The Bones of Broken Songs: A Historical Mystery Romance (Mortalsong Trilogy Book 2)

by J. M. Stredwick

  “Unless,” Benjamin tilts his head, crouching low. “You’re working with Vauquelin already? But then, why would Claire be with you still? She thinks you were trying to save Gia…that you had finally found her and could protect her from those that would like to harm her. I mean, I had gathered that Claire disliked me when Giselle was alive, but it seems so strange that she would hate me even more now, when I was the innocent one.”

  He tries to catch my eye, but I ignore him. He has been thinking on this for a long time. It tells in the steady, tedious, flash of his eyes. It hurts to breathe. I am sure that at least one of my ribs are broken.

  “She could only have one reason to loathe me. Oh, Alphonse. Brother! Did you tell her that I was the one who killed Giselle? I can see it now. You wanted to make it seem like Father was innocent, was that it?”

  Benjamin’s dark eyes are full of luminous delight. His mouth is wide with a sick smile.

  “Fuck, how did I not see it before?” he chuckles. “You…I am a bit impressed.”

  “None of that is true,” I say. “Nevertheless, believe your lies. I am sure they’ll get you somewhere.”

  “You’re a loyal dog, aren’t you? But I know you. You do everything with a selfish base. You hated me and were loyal to father, you wanted to kill me, didn’t you? You still do. Don’t think I can’t see the bloodlust in your eyes.”

  There is a soft clinking in the room beyond. His men must be returning. Now it is time for more torturing. Can I bear it? I rest my head in my hands.

  “So, Claire doesn’t know the truth. I’ll have to make her aware of these things, won’t I?” he hisses.

  If he tells Claire the truth then she will know my true goal. She knows me better than anyone, and though I have kept the secret of my desires from her, when the veil is lifted she will know. There will be nothing to stop her from the realization that the many years we’ve spent in search of her sister, that I was always in it for the immortality. But it’s not wholly true. Not entirely. I wanted her always. I want her now. Claire was the second reason I did it. I pretended I was a hero, doing it all to save her sister. If she knew what I really wanted…everything I’ve worked for would be gone.

  “You can try,” I say, attempting to maintain a level tone.

  I hear a clunk against the doorway, and a slippery screech that vaguely reminds me of someone’s breath being lost to them.

  Benjamin jerks upright and turns to the door. But, as he does so he is throttled back against the wall. The door is busted wide, and have a moment to glimpse John Dales, and then, as if heaven had sent it, a glimpse of her white gold hair. I see a flash of metal, a glorious singing of it as two weapons are drawn from their sheaths. Benjamin steadies himself, his rapier pointed out at them. His jaw is set.

  “Well, this is interesting. We were just talking about you, Claire.”

  Claire’s eyes dart with crimson rage. She looks at me and her lips part, eyes softening with shock. I want to tell her not to look at me like that, but she reverts to rage so swiftly, her attention solely upon him. She holds up her knife. I see blood already upon it. The thought of her killing sends my stomach reeling. She shouldn’t have had to do it.

  “Oh, were you?” she snickers, her angelic voice mirthless. “I never thought you one to admire me, Benjamin. I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “John,” she commands. “Get Captain Alphonse.”

  My first mate attempts to pass Benjamin but he blocks his path, hooting loudly.

  “Really Claire? Why would I let him past?” he snaps. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “Fine,” she stands straight, staring him straight in the eyes, her own echoing so coldly that I can feel it on the air.

  “Kill him.”

  John attempts an overhead jab, his rapier coursing down above Benjamin. I shudder and maneuver myself so that I am out of their way. I set my back against the wall and creep up, my limbs aching as I attempt to stand. Benjamin parries this with ease and there are a few moments where their swords connect, clashing sharply, the noise reverberating up the stone.

  “Claire! Let us speak,” Benjamin roars above the din.

  Then, I make a decision. Time slows in this moment. I stick my foot out just as Benjamin makes a pace backward, and his footing is lost. He slips and crashes to the stone, his skull hitting hard. John zeroes in upon him, point arcing down at him as if he’s already dead, his fate sealed. But before his sword can pierce my brother’s flesh, I watch as Benjamin slides his own metal through my first mate’s chest, pressing up into the girth of the man, all the way to the hilt. Claire’s face drains of color. Everything is slow. Benjamin thrusts his feet against John’s chest, kicking him back out the doorway.

  “Alphonse!” Claire shrieks.

  She tosses me John’s abandoned rapier and by chance, I catch it. A fit like none other in my palm. It’s an old feeling, one that a man never forgets.

  Benjamin jumps swiftly to his feet and slams the door shut against Claire.

  “Just like when we were boys, right?” he is breathless, barbarism reining in his face. “You won’t win this. I’ve always beaten you in duels.”

  “We’ll see,” I utter.

  I will up all of the strength inside me. I breathe, allowing myself to believe that there is a chance. I could win, and we could go, escape into the forest with Gia. I could have what I came to take. My body is malnourished, but I flex my arms and legs, shaking myself out in preparation.

  “Kill him, Alphonse!” Claire grapples at the handle, trying to pull it wide but Benjamin presses back against it so that she cannot open it. A dark smile plays at his mouth.

  “We both know only one of us will kill the other,” I tell him.

  He snorts.

  “That’s what you think,” he corrects me.

  He slaps my rapier with his.

  “Do it then. Try to kill me,” he laughs.

  Without hesitation, I lean low and swing vertically. He dodges my blow and sidesteps, nicking my back with the tip of his rapier. Where he taps my back a thin lane of blood is drawn. I slice overhead, fully intending to cut him straight through. The cell is overtaken by the scent of John’s blood and innards, and I wheeze against my disgust. He deflects my attack again.

  “Alphonse!” Claire screams against the door, “I’ll kill you, Benjamin! You bastard!”

  I throw myself towards him, tackling him to the ground. We’re thrown against the wall, our bodies making impact. My bones ache from the bludgeoning pressure. We roll towards the back of the cell and I swing for his face but he throws me off, butting me back. We stare at one another now. He’s at the back of the cell, and I am at the door. Claire finally is able to bar it open, and she falls down beside me, knife gripped tight in her hand.

  “God, I have waited for this moment,” she whispers, voice like death.

  She rises, a pillar of solid determination.

  “Hold him down,” she demands me.

  I grab at her hem as it sweeps past me. I see Benjamin’s eyes. He seems frozen in his amusement. He wants us to try. But why? There must be a reason. But then I remember. The way that Sidra can give youth and power to those under her protection enables a man not to die. If he is constantly beneath her influences, her magic running through him, he’ll be unable to kill. If it had been months from his last communion with her, perhaps he could die. Just as my father had. There had been a lapse in his connection to her, one where the pleasures of youth and the inability to die had been lost, and Sidra was set back into her bone state. It was a cruel thing that Benjamin was able to kill Father in this time. A few weeks before and maybe father wouldn’t have been able to die. Benjamin would be far more cautious. He’d keep her fed and himself strong.

  “Claire,” I stop her. “He cannot die.”

  “What?” she rages, holding her knife out ahead of her. “He has to die! Now! We have to go get Gia and take her away from this place!”

  I stand, groaning a
s I rise.

  “He will die. Just not today,” I tell her, but I am truly speaking to him. Warning him.

  “My men will be here anytime. Take your time,” he says.

  Claire utters curses and exhales sharply.

  I grab her by the shoulder and I back us out of the cell. I close the door on him. He makes no move to stop me. I let the plank fall so that the cell is locked, and peer through the bars that constitute a window into the room. He blinks back at me as if he is enthused by our interactions.

  “I pissed in the spot you’re sitting,” I disclose.

  We stare at one another for a moment and then I grab Claire’s hand, and we are headed for the door. To a silent escape.

  “Our father killed Giselle. Not I,” Benjamin imparts through the bars, his voice a guttural storm.

  Claire ignores him, but I see a twitch in her mind. I see it beyond the blue of her eyes, the catastrophic clicking that will lead to our future demise. I feel the urge to patch it. To correct the words. But I can say nothing until she asks me. In any case, not now.

  We leave a trail of blood as we go, and I cannot help but laugh, my body hardly able to maintain the mirth that racks me. God, it is good to be free.

  Gia

  I’ve been granted a bit of freedom, and with it…I find myself wandering. Wandering down corridors with gleaming floors where shadows follow me incessantly. My mind is attached, perhaps in a roundabout way, through the iron bars in my mind to the thought of the woman Benjamin called the Bone Woman. As much as I try to ignore it—her—I cannot. Nor can I fathom what has happened to Claire and Captain Alphonse. I don’t know why I care all that much. Aside from the relationship we bear as them being the ones to give me passage to my fiancé in Saint Domingue, they should not matter to me much, should they? Father told me to not care. Care and money do not go hand in hand. This shows how much he was right in his assumptions.

  I reach out my fingers to touch the ridges and details in the walls. Such ornateness, such lavishness. Why here of all places? The words of the woman, the pieces that do not make sense; they rise to the surface of my mind, astringent and offensive. What does she need with the people? What does she want? Why does Benjamin seem connected to her in certain unsavory ways?

  There is a semi-circle sitting area at the midpoint of this hall. Creamy light filters in through the foggy windows, and outside, brushing the panes, are leaves and a skewed view of the kitchen’s small herb garden. The warmth permeates the glass, the stone seat hot from the sunlight. I shut my eyes, soaking in the silence.

  Part of me is hurt that they would leave without me. Yet they owe me nothing, and maybe Claire did not know that I’d been coerced into returning. Lost to one another in the unknown.

  I hear footsteps and freeze.

  “Ah, here you are,” Benjamin observes me as he saunters forth.

  His black hair is loose at his shoulders, and he wears a neat linen shirt and tight breeches. I can’t help but admire the lines of his body. I lower my eyes so that I cannot be caught looking at his…finer aspects.

  “Here I was thinking that I might have finally found some peace,” I utter.

  Benjamin comes to seat himself across from me, and I note that he is relaxed. He doesn’t show worry for his prisoners being gone. Nor the monsters that lie in wait in the deep wet jungle.

  “You don’t need peace,” he says. “What you do need is freedom.”

  “Freedom?” I balk, his words disturbing to the fabric of my mind. “Yes. Freedom from you. Are you ready to release me?”

  His smile is devilish.

  “You know I won’t let that happen,” he says. “Freedom in other areas of your life.”

  “I see myself as free…” I respond, but I don’t truly know that I am. The mystery of him is enchanting, and just the idea of him possessing some otherworldly knowledge that I might not thrills me. It sends shivers down my spine and causes my head to feel light. Why should I care? Is there something beyond what I know? In all my life, I haven’t known much other than my father’s struggling plantation and the pursuit of financial security.

  “I think that deep down inside of all of us, there is a hole. Something inside you that recognizes that we might be missing something outside of what is commonly taught,” he tells me.

  I scoff. I can’t hold it back. If I met him in Maryland at a party or something, I would not have seen him as dangerous, speaking this way. Still, there is a clever shift in his eyes that warns me this man has killed; he’s an edifice of secrets and dark deeds.

  “Why do you want me to believe this? You told me something of the same extent before. Why does it matter what I believe? What are you going to do with me?” I ask him, attempting to keep my voice even.

  “I want…” He sighs, dark eyes glittering like exotic jewels. “I want to know you. Tell me about yourself. Who are you, Gianna Roswell?”

  Who am I? I think about my life. The meager schooling, the teatimes, the focus on becoming better than I truly was, the obsession with finances that my father instilled in me. The fun I’d had at the local gatherings and the short travels to town with our maid and my mother for ribbons and freshly baked bread. Gathering information about people’s assets for my father. The icy wind on the beach in winter, the clopping of horse’s hooves on cobbles, the stray commentary on the Native American trade, the bustling market in spring and summer, all of it comes rushing back to me.

  “I’m no one of importance to you,” I remark shrewdly. “Do what you will with me and let me be on my way.”

  “Do you really want that?” he asks, searching my eyes as if he might find some secret longing within me.

  I swallow tightly, feeling sickness in my gut.

  “Why would I want anything else? I did not choose to come here. The other night…” I trail off. I think that the escape of Captain Alphonse and Claire has made my attempt at killing him old news. He has since forgiven me, always smirking as if he knows my thoughts, because when my mind goes there, to that primal unforgiving murderous place, it is as if he senses it and he says something in simple warning.

  “The other night you learned a lesson. You know now that I am unkillable. Do you know how many people have tried exactly what you’d done? You are not the first to want me dead and you won’t be the last.” He speaks in such a relaxed tone that it grates upon my ears.

  “How is it possible?” I utter, peering at him with challenge in my eyes.

  He leans forward, arms hitched on his thighs. For only a second, I glance at his lips, but I see that he’s caught me. It was involuntary, not meant to happen. But he smiles roguishly. I’m sure he knows the effect he has upon women. Perhaps he’s playing with me even now, toying with my own natural desires. I have never been one to be smitten. I have only ever been on the other end of it, the object of infatuation.

  “I told you…unexplainable things,” he says, voice low as if we are being intimate.

  In my own defiance of his sensual ploys, I lean forward a bit, staring straight into his eyes. The feather of his breath brushes my face.

  “I’m no fool. You wouldn’t tell me,” I pretend to toy with one of the small encrustations along my neckline, and I see that he’s fighting the urge to look down to my chest. “I’m accustomed to being left in the dark. My father used me to his advantage my entire life, only giving me small bits of information. When I boarded the Boswyn it was no different. My entire life I’ve served selfish men. I will not serve you, nor be treated as if I am a helpless ignorant girl.”

  Benjamin loses his smile, and he seems stone set on something as if my words pressed him into a different lane of thought.

  “I expect nothing less,” he responds. “Keep the fire alive inside you. You know your worth. Never forget it.”

  Something about his words echoes in my mind like a fragrance I’d not smelled in a long time, reminding me of a memory I’d forgotten. Or maybe I’ve just never heard a man say something like this, and I’ve wanted to hea
r something to this extent, from someone. From anyone. His encouragement catches me off-guard, crumbling my iron seductress. I sit back and stare out the window.

  “I know exactly what I am worth,” I say, not meeting his eyes.

  He rises, and without another word leaves me to my own devices.

  __________

  It has been a day. He takes me out sometimes like this, and I always follow, watching him from the shadows, as it is where he keeps me. I am always close at hand, and I wonder why he wants it this way. What have I done that he wants me near to him always? I am commanded to follow him around on his day to day tasks, guarded by two of his brawny henchmen. This has given me many opportunities to judge him and digress over who he is and what he does.

  Most of it is political. He sends off letters to new patrons and dignitaries who want in on his covert trade. I’ve learned that he has fields of poppies, no doubt for the black market used for false medicinal purposes. He orchestrates his world through favors to men high up in ranks. He deals with French, Dutch, English, Spanish, African, and even some of the Asias. He never asks them to come to him. He prepares for long voyages with the men on his Island who work in the fields and cure up years-worth of rations. He eats grand dinners and is entirely spoiled, all the while he associates with pirates and noblemen alike. This means that he spends a vast amount of his time in his offices, and I am always brought there to watch and listen like a loyal dog.

  I am haunted by the woman, the bits of her that I saw. The noises she created when she took the man’s life. The feeling that persisted in my gut…it permeates my dreams. I feel that we exist apart from the natural world, and only he is in a place to allow passage to those who seek him in this veil. It feels like the rest of the world is only a memory. It is why I am extremely enlivened when we see a ship make Port.

  “Benjamin!” I shout over my shoulder as I peer out his window.

  He looks up from his charts and a few of his men clear their throats. He’s been charting a certain part of the ocean for a week now; for some random affiliate, it seems. This means that he’s been looking over many maps, unraveling so many to be sure that the one he’s drawing up is correct, that his entire room looks like a sea of papers with the spare bottles and such to mark a sure landing.