The kitchen had changed slightly; his keen eyes noticed the small differences automatically. His mother had moved the bread basket and changed the order the pots were hanging from the rack on the ceiling and… he frowned at the little bowl of milk that sat next to the patio doors. 'Do you have a cat?' The oddity broke through his mental blockade of polite conversation and came out sounding harsher than he'd meant it to.
'Oh,' she looked up from filling the kettle, 'no, I had guests.' She put down the kettle and bustled over to collect the bowl and two empty cups from off the table.
'Really? Who?' He couldn't imagine his mother entertaining guests anymore. What with Mr Hunter dead, there didn't seem to be any more reason for her to pretend she liked the people in this town. Pembrake had always suspected she'd just grow old alone in this house, pining for the son that would never return.
'Oh,' she didn't make eye contact, just ran her hand nervously over her pearls, 'just the window cleaner, dear.'
'The window cleaner?' he asked incredulously. 'And she brought her cat? What kind of a window cleaner-?'
'She's very nice, dear. You should meet her some, d-' his mother stopped and swallowed.
He tried not to smile too obviously. She still thought he was getting married, ha? Who did she think was on the top of his list, he wondered. Miss Partridge? Annie Suble? The Captain's daughter? She disliked them all. His mother was not the traditional match maker; she was the dreaded match breaker. Oh he'd brought girls home in the past and she had been polite but never very inviting, so he'd wondered why he'd even bothered. He didn't anymore.
'Would you… what would you like to drink, Pembrake?'
He frowned again, leaning back and folding his strong arms across his chest. He'd always had the same thing to drink, ever since he was a little boy, but she always had to ask. 'Tea with lemon, no sugar, no milk.'
'Very well.'
Was it a game, or did she always forget? She seemed to have a fantastic memory for his misdemeanours though. Through asking what he would like to drink it was as if she were giving him room to change his mind, as if she really wanted him to say "Actually, I'll have a cup of 'I'm leaving the navy' if that's alright".
The silence stretched between them. He could even make out the continuous cry of the gulls over the bay above the hiss of the kettle. She poured out the water to the tea and carried two cups over to the table.
He knew before he'd tasted a drop that that it would be made to perfection, even after the little game they always played where she pretended to have forgotten his specifications. He'd travelled the length and breadth of the world, but he had yet to have tea made precisely the way he liked it anywhere other than in this kitchen.
She drank deeply from her fine tea cup, and he saw that the heat brought a warmth to her cheeks that his presence after four months away had failed to raise in her.
He saw her glance at him a few times and then she got to her feet and pulled out two perfect gold-leaf plates out of a top cupboard. They were her favourite plates. There used to be three, a gift from the King for Mr Hunter's services as an advisor. Pembrake remembered vividly when, as a five-year old, he'd broken the third in a rage. His mother hadn't even shouted. She never shouted, just cried. She would just skirt around a topic or make the tiniest bit of headway then double back on herself with a stream of apologies.
This is how he knew she wouldn't just come out and ask if he was engaged.
'So I suppose congratulations are in order.'
Pembrake watched in surprise as, seemingly unperturbed by what his answer would be, she disappeared under the bench and retrieved something from a cupboard.
'You could say that,' he kept his tone as diplomatic as possible. 'As my mother I'm sure you're very proud.'
'Of course I am, dear,' she walked out from behind the bench with a cheesecake on a silver serving tray. It was topped with whipped cream, raspberries, and shaved chocolate.
He blinked in surprise; it was his favourite. 'I thought you said you were surprised to see me?'
'It always pays to be prepared. And have you had any contact with the lovely Miss Partridge recently?' She looked at him directly suddenly, not bothering to track the knife as she cut through the soft cake.
He grimly played with the edge of his cuff. That had been a strangely direct question from her. 'I-'
'Because I heard from Madame Helway that Miss Partridge's father is keen to have her married.' She put a slice of the cake on one of the gold plates and pushed it towards him across the table.
'I-'
'And that Annie, you brought over for tea last time – apparently she's eloped.' She took a drink from her tea and regarded him steadily over the rim.
'She has?'
'And Pearl-'
The Captain's daughter, he'd always had a thing for Pearl.
'She has gone back to Pemberly City; apparently she doesn't like the weather about these parts.' His mother sniffed slightly as she finished off her list, having ticked or crossed out everyone she could think of.
'Right,' he said slowly and tried to hide his surprise by taking a sip of his burning-hot tea.
'It's very hot, dear.'
'Yes,' he mumbled.
This was strange for his mother. She had always been the meek lady who had followed around Mr Hunter like a butterfly fluttering her beautiful wings at his many occasions and gatherings. But more than that, it was her need to continuously whisper a nervous warning in her son’s ear before he met with any government official, or hurry him past a Guard House as if they were common criminals, that had taught the young Pembrake his mother lacked courage.
So this was a worrying reversal in her behaviour. Now he bothered to look, her expression verged on the serene, and she sat with a straighter, stronger back, a different woman from the one who had timidly ushered him in less than half-an-hour before.
She sipped at her tea again and a waft of basil scent drifted over to him.
Pembrake shifted his eyes back to the glass patio doors rather than look at this calmer version of his mother. They were unusually clear. Sparkling even. 'The window cleaner has done a good job,' he tried to say casually, 'I can see why you invite her in for tea.'
'Oh yes, she's been coming around for a very long time now, dear; surprising you haven't noticed. And recently she's been making me such a wonderful tea. I'm all the better for it, I'm sure. But-' his mother tried for a deep breath, but gave up with a sharp, shallow suck of air, 'I haven't congratulated you on whatever it is you need to be congratulated on yet. Is it another promotion? I know you aren't getting engaged….'
This was all too much. She was just so calm! He'd been so sure she'd thought he was engaged. He stupidly took another sip at his scalding tea before replying awkwardly, 'Ah… well actually I do have news.'
She crossed her arms, not necessarily defensive, but not about to be played either it seemed.
'I have accepted a position at the Royal Naval Academy in Capitol City.' Now he'd said it.
His mother blinked. She didn't burst into tears, beg him to stay or forbid him to go, just blinked.
'It means,' Pembrake stumbled over his words in the light of his surprise, 'that I won't come back to Bridgestock.'
His mother nodded and began to play with her bracelet. It was thick with large stone-carved beads. It was a family heirloom of sorts, though his mother had never told him where it had come from. She hardly ever let it out of her sight and always seemed to play with it in times of stress. She said it was her lucky charm, not that she had ever been that lucky. But she still claimed that one day this bracelet would bring them the greatest windfall of all, whatever that meant.
But now, as his mother played with the beads, her fingers brushing lightly along their carved faces, her eyes seemed to grow distant as if behind a layer of mist. 'You don't intend to return, do you?'
'No,' he said suddenly, surprised at her blank, dispassionate question. 'I don't.'
'I see.'
; Bridgestock, Westlands, the day of the Storm of the Century…
Pembrake nodded at the guards as they walked past on their patrol, then bounded easily up the last set of tessellated steps that separated him from his mother's street. He had to do this today and early today by the look of those clouds circling overhead. Plus, he had promised the Captain he would check on the men in Marvern's tavern, to ensure they were keeping in good order and not bringing the good name of the Royal Navy into disrepute.
That being said…he paused to eye an attractive young lady dressed in a purple dress with white frills. In a move that was by now very familiar to him, she lowered her eyes to look at him coquettishly from under her lashes, smiling coyly.
He tipped his hat and walked on. It was true; ladies love a man in uniform. Especially one who lives on Esquire street. Colour of his skin be dammed, Pembrake knew he was good looking, even to the ladies of Bridgestock.
Smiling to himself, Pembrake scanned the rest of the street. There was another woman dressed in a drab patchwork skirt exiting one of the houses further down the street. Even from a distance it was clear she wasn't a patch on the purple-dress girl looks-wise and, as she neared him, he spotted the broom and bucket and realised she was probably not a patch on the purple-dress girl class-wise either.
However, he knew his manners and nodded at her just as respectfully, if not as flirtatiously, though this one kept her eyes so keenly on the pavement she wouldn't have noticed if he'd whipped his uniform off and done a dance.
As she was so decidedly not looking at him, he took the opportunity to observe her. She was painfully thin, but not by choice he reckoned. She had unruly, full, crinkled hair that hung about her head in odd little zigzags. But, strangely, that wasn't what drew his attention. She had the most extraordinary eyes he'd ever seen – grey and deep, almost unnaturally calm like the deep sea before a storm, like the sea in the harbour beyond right at that moment, in fact. Odd that she had a cat though.
And then she was past him, the little black cat bounding behind her.
He wouldn't usually have stared at a woman like that when he walked down the street, and he told himself he knew why he'd used such a keen eye to ogle this one.
He was distracting himself from the conversation that would follow.
'Hello mother,' he'd say.
She'd nod politely.
'I'm afraid I won't be coming to see you anymore, my reassignment is up.'
Her eyes would flick around the room like a fluttering moth caught in the light.
'This is my last stop in Bridgestock before I transfer to the Academy.'
She would cry, blubber possibly, but definitely try to convince him not to go. The defiant, strong mother that had greeted his news six months ago now, would make way for the needy, scared mother of old.
So it was with a strange mix of trepidation and bravado that he walked towards her house. He was proud of how far he'd come and certain of where he was going….
The house, his childhood home, came into view and he stopped. He didn't have to see her one last time. He could just write her a letter surely.
With his hands in his pockets, Pembrake rocked backwards and forwards gently. Then he turned around and his eyes drifted back to the woman with the ocean blue-grey eyes. She was standing still at the top of the steps he'd just climbed, her back to him, staring up at the ominous clouds above.
She looked quiet serene. Like a picture.
Then she shrugged her head down and walked down the steps and out of his sight.
He was wasting time.
He let his own face turn towards the turbid sky.
Not good.
His face creased with deep worry and, with one last look over his shoulder at his mother's house, he hurried back towards the dock. It was time to become the least popular man in Bridgestock; it was time to cancel shore leave.
Chapter 4
This storm was violent. This storm was totally chaotic. This storm was by far the worst storm of the century.
It ripped through the sky like a rough saw grating through space. It growled and howled like a pack of starving, vicious animals baying for blood and devastation.
Windows and doors did not so much rattle, as shake to within a centimetre of breaking. The streets were filled with debris washed off the roofs by the gale and torrential rain, and they clogged the storm drains till the cobbles were drowned under the churning water which had nowhere to escape.
There was no denying that this was the worst storm that Bridgestock had ever seen. Never before had the great wooden pylons of the port screamed under such fatigue. Never before had so many old, hardened trees been uprooted as if they were nothing but dead leaves floating to the ground. Never before had the great tessellated walls, that cut he city into neat raising divides, been assailed by such a ferocious foe.
And never before had the clouds crackled, had the rain been tinged with an almost electric blue, had a strange barely audible groan been heard on the wind. There was no one, however, who was aware enough to note these other characteristics though.
No one except Abby, and she was far too busy.
~~~
Commander Pembrake Hunter looked up into the storm above. It was as if time had slowed down. He could see the clouds circle slowly beyond. Somehow there was a break in the clouds, like a huge rock had just broken through them.
His ship had sunk. The storm had split it in two, dashed it against the rocks as if it were nothing more than a flimsy branch of drift wood.
Now, at the edge of reason and the precipice of total fatigue, he was holding onto a broken section of mast. Either he or it would sink first, but the conclusion would remain the same. Pembrake was about to drown.
Briefly, for some strange, heady moment, his mind had opened up and he had felt like it was stretching across the ether like wet fabric tightly pulled over a rack. There had been some other presence, some kind of force there, and it had been comforting. But just as quickly as it had come, it had disappeared. And with it his hope had dwindled.
The edge of death, they say, is a strange place.
But now Pembrake could only look above, mesmerised by what he saw. Surely there was no reason left in him, no faculty to analyse and categorise that which he witnessed. But still, the break in the circling clouds above him was definitely the most wondrous thing he had ever seen.
During a storm so violent and chaotic that it had snapped one of the sturdiest vessels ever made, how could there be such a calm and perfect break in the clouds?
Perhaps it was god, Pembrake thought hazily, beckoning towards heaven, showing a path clear and true to whatever lay beyond.
The moonlight lit up the rim of the clouds, giving them a bright grey glow set against the dark turgid cloudbank beyond, adding to their mystical lure.
How strange, Pembrake's eyes could not blink, even from the assault of wind and saltwater. All he could think of was how very strange it was.
He could feel the waves beat against him with unrelenting anger, feel his frigid fingers lose their grip.
He shouldn't be able to see the moon during a storm. There shouldn't be a break in the clouds.
There was no vice left in his body. All that fixed him to the slowly-sinking mast was his unconscious desperation, but that was slipping.
The clouds above were strangely serene, strangely comforting.
Pembrake Hunter let go.
~~~
Abby had flown against the storm, pushed herself until her frigid body was so bent it felt like the stiffness would saw through her limbs. Charlie had tucked himself against her stomach and she had no fear that he would fall. He was a witch's cat, and although this was the worst flight they had ever taken, she had every confidence in his ability to remain firmly attached, claws and all, to her racing broom.
And all she had to do was fly.
As she'd left Mrs Hunters, as she'd stared with desperation at the storm, she'd heard the shouts from below. A ship had sunk, Guard
s were shouting, on the Knife Rocks up the coast.
For a moment, for a terrible moment, Abby had considered turning back. She peered at the street a level below her and saw a stream of Guards and sailors running along, obviously headed for the coast to rescue any survivors they could find.
These were strong, determined men. Terrible, but strong. What could she do? She was only a little witch. But with that treacherous thought, the weight of Mrs Hunter's bracelet – that Abby had pocketed, unsure of what else to do with it – had doubled. So Abby had kicked off with her broom and rose into the storm above, finally determined to save Pembrake Hunter.
She could see the Tower and Death, see the cards before her as if they were etched into the very clouds.
There was no turning back now.
She'd followed the Guards and sailors as they'd run down the street, from as high as she could before her head descended into the billowing base of the clouds. Then she'd left them, shot forward, seeing yet another stream of people running across the wet cobbles, heading towards something with desperate shouts and quick feet.
Finally she'd had no choice but to veer off. The closer she got to the cliff at Knife Rocks, the further down she had to fly to avoid the momentous pressure and energy of storm front. So she'd pulled her broom over the ocean, and taken it down as close to the waves as she dared.
Then she'd spotted it, seen the broken shards of wood and tattered scraps of canvas mast strewn over the knife-edge rocks. Past the rocks people flocked, she could just make out the dark shapes moving against the grey sand.
She scanned the water, desperately searched the shattered debris tossing about in the swell.
Then she saw it, or rather, felt it. A break in the storm, a break in the chaotic, terrible energy. Over to her left - a break in the clouds.
She was drawn to it, hugging the waves, speeding around them as best she could.
She could feel Charlie freeze on her lap. He was probably shouting, probably pleading with her not to venture near the strange break, but she couldn't hear him and didn't want to.
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