Chasing the Star Garden: The Airship Racing Chronicles (Volume 1)

by Melanie Karsak

  I looked back up at the clouds and considered. “No,” I said then.

  Sal looked thoughtful. “No doubt you know best, my Lily.” He then turned and instructed the men to keep as we were.

  Silence filled the space as we waited. The cloud bank at the top of the thermal neared. We were still spinning. I held the wheel. The rush of the wind stroked my face, and I began to feel the cool air from the approaching clouds. I closed my eyes. I remembered then the story of Aphrodite, Adonis, and the anemone flower, the blossom that could bloom in and be destroyed by the same strong wind.

  It happened so gently. The Bacchus popped out of the thermal. A wind caught the ship from behind and pushed it softly forward. Since I’d kept the balloon overfull on hot air, the change in temperature once we were inside the cool cloud never caused the ship to stir. The lift simply slowed, and the Bacchus settled into the lateral wind shear. We were inside the cloud. The air felt dewy. I opened my eyes to see the deck of the Bacchus draped in mist.

  Celeste looked around in surprise. Sal and Roni’s crew were smiling from ear to ear.

  “Now, turn the propeller back on. Easy as she goes,” I told the gearman; Sal translated.

  The gearman said something in Italian, smiled at me, then went below.

  Sal chuckled.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “He said, ‘That’s why the Italians can never beat her. She carries the winds in her heart’,” Sal translated.

  I smiled. Maybe I did.

  Chapter 21

  After we were clear of the metallic sea beast, Sal immediately went about taking notes on and drawing everything he had seen. Celeste took a position on the prow of the ship like a masthead as we floated through the clouds toward Kos. I kept our altitude high and in the cloud-cover. The deck of the ship stayed draped in fog, just like it had the evening Mr. Oleander and I had returned to London without Nicolette.

  Mr. Oleander had not spoken a single word to me the rest of the trip to Dublin. When we arrived, much to my great relief, Mr. Oleander had gone into the city and had returned with a common street whore. I had lived in terror that he would make me take Nicolette’s usual role. Too frightened of what Mr. Oleander would do to me if I didn’t comply, and grieving over the loss of Nicolette, I had guided the ship into the towers at Dublin with a sick stomach. I had even considered throwing myself overboard. For me, death would have been a better fate than being handed to lusty men. The wild blonde Mr. Oleander had picked up, however, spent the entire trip from Dublin to London naked and dancing on the deck of the Iphigenia. She was more than enough entertainment for the hungry-eyed men. They never even noticed me.

  When we arrived in London, it took some time for the customers to depart. Mr. Oleander gave the Irish girl a small bag of coin, and she went happily away.

  I busied myself taking care of the Iphigenia. It was late evening, and the Thames had created a thick bank of fog. The gaslights in the street below shone dimly, their hue dampened by the mist. Once I had gotten the ship tucked in, I sat along the bulwark near the wheelstand and considered what to do. I could not go to the constables. Why would they believe a throwaway like me?

  Mr. Oleander crossed the deck of the Iphigenia toward me. In this mist, I could not make out his features. He lumbered toward me like an evil spirit in the fog.

  “Go down to the gear galley,” he said, his voice rough and serious.

  I didn’t move.

  “I ain’t gonna hurt ya, girl. Just go,” he told me.

  I rose, my hands and knees shaking, and went below.

  The gear galley is a cramped space suitable for two adults at maximum. The complex mechanical gears for the propeller lay just below the deck of the ship. A small galley increased the aerodynamic features of a ship and weighed less: the smaller the galley the better. The Iphigenia’s galley was tightly built. Below, a small lantern burnt. The sharp smell of grease and metal filled the space. It was a smell I usually loved. In that moment, however, I feared it would perfume my dying breath.

  Mr. Oleander crawled in behind me and pulled the galley door shut with a bang. Still drunk, he was barely able to keep himself upright in the narrow space.

  “Take your clothes off,” he told me.

  I froze and tried to back away.

  “Aye, pretty kitty, I know Fletcher is keen for you, but we need to come to an understanding. I’m going to teach you why you need to keep your mouth shut,” he said as he began to unbuckle his pants.

  “I won’t tell. I promise. There is no need. Please, Sir. There is no need. I won’t tell,” I said. I was trapped.

  Mr. Oleander reached forward and ripped my shirt open. I stood aghast. Just a girl, I had little to show for my womanliness. In fact, my courses had only come on me a few months preceding.

  “Come on now, pretty kitty,” he whispered dangerously, reaching toward me. He grabbed my shirt by the sleeve and tugged it off of me.

  I turned and fled, slipping between the galley gears. The propeller off, I was able to slide deep into the back of the ship where Mr. Oleander was too large to follow. He reached out and tried to grab me, catching hold of my foot, but I pulled my leg free, leaving my boot in his hand. I scratched my skin on a piece of sharp metal in the effort, but moments later, I had escaped Mr. Oleander’s grasp. Behind me, the old man cursed.

  “Have it your way, pretty kitty. Let’s see how you like spending the night in the dark. Come morning, perhaps you will be more receptive to our new arrangement,” Mr. Oleander said with a laugh then crawled out of the galley. I heard the galley door slap shut. Mr. Oleander laughed as he slid the bolt through the lock.

  “Try that for size,” he yelled then strode off the ship.

  Moments later I was alone in the dark. The Iphigenia rocked in the cool evening air. I put my head on my knees and cried. There was no way to get out of the galley. Nicolette was gone, and I was trapped. I sat in misery, half asleep and half hysterical, until I was awakened by the sound of steps on the deck of the ship. Thinking Mr. Oleander had returned, terror seized me. I listened and soon heard the familiar humming of Mr. Fletcher.

  “Sir?” I called from below. “Mr. Fletcher? Is that you, Sir?”

  The boot steps stopped. “Lily? Where are you?”

  “In the galley,” I moaned miserably and started climbing back through the gears toward the door.

  “Why is the galley locked?” Mr. Fletcher puzzled aloud as he slid the bolt. “Lily?” he called as he opened the door.

  I shimmied through the gears.

  Mr. Fletcher caught sight of my shirt and boot lying on the floor. He picked them up and looked at them. “Lily? What happened? Come out, girl.”

  He led me back onto the deck of the ship. It must have been very early morning. It was still very dark, and the mist was very thick. He removed his coat and dropped it over my shoulders.

  “My girl,” he said, taking me by the chin, “are you hurt?”

  I shook my head but the tears had already started flowing.

  “Where is Oleander?” he asked, bewildered.

  I could not answer him. I burst into tears in reply.

  Mr. Fletcher, who had previously looked perplexed, started to put the pieces of the puzzle together. His face went red and stiff with anger. “Where did Oleander go?” he asked me again.

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “Where is Nicolette?”

  I moaned miserably. It was too terrible to speak.

  Mr. Fletcher put his hands to his lips and considered. “Come,” he said. Carrying his lantern in front of us, he led me to the Captain’s Room. He sat me down on a chaise. “Lay down, Lily. Rest. Don’t come out unless I call you. I’ll be on the deck,” he told me. Just before he blew out the lantern, I saw that the lines on his face look deeply grooved. His eyes looked wild with anger.

  I pulled his coat up to my chin and breathed in the smell of him. My savior. As Mr. Fletcher opened the door to go back onto the deck of the ship, I finally found the
courage to speak.

  “He pushed Nicolette into the sea.” The words heaved out of me in a giant exhale. I sucked air back into me after I spoke, just barely keeping myself from hyperventilating.

  Mr. Fletcher had his back to me. I saw him stiffen at my words. He did not turn around. “I know,” he said and closed the door behind him.

  I did not move from the chaise, but I heard Mr. Fletcher moving around on the deck of the ship. About an hour after Mr. Fletcher rescued me from the galley, I heard Mr. Oleander mumbling to himself as he made his way down the loading platform toward the Iphigenia. His heavy footsteps hit the deck of the ship with a thud.

  “Good morning, brother,” I heard Mr. Fletcher say. His voice was low and dangerous.

  “What, ho! Back so soon? By God, about time. The Dublin trip was a disaster, by God.”

  “By God, was it so?”

  “Indeed, brother. You won’t believe what ill fate has befallen us.”

  “Perhaps I won’t. Do tell,” Mr. Fletcher said, and I heard the warning in his voice. Mr. Oleander, too lost in the bottom of a bottle of something, had missed it.

  Now more curious than afraid, I quietly slid off the chaise and snuck to the door. The seal on the Captain’s Room never closed properly and left a sizeable gap. If I knelt, I could see outside. Mr. Oleander was leaning against the side of the ship. Mr. Fletcher stood at the center of the ship holding onto the balloon ropes.

  “Ehh, yeah. Nicolette has run off. Turns out she was pregnant by some lad. She musta stolen away to meet the boy.”

  “How do you know she was pregnant?”

  “Oh, our Lily, solid little lass, told me.”

  “Where is Lily?”

  “I left her sleepin’ in the galley. She was tuckered out from the trip. Curled up down there amongst the gears. It’s bad luck, brother. Bad luck, I say.”

  “Bad luck. Just like when Laura died. Bad luck then too.”

  “No, my brother, that was the worst of luck. Your sister was beautiful, but lord knows, she was none too graceful. I can’t cross the Channel without seeing her ghost in the waves.”

  “How, exactly, was it that Laura came to fall? Can you tell me again?”

  “You know, I’ve had a bit to drink, brother, and would rather not live over again something more than twenty years behind us,” he slurred but continued. “My heart hurts for that little bird. She just toppled in, right over the rail and into the brink. Waves took her before I even got the ship low enough to look for her.”

  My hands flew to my mouth as I suppressed a gasp.

  Mr. Fletcher was silent for a long time. In the mist, I could only see the shadow of his figure. Mr. Oleander started to fidget.

  “Fog is thick tonight,” Mr. Fletcher said then.

  “Isn’t it though? I half worried about falling from the tower on my way back. Can’t see five feet in front of ya.”

  Mr. Fletcher laughed. “Come on now, brother. Can you give me a hand? I purchased a new chronometer. Come take a look.”

  “I can’t see a damned thing. Where is your lantern?” Mr. Oleander asked.

  “I left it at the back. Wick got too wet to light.”

  Their voices retreated toward the back of the ship. I stood to watch them from the window. Their figures became mere shadows in the fog. I gripped the handle on the door so hard my hand hurt. I knew it was coming. I knew. I just didn’t do anything about it. It seemed like it took an eternity. But in reality, it was just moments later when I heard Mr. Oleander scream. His loud yell echoed through the foggy darkness as he fell to the ground. In the lingering silence of the early morning, I even heard his body hit cobblestones below.

  I clambered back to the chaise and pulled Mr. Fletcher’s coat over my head, feeling both relieved and sick. I heard him cross the deck of the ship and open the door of the Captain’s Room.

  “Mr. Oleander fell from the ship. Come with me. We need to call the constables,” he said then opened a trunk and pulled out one of Nicolette’s old lacey blouses. “Put this on. I need you dressed,” he added and handed it to me.

  I slid his coat off and pulled on my boot. He lit the lantern as I redressed. I could not help but feel his watchful eyes on me as I moved, topless, in the glaring light of the lantern. His dark eyes were glued to my small breasts. I turned from his gaze and slid the top on.

  Mr. Fletcher pulled his coat on and took my hand. We crossed the deck of the Iphigenia hand in hand. I could hear footsteps pounding down the loading platform as someone ran toward our ship.

  “He was drunk. He fell,” Mr. Fletcher whispered, looking down at me.

  “I know. I saw,” I replied.

  “Sweet Lily,” he said, kissing me on my head, and we went together to tell a lie.

  Chapter 22

  We snuck past the southern tip of Greece toward the islands just off the shore of the Ottoman mainland in the Aegean Sea. After the excitement that morning, the last thing I wanted was to find myself in the middle of a military conflict. We were lucky. Wherever the Greeks and Ottomans were fighting, it was not over the isles of the ancient world.

  It was early evening when we closed in on the location provided by the kaleidoscope. The late summer sun was still in the sky. We would have a few hours left to explore the small isle of Kos. The landscape below the western coast where we flew in was dotted with groves of olive and date trees. When we reached the coordinates indicted by the kaleidoscope, we found ourselves hovering above a cypress grove.

  Celeste looked puzzled. “There should be a shrine here. The Kos Aphrodite was kept at the Asclepeion.”

  “What was the Asclepeion?” I asked.

  “A medical center, like an ancient hospital, built in worship of the god Asclepius. Kos boasted the most famous Asclepeion in the ancient world. That is where Hippocrates learned his trade. People came from all around for healing. It was an enormous temple, probably as large as St. Mark’s Square, with three levels. Thousands of people would come here to take restorative. Yet all I see is trees.”

  “Perhaps the passage of time has buried the world you seek,” Sal suggested.

  “Well, there is no way to know for sure until we go look.”

  I lowered the Bacchus to tree level and climbed down the rope ladder. It didn’t take us long to figure out we were in the right place. You couldn’t take two steps without stumbling over a piece of fallen stonework. The problem was that the ruins were a complete disaster. Columns jutted out of the ground, floor stones were half heaved up in the dirt, and chiseled rocks lay everywhere.

  Celeste looked completely exasperated. “We’ll need a team of people to dig,” she said. “We’ll need to excavate the site. She’s here. I know it. We’ll just need to unearth her.”

  Sal and I exchanged a glance.

  “Celeste,” I began, but I was not sure what to say. Even if she did excavate the site, by the time she found what she was looking for, the Dilettanti would be all over the dig.

  Celeste looked at me with tears in her large, golden eyes. The early evening sun made her hair sparkle. She was a picture of sadness. “It has to be here,” she whispered desperately.

  I turned to Sal to discuss the matter when I noticed he was looking at something in the distance.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  “A boy. Just there,” he said.

  A young boy, perhaps eight years of age, was looking from us to the ship and back again. He leaned against a wooden staff. His small herd of goats was stepping carefully between the fallen rocks, nibbling on the grass.

  “Why don’t we ask him?” I said, gazing at the boy.

  Celeste looked puzzled. “Ask him what?”

  “Where the statue is. After all, he must know this land,” I replied.

  Celeste looked uncertain, but with no better recourse, we decided to give it a try. Cautiously, Sal approached the small boy. The boy looked like his common sense was telling him to cut and run, but sheer nerve made him stay. I liked the lad. Sal knelt d
own to talk to the boy at eye level. The boy waved his hands toward the balloon then at the landscape around us. After a few moments, Sal stood up, ruffled the boy’s hair, and waved for us to join them.

  “I asked him where the Asclepeion was,” Sal told us when we joined him, “and he told me, ‘you’re standing in it,’” he added with a laugh.

  I smiled down at the lad. He wore rustic looking cotton trousers and a patched shirt. The child had dirt smeared on his face, and his pants were stained on the knees. His smile was wide and toothy, and his eyes showed innocence rarely seen in children roaming the streets of London. When he clicked at his goats, they obeyed his command. The boy led us uphill through the cypress grove. The goats followed obediently along.

  Sal and the boy chatted along the way. “The temple is his family’s grazing land. The boy’s father told him much of the temple was destroyed in an earthquake many years ago, but he knows where we can see the best parts of the ruins,” Sal said.

  Celeste smiled, not a coquettish sidelong grin, but a smile of raw joy.

  We entered a clearing. There we found what we had initially expected: the ruins of the temple. Their view had been hidden by a rise in the earth and a thicket of trees. What was left of the stone walls outlined the space. In one area, the walls of the temple were still erect. Temple buildings, constructed with small round stones, shimmered with a golden hue in the fading sunlight. Fallen marble columns lay amongst the wildflowers. Some of the ruins seemed to be in relatively good condition. The buildings were mainly roofless, but you could still see the arched hallways with ornately chiseled stonework.

  The boy was talking quickly and pointing toward a rise before us.

  Sal nodded.

  “You can see, just there, how the earth does not rise in a natural way but looks more squared. Under the earth, the temple expands upward toward a shrine that would have crowned it at the top. You can just see the exposed stairs. Your temple is yet undiscovered, Celeste,” Sal said then turned to the boy and asked the child a question.

  The boy looked thoughtful then pointed toward an area in the ruins.