The Eye of the North

by Sinead O'Hart

  She took a sip of the contents of the tankard, squashing back a thought about how easy it was to hide certain poisons in water, and then poured the rest down her throat anyhow. She felt the water traveling to every inch of her body, filling her up. It was cold but good. For a few seconds she didn’t even care about the pale-faced man, but he insisted on making his presence felt again.

  “Now. Are you quite ready?”

  Emmeline nodded. She placed the empty tankard down on the side of the chair, within easy reach. There’s a fishing rod on the wall over the door, whispered her inner voice. A storm lantern on the table. Possibly knives in the drawer, over there. She wished she could turn and see what was behind her, but concentrated instead on looking small, tired, and cold.

  “Wonderful. Now. First things first. How much have your parents told you about their most recent project?” The man settled himself into a chair right in front of Emmeline. His eerily white face, creased like melted candle wax hanging from his protruding cheekbones, wobbled as he leaned forward. He propped his elbows on his thighs, and his dark eyes, deep in their cavernous sockets, gazed at her. Emmeline just stared back at him. Parts of her body were starting to tingle painfully as she warmed up. Soon, she thought, she’d be able to move. Maybe she could find somewhere to barricade herself, even. She pressed herself back into her chair, trying to remember to keep breathing, calm and steady.

  “My parents?” she said. “If you knew them at all, you’d know they have never, not once in my entire life, ever told me anything about what they do. Why would they?” Emmeline fought to keep her head from spinning and tried to tighten herself up even smaller.

  “What do you take me for?”

  “Well—” Emmeline began.

  “Enough insolence,” Pale Face muttered, cutting her off. “You will need to learn how to mind your manners if you’re to survive long enough to be of use to me, young lady.”

  “Mind my manners?” said Emmeline, while her brain yelled, Survive? What’s he talking about, survive?

  “You’re certainly not what I expected—no, not at all. But then, it hardly matters.” Emmeline said nothing in response but just tried to soak up everything she could until—hopefully—it would start to make some sense. The man shifted slightly in his chair, leaning a little to his left, but his eyes stayed on her the whole time. “Now. Can you guess, my little Emmeline, where we are going?”

  Frowning, Emmeline looked past Pale Face and noticed large windows at the cabin’s far end that gave way to a view out over an icy sea. It’s cold. We’re traveling very fast. There are icebergs on the horizon. The sky is a funny color. She bit her lower lip. We’re going north, aren’t we? But there’s nothing up here but ice and emptiness. Her thoughts lined up quietly, in an orderly if meaningless queue, and her frown deepened.

  “We have much work to do, you and I,” said the man in a voice that made Emmeline’s whole body shrink. “Much work, and not much time.”

  “Y’know, I didn’t volunteer to come along just so you could make me into a packhorse,” grumbled Thing. He was bent almost double under a large map-carrying case balanced across his shoulders, and Emmeline’s satchel, which was looped over his body by its single remaining shoulder strap, slapped against his side with every step.

  “Everyone has to pull their weight,” replied Edgar, his eyes on the milling crowd. It was a bright morning, and Paris gleamed before them. Edgar had changed into a clean suit, and Sasha had swapped her stained pants for a dark gown, gathered at the waist, beneath a perfectly respectable overcoat. Both of them still wore their white flowers.

  “You appear remark’bly unencumbered, if I might say,” muttered Thing. Edgar’s wounded arm was now in a sling, and he looked a little better. Strong enough to be carryin’ somethin’, Thing’s thoughts said in a mutinous tone.

  “I’m injured, remember? Now just pay attention. We have to try to get off this ship without causing too much of a commotion.”

  “Why…” Thing got a better grip on the map case, which was threatening to slip. He had an idea that if its contents spilled out all over the deck, Edgar would personally throw him overboard. “Why would there be a commotion?”

  “Destroying a first-class suite can have that effect,” said Edgar. “Particularly one you haven’t paid for.”

  “You ’aven’t paid? ’Ow did you even get on board, then?” asked Thing, impressed.

  “I might have bamboozled the ticket seller with some rusty Russian and a story about being the czar’s cousin, and how the bill would be settled in gemstones once we docked,” murmured Sasha. “I don’t think that story will work too well on the captain.” Thing grinned, and Sasha couldn’t help but return it.

  The gangway wasn’t far ahead of them now. They were hanging back as much as they could, but the motion of the crowd was gradually drawing them on, step by tiny step. Thing looked up to see people queuing politely, waiting their turn to step onto the swaying plank that would lead them from the ship to the quayside. At the other end was a gaily colored tent, complete with ribbons on flagpoles and a trumpeting brass band, where the passengers would go to retrieve their luggage, settle their bills, and personally shake hands with the ship’s officers.

  “We need to dodge that tent,” muttered Edgar. Sasha, a few feet ahead of him, turned and nodded, a worried look in her eyes.

  Thing was suddenly seized by an idea. “Here,” he said, thrusting the map case at Sasha. “Hold this—just fer a minute.”

  “Thing—wait! What are you…,” Sasha called, but Thing was already gone.

  We need to cause a diversion, Thing thought, his mind abuzz. And what better way to do that than by threatenin’ the safety an’ well-bein’ of some very expensive belongin’s?

  Quick as a flash, Thing yanked the sable he’d stolen from the rich lady’s cabin out from the front of his overalls. It was a bit less glossy now than it had been when he first liberated it, but it still looked all right and—he took a quick sniff—smelled acceptable. Before anyone had time to react, he flung it over the head of a passing woman.

  “What is it? Get it off me! Getitoffme!” she screamed at top volume. There were several shrieks as people turned to see what was causing the noise.

  Thing cupped his hands around his mouth. “Thief!” he yelled in a voice that sounded nothing like his own and that was guaranteed to carry.

  “Oh, my days! Didn’t Lady Cunningham report a sable missing from her stateroom?” said a woman nearby, her words dripping with glee. “That must be it!”

  “I believe it is! Oh, how thrilling!” said another, her bosom heaving with enough gems to make Thing’s pulse start to quicken, though he squashed down his urges to relieve her of a few of her golden burdens. Their shouts of delight, and the resulting hullabaloo, made it easy for Thing to slip away unnoticed into the throng.

  “Hello? Hello, I say! We’ve apprehended a villain!” The ladies grasped hold of Thing’s poor victim, now shuddering beneath the sable. Several men, looking serious and official with their top hats and very impressive mustaches, stepped forward.

  “That’s quite all right, ladies—now if you would just release the miscreant—”

  “I am not a miscreant!” came a muffled wail from underneath the fur. “This has all been an enormous mistake!”

  “Are you calling me a liar, madam?” asked one of the accusing ladies, drawing back her head as though she’d been struck across the face. Two little red patches bloomed on either side of her nose.

  “No! No, of course not! I’m merely saying—” But the lady’s protests were drowned out by a shriek, of almost superhuman volume, from somewhere near the front of the crowd.

  “Clarence!” it yelled. “My sable!”

  Well, that did it. Hundreds of heads turned to see what was happening, and hundreds of feet started to move in the direction of the scandal—away from the side of the ship. Thing danced nimbly through the uproarious crowd, landing back in front of Edgar and Sasha with a huge gri
n plastered over his grubby face.

  “Now’d be an excellent time to be makin’ good our escape, don’t ya think?”

  Edgar closed his open mouth and shook his head. “Come on, then,” he said, thrusting the map case back at Thing. “We’ve no time to lose, right?”

  “Right,” muttered Thing, shouldering the case once again and setting off after Edgar and Sasha as fast as he could.

  “My parents are zoologists,” said Emmeline. She’d lost count of how often Pale Face had asked her the same question and she’d given him the same answer. “That’s all! Scientists. I don’t know anything else. They’re always away, giving lectures or going to conferences or—I don’t know. Discovering things or whatever.”

  “And did you ever meet any of their colleagues? Read any of their papers? Discuss any of their work over dinner, even?” The pale-faced man was no longer as pale as before—a light flush of color was just barely touching his cheeks.

  “No. No. And no,” she said. “Really. Honestly. I don’t know anything. You’ve wasted all this time and energy kidnapping me—for nothing!” She flung herself back into her chair and stuck out her lower lip as far as it would go.

  “Enough of that silly pouting,” snapped the man. “It’s tiresome.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to let me go?” she said, knowing that it was hopeless.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Even if I did, what good would it do you? Look around!” Emmeline didn’t need to, but she did anyway. Nothing but icy rocks and a freezing sea lay outside the boat, and she shivered as she wondered where on earth they could be going.

  “If I mentioned OSCAR to you, what would it mean?” said the man out of the blue. His voice was as smooth as melted chocolate. Emmeline, yanked out of her thoughts, didn’t have a chance to stop herself from opening her eyes wide and taking in a small but very audible gasp.

  “What? I—what? I’ve never heard of it. I don’t know what you mean. Don’t know what you’re even talking about!” She bit her tongue, but she knew it was too late. The image of her father’s business card, held in Watt’s gloved fingers, bloomed painfully in her mind. OSCAR, she thought. Dad would’ve known.

  “Well, well. Now, isn’t that interesting,” Pale Face crooned.

  Emmeline took a deep breath and wondered how big a mistake she’d just made.

  “Sorry!” said Thing again as he bumped the map case off someone’s head. The grumbling all around him didn’t stop, and everywhere he looked, eyes daggered into him. He’d found the map case almost impossible to manage while they were struggling through the slippery streets of Paris, and trying to keep it under control here, in a cramped Metro carriage, wasn’t very much better.

  “Just put it down, will you?” said Sasha, grabbing the case from Thing and propping it against a wall. “You’re going to get us thrown off!”

  “How much longer’re we goin’ to be?” Thing said, rolling his aching shoulders in relief.

  Edgar frowned, looking up at the map above the carriage door. “Another five stops—so not long.”

  “Brilliant. And what’s the plan then?”

  “Well, Madame Blancheflour will instruct us further,” said Edgar. “We’ll probably have to gather whomever we can and equip ourselves for the journey, purchase appropriate clothes and gear, sort out our travel arrangements—” He stopped suddenly as Thing held up a still-grubby hand.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he said, his eyes burning. “Are you tellin’ me we’re not goin’ straight to where Emmeline is, right now? That we’ll be faffin’ around buyin’ one another fancy underpants for the next—what? Week? Two weeks? I’m not havin’ that, my friend. No way.”

  “But—Thing! You don’t understand—”

  “I don’t understand? I’m the one who saw ’er bein’ taken! I understand plenty!” Thing’s voice rose with every word. The rest of the carriage’s occupants began to tut and mutter under their breath again, and Thing felt their disapproval washing over him.

  Thing squeezed his eyes shut. His thoughts filled with sharp whispers, the kind that often came threaded through his fear, and that he couldn’t bear to listen to. They clawed at the inside of his skull, but he drove them back with the image of Emmeline’s face. He opened his eyes again and glared at Edgar and Sasha in turn. “None of you get it, do yer? She’s only a kid, out there on ’er own, and I ain’t leavin’ ’er!”

  “Mon Dieu,” muttered a gentleman nearby, throwing a disgusted look at them. His companion, a lady wearing pince-nez, blinked slowly as she took them in from head to toe, looking at them as though they intended to set the carriage on fire, or worse.

  “So much for keeping a low profile,” muttered Sasha as the train clattered on.

  “Now. Let’s have a little chat about OSCAR. All right, Emmeline?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Where’s that tankard gone? It had a good, sharp edge to it! Heavy, too! If I threw it just right—

  “Lying is pointless, my girl. A person cannot hide genuine shock, genuine horror. At least, not a person like you.” Emmeline wanted to scratch at the man’s gloating face.

  “Why should I tell you anything? I don’t even know where I am, or who you are!”

  “Who I am is probably the least interesting thing about me,” Pale Face replied, extending his fingers and peering intently at his nails. “What is far more important is what I do. What drives me, perhaps.”

  “And what’s that, then?” Emmeline shoved her hands into the blanket, in case the man saw them shaking. He looked at her, smiling knowingly.

  “Why, life, girl. Eternal life, to be exact. Eternal life, complete power, and total control—three things that nestle together perfectly. I’m on a quest to find these things, you see. A noble quest, one might even say, if one were so inclined. I have been on this quest for many years, and I am close enough now to my prize that I can smell it.”

  Emmeline frowned as she listened. “That’s ridiculous,” she said after a few empty seconds. She felt she was standing quite firmly on the bedrock of science as she spoke. “Nothing lives forever. Besides in stories, I mean. It’s impossible otherwise. You’re wasting your time.”

  “Oh, you think so?” said Pale Face, turning his attention back to his fingernails. “How uninformed you are.”

  “I beg your pardon, but—”

  Pale Face moved quickly, leaning forward once more. Emmeline forced herself to sit perfectly still. “If eternal life is so scientifically impossible, my dear girl, then why is your parents’ research so closely tied up with it? Hmm? Care to explain that one, little Miss Know-It-All?”

  “M-my parents’ research?” said Emmeline. “What do you mean?”

  “Your parents and their colleagues at OSCAR and indeed your precious Madame Blancheflour and her merry band of thugs, have worked very hard to keep me from my reward. But now that I have you? Well. That changes the game. That changes everything.” He licked his lips quickly with an oddly dark tongue. Emmeline shuddered at how it left them glistening, like a slug had passed over them. Another one who knows this Madame Blancheflour, she thought. How odd.

  “What game? I don’t understand!”

  “The race to the center of the ice, child,” said Pale Face. “Where the power I seek lies sleeping, simply waiting to wake.”

  Emmeline jerked as the voice of the sailor who’d tried to kidnap her in Edgar and Sasha’s cabin rang in her head again. It’ll all be open water soon, he’d said. When it wakes…

  She blinked and stared at Pale Face’s hooded eyes, and he stared steadily back.

  Thing’s arms rattled with exhaustion.

  “Why couldn’t they ’ave built this blimmin’ city somewhere a bit flatter, eh?” His voice was a strangled gasp. They were trudging up yet another flight of stone steps. Paris seemed full of them, and Edgar and Sasha appeared to be making sure they paid a visit to every one.

  “Here, give the case to me,” said Sasha. “Or at least let me carry the s
atchel. I won’t offer again, you know.”

  “No way,” wheezed Thing. He’d begun to take this case-carrying lark as a personal challenge, and he wasn’t about to let it beat him now. And as for handing over Emmeline’s satchel? Laughable. “We mus’ be nearly there, yeah?”

  “Not far now,” said Edgar from up ahead. He carried one smallish case with his good arm, and Sasha was laden down with several valises of her own. Thing was beginning to wish he’d been stabbed too.

  “I cannot wait for a hot bath,” muttered Sasha. Her face was reddened with cold, and the hem of her gown was filthy.

  “Will there be food and things? When we get there?” Thing asked. His stomach was painfully aware of how long it had been since his stolen breakfast of pastry, which he’d shared—his heart lurched—with Emmeline. As for the trifle he’d been about to dig into right before the attack in the suite…he’d managed to get only the merest taste before he’d had bigger things, like running for his life, to worry about.

  “Let’s hope so,” replied Sasha as they turned another corner and entered yet another anonymous, cobbled, frost-flecked street.

  “This is it,” said Edgar, turning back to face them. “Rue du Démiurge. Excellent!”

  “Hope it’s not a long’un,” said Thing, his feet pounding and raw inside his ill-fitting, thin-soled shoes. The wind was rummaging through his clothing like a pickpocket looking for a payday.

  “Well…,” said Edgar, looking up at the house numbers. A cloud passed over his face, and he started chewing on the inside of his mouth.

  “You’re about to tell me we’re at the wrong end of the street, ain’t ya,” said Thing.