“Go near Quinn and I’ll cut you wide open.” The threat slips off my tongue, as fervent as a prayer.
“With what? You ain’t got a blade.”
“I didn’t say I’d use something sharp.”
A sailor descends from the aftercastle from serving as lookout and lands on deck not two strides away. “It’s your shift now, Cuthbert,” he says.
I march around them and return to my cabin. The abrupt loss of light momentarily dazes me. I set the pail down and hit Jamison’s boots sitting by the door. Water sloshes over the rim and onto my trousers.
“Creator’s bones,” I curse.
Jamison bolts upright from his bed on the floor. “What’s wrong?” He lights the lantern and sees the water spilled down my front. Humor brightens his eyes. “People generally bathe in the nude.”
“The wash water is for you.” I blot the wet stains with my cloak while he stares at me incredulously. “Well? Are you going to get up and wash or sit there?”
He sits in the chair near the pail. I toss him a washcloth and a bar of soap. His feet are bare and his breeches have ridden up to his knees. Above the hem of his pants, his right knee is mangled, as though the kneecap was twisted off and put back on crooked. I glance away, thinking of my own hidden scars.
“Take your time,” I say. “I’ll return with breakfast.”
“Everley, why . . . ?”
I loathe our marriage, but he need not work himself to death to avoid me. Jamison is not the man I wish to see suffer. “Don’t misconstrue my meaning. This is a peace offering. Nothing more.”
He nods slowly and then strips off his shirt. Flushed by the sight of his bare chest, I hurry out.
On the morning of the following day, we make port in a cove off a craggy coastline. Jamison, Captain Dabney, and several crewmen prepare to row to shore for supplies.
As their skiff lowers into the water, I grip the rail, my gloves warming my hands. Quinn plays with her figurines behind me. The port town in Galway, an ally realm to Wyeth, is smaller than Dorestand, yet the sight of civilization after months of water in every direction is heartening.
Most of the sailors remain aboard to oversee the prisoners, though it’s not in anyone’s mind to jump overboard and swim for land. While the anchor was lowered, several crewmen pointed out sharks prowling in the depths below.
Another creature surfaces near the hull. A dolphin, its silver back shiny in the sun.
“Quinn, come see,” I say.
She is no longer behind me. Where in the seven worlds did she go? I climb to Vevina sunning herself on the gangway. “Have you seen Quinn?”
Vevina squints into the sun. “Not recently. Ask Claret and Laverick.”
The Fox and Cat are playing cards against Harlow on the lee side of the ship. Between them are piles of hardtack they snuck from the galley. Come to think of it, they must have stolen the cards as well. Quinn isn’t with them.
An unsettling feeling presses upon me. I cannot remember all the crewmembers who went to shore. I rush into the circle of card players, crushing hardtack underfoot.
“Watch it,” Harlow says. “That’s my betting pile.”
“Where’s Cuthbert?” I ask.
“Why should I care?”
“Did he row ashore?” I crouch over Harlow. “Answer me!”
“Everley, what’s wrong?” Claret asks.
“I can’t find Quinn.”
“Check belowdecks,” Harlow answers, “and get out of our way.”
“Look on the gun deck,” Claret adds. “Sometimes she goes down to pet the animals.”
I descend the ladder, hopping down the last two rungs. Everywhere I search, crewmen scowl at me. No one has seen Quinn, so I sneak down another ladder to the gun deck. A long row of cannons occupies both sides of the ship. Crates of ducks and doves are stacked in the center of the deck near the pens for the livestock. Sheep bleat at me, and a few goats turn their heads to view their intruder. I am the only person here.
Quicker now, I return to the main deck and check the bow, Quinn’s and my favorite place to watch the sea, and search between the masts.
As I approach the forecastle, Cuthbert’s wide back comes into view. He has pinned someone against the rail. By comparison, Quinn is so small I almost miss seeing her.
My heart clock stalls a second in fear, sending a burst of pain to my fingers. Be machine, I tell myself. I grip down on my courage and charge.
Cuthbert hears my footfalls and spins. I slam my elbow into his face. He stumbles sideways, grabbing his bloody nose.
“Run, Quinn!” I shout.
She scoots past him and darts away.
“You shifty wretch,” Cuthbert snarls.
His pistol is tucked in the waist of his trousers and his cutlass is sheathed. I try to run, but he swings out with his fist and hammers me in the middle. I fall on my side, wheezing. Cuthbert throws me on my back. My ears ring a high-pitched whine. He straddles my waist, crushing my regulator, and bends over me. He halts and gapes at my front.
“What in the stars?” he asks.
My shirt and waistcoat shifted, exposing my ticker. I grab his pistol from his waist and swing up, whacking him under the chin. Cuthbert’s jaw emits a sickening crunch and he slants over. I roll out from under him and rise, straightening my shirt and waistcoat.
He saw my ticker, my mind screams.
Stay calm. He doesn’t know what he saw.
Cuthbert clambers to his feet and draws his cutlass. Horror vibrates from his tensed muscles. “What—what are you?”
I aim the pistol at him. I have never shot a firearm, but the process seems self-explanatory.
Cuthbert smirks. “You have to cock the hammer.”
I have no idea how to do that, so I hurl the pistol at him. Cuthbert ducks and the pistol spins overboard. I move inside his striking range and bash his arm against the rail at a painful angle. He drops his cutlass and I pick it up. My fingertips tingle on the cutlass hilt and my clock heart swings further off beat. No warning rings from my regulator.
“I told you to leave Quinn alone,” I say.
Blood flows from his nose down over his sneer. “When I tell the captain about that thing in your chest, he’ll hang you from the boom.”
Claret, Laverick, and Quinn charge up beside us. While I’m distracted by them, Cuthbert lunges for his blade in my hand. His peg leg stumbles over a lip between two planks and he trips forward into me. He jerks to a halt. I stare down at the cutlass embedded in his soft belly. Blood seeps around the hilt, bright-red spots dripping onto the deck.
Laverick pulls Quinn against her to cover her face. I yank out the blade and the light in Cuthbert’s eyes fades. He teeters backward, bumps into the rail, and topples over the edge. A splash sounds, washing sense over me. I drop the cutlass on the deck and wipe my bloody gloves across my waistcoat.
Two crewmen bound up to find us prisoners gaping at the rail. A sailor peers over the edge. He blanches and turns on me, the only one smeared in blood.
“Restrain her,” he says.
Rough hands haul me across the deck. I hang my head and pretend not to notice the stares of the other inmates. A sailor manacles my wrists in front of me and shoves me inside my cabin. I stumble to the floor, landing on my knees, and he slams the door.
Too weak to get up, I lean my back against the wall. Cuthbert’s blood has stained my mother’s gloves. The red spots are drying and darkening to dingy brown. The smell of it, of him, ferments inside me. I vomit into the closest vessel—Jamison’s dress boots by the door. He intended to wear them to shore with his uniform but changed his mind. I retch into them until I am empty, then curl up on my side.
Cuthbert tripped into the blade. The moment was unavoidable, as though we were shoved together by fate. Some people will deem his death bad luck, while others will blame me. Accident or not, Cuthbert was slain by my hand. No one knows he saw my clock heart, and I’m not sorry he won’t get the chance to expose me. I’m not sorry
he won’t terrorize Quinn again. I’m not sorry his time living is finished.
But I am very sorry that I will always carry the mark of his death on my soul.
I wait hours for someone to release me. The supply party must have returned from the mainland, because I felt the ship turn out to sea a while ago. Captain Dabney and Jamison must be discussing my punishment. Every time I shut my eyes, I imagine myself strung up from a boom.
I was wrong to get close to Quinn. My fondness for her divided my attention between her best interest and my own. I cannot tether myself to her or anyone else. Finding Markham will require the entirety of my commitment. No strings can tie me down.
The door latch jiggles. Jamison enters, his footfalls heavy and slow. He’s wearing his blue uniform, the one I hate. His gaze roams to his vomit-heavy boots and then me, ending on my bloodstained waistcoat.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” My bruises will heal. I cannot say the same for my regulator. My bindings have prevented me from inspecting the damage. “How’s Quinn?”
“Shaken. Claret and Laverick are with her.”
“And Cuthbert?” I ask more quietly.
“The current carried his body out to sea.”
Jamison trudges to his boots. No flicker of disgust or anger passes over him. He picks them up and sets them outside the door, and then returns to unlock my manacles. I pull at my wool gloves, but the blood soaked through the seams and stuck to my hands. I tug harder, nauseated all over again. Jamison covers my hands with his and removes my gloves finger by finger. Dried blood crusts the grooves of my skin. He wets the cuff of his sleeve with the water from the fishbowl.
“Cleon won’t mind,” he says and washes the blood away.
“I’m sorry about your boots.”
“Don’t give them another thought.” His voice takes on a more serious tone. “Quinn, Laverick, and Claret told the captain that Cuthbert tripped into the blade.”
I peel my dry tongue off the roof of my mouth. “He cornered Quinn. I couldn’t let him hurt her.”
“Even before the witnesses explained, I assumed it was an accident. You should have reported Cuthbert to the crew and let them handle him.”
“I know that now.”
Jamison washes my last dirty finger. “Three eyewitnesses are difficult to disregard. The captain and I agree that without a magistrate to try you in court, your transportation sentence stands. The captain has ordered that you remain in our cabin for the duration of the voyage and receive no visitors. You’re too precious to the future of the queen’s colony to execute.”
“Lucky me,” I mutter. “I’m of childbearing age.”
I wait for his condemnation, but he’s finished. Maybe he really does believe I was justified in my self-defense. Then why do I feel so filthy? As though I am stained with more than blood?
The moment Cuthbert’s spirit fled his body, a light went out of him. The same light disappeared from my mother and father. One second they were full of verve, warm and animated, eternal stars. The next they were empty and lackluster, light shattered.
My uncle’s warning returns to me stronger. Could you become a monster to destroy one? He was not asking whether I had the gumption to end Markham. He was warning me about the cost of violating Madrona’s will by taking a life.
“Everley,” Jamison says, and I blink myself back into focus. “I have something for you.”
He kneels and roots around under the bed. After some time, he withdraws a long, skinny object wrapped in cloth. Resting it on the mattress, he opens the package.
“My sword,” I breathe.
He lifts the weapon and inspects the wide, thin blade. “After your outburst in court, I had it brought on board.” He lays my sword across my lap. “I asked for your honesty and gave you no safe place to heed my request. My company doesn’t bring you comfort, but this might.”
I hesitate to pick up my sword. Its return feels counterintuitive, a strange reward for stabbing a man.
“You aren’t a villain,” Jamison says softly. “I’ve watched you these many weeks. You have a good heart.”
He should work on his judge of character, yet his trust in me is too great a gift to deny. I grasp the hilt and raise the blade. “Thank you.” I anchor my gaze on his to drill in my sincerity.
“I’m merely returning what’s yours, though I would appreciate your discretion. The captain may not take kindly to my arming a prisoner, even if she is my wife.”
Jamison leans in and I arch away. He stills and then more cautiously reaches for my stained gloves. “I’ll see what I can do about these.”
He departs in the same manner in which he came, his footsteps weighted. I wait for the door to latch, then strip off my waistcoat and lift my shirt. The copper filaments of my regulator are still attached to my ticker, but the box is cracked and smashed at the corners. The bells move around loosely. I tip it sideways and they fall in my lap.
Damn you, Cuthbert.
I remove the broken regulator and detach the filaments from my heart. As I pocket the bells, the second hand of my clock booms, tick, then tock. The push and pull of time shoves me onward regardless of what I want, what I need.
This was not a day for forward progress. Some days push us ahead into better times, while others pull us back so far nothing can reverse the damage. Those are the days that redefine our future for the worst. Those are the days where I despise time the most.
Chapter Eleven
A sharp tilt draws my focus from the book. I’ve been lying across the bed and reading for an hour. While confined to the cabin, I fill my time carving wooden figures, studying my father’s map of the island, shining the blade of my sword, and reading Jamison’s collection of texts. Anything to occupy my mind and avoid idle time.
Cleon’s water sloshes over the brim of his fishbowl. As I place a book over the top to stop more from spilling, a larger sway throws me into the shelves and tips over the daisy clock. I push it farther back on the shelf and block it in with books. The rowdy rocking mounted suddenly. In less than an hour, the sea has morphed from a gentle hand to a crushing fist. I teeter across the cabin to open the door.
I’m knocked this way and that by screaming winds, and heavy rain pelts me. Damp and breathless, I lean into the door and close it. The swells knock books off the shelves and open and shut drawers. I stumble to the bed and grab my sword, as though I could battle the wailing storm. For most of our voyage, I have avoided thinking about being surrounded by water. Now, a day’s journey from our destination, the sea underscores my fragility.
Jamison throws open the door and enters with a visitor. Quinn peeks out from under a quilt draped over her. She runs to me and leaps onto the bed. I let her in, wet feet and all, and Jamison shoves against the door, shutting out the storm. His coat and hat drip salt water, and his damp hair is plastered to his forehead. His eyes stand out against his pale complexion.
“She was afraid, so I said she could stay with you,” he explains. “I’ll return when I can.”
“You’re going back out there?” I ask.
“The storm is driving us off course. We’re too close to a reef and could run aground. You’ll be safe here.”
He wrings out his hat and reenters the tempest. The sea pitches the vessel sideways, and Quinn and I press our backs against the wall. She is close, but the noise of the storm drowns out my ticker. The lass fingers the hilt of my sword, her eyes round.
“It was my father’s,” I explain. “He found it while he was on a walk one day.”
A crash of thunder rattles the ship. Quinn burrows in the blankets.
My sword isn’t the distraction I hoped for, so I pull the blankets back. “How about a story?”
I pick up the book I was reading before the storm hit, the family heirloom Jamison inherited from his mother. As I resettle beside Quinn, my mind drifts again to my own mother. She had a special chair in our hearth room. Tavis and I would sit across from her on the settee, and Isleen oc
cupied the stool near the fire so she could see her needlepoint work. Carlin knelt at Mother’s feet and she stroked his hair. He was a pest for affection.
“Have you heard the Creation Story?” I ask.
“Mama said we could get into trouble for speaking about Madrona.”
“You should always listen to your mama, but this is a short, happy tale. I’m certain you’ll enjoy it.”
Madrona has been on my mind since Cuthbert’s death, and I wonder whether I will be cursed with bad luck for his accidental demise. I’ve read this story so many times, I almost have it memorized. I open the book to the marked page and start to read. “In the beginning, Eiocha the Creator, the goddess of conception and ruler of the eternities, crafted a world unlike any other. Volcanoes of lava, fallow deserts, and undefined valleys covered the whole of the newborn world. The Creator called it the Land of the Living, the birthplace of all life.”
“Is our world the Land of the Living?” Quinn asks.
“It is,” I reply, pleased that she’s listening despite the heaving ship. “The Land of the Living is one of the seven worlds. The others are: the Land of Youth, the Land of Promise, the Other Land, the Silver-Clouded Plain, the Land Under the Wave, and the Plain of Delight.”
“I like ours best.”
“Me too.” I lift the book between us and continue. “Into the quiet oblivion, Eiocha sent a trickle of water from the heavens. The stream flowed into a torrent that flooded the arid lands. Within a patch of the suckled soil, Eiocha planted a seed, and from the land a sapling grew. The Creator called her Madrona, Mother of All, and charged Father Time to oversee the seedling. Eiocha gave him a blade forged from a star to guard Madrona, for within the sapling’s heartwood beat creation power.”
Quinn stares at the page, but does not follow along, most likely because she cannot read. Nevertheless, she is involved, the tempest a far-off worry.
“Madrona grew into a mighty elderwood, Eiocha’s strongest, most powerful creation. The tree shed acorns that sprouted into a forest of seedlings. Soon she was surrounded by a conclave of elderwoods that brought forth other plant life and creatures. Eiocha called her garden the Everwoods and set it apart from the Land of the Living, consecrating the hallowed ground as the bridge between the seven worlds. The Everwoods flourished, and from creation power, all mortal life was fostered. Though mankind may not enter the Everwoods, Madrona’s face can be seen in the sunrise and her voice can be heard in a newborn’s cry. It is said that if one holds an acorn to their ear, they can hear the call of life, as vibrant and joyful as a rainbow.”
Before the Broken Star (The Evermore Chronicles Book 1) Page 10