The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance

by Wanrow, Laurel

  She scooted to the bathing room’s pedestal sink. A flip of the handle brought splashes of cold water for her face.

  His face, focus on his face. His shoulder. Clawed and bitten. He’d looked awful. Would Daeryn still be in the sickroom? Or would he have been transferred to the town sick ward, if they even had one? Perhaps Mrs. Betsy had news.

  Annmar dressed in her shop clothes and her sturdiest everyday shoes to protect her feet. She slipped on her canvas work apron with its large pockets and dropped in a few pencils, a kneaded eraser and her sketchbook. At the bottom of her stairs, she hesitated. Unlike when she crossed the workshop for dinner yesterday, this morning the room bustled—with birds.

  Swallows flew in and out. With much twittering and waving of wings, they landed in their mud nests along the sides of the ceiling beams then, after doing who knew what, randomly threw themselves into the air again. Some darted outside. Others circled.

  Dozens of birds. Everywhere.

  Annmar fingered her sketchbook. She’d run through here last night with no thought of the birds attacking again. And now, less than a day later, a few little birds seemed nothing compared to what she’d seen.

  Gripping a boot in each hand in case she needed weapons, Annmar raised her chin and strode forward. The swallows veered around her, accepting her presence before flying off overhead. She still had to pick her way over rough ground, but Annmar arrived at the back door smiling. She returned the boots to the pile and the robe to the pegs. Then, doing as she’d been instructed, she headed back out to present herself to Mrs. Betsy in the kitchen.

  Her stomach growled. It was late, later than she should expect breakfast. She entered a screened, postage-stamp landing crowded with crates of vegetables. The inner door flew open and Mary Clare stuck her head out. “About time.” She gestured enthusiastically. “Get in here and give us your account of last night’s alarm.”

  Late, on her first day, no less. Surely last night’s disruption would serve as an excuse.

  Ahead of her, Mary Clare darted to the sink, grabbed up a bowl with a dishcloth inside and vigorously scrubbed. Mrs. Betsy turned from the counter with a measuring cup in hand and smiled. “Good morning. Will it be tea or coffee, duck?”

  “Tea, please. I’m sorry to be coming around so late.”

  “Are you kidding?” Mary Clare said over her shoulder as she plopped the dish in the rinse water and took up another. “We’ve been serving scattered breakfasts all morning. A third of the workers didn’t go back to bed until dawn. You were there. Rivley told me when he came for breakfast.”

  “Only to ring the alarm and help Miriam. Others knew better what to do, so I went back to bed. More guards were hurt, I heard.”

  “The vermin tore up Terrent’s leg pretty bad when he tried escaping up a tree.” Mary Clare swept her arms wide and flung drops of water on Annmar.

  “Careful now,” Mrs. Betsy said. “We don’t want to drown the girl. Here’s your tea, duck. Have a seat next to the stove until I have your breakfast up. Eggs for you?”

  “Yes, please.” Annmar sat in the armless rocker beside the woodstove, its gentle heat soothing her as much as Mrs. Betsy’s familiar endearment.

  Mary Clare put her hands back in the dishwater, but talked over her shoulder. “When Daeryn arrived, he fought them, and they both ended up falling.”

  Annmar wanted to ask if all happened as she was imagining, with people as animals fighting off other vicious animals. But she couldn’t draw attention to herself with such a question, especially if what she thought wasn’t so. They’d think her a lunatic. “From the tree?”

  “From the tree. Into more of the pests,” she said with a nod, her eyes wide. “By then, both were standing three-legged.”

  Three-legged. That meant animals. Annmar put a hand to her head. It hadn’t been her imagination.

  “Maraquin and Jac raced in just in time to scatter the vermin,” Mary Clare said, “after they’d fought a couple more in another field. Maraquin’s bigger than Dae when she’s on the paw…what? Forty times his size? But she couldn’t throw it off. The creature didn’t tear into her like it did Dae, because her coat’s so thick.”

  Maraquin forty times bigger, her thick coat… Lord, those girls changed to animals as well. Now Mary Clare’s descriptions easily reformed with Annmar’s visions: Daeryn as a small brown-furred animal, the girls as…wolves?

  Mary Clare clanked the dishes from the rinse water into the drain rack. “So the surgeon released her with a few stitches. Terrent’s calf took fourteen stitches to close it. Mr. White, the town surgeon—though he’s not a trained physician, he’s near enough to one—said he’d see him in a week, no work until then.”

  Annmar swallowed. They hadn’t mentioned the one who’d been hurt the worst. “And Daeryn?”

  At the stove Mrs. Betsy made the tutting sound Annmar had frequently heard from Mother. “That poor boy. Never seen him down like this and, of course, arguing to get up.”

  Mary Clare looked over her shoulder to Annmar. “You saw him. Mr. White says it’ll be weeks before those slices heal. Dae’s got so many, about half of them deep enough for sewing. Then there’s the torn tendon he ran on.”

  “Your breakfast is ready, duck.” Mrs. Betsy carried a plate around the cookstove. Annmar jumped up to follow. “Mr. White said he should have sent Terrent for help. But no, not our Daeryn. Takes his leadership so seriously, to the point of harming himself.” She shook her head.

  “And now it’s up to us to keep him in bed until he heals.” Mary Clare laughed. “As if that’s gonna happen. Rivley will be the only one to knock some sense into him.”

  “Indeed?” Mrs. Betsy placed the plate of steaming eggs and toast on the wooden table in the breakfast nook.

  Annmar slid into a chair. “Thank you. They smell so good.” She speared eggs and bit into the thick, homemade toast. They weren’t mad at her for being late. Daeryn and the other night guards were going to be all right. But until they returned to work, who would replace them and safeguard the farm against these creatures?

  Mistress Gere might not have known these pests would turn so vicious, but she surely knew about her guards. Animals. Why didn’t Mistress Gere tell her outright?

  Privacy. It’s up to you to get to know Blighted Basin and your mother’s people.

  Annmar had promised the owner a fair trial. In turn, Mistress Gere promised generous compensation, compensation Annmar couldn’t afford to pass by. She squeezed the coins in her waistband.

  Mrs. Betsy returned and sat in the opposite chair with her cup of tea and a jar. “Perhaps you’d like to try our peach preserves?”

  “Thank you.” Annmar opened the jar and picked up her knife.

  “After breakfast, you can set up your drawing here.” Mrs. Betsy gestured to a drafting table in the corner. “The canning cooks are on a tight schedule with the harvest and don’t have time for questions and explanations. And it’s tough to keep paper spot-free in a commercial kitchen.” Mrs. Betsy sniffed dismissively. “So you can sample our products, and I can answer your questions while I work. Mary Clare here can take you to the fields, if you need to get to the root of a product, in a manner of speaking.”

  “My goodness, she’s thought of everything.”

  Mrs. Betsy smiled. “That’s our Mistress Gere. She has the best head for business in the Basin, man or woman. And she’s not above passing on help to others,” she added proudly. “More than I can count have come for mentorship from their trade alliance.”

  Annmar spread the peach preserves on her toast. If Mistress Gere belonged to a trade group and mentored others, would Annmar be able to fulfill her expectations? She didn’t have Mother’s years of experience, nor experience with a Knack, despite Mistress Gere’s assurance she had one.

  “She sent her apologies for her absence this morning,” Mrs. Betsy said. “She intended to give you a tour of the fields, but I’m sure you understand that with the attack and injuries last night, she’s up to he
r ears in arranging temporary help. She’s asked us to look after you today.”

  “Right.” Mary Clare sidled over and threw a glance down to her supervisor. “We’ll get you properly settled into farm life.”

  “Land’s sake, Mary Clare. Don’t be brazen. Not everyone wants to do things your way.”

  Annmar put down the toast, clenched her hands beneath the table and forced a steady gaze to the two of them. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “Nothing, duck,” Mrs. Betsy said. “A whim of this girl’s.”

  “More than a whim. It’s a mission. To help—” Mary Clare had stepped closer, but suddenly she frowned. “Don’t be worried. Nothing’s that different.”

  Mrs. Betsy reached out and pulled Mary Clare back. “See here, miss. You will not be bothering this poor girl to tell you her life story…” The cook finished her lecture in a hissed whisper.

  Annmar’s hands were hidden beneath the table, her posture straight as always. Why did Mary Clare think she was worried? Polly claimed she was downright stoic when it came to hardships and letting others know when she needed help or a chance to talk. She couldn’t look worried. Unless, Mary Clare had some sort of gift, too?

  Hmm. Annmar used the trick she employed when her worries about money and her future became too much: She imagined herself drawing the placid flow of the River Derwent, ripples stretching on and on.

  Mary Clare had been about to answer Mrs. Betsy, but looked up with a smile. “See? She feels fine about learning how we do things.”

  Feels. Oh, my. Mary Clare knew how she felt?

  “Humph,” Mrs. Betsy said.

  “I can introduce her around,” Mary Clare said, “make sure she understands the Basin’s customs—what’s the matter now?”

  “Nothing,” Annmar said firmly. Mary Clare’s suggestions nearly mirrored Annmar’s concerns. Creepily so. “Go on.” She picked up her toast and took a bite of the peach-laden bread. The sweet fruit hit her tongue and exploded.

  The swell of ripe peach swirled over her taste buds, grabbed at her nose and rode a wave of warm summer, light fuzz and fibrous texture filling her body with one complete sensation of peach. Annmar closed her eyes and saw the red-burnished globes as big as her spread fingers hanging one by one, weighing down the branches of a medium-sized tree, narrow leaves fluttering with happiness at its fertile fullness. A woman stood beside the tree, her flushed peachy skin peeking from a silver-gray tunic over which cascades of soft orange hair fell. Flecks of green leaves winked among the windblown strands, and the woman laughed and reached her arms to the sky in a graceful, loving manner.

  Annmar swallowed and gasped for breath. Her eyelids flew open.

  Both were peering at her, Mrs. Betsy quieting Mary Clare with a finger held aloft. The older woman’s gaze met hers, and she burst out laughing. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to take that first bite, duck.”

  Annmar licked her lips and drew in a smidgeon of the jam, which immediately refreshed the flavor filling her head. She didn’t allow her eyes to close this time, though it was difficult. “What…” She licked her lips again, but she’d gotten it all. “What is in the jam?” she whispered.

  “Ohh,” Mary Clare said. “Mrs. Betsy, you gave her one of the—”

  Mrs. Betsy swooped an arm around the girl and pulled her to her side with a quick, “Shh, now. Peaches from a single tree, sugar, and pectin for thickening.”

  Simple ingredients, but clearly this was a special jam. The two of them leaned into each other and looked at her expectantly. Annmar dropped her gaze to the toast she still held. The pinkish jam mirrored the color of the tree woman’s skin. “Uh, nothing else?”

  “Nothing. This is just a jar of what we grow and process for sale in our preservation kitchen. People all over the Basin eat these products.”

  “But last night? The food didn’t…”

  Mrs. Betsy shook her head. “We made that. This”—she pointed to the jar—“is made in small batches by canning cooks specially selected by Mistress Gere.”

  What had Mistress Gere said about her workers? Their talents included a variety of craft skills like cooking, carpentry…affinities for a particular plant or animal. She had told Annmar, in a way. These diversities were appearing in Wellspring’s people. The special canning cooks used their Knacks, and when Annmar used hers, the foods came to life.

  This plant vision differed from her glimpse of Jac’s teeth, or Daeryn becoming the cat-like animal. Was the woman the tree, or was she someone with an “affinity”?

  Annmar stared at the jam. The jar’s lid had a code of letters and numbers, the temporary label. The later part, 7-68, had to be July of this year, 1868. What could the P-PAT mean? Peach…something. “Do you know which tree this came from?”

  Mrs. Betsy said, “Let’s see. Pat. That would be one of the peaches here in the yard. Right, Mary Clare?”

  “Yes, you can see it from here.” She moved to the window next to the drafting table.

  Annmar set the toast carefully on her plate and joined Mary Clare.

  “Count down from the left end, and it’s the third,” she said.

  Yes, the third one matched the image she’d seen. Annmar scanned the others in the row on the far side of the garden. Though they all had the same silver-gray bark, each one grew in a different shape. She’d have been able to pick her out on her own.

  Her?

  Yes, the tree was definitely female. But they’d each said it. They didn’t refer to the tree as a she.

  Annmar licked her lips. “Those trees look alike. How do you know that’s the tree labeled Pat?”

  Mary Clare looked at her blankly. “I just do. I suppose someone told me.”

  No, they didn’t see the woman with the tree—a tree nymph? Annmar leaned against the drafting table and rubbed her forehead.

  Mary Clare patted her arm, and behind them, Mrs. Betsy scooted back her chair.

  “I know it takes some getting used to,” the cook said, “but your kin are from the Basin. It’s in your blood to know and do these things, even though you weren’t reared with it.”

  Right, it might be in her blood, but what exactly was she seeing?

  “Maybe you should take it easy today,” Mary Clare said. “All that travel, up half the night, now this. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Betsy?”

  “What would help you feel better, duck?”

  What would? Whenever something bothered her, Annmar drew. This was no different. She’d draw, and some solution would come to her. “Sitting here”—she nodded to the drafting table—“and sketching. First, I’d like to have a closer look at the tree. May I borrow a pair of those boots in the back hall?”

  “The Wellies?” Mary Clare frowned. “They’d be huge on you. Try my work boots.” In a thrice, she had them off.

  Annmar laced the leather boots and stood. These fit better than the ones last night. And walking— “Much less sloppy,” she told a grinning Mary Clare.

  Her sore feet and the rough ground slipped from Annmar’s mind a few steps into the orchard. Pat, the tree, stood proudly, her green leaves tipped with just a hint of red from the onset of fall. Thick branches spread low and open. Annmar ducked among them, circling the trunk and looking. Though details for drawings appeared, no woman did. She even dared a “Hello?” But the closest answer was the leaves rustling, and they’d done that when she walked up.

  Back in the kitchen, Annmar gave up the lovely boots, saying a brief thanks as Mary Clare mixed batter under Mrs. Betsy’s watchful eye.

  The cook nodded her approval. “Refresh her tea, Mary Clare.”

  Annmar moved her plate and the jar of peach jam to the flat ledge at the top of the drafting table. She pulled up the stool. The height was perfect, the surface smooth and fresh. She fished through her over-apron pockets and removed her pencils and eraser and laid out her sketchbook. Mary Clare set the steaming cup beside her plate.

  “Thanks,” Annmar murmured, but the other girl had already slippe
d away. She stared out the window for a moment, eyeing Pat. Then she opened her sketchbook to a fresh page, picked up a pencil in one hand and her toast in the other. She took a bite, and the images swirled forth again.

  Pages later, Annmar put down her pencil and flexed her fingers. She thumbed back through her sketchbook, scanning her drawings. The woman, her tree, her peaches, close-ups of her face, her slender fingers holding a peach, the inside of a cut peach, the blossoms lining her branches in May.

  With her colored pencils, she could touch in the bit of pink at each flower’s center, although perhaps her watercolors would give a better sense of the faint tinge of the color… Hold on.

  Annmar darted a look from the tree outside to the last page. She’d drawn the tree’s flowers? In the fall? Oh, my. Propping her head on one hand, she stared at the page. This wasn’t her imagination, just like last night wasn’t a nightmare. She had seen the flowers. And a girl, the tree nymph in her youth, graced the spring sketches. Annmar had seen everything, in very clear detail, as if the images were before her, moving even.

  “Very nice, duck.”

  Annmar lifted her head. Beside her, Mrs. Betsy wiped her hands on a towel. “These blooms look quite real, about to flutter in the wind.”

  “It was a windy day,” Annmar murmured, and then realized what she’d said. “Um, as I imagined it.” She cleared her throat. “Do you think Mistress Gere will be happy with them?”

  She nodded. “Of course she will. Which did you have in mind for a label?”

  Annmar flipped to the last page on which she’d roughed out a rectangle for the squat pint jar. Within it she’d sketched the fruit, whole and cut open, and in the background, the tree, with the young woman sitting below hugging her knees and gazing up into the peach-laden branches.

  Mary Clare crowded in beside Mrs. Betsy and squeezed Annmar’s arm. “It’s wonderful. Why, the tree looks just as it did this summer. The girl looks so happy to be there.”

  Mary Clare hadn’t indicated that she recognized the girl, though of course she was only an inch high in this picture.

  Mrs. Betsy said, “I’m sure Mistress Gere will be excited to see what you’ve done. I’m sorry she’s not here so you can show her.”