The Isis Knot

by Hanna Martine

  Sera sucked in a breath. William snatched back his hand, his eyes bulging, and she wondered what he’d seen inside his mind.

  Her chest felt funny, like it had expanded to twice its usual size and she was now filled with twice a woman’s emotion. Twice her desire.

  He edged back and raised both hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He licked his lips. “I’m not one of those men. I’ll not hurt you. Please believe me.”

  It would’ve been easier to believe that this criminal was one of those kind of men, except that she didn’t. William wouldn’t hurt her. Not ever.

  The image of the braided woman returned without touch or prompt. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl and they crinkled as she smiled in joy at Sera. It was this woman who lived inside her now. It was this woman who was somehow connected to the gold cuff. It was this woman who was so clearly rapturous over finding William.

  Sera covered her face with her hands, trying to scrub the braided woman’s image from her mind in order to think clearly.

  “Sera.”

  It was the tone of William’s voice—deep and resonant, somewhere between awe and realization—that drew her hands away. She hadn’t pulled her sleeve back down and the gold cuff was plainly visible. He was staring at it.

  She scrambled, trying to cover it, but it was too late. He touched her again. This time on her opposite shoulder. It was a comforting, innocent gesture that had the braided woman shaking and soaring with need. In the dark of Sera’s mind, the woman opened her arms, the beads of her dress clinking together. She opened her arms for this man, for William. She wanted Sera to touch him. To be with him.

  “It’s all right,” William said. “I won’t try to take it from you.”

  She rolled her sleeve down anyway, clutching her arm to her chest. “How can I believe that? How can I trust you?”

  But even as she asked it, she could feel an invisible rope being drawn between them. Connecting them. Wrapping around them. Knotting them together.

  A great crack of lightning illuminated his face, and he was beautiful.

  “You can trust me,” he said, “because I know that band of gold around your arm. I’ve seen it before.”

  “You lie,” she whispered. “There’s no way you could.”

  He closed his eyes. “On the underside, next to your skin, there’s another image. It’s of a woman wearing a horned headdress. And a man with an animal head and a tail.”

  CHAPTER 9

  He’d found her again, just as he knew he would. Here, in a rainstorm outside a whorehouse in lonely Parramatta, William had found the woman from the Spectre’s vision.

  Only the Spectre was no longer a ghostly, faceless apparition who whispered commands in William’s ear and directed his actions through a series of cryptic hallucinations.

  The Spectre had once been a man.

  When William had touched the knee of this wide-eyed woman, desperate to keep her calm and with him, he’d been given a new set of visions. Ones that felt disconcertingly familiar.

  A woman nursing a baby boy.

  The constellation of the hunter and his dog, with Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, as the canine’s eye.

  A looped and knotted rope. The exact symbol he’d once seen carved onto a desert cave wall.

  Two lovers, lost in each other’s pleasure.

  Without question or doubt, William knew the man pushing himself into the beautiful woman was the same man who lived inside him now. The same dead man who’d made William doubt his sanity for eighteen years.

  He wondered if Sera had seen the same visions, but could not ask. To bring up magic now? To mention he was cursed? He had to tread these waters carefully. He had to test what she knew before he revealed too much and possibly scared her away.

  His life, amazingly, had made a complete circle. His torment had begun with the discovery of that gold band, so he supposed it was only fitting that his madness had eventually led him back to it. Except that as he stared at the flesh-and-blood woman who now wore the cuff, he knew it was not insanity that had brought them together. It was the truth. Finally.

  Another flash of lightning. He watched a single droplet of rain travel from her hairline down her cheek to her chin. She’d cut her hair since he first saw her. It swung just above her shoulders, longer on one side than the other. She possessed a raw beauty he hadn’t expected or prepared himself for. On the sea, when the Spectre—the man inside him—had shown him Sera’s face, William had merely thought of her as his next target. A person similar to hundreds of others he’d been made to seek out over the years. Then, when he’d glimpsed her on the back of the wagon, the Spectre had all but claimed that she was not just a next step in the circus of his life. She was the end. The culmination.

  But now? Staring into her big brown eyes, he started to feel something more.

  The gold glowed dully in their shadowed hiding place. She wrapped one hand around the cuff and pressed it into the damp, bare skin of her arm. Then she slid the gold toward her elbow, which didn’t seem possible because it appeared so tight, but it moved anyway. Another burst of lightning showed the indentations she’d made on her skin: the woman with the horned headdress facing the man with the snarling animal face.

  “Yes.” He gestured to the red lines on her forearm. “That’s what I remember.”

  “How could you possibly know? I can’t take the thing off.”

  Her voice was odd, the intonation and pronunciation of her words foreign and clipped, occasionally difficult to piece together. He wanted to hear more. He needed to hear everything.

  He passed a hand over his wet hair and looked directly into her eyes. “Because I was one of two men who found it in a hidden tomb outside of Edfu, Egypt eighteen years ago. The other soldier I was with, Samuel Oliver, slid it off the arm bone of one of the skeletons inside.”

  The Spectre shivered. So did Sera.

  “My father gave it to me.” Her voice quivered. “His name was Mitchell Oliver.”

  A deep breath escaped his lungs, a gust of wind through the sails he missed so much. So he’d been right. Goddamn it, he’d been right. Oh, Samuel, look what you started…

  She was looking at him in desperation, as though he had all the answers, when in reality he’d been hoping she might have some for him.

  “Well then,” he said. “It seems that you and I have much to discuss.”

  The door to the brothel squealed open and heavy footsteps stomped around the boardwalk corner, coming toward the barrels. William placed a finger over his lips, panic rippling through him. He was a bolter now and she was a woman hiding with an escaped convict. The laws in New South Wales would be strict enough to hurt them both.

  She turned her back to him, swiveling silently on her bum. But he could have sworn he’d seen a look of fierce determination—not fear—cross her face before he lost sight of it. Her back stiffened as the footsteps drew closer.

  Two meaty hands grasped the top of a rum barrel and rolled the full, sloshing weight of it to one side. A burly tavern keeper stood in the hole.

  Sera rocked up to her heels. William rolled to a crouch, ready.

  Another jagged flash of lightning. The tavern keeper saw them. A Highland accent sputtered out from behind his bushy beard. “What are you doing in there?”

  William had no time to wonder if he’d be recognized—if word had been sent around already about Brown’s two recently acquired convicts having bolted—because Sera grabbed his hand. He didn’t know what surprised him more: that another touch from her made the male presence inside him pulse with a terribly timed desire, or how fast she moved.

  She pulled at his arm and jumped off the porch right into the pouring rain. She ran into the blackness, glass rattling around in the pack bouncing at her side.

  He wriggled his hand free. The contact was simply too much, and he had to concentrate to keep to his feet in the unstable mud. The Scot bellowed after them but didn’t give chase.

  Sera ran through Par
ramatta, weaving in and out of the low buildings, negotiating puddles, and deftly avoiding two men who were untying their horses out on the main thoroughfare. She moved with incredible skill and quiet precision, like someone who was used to running. Someone used to avoiding a chase.

  She finally stopped at the side door of the white church in the center of town. It was good thinking on her part. Nighttime during a rainstorm, the chapel would be empty. It was unlikely they’d be discovered inside.

  He jiggled the door handle. Locked. He motioned her back, ready to kick at the knob, but she held out a hand.

  “No.” That odd, lovely voice. “If that guy sent someone after us, they’ll look for broken doors.” She frowned, her face darkening in a way that suggested she was bothered by something outside of their predicament. She swung her head to one side of the stoop, saw something he didn’t, and her brow furrowed even deeper. “I got this.”

  He didn’t understand what she “got” until she crouched and searched the dirt around the stoop. A low fence bordered a flooding flower bed that lined the church’s foundation, and from it she dug out two metal spikes used to hold up the growing stems. Returning to the locked door she said, “Keep an eye out. Let me know if anyone’s around.” Then she stuck the narrow spikes into the keyhole and maneuvered them around, her ear pressed to the wood. Moments later, the door clicked open and she tossed the spikes back into the flower bed.

  Quickly they entered the church. He shut the door behind them, sealing out the rain.

  He reached across her to set the door lock again. “How did you know how to do that?”

  She was frowning at her hands, as though they were dirty in a way that had nothing to do with the dirt circling her nails. “It just suddenly came back to me.”

  She pushed past him to stand behind the last pew.

  The sanctuary was blissfully dry, the rain a dull buzz as it struck the roof. Like most construction in the colony, the space was utilitarian at best, with crude wood benches as pews, and a boxy pulpit draped with a home-stitched cross.

  She released a shuddering sigh. “None of this feels real.”

  He turned his head to look down at her. “I’m real.”

  When her eyes lifted to his, her face framed by dripping black hair, a force struck him in the chest. Strong enough to make him dizzy. He was a half second away from cursing the Spectre again, until an even more disturbing thought came to him: What if it wasn’t the Spectre making him feel this?

  He could not want her. He didn’t know yet why the Spectre—the dead man—needed William to find her. There were still too many mysteries, and he’d learned long ago not to become attached to the many temporary people who waded in and out of his life.

  Learn what she knew. End the visions. Find a way out of New South Wales. That was it.

  Clearing his throat and breaking eye contact, he stepped back.

  His thoughts moved to Jem, whom he hoped was all right. He’d left the younger man in an abandoned farm a few miles to the south, believing that someone of Jem’s height and appearance would be far more memorable than an older, lone convict with forged papers. William hadn’t planned to stay in Parramatta all night. He’d intended to slide into town, carefully inquire at select places about his mystery woman, steal some food, and then leave.

  Jem had been upset about being left behind, but William had assured him of his quick return. Now he wasn’t so certain, and going back on his word greatly bothered him.

  Sera asked, “Are you a religious man?”

  He traced a finger over the back of a bench. “I was once. But things happen. Things change.”

  She nodded dully, her eyes shifting in thought. Then she nodded to a narrow, curving staircase leading to the balcony. “Let’s go up there.” She grabbed a half-burned candle from a windowsill.

  “You’ll need to light it.” He searched and found a small door near the front entrance. It opened into a tiny room storing simple holiday decorations, brooms, and, yes, flint and steel. He palmed the last two items and also grabbed a bucket.

  “What’s the bucket for?” she asked.

  “To wring out our clothes.” He blinked down at the wooden thing, realizing how familiar and possibly scandalous he was being with her, a strange woman. It had been such a habit, on the ship and in his wandering life since, to strip down and rid his clothing of excess water. But she…she seemed nonplussed. Perhaps slightly embarrassed, but not scandalized. Not offended.

  She led the way upstairs.

  The balcony was lined with more benches. He set the candle on the floor in the center aisle and gave it flame. He regretted it almost immediately, however, because in the dim, soft light he could see her. He could watch her remove her heavy coat. He could see that her man’s trousers and shirt were soaked through, sucking to her slim body like a sail pushing against the wind. He swallowed hard and turned away, lowering himself onto a far bench. It didn’t do much good though, because he could hear her wringing out the coat. And then the two clomps as she removed her boots.

  “Don’t turn around,” she warned, her tone curt. She was no meek, easily appalled female.

  He turned his face to the wall. “I won’t.”

  Looking away did nothing. The visualization of her slowly removing her wet clothes and twisting water from them slew him. When he closed his eyes, all he saw was the naked couple, rocking slowly together. It had been so, so long since he’d tasted desire, and he cursed the Spectre for feeding it to him now.

  “Okay,” she said, a strange word he didn’t understand. “I’m done.”

  Gathering himself, he turned around to see her sitting on the floor facing away from him, legs pulled tightly to her chest. The wet coat was draped messily over a nearby bench. Her damp clothing clung to the smooth shape of her back. The way her black hair clumped together reminded him of swinging braids.

  “You can do your clothes now,” she said over her shoulder. “You don’t have a coat and you’re soaked. I won’t look.”

  He dragged the bucket over and quickly wrung out his shirt and trousers, sliding his legs back into the chilled fabric with a shiver.

  “Would it be all right with you,” he ventured, “if I let my shirt dry before putting it back on? I’ll remain over here, if you like.”

  She swiveled around. Her eyes raked up his naked chest, then dropped to the candle flame. “It’s fine. Sit down and talk.”

  What a funny manner she had. If he hadn’t been practically raised on the open sea among the rawest of sailors, he might’ve found her crass. Unladylike. Instead, it drew him to her. Her sharper edges gave him a sense of the familiar. It made him feel at ease, strangely, when he hadn’t felt that comfortable around people, especially women, in over eighteen years.

  And yet there was still a layer of vulnerability within her. She seemed to need him, too, and the male part of him responded instantly to that. He’d met her not an hour ago, and already he was thinking about her in ways that felt separate from how the Spectre had pushed him toward her. Or were these feelings truly separate? He’d been celibate for a decade, and not by choice. How could he be sure that this sudden attraction wasn’t yet another of the Spectre’s machinations? How much could he trust in himself at this point?

  Either way, Sera was the winch, pulling hard at the shortening rope between them, and William was lost to its force.

  He lowered himself to the floor on the other side of the candle and tossed back his wet hair. Her eyes followed his movements. Her gaze gave him an opium-like high. And he should know how that felt.

  “I want to know about this.” She raised her right arm, the gold cuff covered by her sleeve. “You say you found this in a cave in Egypt? So why do I have it?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “But according to you, you found it first. What happened?”

  William closed his eyes and inhaled. He could still feel the grit of gunpowder in his palm. Could still hear the chunk chunk of cannonballs
as they slid into the gun. The sharp smell of flint and flame came back to him with vivid clarity. His arms still burned with the force of the gun as it exploded, straining against the ropes in his hands.

  “I sailed with Nelson in ’98. We chased Napoleon’s navy all over the Mediterranean that year, and finally caught his fleet off the coast of Alexandria. I was on deck as his flagship L’Orient went down in flames. We thought we were victorious.”

  Sera stiffened, her eyes widening slightly. Then she motioned for him to continue.

  “We left the Mediterranean without setting foot in Egypt. But Napoleon continued his campaign into the Ottoman heartland, including laying siege to Egypt—exactly what we did not want. English trade routes to India were compromised, so in ’01 the Royal Navy went back to oust the Frogs from Egypt and open up the trade lines again. I knew how to fight on land. So I went.”

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she whispered, “Oh God.”

  “We invaded Egypt. Swept over the land like the sea. The Frogs gave us far less of a fight than the Mamalukes gave them, which is not saying much. They very nearly laid down their weapons the moment they saw us, without Napoleon there to lead them into slaughter. The Frogs left, but we stayed. By then, the talk was everywhere.”

  “The talk?”

  “No Englishman in Egypt could give a fuck about India. All anyone wanted was the riches inside the monuments and temples they were discovering all over the country. And that was after Napoleon’s forces had already looted what they could. It was all anyone could talk about. ‘Stick your hand in the desert sand,’ they said, ‘and pull out your fortune.’ As soon as the Frogs left, the English explorers came with their shovels and axes and notebooks. Every day caskets and gold and mummies were being pulled out of the ground and put on boats back to England. The soldiers and sailors had to just stand there and watch. I wanted so badly to get lost in the desert, find my own wealth.”