by S. D. Stuart
She spun around and ran as fast as she could back through the city.
She paused once to catch her breath and stare at the emerald. She had to cup her hands to see if there was any light coming from it at all.
When she made it to the airfield, her emerald was completely dark. She ran to the main office and pounded on the door.
A muffled voice from inside replied, “Coming. I said I’m coming.”
A man opened the door then looked down at Dorothy. “What do you want?”
Dorothy replied, alternating between speaking and wheezing. “When did the last airship leave?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“No, no. I mean the one this morning.”
“Airships don’t depart in this weather.”
“It’s just fog. I’ve seen them leave in the fog.”
“And above the fog is a storm that’s about to break any moment.”
Dorothy looked around and saw that several airships tethered to the ground. She looked back at the man. “So, no airships left this morning?”
“I’m a very busy man,” he said as he shut the door in her face.
She gulped big breaths of air as she cupped her hands over the emerald.
It was completely dark.
She heard the loud clap of thunder roll out of the sky. With all the fog, she had not noticed the storm moving in. Maybe that’s what her father meant when he said a storm was coming.
It did not make any sense. If he had not left by ship, or by airship, how did he get far enough away to make the emerald fade?
She walked around the edge of the airfield office just as the storm above the fog broke and it began to rain.
She leaned against the wall and slid down to sit in the mud that was forming all around her. Her mother was dead and her father was missing. There was nothing she could do about her mother, but there was something she could do about her father.
She looked at the dark emerald heart in the palm of her hand. “I will find you Father, no matter what it takes.”
Her mother taught her to have an inner strength that was unshaken by outside events, but today had been too much for her to handle.
All her emotions bubbled up to the surface and Dorothy, still only a 10-year-old girl, could not hold back any longer. She looked up into the darkened sky and let the rain mingle with her forming tears. Together, Dorothy and the world both cried as they had never cried before.
Chapter 2
A solitary airship breached through the storm clouds and into the clear blue sky.
Inside the gondola, Benjamin Gale was shackled to the roof of the main passenger cabin with his wrists raised high above his head. He looked like a ballerina as he danced on the tips of his toes trying to relieve some of the strain his shoulders suffered from having to support all of his weight.
A thin man in an expensive over-frock coat leaned against a table and stared at Benjamin.
The thin man shivered noticeably. “I do wish these gondolas were better insulated, and then I would not need to wear this heavy over-frock. It is most uncomfortable. Are you comfortable Professor Gale?”
“My hands are a little numb, but other than that I’m okay.”
The thin man laughed. “Humor in the midst of adversity. An admirable quality Professor.”
It was time to get the bottom of this, Benjamin thought. “Where are you taking me? What have you done with my wife and daughter?”
The thin man’s face grew somber. “I regret that I am the messenger of bad news.”
He struggled against the chains that held his hands. “What have you done to them?”
“I’m afraid we do not bear all the responsibility. Your wife was asked, politely I might add, to wait in the carriage. Instead, she shot one of my men.”
Benjamin pulled harder on the chains and tried to get closer to the thin man. “You son of a …”
“Tut-tut Professor; let’s leave my mother out of this. We are more civilized than that.”
Benjamin strained against the chains that bound him to the roof. “What did you do with my family?”
“Your wife chose her own fate. As for your daughter? She is fast, I’ll give her that. We lost her five minutes after the explosion. But not to worry, my men are scouring the city and I guarantee you, before nightfall, she will be safe with us.”
“You leave my family alone!”
The thin man walked up to within an inch of his face and stared at him with cold, calculating eyes. “Or you’ll what?”
Benjamin felt the shackles cut into his wrists as he struggled to get closer to the thin man. He wanted to inflict pain on this man who killed his wife and was hunting his daughter like a wild animal. If he could just get a little closer, he could bite a big chunk out of his nose.
And then do what, he thought. As long as he was a prisoner of this psychopath, there was little he could do to keep his daughter safe.
They stared unblinking at each other for an interminable minute before there was a faint knock at the door to the cabin.
The thin man snapped out of whatever was going on inside his mind and the features on his face instantly softened. “Are you hungry?”
The thin man clapped his hands loudly and the door to the cabin opened up. A boy dressed in a hooded cloak entered the main cabin carrying a plate with bread and cheese on it. The thin man waved a hand in his direction. “Now here’s someone who doesn’t need to wear a coat in cold temperatures.” He pulled the hood off the boy.
Benjamin’s mouth gaped open in surprise.
He had heard about early experimentation using the scientific theory of blended inheritance, where the traits of two disparate male and female species could be passed on to offspring, being tested on humans and other animals. But it was only a hypothetical model, and every attempt to make it a scientific reality always ended in a horrific tragedy. Because of the unpredictable results of early testing on living subjects, practical experimentation with blended inheritance had been banned the world over. Not even scientists who operated far outside the scrutiny of other scientists attempted to continue in this field of study.
The thin man chuckled. “It’s not polite to stare Professor.”
The boy lowered his cat-like face in shame.
The thin man placed his hand under the boy’s chin and lifted his head. “Say hello to the Professor boy. Show him your marvelous teeth.”
The boy mumbled something that may have been a ‘hello’ and looked at the floor again.
The thin man flashed his own perfectly formed and smooth pearly whites in a seemingly friendly and warm smile at Benjamin. “I brought along my employer’s little pet to prove to you that we have the scientific capacity to do whatever we want.”
Benjamin broke his stare from the half-human half-cat boy and looked at the thin man. “Then what do you need from me?”
“I’ve already looked over your designs and am impressed by how you plan to harness and focus all the power created by the emeralds into a singular, destructive point. With a little tinkering, I have modified your design into something incredible, but my scientists have been unsuccessful in transitioning it from paper to product. I was hoping you would help me solve my problem.”
“If you think I’m going to do anything more for you, you’re an idiot. You might as well kill me now.”
The thin man laughed. “That is not the only reason you’re still alive Professor.”
He walked over to the table and picked up the same wooden box Benjamin had shown to his daughter in the carriage. He walked over to him and held the box up. “Alone, each emerald is nothing but a pretty rock. But together these two emeralds generate limitless power.”
He lifted the lid so Benjamin could see inside. The box contained one emerald cut into the shape of a heart and a heart-shaped empty space in the crushed velvet next to it. The thin man leaned in close. “Where is the other one?”
The rain suddenly shifted from a heavy downpour into a faint drizz
le, but had not completely stopped. It was a rare occasion when more than two days passed without rain in New Kansas.
Dorothy felt like a drowned rat as she sat in two inches of sticky mud. She hadn’t moved in over an hour and still leaned against the back wall of the airship landing field’s main office.
She cupped her hands and peeked at the emerald. It was still pitch black.
Her tears had dried up long ago.
She looked up at the dark, shrouded sky as the reality of her situation sank in deeper than she sank into the mud.
Her mother was dead.
Her father was missing.
There was no one she knew.
There was nowhere she could go.
She was a 10-year-old girl all alone in a strange land.
She had nothing.
She looked down at the heart-shaped jewel cupped in the palm of her hand.
The only thing she had was the emerald.
But despite her father’s promise, even that had failed her.
She could sell it for money and buy a ticket to America.
“No.” She said aloud and startled herself.
She couldn’t do that.
She slipped the emerald back into the pocket of her coat. She couldn’t just sit here. She had to do something.
Her emerald showed her that they did not go to the docks, and the airfield captain informed her that no airships had taken off since yesterday afternoon. That meant her father was still on the island where she could find him.
Every option closed to her except one. She decided to head back to the hotel, collect whatever she could carry, and walk around the entire island of New Kansas until her emerald glowed. She hoped that whoever had taken her father would not get the opportunity to leave the island before she found them.
Dorothy stood up and tried to shake whatever mud she could from the back of her dress. All she ended up doing was caking her hands in even more mud.
Voices shouted in the distance and she looked up to see the cause of the commotion. Several men were jumping out of a carriage. They were big men. And they were scary looking.
The biggest man, who acted like the leader of these men, shouted orders to the rest. They split up and headed toward different streets. The leader casually glanced around and met Dorothy’s eyes from across the airfield. She immediately recognized the big man as the one who pulled her father out of the carriage. He started pointing at her and shouting. The rest of the men all turned and stared at Dorothy.
Her heart pounded faster and adrenaline shot through her veins like a lightning bolt.
Her wool dress and coat were soaked with rain and mud and it felt like she was wearing clothing made out of lead. Her muscles were already tired and, for a fleeting moment, she thought about letting them catch her. At least they would take her to her father.
She quickly banished that thought from her mind. If she were captured too, there was no way for her to rescue her father.
She darted around the corner and into the city. She could hear men shouting from the streets parallel to the one she was on. The weight of her rain and mud soaked clothing was slowing her down and there was no way she would be able to keep running for much longer.
She ducked into an alley and crouched down behind a pile of garbage. She saw a couple of the men run past the alley on either side. Soon the shouting grew quieter as they got farther away from her.
“Hey you! Get away from there!”
Dorothy spun around to see a shopkeeper standing at the back door of his shop. He was carrying a crate of garbage and waved it at her while he yelled. “Go on now! Shoo!”
She stood up and did her best to be polite. “I’m sorry sir. I was just …”
“I won’t have no homeless street urchins hanging around my shop. Scares away customers.”
She looked down at herself and saw that the explosion had torn her coat, the mud had soiled her dress and the rain had matted her hair. Of course he thought she was homeless. She would have thought she was homeless.
And then it dawned on her. She was homeless. The adrenaline started to break down in her bloodstream and her emotions ran unchecked as tears began to well up in her eyes.
“Oh no. I won’t have no sniveling brat hanging around my shop. Go on, get up out of here!”
She walked slowly out of the alley and looked up in surprise when someone yelled out her name. A large man in a dark gray wool coat and black knit cap, who looked like he just stepped off a merchant vessel, ran toward her.
She turned and bolted in the other direction.
“Dorothy wait!”
Now they were calling her by name. It didn’t matter, that would not make her stop.
She dashed around the corner and slammed into the back of another man who turned around and looked down at her. He smiled. It was an ugly smile since the man had several teeth missing. “Look who we have here.” He grabbed her and lifted her with his big meaty hands.
She struggled, but he held her in an iron grip.
Loud heavy footsteps pounded around the corner and the man in the black knit cap saw them both. He charged forward and slammed a balled fist into the side of Ugly’s face.
Ugly took two steps back and dropped Dorothy. She fell to her knees and scrambled to get away from the men as they exchanged blows.
The man in the black knit cap was a whole head shorter than Ugly. But he was fast and ducked out of the way of every swing that Ugly took at him.
Ugly was not so lucky. Every time he took a swing, Knit Cap ducked out of the way and came back to punch him in the ribs. Or on his side. Or on his jaw.
Dorothy was so mesmerized by how Knit Cap dodged every jab and thrust before returning to deal a striking blow on his attacker, she forgot to keep running.
As soon as Ugly went down for the last time, Dorothy remembered she should be trying to escape. Her feet slid on the wet cobblestone as she tried to gain purchase when Knit Cap grabbed the collar of her coat and hauled her into the air.
She struggled against him as he tossed her over his shoulder. “Put me down!”
“Stop fighting!” He squeezed her tightly to his shoulder as he ran.
When she realized there was no way she could overpower him she wilted in his arms and let him carry her like a sack of potatoes through the streets of the city.
“Are you taking me to my father?”
The man breathed heavily as he ran. “I don’t know where he is. I was hoping you could tell me.”
“You’re the people who took him.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a friend of your father. I heard about the explosion at the Council building, but when I got there, your carriage was empty. He told me to find you and your mother should anything happen to him. I figured the explosion, and the empty carriage, meant something happened to him. I haven’t found your mother yet, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, she’s gone.”
He slowed to a jog. “She got away?”
“Not exactly. She’s dead.”
The man stopped and set Dorothy down. “I’m sorry to hear that, but there’s no time to grieve. I have to get you somewhere safe.”
He knelt down to her eye level and looked at her. “I am going to take you to some friends of mine. They will take very good care of you while I look for your father.”
“I’m going with you.”
“It’s too dangerous and we don’t know where your father is.”
“We?”
He glanced left and right and saw that they were alone on the street. “Your father gathered together a small group of people to fight the coming storm.”
“He always talked about a storm. What storm?”
He shook his head. “We don’t really know, but we think it has something to do with the penal colony.”
“I’m coming with you to help find my father.”
“You’re too young …”
Dorothy yanked herself out of his grip. “Everyone is always saying that. I’m not
too young!”
“Dorothy, listen to me. You do not have the training that I have. I can’t find and rescue your father if I have to look after you too. Do you trust me?”
Dorothy didn’t know why, but she felt she could trust this man, even though she had never met him before in her life. He claimed he was her father’s friend, and hadn’t acted like the other men who were chasing her. He had even risked his own life to protect her from Ugly.
She was all alone in the world and needed somebody she could trust. He seemed as good a person as any to put her trust in.
“Yes.”
“Will you stay with my friends and let them keep you safe?”
“I will on one condition.”
“I can’t guarantee anything.”
Dorothy crossed her arms. “That’s not an answer.”
“If I can do it I will. That’s the best I can offer.”
She stared at his face for any hint that he might be lying to her and let the silence hang in the air for a few moments. “Train me to fight like you did back there.”
His smile broke into a large grin. “You are much more like your mother than your father.”
Dorothy smiled back. “Will you train me?”
He stroked the scruff of a beard forming on his chin. “If you stay with my friends, I will send someone to train you to fight like that.”
She stuck out a mud-covered hand. “Deal?”
He regarded her for a moment before grasping her hand in his. “Deal.”
She smiled through the dirt and grime on her face. “What is your name?”
He smiled back at her. “William Sipes.”
Chapter 3
Dorothy and Edward circled each other inside the barn as they alternated between punching and kicking at each other. He was exactly twice her age, at 30 years old, and nearly a head taller. She did not mind the difference in age and size. The older and bigger they were, the slower they moved, and the harder they fell.
They had been going at each other for so long, they had started to draw a crowd. The younger kids at Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s Farm for Displaced Children gathered around, hollered and cheered as they exchanged blows.