Venturess

by Betsy Cornwell

  The creature’s movements grew slowly weaker as the ropes wore away at his gills. The sea around him turned muddy and he sagged against the nets, his strange, clear eyes fluttering closed.

  Fin punched the glass a third time and breached the first pane. He heaved his body against the side, and the second layer of glass cracked open.

  “They can’t get him,” Fin said. “They can’t know. I won’t let there be another colony.”

  He took the emergency hatchet out of its place under our seats, then grabbed the brass speaking pipe that led back up to the airship. “Our hull has been breached,” Fin said. His voice was low and angry. “Pull us up now.” He tore off his life jacket and pulled me in for a quick, rough embrace.

  “Less than a minute, Nick,” Fin said, pressing a hard kiss against my cheek, and he turned away and smashed the hatchet as hard as he could against the third layer of glass.

  It shattered and Fin plunged out. The pod flooded with icy salt water. I barely had enough time to take in one deep breath before it closed over my head.

  Fin swam as fast as he could toward the trapped merman. The pod was already reeling back up to the surface, and Fin shrank below me as I was pulled up and away.

  I clutched at his abandoned life jacket, frantic. I had often gone swimming as a child in a little lake in Woodshire, and I’d gone a few times with Fin, Caro, and Bex in a pond behind the royal horses’ paddock last summer. That was nothing at all like swimming in the ocean, of course . . . but if I would struggle to swim here, I knew that Fin would too.

  My broken pod burst through the surface and up into the air, and the water came pouring out. I gasped for breath as I flew closer to the airship and to safety, and away from Fin.

  His life jacket clutched in my arms, I jumped out through the jagged opening he had made and down into the sea.

  I hit the water with a juddering smack that disoriented and frightened me for a few seconds that I couldn’t spare. I looked up and briefly saw Caro pounding frantically against the wall of her own swiftly rising pod as Wheelock did his best to hold her back.

  I made for the nets.

  I couldn’t see what was happening under the surface, but I knew Fin hadn’t come up yet. I kicked my way over and tied Fin’s life jacket and my own to the rope that connected the nets to the ship. I gripped the edge of a net and used it to drag myself hand over hand underwater.

  When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see nearly as clearly as I’d been able to through the glass. I could make out only vague shapes. But I followed the line of the net with my hands, and it led me true.

  I saw two blurry forms below me, one dark and one white: Fin and the merman, struggling. Fin sawed at a rope with his hatchet, and the merman at least seemed to understand what he was trying to do and wasn’t fighting him. Still, he thrashed wildly against the net itself, tearing his gills and threatening to entangle Fin too. He was keening, almost singing, a plaintive noise that reverberated through the water and seemed to sink into my very bones.

  I pulled myself the rest of the way down, and I took the frayed rope from Fin’s hands. With every ounce of strength I had, I could just barely tear it apart. Fin didn’t acknowledge my presence at all, just moved on to the next section of net and began sawing at it with his hatchet.

  The merman’s gills were so badly torn that they were painful to look at, even through the blurred lens of the water. As my lungs started to burn I reached out carefully to pull the ropes away where they bound him most tightly. His high song grew louder, spread through the water until I was sure it could be heard even on the ship above. He thrashed and fought against the net, and the long talons in his webbed hands scratched at the ropes. One caught Fin under the eye, and his blood flowed out into the water. When it mixed with the merman’s, the creature stopped singing, and his mouth opened wider than ever, revealing serrated fangs. He stared at Fin through clouding eyes.

  Fin sawed through the final rope, and in an instant the merman was freed, and he flashed away so quickly I couldn’t have said which direction he went.

  Someone grabbed me from behind, and I felt myself yanked up and backward, the rope tearing out of my hands and drawing a little of my blood to mix with the merman’s. I saw someone else in the water: another sailor diving toward Fin, a thick rope and harness around his torso.

  The sailor overtook Fin and pinned his hands behind his back. My own rescuer clamped his arms more tightly around my waist as we broke the surface. I felt the shock of gravity returning as the thick rope pulled us away from the water, back up to the waiting ship.

  When we collapsed on the deck, gasping and shivering, Caro rushed at us and embraced us both. “I could pummel you!” she kept saying to Fin. “Why would you do that?” And to me: “You were safe and sound; how dare you risk that? I might have lost you both!”

  “I had to save Fin,” I said. “You would have done the same if you’d had the chance.”

  “I’d have looked after myself, with a mind to the people who love me!” Caro retorted hotly, still holding both of us tight.

  With every breath, my lungs were calming, and the pressure in my chest was fading away. “I saw you pounding the glass on your pod,” I replied. “You’d have broken through and come after us if Wheelock hadn’t held you back, and you know it.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Fin whispered as two crewmen approached us with blankets and robes. “I’m sorry I made you so afraid and that I endangered you. I’m more sorry than I can say. But we can’t let them know what we saw.”

  Caro looked at Fin in bafflement, but I remembered what he’d said as he broke out of the pod.

  Wheelock had sprung into action as soon as we came back aboard, and the whole crew was gathered on the deck, securing the nets and ropes that had pulled us up and waiting for the captain’s orders. Walsh wheeled out a tall panel, and I didn’t understand why until Wheelock bustled me behind it and and called Sneha over to strip off my sopping dress. She pulled a flannel robe around me and wrapped me in a big wool blanket so quickly that I hardly had time to notice her doing it, let alone feel embarrassed. And when I realized that both the robe and blanket had been warmed, I couldn’t think of anything but the soft, dry comfort that surrounded me. Fin was similarly wrapped up when I came back out, and Wheelock decorously but firmly pushed mugs of hot black tea into our hands and into Caro’s too. She was shaking worse than Fin and I were.

  “Come inside where it’s warmer, Your Highness, my lady,” Wheelock said with a respectful bow that almost hid the residue of fear in his eyes.

  “They can’t know, Wheelock,” Fin said fiercely. His lips still quivered, but they were starting to return to their normal color. “Don’t tell them anything. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “As you wish,” Wheelock said quietly, his steady gaze meeting Fin’s angry one. “Now, please, come inside. You’ll need to stay warm if you don’t want a case of pneumonia before we arrive in Faerie.”

  Whatever Fin saw in the other young man’s eyes made him nod, and he allowed the captain to lead the three of us to the royal suite. When Caro walked inside with us, Wheelock didn’t show the least surprise. We’d tried to be discreet; had it been for nothing?

  It didn’t matter, not now.

  Wheelock laid his hand on the doorknob. “If you need anything at all—”

  “Stay a moment, Wheelock,” Fin said, easing himself down onto the window seat.

  “Yes, Your Highness?” He about-faced and put both hands behind his back, as if he were waiting for orders.

  “I don’t know you very well,” Fin began, “and I wish you hadn’t seen what happened—​I wish you hadn’t seen who was in the water today. Truth be told, I wish none of us had. I wish no one from Esting would ever find out if there’s really such a thing as a merman.” He shifted, wincing, and it was obvious that his shoulder was hurting again. I went to him and started gently pressing his shoulder blade the way the chirurgienne had shown m
e after his operation.

  Fin looked up with gratitude and with a level of humility that astounded me. “Thank you, Nick,” he said. Then, his voice a little stronger: “Wheelock, forgive me for saying that I don’t know yet if I can trust you. But it doesn’t matter, because I have to trust you now. I have to beg you, please, not to tell anyone else on the ship, anyone else ever, what you saw in the water. If my father knew there was another race of people in the world, another nation he could conquer or that the Brethren could convert . . .” Fin trailed off and shook his head. “I can’t let that happen. Please, Wheelock. I don’t know how you feel about Faerie or about what should be done there now, but perhaps you can understand why I hope that we won’t get into another war like this one, another bloody struggle for power. Another nation enslaved.” The leadership had come back into Fin’s voice. Even though he was speaking quietly, I could almost see the podium in front of him, the adoring crowds. This was what he was born for.

  “I understand, sir,” Wheelock said in his usual stiff tone.

  But then I saw him lose his formality again, and not just for a moment this time. He shrugged it off like a heavy cloak.

  Wheelock stepped closer to Fin, and even his gait, the way he held himself, was different; suddenly he seemed like the young man he was. When he spoke, the spark I’d glimpsed that morning had returned to his eyes, and with it came a sincerity that had honesty and passion and even sweetness in it.

  “And you must understand, Your Highness,” he said, “how glad I was when you requested my service on the Imperator. There are those of us who are on this voyage because we believe in what you believe, and we wish to help you if we can.” He lowered his voice still further. “There are those of us who are loyal to you.”

  “All of the crew?” Fin asked, a little incredulous. I thought of the silent Su doctor, the Brethren cleric who watched us so suspiciously.

  Wheelock smiled, but then he shrugged on his formality again, and the smile vanished inside it. “Most of the crew. Gunning, Walsh, Sneha; they feel as I do. And the others can be managed, Your Highness.”

  He bowed impeccably as he left the room.

  ✷

  Wheelock seemed to grow shy again over the next few days; even when he and I crossed paths in the library, he would hurry away, avoiding my eyes. I was surprised and even a little frustrated, after the way he’d talked to Fin; why should he insist on thinking we couldn’t be friends?

  One night I climbed up the stairs to the bridge after everyone else had fallen asleep. Wheelock was hunched over a rapidly spinning, three-dimensional sextant. I gave myself a little encouraging lecture before I knocked. He jumped when he heard the noise, just as he had the last time, but he quickly opened the door for me.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” I said. “If you’re busy, I can come back later.”

  The spots of color had taken over his cheeks again. “Not at all, my lady, not at all.”

  I chewed my lip, unsure of what to say. Caro was so good at making friends; maybe I should have left this up to her, or to the charming Fin, whom Wheelock already liked and admired. But I was sure the captain and I were kindred spirits somewhere under his stiff formality and my awkwardness. I just had to push past them both.

  I gestured toward the compass. “Would you tell me about that instrument?” I asked. “I’ve only seen flat compasses before.”

  “Certainly, my lady.”

  I took a breath. “Please—​do you think you could call me Nicolette?”

  Just for a moment I saw that flash of a secret smile. “Oh, I couldn’t do that, my lady,” he said.

  I pressed my lips together and looked down.

  “Perhaps—​perhaps I could call you Miss Lampton, if you dislike the other?”

  I looked up again and smiled, although his own secret smile had vanished. There was an earnest look in his gray eyes, and I was relieved he hadn’t offered to call me Mechanica. Miss Lampton was still formal, but at least it was my own name. “That would be fine,” I said.

  I wanted to ask what his first name was, but I thought it might unsettle him too much. I remembered again how shy I’d been when I’d met Fin and Caro, how prone I was to dramatizing our every interaction.

  So I just turned toward the compass again. “How does it work?”

  Wheelock seemed relieved to talk about something in his own realm of experience. “It shows one’s orientation to the cardinal directions, but also to the center of the earth . . .”

  He led me around the bridge again, and I was able to ask all the questions I hadn’t thought of the last time.

  After a while he stopped and turned back to me with a little bow. “It’s surely too late now,” he said, nodding toward the bridge’s clock.

  Midnight. I smiled; time to leave the ball.

  “Thank you for, um, indulging my curiosity, Wheelock,” I said.

  He nodded curtly, an old man again.

  But as I turned to go: “Miss Lampton?”

  I looked back at him.

  “Could you—” He stood in the shadows outside the circle of the bridge, and I couldn’t see his expression. I heard him clear his throat.

  “Do you think you might show me some of your own work before the voyage is over?” he asked. “I have admired your inventions since the last Exposition. I would love to—​to see them.” He cleared his throat again, then quickly added: “You needn’t talk to me or anything. I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

  I laughed, then stopped myself, knowing I’d embarrass him. “I’d be glad to,” I said.

  He stepped forward, opening the door for me. “Thank you very much, Miss Lampton.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “for showing me the bridge again. I don’t want to be a bother either.”

  He shook his head and looked away. “You couldn’t be.”

  As I walked back to the royal suite, I felt my heart beating a little faster.

  ✷

  I spent most of my days in the suite’s private storeroom, working on modifications for Jules while he slept the trip away. I brought Wheelock with me several times, and he would sit quietly and watch me work, sometimes with admiration, sometimes almost with awe. I’d thought I liked to work alone, and I would have found Caro’s chatter or even Fin’s penchant for political discussions distracting, but I welcomed Wheelock’s calm, quiet presence, even when he was fully enveloped in his formality. He helped me forget how much I missed Jules, not to mention my buzzers, who were magically asleep inside the padlocked briefcase.

  I missed their company the most, but there were also a million little things I’d come to rely on them for, not the least of which was dressing my long hair in the mornings. It seemed foolish to wake them up for such a trivial reason, plus I was plagued by fears that the strong winds would steal them away from the ship and they’d be lost. My looks were hardly as important as that.

  Still, I was completely incapable of executing the elaborate styles they’d done for me nearly every morning for the past year. I started wearing my hair down again, simply tucked back from my face with a narrow ribbon so that I could read and eat and do my work unhindered. It was unfashionable, but who on the boat would care? Fin? Caro? Wheelock and the crew?

  It surprised me to realize that I’d grown a bit vain. After all, not long ago I had spent all my days covered in soot and dust, clomping around in old boots and patched coats three sizes too big.

  Slowly I realized that my new vanity was actually a reaction to how I’d used to live. Now that I could look nice, I wanted to. Returning in any way to my former life, even in appearance, was more frightening than I liked to admit.

  I reminded myself that I was moving forward, not back; I was literally an ocean away from the girl I used to be. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that some part of my past was haunting me, hunting me, even as we left Esting far behind us.

  ✷

  As the days wore on, the weather grew increasingly worse. We would never have gotten a
chance to use the bathysphere pods again, even if one weren’t broken and even if Wheelock hadn’t forbidden it.

  The Imperator spent most nights far, far above storm clouds that would have pummeled the ship, high enough that we could watch frost blossom on the porthole windowpanes as we ascended to altitudes where the air was too cold and thin for us to go outside at all.

  We couldn’t stay so far up for very long; every ten hours or so we had to come back down and open the hatches to get fresh air into the ship and to keep the sails from freezing solid. More than one morning we were warned not to eat breakfast and then spent terrifying stretches of time clutching whatever chairs were bolted to the floor or wall, listening to the wind howl through the open vents and trying to clench our jaws hard enough that our teeth wouldn’t chatter from the cold. My airsickness didn’t return, but I almost wished it would, if getting ill would distract me from imagining what would happen if the wind or cold doused the fires under our balloon.

  We were unbalanced and on edge for days at a time, and Wheelock kept apologizing, saying such storms were highly unusual over open water at this point in the year, as if the bad weather were his own personal fault.

  And sometimes, lying awake at night as the ship tossed and jumped, I did start to think that there was something personal about the storms, something menacing. I’d unfold and reread Mr. Candery’s letter, pretending I could hear my housekeeper’s words in his gentle, urbane voice. Trustworthy, I would repeat to myself, trying to pretend the storms didn’t feel like a threat even as they grew stronger.

  But we didn’t see a real tempest until the day we reached Faerie.

  I THOUGHT I’d be unable to sleep the night before our arrival. I’d been anticipating it for so long; not so much the end of the voyage, which I had come to love in spite of our near disaster underwater and the vaguely ominous quality of the recent storms. I’d grown fond of the quiet interludes Wheelock and I shared, and even the repetitive galley food had started to seem reassuringly familiar. Most of all, though, sleeping with Fin and Caro had become such a comfort that I hated the idea of giving it up once the voyage ended.