Copperhead i-2

by Tina Connolly

  “What’s that, lady?” said the driver.

  “Look, drive around the street a couple times. I’ll be right back and we’ll go somewhere else.”

  “It’s your coin,” he said.

  “And don’t let her out,” said Helen, pointing to the pale figure in the back. Jane was pressed against the glass, long fingers moving slowly over it, tracing the lines of blue that covered the street.

  “Look, lady, I don’t go in for restraining loonies.”

  “If you lose my sister, I’m not paying you one penny,” said Helen, and she slammed the door before he could argue one more word.

  She hurried inside, dashed up the steps to her room. There was the carpetbag. Grabbed it. Dumped out a little jar of dried lavender on her vanity until she found the notes stashed at the bottom. Hopefully it would be enough for the fare.Helen turned to run and then thought, suddenly, He said there would be a dance.

  It seemed ridiculous to go to a dance in the middle of a war. It was ridiculous.

  And yet.

  If she was going to be there anyway, keeping Jane safe, figuring out exactly what had happened to her, exactly what Rook knew …

  Couldn’t one as easily do that on the dance floor?

  Just a waltz. Just a turn. Just …

  Helen turned to her wardrobe and, knowing she only had a second, refused to let herself linger. She could try on outfits all day to find the perfect representation of what you wore to an unknown dance in a dwarvven slum when you didn’t want to look as though you were impressing anybody but still wanted to slay all of them (all of them? Yes, all of them) with your beauty.

  But there was no time. She had a go-to dress, an apple green ruffled voile that could withstand being shoved in a carpetbag, and she grabbed it and started for her bedroom door, colliding into a pale, troubled-looking Mary. “Mary,” Helen said, seizing her hands. “Did any messages come for me? And am I in trouble for not coming home?”

  Mary glanced behind her, down the open hallway. “I’m not sure he noticed exactly,” she began, but Helen forestalled that.

  “Wait, messages first.”

  “Yes,” said Mary, “That fiancé of your sister. You only missed him by an hour. He said he’d be back and that you should tell me where to find you.”

  “Thank goodness he’s in town,” said Helen. Lowering her voice, she said, “Look, can you memorize the address to tell him? Copperhead mustn’t know who’s been helping us.” Mary nodded, and came all the way into the bedroom, silently closing the door behind her. Helen gave her Frye’s address, adding, “She’ll know how to get ahold of us.” She shook her head. “He must be terribly worried. Tell him we’ve found Jane if you see him first. Did he look all right?”

  “A little wild-looking,” Mary said. “Hair on end. But more despairing-like than spoiling for a fight. I don’t think he wanted any trouble, but Mr. Morse came through the foyer just then and tried to pick a fight with Mr. Rochart, even with his crippled hand, and then he would have flattened him—flattened Mr. Rochart, I mean—but Mr. Hattersley came out and pulled them apart. The master didn’t seem to notice.”

  “Oh no,” said Helen. “Poor Edward.”

  In a hushed voice Mary added, “They were terrible, ma’am. They haven’t been this bad since before you came.”

  “They used to be worse?”

  “Well, after that terrible motorcar accident with Mr. Grimsby’s wife, you know,” said Mary. “They all got better for a little bit.”

  Helen shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. Except Alistair saying … “A dwarvven was at fault for his first wife’s death?”

  Mary snorted. “Begging the master’s pardon, ma’am, but, no. You know them. They had been drinking all night, of course—and Mr. Grimsby was quite wild in those days. And the first Mrs. Grimsby was here, pleading with him to come home. He told her he wouldn’t be ordered about—of course they all cheered him on—and then he said he was fit to take them on a nice pleasure drive and they’d go where he wanted and so on. But of course he wasn’t in any kind of state to do that. They hit another car—the other driver was a dwarvven, you see, that’s where that comes in. Mrs. Grimsby was killed instantly. Mr. Grimsby went through the windshield. That’s when he got into all the Copperhead stuff about One People One Race and started warping all of them to it, even though the dwarvven driver didn’t do nothing. People go mad from guilt you know.”

  “Yes, they do,” Helen said softly.

  Mary shook her head. “I hate to say it, ma’am, but I don’t know if I can stay in this position much longer. I hate to leave you with them, but…”

  “I know,” said Helen. “I’ll write you a recommendation. I will.”

  She opened the door, and Mary added, “I really don’t think you want to go down there, ma’am. It’s not decent.”

  Voices drifted down the hall from the games room and Helen remembered, with a shocking start, that Tam must be down there with them. Of course, she had laid the geis on Alistair to behave, but … “You go to bed, Mary,” she said. “Tell the housekeeper I said you could have the night off. George can go in if they need something.”

  Helen strode past Mary and went firmly down the hall. The male voices were louder, raucous. On top of them a female laugh drifted out and Helen felt her bones freeze. They had women over, too? She opened the door to the games room and took it in. Men, slouched in chairs, muddy feet on tables. Musky cologne, lavender soap, cheap floral perfume. A woman perched on the arm of Boarham’s chair, another in Morse’s lap. And a small figure in an explorer hat, sliding half-off a footstool, holding a tumbler of beer.

  Alistair and his friends were getting Tam drunk.

  Helen dropped Jane’s bag and stormed into the room, a whirlwind of frustration at herself and them. “What are you doing? Absolutely not. What is this? What is…?” she spluttered off in frustration. She could not even handle the topic of the women for the moment; all her focus was on that small boy she had tried to protect. She had given Alistair specific instructions. Not specific enough?

  Alistair furrowed his brow. “You said to entertain him and have a good time.”

  “Not like this. I said—”

  “Entertain him,” finished Alistair.

  “And we’re doing that,” said Boarham. He squeezed the waist of the girl perched on his chair and Helen saw with rapidly growing distaste that the girl was wearing a mask of iron. Not a real mask of iron. A lacy half mask meant to mimic Helen’s own, but giving shape and allure to an ordinary set of features. Helen glanced at Morse, whose wife really did have a fey face. The girl in his lap was not his wife. She, too, wore a domino of grey silk.

  Helen was left momentarily speechless.

  “Look, Master Thomas, tell Miss Helen she can suck it,” said Boarham.

  “You can suck it,” said Tam, sweet funny Tam.

  Helen was a whirlwind of indecision. She couldn’t leave Tam. And yet, how safe was it in the dwarvven underground? They wouldn’t hurt a child, she was sure. That seemed a small hope to pin things on, and yet that small voice inside her told her she could still trust Rook.

  She ran through her other options. Frye—gone. Jane—mentally gone. And she couldn’t stay here at Alistair’s house with Tam, because Jane was outside, circling in a cab, and if Jane came in these drunken louts would sober up and take her away for murder … or worse.

  “You’re coming with me,” Helen said to Tam. At least he would be with her, and she could keep him safe, whatever happened.

  “It was only one drink,” said Hattersley, offering her a tipsy smile. “Young man has to learn to hold his beer.”

  “Get your coat,” she told Tam. He crossed his arms, trying to imitate Boarham’s pugnacious stance. “Now,” she said, and he went.

  Morse looked sharply at her from his spot in the armchair, arm held firmly around the girl’s waist. He had always been a nasty sort of drunk, she remembered. It struck her for the first time how sad it was that she co
uld recite the exact sort of way all these men got drunk. Emotional, sleepy, quarrelsome … “What about that new curfew Grimsby got passed, hey? I expect you’re supposed to be off the streets soon.”

  “To stop walking them,” snorted Boarham, pleased with his wit. He tumbled the girl from the arm of the chair to his lap and she giggled.

  Morse waved his glass of whiskey around with his free hand. “If she were my wife she’d know what’s what,” he told it.

  “Some of us know how to sacrifice for the cause,” said Boarham in a self-satisfied way to Morse. Helen imagined him slinging an unconscious Jane over his shoulder and she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face.

  “She has an escort,” Alistair said with a funny simpering smile. “That dwarf fellow of Grimsby’s.”

  Morse barked laughter. “What, is she going to help him blow up the slums?” He smiled maliciously at Helen. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”

  “I’m going,” Helen said quietly, but firmly. She nodded at the quiet girl in Morse’s lap, the giggling one in Boarham’s. “You can come, too, if you want.” But they both shook their heads no, and truth was Helen had no idea what she would do if the men rose up against her. They were so big, so wild, so unpredictable in their drunken whims. And she did not think she could change them the way she had changed Alistair. It had felt with Alistair as though she knew him so well she could move things, make new things lock, pull out the Alistair she thought she knew. She had changed that man in the street through anger and fear. But a whole crowd of them, drunken and pressing in? No.

  She looked at Alistair, relaxed in a chair with water in his hand. At least her power seemed to be holding. “You can go,” he said dreamily.

  “Really,” said Morse.

  Boarham snorted. “If he doesn’t care about his reputation, why should you? Pass the whiskey.”

  “He cared about it the night we met those dancing girls from Varee,” said Morse. He smirked at Helen and her heart beat faster. Surely he was not telling her to her face that Alistair was even worse than she had imagined. That it was only chance that he didn’t have a girl captive in his chair, half-mask on her face.

  Hattersley looked sideways at her. “Before your time,” he muttered. He had always been the nicest of the bunch, though Helen did not know if that meant he was telling her the truth, or a lie to make her feel better.

  “Has it really been that long?” said Morse. Ostentatiously he counted back months on his fingers. “November, October…” He shrugged, dropping the game. “What about your little theatre piece, Hattersley? Bitty or Betty or some such?” His free hand inscribed suggestive lines an inch away from the girl he held.

  “She’s fine,” Hattersley said neutrally.

  Morse dipped a finger in his whiskey and sucked it off. “Consolation prize after you-know-who?”

  All of Alistair’s friends suddenly stopped and looked at Helen, including Hattersley, who was frozen in shock. She felt her face flame bright red, and did not know exactly what had happened. She looked at Alistair, but he was staring off into nothing, a vacuous expression on his face.

  Tam stumbled back in, his coat on upside down, laughing at himself. He had his jar of bugs in one hand and his binoculars strung around his neck. “Ready for an expodishon,” he said.

  Helen seized his free hand with relief. “Come on,” she said gently. To the men she said, “Enjoy yourselves,” and then she took Tam’s hand and hurried out the door, eyes peeled for the circling cab. Had Hattersley been interested in her? She had never particularly thought about him. She hadn’t even met him till the wedding, she thought, so what did he mean consolation prize? If Betty was the Betty Helen had met at Frye’s party, they probably had been together longer than she had been married. Betty had mentioned a Richard, and she rather thought that might be Hattersley’s first name.

  Helen paused at the foot of the stairs, realizing the absence of what she sought.

  The cab was not there.

  She turned left, thinking the driver’s circling might take him around that corner, and hurried Tam along down the street, watching. No moving cars; all was silent. It felt as though the city were preparing for the oncoming dusk and curfew. There was only a thin lone figure at the end of the road, walking slowly along and staring at the sky.

  Jane.

  Helen pulled Tam along until they caught up with Jane, and she seized her arm with her free hand. “What happened? Where’s the cabbie?”

  “I have bugs,” said Tam. “They flyyyyy around.”

  “Do they?” said Jane.

  “Jane,” repeated Helen. “What happened?”

  Jane turned those green eyes on her. “I was asking the driver if he’d ever touched one of the blue bits of fey and tried to see what it’s thinking. Because I wonder how many bits have to join together to cross over into being full-fledged fey. A whole fey can lose some pieces, but they don’t like it. When does it become just unthinking little bits, like we used to power our lights with? Do the small bits dream? One of the fey made me dream. And then the driver said any amount of money wasn’t worth it and he stopped the car and opened the door and I got out and walked around the block just as we were doing in the car and now I’m here.”

  “Argh,” said Helen. She did not know how she had gotten in a mess that involved standing on a street corner with an addled sister and a drunk child, late for an appointment in the dwarvven slums with a citywide curfew about to fall any moment. In that moment it seemed just more proof of her inability to make good decisions, for who else would find themselves like this? The one good thing was that surely there was nothing else to go wrong right now.

  “It’s snowing!” said Tam.

  Really. Snowing?

  “It’s like cotton,” Jane said dreamily.

  “It’s like bug guts. White floaty bug guts.” Tam hiccuped. “I’m going to make snow pterodickle—pterodackle—snow man-eating butterflies.”

  “I am, too,” said Jane.

  “No, no, and no,” said Helen firmly, and she got one hand on each of them before they plopped down on the as-yet-unsnowy-but-certainly-muddy ground. “We are going to find Rook. We are going on the trolley.”

  “Chugga chugga choo choo,” said Tam.

  “That’s a train,” said Helen, reflecting that it was hard to tell which part was drunk and which was small child. It was not something she’d ever expected to have to puzzle out. “Come on.”

  She tugged them both along through the falling snow. The wind was wet and the snow fell in big fat flakes that occupied both her charges, although her wrists grew sore from keeping a tight hold on them as they attempted to chase and eat snowflakes.

  “The snow’s like polka dots against the sky,” said Jane.

  “Doka pots,” said Tam. “Pots pots pots.”

  “Your scarf is dragging,” Helen told Jane. “Hold your bug jar with two hands, Tam.”

  “Then you’d be holding it,” he said gleefully, because of course she was still holding one hand.

  Grant me patience and a nice hot bath, thought Helen. “Just be careful. It’s glass.”

  “Glass pots. Pots pots pots.”

  They rounded a corner and there was the trolley station. “Thank goodness,” muttered Helen. There was a wait for the next trolley, in which time the sky got darker and darker and the snow got fiercer. By the time the trolley finally pulled up it was undeniably dusk, and here were two women with fey faces out against the rules. Not to mention a small drunk child, who, though he was male, still probably fell on the needs-curfew side of the curfew law. Helen hustled them onto the trolley, thinking that she had been without her iron mask all this time and hadn’t even noticed. It was funny what a single-minded purpose and two lunatics would do for knocking worries right out of your head.

  She hurried them on and sat them down on either side of her, knocking wet clumps of collecting snow from everybody’s coats and cardigans and explorer hats. You could still look nice w
hen you were on the run.

  Jane clutched her carpetbag, and Tam hung on to Helen’s coat pocket. He peered around, studying the passengers as if they were an unusual species of ant. Helen put a hand on both of theirs and tried to relax her shoulders and neck.

  The trolley was wet from the snow and crowded from the bodies crammed into it. The crowds eased around Helen at every stop until she realized that there were very few people left in the spots designated for humans. But there were still people hurrying home. They spilled out from the back of the trolley—the dwarvven. Helen had not realized how many of them were in the city. She had not thought much of them at all until the last couple days. But now she saw them in the soot-coated greys and browns of the new factories and she thought they were surely too worn out to be a danger to anyone, regardless of what Copperhead relentlessly repeated about dwarvven unrest, dwarvven uprisings. She studied the notices around the trolley as if looking for clues to how far Copperhead had progressed. Again she saw: YOUR EYES ARE OUR EYES! And, over the door near the dwarvven end of the trolley: BE CIVIL, BE COURTEOUS, BE A CREDIT TO YOUR RACE.

  Tam’s attention was caught as well by the short people at the end of the car. He looked at them through his binoculars, then turned round eyes on Helen. “They’re not even stuffed. They’re real dwarves.”

  “The word is dwarvven,” said Helen in a low voice, “and hush.”

  “Father says dwarf,” Tam said positively. “When he shot one he gave me a whole terrarium for not telling. But that dwarf was dead. I never got to see a live one.”

  Helen felt a peculiar mixture of horror and mortification. “Tam, tell me later,” she said. She was grateful that although the pitch of his small voice carried, the words were slurred and did not. He was looking green around the gills and she found herself hoping he would pass out rather than incite a riot on the trolley.

  “No, I can’t tell you,” he said. “I promised not to tell, and Father always knows what I say and do. You can’t lie to Father. Only for him. Like about the dead dwarf. Dead dead red dead head head dead…”

  Thankfully, the trolley came to its final stop and Helen rose. “Here we are,” she said, and pulled Jane and Tam along with her out of the trolley car onto the cold snowy street. The passengers slowly streamed off, parting around the three of them. “My bag,” said Jane, and before Helen could stop her she turned and vanished back into the trolley.