finished my row, I looked up at them, amused at their expressions.

  “You’ve never seen anyone knit?” I asked.

  Sebastian shook his head and Quince leaned in for a closer look.

  “But I’ve seen you wearing sweaters,” I told him, going back to work.

  “There’s a machine in the manufacturing plant. You put in scraps of rabbit fur and when it has enough, it spits out a sweater,” he told me, watching my hands. “This looks like a lot more work.”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s not like I have anything else to do,” I told him pointedly. “Besides, I enjoy it. It’s like meditating. It helps clear and focus the mind.”

  They left eventually, but I went on knitting, enjoying the simple, tactile pleasure of it and stopping only to eat first lunch and then dinner. When the light faded, I turned my implant to starlight mode, but realized that I couldn’t distinguish the colors in the gray gloom, so put on the lantern instead.

  Almost immediately, there was a loud thunk against the outside wall. I realized that in the excitement of the fire, I’d completely forgotten that Julian and I had been going down to see them. If they looked like the carvings I’d seen outside the city, I wanted to see how they managed to fly with so many wings.

  I set down my knitting and carried the lantern over to the hatch, pulling it open and poking my head down.

  Sebastian sprang out of bed at the sudden light.

  “Can we open the big window so I can see the birds,” I asked sheepishly. I felt silly for having woken them for something so frivolous, then realized that Quince wasn’t even in the room.

  “Where’s…”

  “Turn that fucking light off!” Sebastian barked, rushing over and taking the ladder two rungs at a time. I was so startled I fell back and he was up and beside me before I had a chance to comply. He switched it off himself, muttering obscenities, then grabbed me and pushed me through the hatch, not seeming to care if I managed to grab the ladder or just fell into the room below.

  He came down after me and I heard the hatch close and then another thud outside, this time against the shutter just behind me.

  “Where the hell did you get that?” He demanded, picking me up off the floor and holding me by my upper arms.

  I’d been too flustered to turn on my implant and now my hands were pinned, but I didn’t need to be able to see to know how angry he was, I could hear it in his voice.

  “Answer me!” He demanded, giving me a shake. “I know it wasn’t in your things, because I checked them.”

  “Julian brought it ages ago,” I stammered, not understanding what the fuss was about. Hadn’t he seen it before? Possibly not. He rarely came up to my room and then never at night.

  There was another thump and I felt Sebastian flinch at the sound.

  “Why are they still doing that?” I asked. “I thought they were only attracted to the light.”

  “They are,” he answered, his voice very low. “But turning it off doesn’t necessarily make them go away. Now they’re curious.”

  His anger seemed to have been replaced by something else. A sort of watchfulness bordering on fear that I found much more unsettling.

  “Are they dangerous?” I asked in a whisper. “Julian didn’t say…”

  “Julian is an idiot,” he told me softly, loosening his grip on my arms but not releasing me. “If you keep listening to him, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Where’s Quince?” I asked, suddenly afraid for him. “He’s not outside, is he?”

  “Quince is fine,” he assured me. “We ripped a sail coming back and he went out to mend it. I told him he could go ahead and sleep in the dormitory when he was done because it’s closer and he doesn’t like being out at night.”

  I heard a scrabbling sound, as if one of the creatures were trying to claw its way in. Quince’s fear seemed perfectly sensible to me.

  “What are those things?” I pleaded. “What’s going on here? Why won’t anyone…”

  He kissed me and I was as surprised
as he was that I didn’t resist, though it had clearly been designed to shut me up and keep me from asking more questions that he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, rather than out of any passionate impulse.

  I pulled away from him finally, but rather than going back upstairs as I suspected he’d prefer, I felt my way over to one of the spare beds and curled up in it. I heard the creak of him getting into his own bed and was thankful that he was willing to leave well enough alone. His rhythmic breathing calmed me, but the occasional thump and scrabble at the shutter kept me wide awake long into the night.

  Sebastian was still fast asleep when I awoke early the next morning. I crept past him and up to my room, glad to avoid a scene, and crawled into my own bed. I slept through the rest of the day, dreaming of seraphim with flaming swords and bats with huge, terrible fangs and too many wings. The sky was already getting dark when I got up the second time and I hurried into the shower.

  When I got out, I heard voices down below, Julian and Sebastian from the sound of it, and I didn’t need to eavesdrop to know what they were fighting about. Julian left without coming up to see me and I contemplated a dark, lonely night in my tower.

  I pulled open the hatch and poked my head down.

  “Is there any dinner left?” I asked brightly, carefully focussing on Quince rather than Sebastian.

  He smiled and pointed to a cold tray sitting at the base of the ladder.

  I hurried down before he could bring it up, nearly colliding with him at the bottom. He looked shocked, but moved aside for me with a smile. I pulled my wand out of my pocket and sat down cross legged on the floor to eat.

  “Do you feel like listening to something?” I asked them, finally risking a look at Sebastian.

  There was none of the leering I had expected, just a look of mild concern.