Chasing the Green Fairy: The Airship Racing Chronicles

by Melanie Karsak

  “To Byron,” I said and hoisted the bottle.

  “Here, here,” they all cheered.

  “Wait,” Mary called, stopping us. “Give a proper toast,” she said as she looked around the table. “Everyone, use your right hand. That is how you toast properly.”

  “No, no,” Tommy corrected. “Not this time. My ma always said, on the other side, in the spirit world, they see us in opposite. Everyone, use your left hand. He will see it as our right.”

  Mary nodded then switched her glass to the opposite hand. “Then to Byron,” she called.

  “To Byron,” I whispered, toasting him with my left hand. I drank the liquor like it was water. The sweet taste of alcohol filled my body. Having gone so long without a drink, the alcohol hit me hard. It was what I wanted. Sweet nothingness. When someone pulled out an opium pipe, I was more than grateful.

  “Don’t let Stargazer get it. You’ll never get it back,” Edward joked.

  He was right. I smoked it all, convincing myself not to feel bad about it. Everyone understood. Mary Shelley, who I liked much better than her late husband Percy, filled the pipe again and pushed it toward me.

  Edward then told the tale of the first time he ever saw me: “Byron suddenly got it into his mind that he wanted to watch the 1819 British airship qualifying, of all the bloody things, which baffled the hell out of Percy and me,” he began. “Byron wasn’t one to really give a damn about cheap sporting events, no offense, Lily, but days before the race, he had us all scurrying about getting ready to go. Mind you, we had to fly to London to watch the event.”

  “Byron hauled you back to Britain? But I thought he’d swore he’d never return from exile,” Mary said.

  “That was what we said, but he insisted. Next thing we knew, we were floating over the Thames watching the racers come in. Percy and I were debating how much coin Byron had riding on the winner—which was the only reason we could come up with on why he’d come—when Byron got very excited. He ran to the prow of the ship with a spyglass and hung off the ship to watch.”

  “‘Take a look,’” Percy had said to me as he looked on. “‘Now I see what all the fuss is about.’”

  “I picked up a lens and caught sight of our illustrious airship racer for the first time,” Edward said, patting my shoulder. “Lily was bouncing all over the deck, tugging lines and yelling at her crew, as her ship pulled into first. By god, Byron was smiling from ear to ear.”

  “Percy asked, ‘Who is she?’ Byron never answered him, he only smiled and watched you pilot in. When they signaled you’d won first place, Byron screamed aloud for you. Christ, I don’t think I ever saw him look so . . . happy.”

  “‘New girl,’” I remember saying, “‘Who is she?’ I’d asked him. Byron never answered. He only motioned to the captain that he was ready to go. That’s when I knew, that girl had to be someone special. I always wondered what you’d done to get under his skin like that.”

  I sat weeping. “Nothing,” I whispered.

  Someone managed to dredge me up a bottle of absinthe. Determined to squelch my spirit somewhere beyond feeling, I poured myself glass after glass. Part of me hoped the green fairy would lead me to the otherworld and just leave me there. The room soon became a distorted mess of color, sound, and people who were crying, shouting, or laughing loudly.

  They told story after story of Byron’s exploits the world over, some of which surprised even me. I had not known that he’d been rumored to be the lover of Albanian overlord Ali Pasha during his first youthful exploits abroad. The thought of it had me laughing.

  At some point late in the day, I’d gotten up and tried to see Byron, but his secretary refused me.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Stargazer. This time is set aside for family viewing only,” he said.

  His answer confused me. Family viewing? The man lying dead inside should have been my husband. Enraged, I took a swipe at the man.

  Edward, who had been by my side, stopped me. “No you don’t, Lily. Don’t worry. There will be time for his real family and his loyal friends later,” Edward said, glaring at the secretary as he guided me back to the alcove.

  But after a while, I noticed Byron’s room was no longer guarded. I sneaked in. I wanted so desperately to be near him one last time. They had laid him out so that he was fit for viewing by his family and political acquaintances. He was dressed in a clean, white, Greek-fashioned toga. They had even crowned him with a wreath of laurel. He was so . . . still.

  Passing his corpse, I staggered to Byron’s bureau. Though it took me five tries to finally catch the drawer pull, I opened his dresser and pulled out one of his white dress shirts. I buried my face in it, soaking up his smell. I then stole the bottle of cologne from the top of his dresser.

  I turned again to look at him. His white skin seemed luminescent in my opium and absinthe haze. Then, to my shocked amazement, I spotted his shade standing beside his body. I felt a strange double vision, seeing the dead man and his spirit all at once. The ethereal, opalescent creature standing over the corpse looked at me with wild, twinkling blue eyes. “Penelope of Arcadia,” he said, grinning madly. “My true passion! For you and through you my regrets will be mended!” he laughed then spun dizzily, disappearing back into the ether.

  I closed my eyes hard, trying to shake off the hallucination. When I opened them again, the vision had gone. My boots and satchel were sitting forgotten near the head of the bed. I bent and stuck his shirt and cologne into my bag, strapping the satchel across my body. As I did so, I eyed his corpse more closely. How still he was. I knew it was better if I didn’t, but I wanted to touch him just one more time. I set my fingertips on his lips. They were ghastly cold. It startled me so horribly that I screamed.

  Out of nowhere, Edward came and pulled me away. “Come on, Lily. Let’s get out of this place,” he said, holding me. “My Lord, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take your girl away from all this misery,” he told the corpse and led me by the hand down the hallways of the mansion.

  I stumbled along weeping miserably. I was so intoxicated that I started to lose time. In what felt like a minute later, I was on horseback. The next minute, I was sitting on the deck of an airship. A man I did not know was injecting my arm with morphine. I smiled blissfully. When I opened my eyes again, I found an opium pipe, almost fully smoked, resting in my hands. Several people on the deck of the airship were dancing and drinking wildly. I lifted the pipe and smoked again. I leaned back on the deck of the ship and gazed up at the sky. It was early evening. In the dim twilight, one exceptionally brilliant star shone in western sky.

  “Go to hell!” I screamed at the sky. “Go to hell!”

  Around me, everyone laughed.

  I threw the pipe overboard and drifted into unconsciousness.

  THE BRIGHT MORNING LIGHT HURT my eyes so terribly I could barely open them. A beautiful yet haunting chant echoed through my room from somewhere nearby. Slowly, I opened my eyes to find myself lying in a large bed; the curved wood design of the frame, the orange and purple beaded curtains, and crimson-colored silk sheets came slowly into focus. Otherwise, the room was all white: white marble floors, white marble walls, white marble ceiling. The evocative, reverberating sound was coming from outside my window. The ornate shutters on the windows were open. I spotted the tall spire of a nearby mosque. Beyond the spire were airship towers I did not recognize.

  I closed my eyes again and listened. The beautiful yet melancholy noise made my heart ache. My very soul felt pained. I rolled over and gazed at the rays of sunlight slanting in through the open window. I reached out to touch the motes of dust floating in the air. I wanted to die.

  I then spotted my satchel sitting beside the bed. Dangling my hand over, I opened the bag and pulled out his shirt. I crushed it to my face, inhaling deeply. Things would never be the same again.

  I lay back and looked at the canopy. Overhead, multicolored glass lanterns stirred, their chains chiming in the soft breeze. Suddenly remembering, I grabbed at
my chest. I was still wearing my bodice, and the keys were still safely hidden within. I pulled them out. The heavy metal key looked very old. The small copper piece, which Byron called a key, looked like nothing of the sort. It was long, slim, and was punched with square holes. I held it up and looked through the holes out the window, the metal making a kind of unnatural cobweb. I clutched it against my chest.

  “Ah, Madame, you are awake,” I heard someone say. I turned to find a woman standing in the doorway. Her body, save her eyes, was entirely covered in veils.

  “Where am I?” I rasped, my throat parched.

  “Morocco.”

  While I didn’t remember how I’d come there, or how long I’d been there, the taste in my mouth, the injection marks down my arms, and the burning ache in my body told the tale. “The man I was with-”

  “Mr. Trelawny is still asleep down the hall.”

  I sat up. I was dressed only in my bodice and underwear, but, thankfully, I’d woken up alone. “I need to leave,” I told her.

  “You do know, Madame, you are on the Barbary.”

  I understood where I was even if I didn’t remember how I’d gotten there. I was in the heart of pirate country. I held my head. It ached miserably. “There is always a transport for hire.”

  The woman nodded affirmatively and helped me get up. I was suddenly overwhelmed with vertigo. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: my cheeks were hollow, skin pale, eyes bloodshot and dark ringed. My hair hung in a tattered mess all around my face. “How long have I been here?”

  “I’m not certain . . . perhaps a week?”

  A week? I squinted my eyes shut and tried to remember. My memory was a confused jumble of distorted images. I tried to dredge up some memories of what had happened, where I had been, but when I did, images of Byron’s cold corpse insisted themselves upon me. I opened my eyes, thrusting the heartbreaking images away.

  “Perhaps I can bring you something clean to wear?” the woman said, lifting the clothes I’d been wearing since I’d left London. The smell of opium, alcohol, and body odor reeked from them.

  I scanned the room. Save my satchel, I had nothing with me. And my feet were still bare. My boots had been left by Byron’s bedside. I envisioned them sitting like silent, unseen watchmen standing vigil over his body. My head pounded; I started to feel nauseous. I was glad to see there was a vial of laudanum sitting on my bed table. “Please . . . and I need shoes, if you can find some.”

  The woman said nothing but exited the room.

  I sat back down on the bed and took a drop of laudanum. All that mattered was that it dulled the ache. I rubbed the injection marks on my arms. They itched terribly. An image flashed through my mind of a robed man with rotten teeth and a deafening laugh injecting me with a sharpened quill attached to a rude bladder full of morphine. My stomach quaked as I held back bile. Curling back up on the bed, I clutched Byron’s shirt. I recalled the softness of his hair against my cheek and the feel of his hot breath whispering in my ear. Memories flooded my mind and senses, the feel of our flesh on one another, the startling clarity of his eyes locked on mine, and the intimate knowledge of the real man who lived behind them. And now, he was gone. How do you fix a mistake that can no longer be undone?

  Awhile later, the woman returned. “Here you are, Madame,” she said politely when she reentered, disrupting my misery. “It’s not fine clothing by any stretch of imagination, but it might do. If needed, I can send someone for a gown.”

  I stared at the bundle she held. The garments, including a pair of thin satin slippers, were all black. “Thank you,” I said. A tear trailed uncontrollably down my cheek. It moved me that she had known.

  She merely nodded then helped me get dressed. The trousers she’d procured were men’s, but I didn’t care. The tunic, also black, was embroidered and beaded in traditional Moroccan design. Once she settled me into the clothing, she worked a brush through my hair. I fingered the tunic. It was made of silk and sheer material trimmed with black beads on the neck and hem. It hung low on my chest, my bodice peeking out of the top.

  “Would you like me to plait your hair?” she asked.

  “No,” I said absently.

  She nodded and helped me to the door.

  I stuffed Byron’s shirt and the vial of laudanum safely in my satchel. I then pulled out my cap, the lily pin still safely attached, and put it on.

  “I need to see Edward.”

  The woman said nothing but led me down a blue and orange tiled hallway in what turned out to be an ornately decorated villa. Flashes of memory crossed my mind. I remembered dining, sitting on a satin cushion rather than a chair, at a long table heaped with olives, bread, and roasted lamb. I then remembered watching a woman dressed in veils twirl before us, her hips gyrating as she danced, and Edward calling for me to dance with her. I slapped the floodgate on my memories closed. I didn’t want to see more.

  “Here you are,” she said, opening the door to a bedchamber. She stood outside, her eyes glued to her feet. I eyed her curiously then entered the bedchamber which was decorated in the same Moroccan style as my own. Edward was still asleep. He lay naked, face down, between two beautiful, and also naked, women with poker-straight black hair. No one stirred when I entered.

  “Edward,” I called, standing beside his bed.

  He didn’t move.

  “Edward?” I said again. He groaned but did not answer. Carefully, I leaned over one of the sleeping girls and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Lily?” he moaned but did not stir.

  I looked out Edward’s window. The airship towers were not so far away. I could make out a dozen or more ships anchored on the platforms. It was time to go. I left the room quietly and rejoined the woman who waited in the hall. I nodded to her.

  “Very well, Madame,” she said then led me silently back through the villa.

  We passed an open interior garden. A peacock called, its feathers fanning in alarm as we walked by. Again, disconnected memories fluttered through my mind. I remembered sitting in the open space smoking opium and staring at the stars overhead. I also remembered a large fire burning in the center of the garden. Edward’s cheeks had glowed red as he’d tossed Byron’s journals into the flames.

  “Here you are,” the woman said at last, pushing open a door to the courtyard outside. There I found a rider dressed in a dark blue djellaba waiting on a black Barbary horse. “You will be taken to the airship towers,” she said.

  The rider, whose face was shadowed by his hood and dark glasses, lent me a hand to help me mount behind him. The woman ensured I had a good grip on my satchel then went back inside, her black robes trailing behind her. Clicking his tongue, the rider spurred his horse down the dusty road away from the villa toward the airship towers.

  The towers sat adjacent to the sailing ships docked in the Atlantic. As it turned out, I was in Casablanca. I’d never been there before, and not remembering anything about the time I’d spent there just now, I guess I still had never really been there. The rider left me at the boardwalk. I was overcome by the briny smell of the sea. A strong wind blew. I could taste the salt in the air. Overhead, sea birds called to one another. I pulled on my dark glasses and made my way through the crowd toward the stationmaster’s office. I eyed the ships docked overhead. While the airship towers were crowded, I didn’t recognize a single craft; the ships overhead were pirate vessels. Their multicolored and patched balloons and glimmering weaponry were telltale. I steeled my nerve.

  Though it was still early morning, the loud-mouthed pirates were already arguing, some brawling, on the boardwalk. Perhaps, given how it early it was, they were still brawling.

  I was walking down the boardwalk, the planks rough under my slipper-bedecked feet, when a gold-toothed pirate with a thick Australian accent called to me: “Hey, pretty! Why the rush? Why not stop for breakfast?” Laughing, he thrust his pelvis at me. His companions howled along with him.

  In my youth
aboard the Iphigenia with Mr. Oleander and Mr. Fletcher, such language had been commonplace. I simply ignored the men and hurried along to the stationmaster’s office. The bell over the door jangled sharply when I entered. Within, I found a boozy looking man with stringy silver hair, his two front teeth missing, in no better condition than myself.

  “Aye, now, here is a beautiful lady,” he slurred. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

  “A charter.”

  “Oh, a woman of adventure? Where you headed?”

  I frowned. It paid to be less than specific. “North.”

  He laughed. “Ah yes, north! Marvelous country. Well, I think Sionnaigh is due in tonight. He tends to travel north.”

  It was my turn to laugh.

  “No? Pleasure cruiser headed to London by way of Madrid, if you fancy.”

  I frowned.

  “Well,” he said, thinking it over, “there is one other ship anchored. Lady pilot. The Orpheus. She might take you north.”

  “Fine.”

  “Decisive girl,” he said with a laugh. “All right, beauty. Let’s head up.” Moving slowly, he grabbed a cane leaning against his desk then led me outside.

  We rode the lift up, the metal gears cranking loudly. The stationmaster chatted nosily.

  “So what is a pretty lady like you doing traveling all alone? Where you headed up north? Family problems? You look familiar, have we met before? Don’t talk much, eh sweetheart?” He rattled on and on, asking me far more questions than I wanted to answer. I ignored his questions, responding only with a look.

  “All right, all right,” he said, finally giving up. When we reached the top, he pushed open the gate to the platform. The strong wind coming off the Atlantic made the airships wag in the breeze. Crews of mercenary men in their ballooning trousers and wide brimmed hats lounged about their airships. I kept my head low. The stationmaster led me past the larger airships to a small, ornately carved airship whose balloon boasted a harp: the Orpheus.

  “Hermia?” the stationmaster called.