A Stillness of the Sun
Chapter 29
Birds fluttered from tree to tree, moving in tightly clustered flocks, in agitated streams, in anxious ones and twos. The air around Ellis's mansion seemed in constant motion with them.
"Their avian instincts tell them it's not even halfway through the day," Annie remarked from beside Vincent. "Yet their senses perceive the coming of darkness."
Annie perched on the garden wall, cross-legged like a child and holding a pair of looking glasses at cross angles to each other. The surfaces of them seemed to have been darkened somehow, and in them Vincent glimpsed a portion of the moon-blocked sun Annie was looking at. An oval of light seemed to have fallen away from the sun's burning.
Vincent stood beside the wall, his hands clasped behind his back and his back straight, as if he were standing guard. The sky had taken on a dull, unnatural color, as if a murky fog surrounded them, except that the sky was perfectly clear. The river below seemed muted from silver to pewter, and the trees lining the far hilltops looked like drawings engraved on the strange-colored sky.
Tomorrow, he caught himself thinking. Tomorrow Mr. Lockton's supplies would be ready for picking up. Tomorrow he'd go to Philadelphia and find Kellen.
"They're confused," he said to Annie. "The birds. They know things aren't how they're supposed to be."
Annie tipped her head and fixed Vincent with a small frown. "That's what I just said."
Vincent grinned at her, and Annie's frown relaxed into a somewhat vexed smile.
"It's all right," Vincent said. "The birds'll find out soon enough. Everything's about to be back the way it should be."
But he had to try not to look too hard at the wrong-colored sky around him, and while the air had cooled since he'd come out here with Annie, when he shivered he wasn't sure it was from cold.
"That Shawnee leader out in the Indiana Territory who's making all the fuss, The Prophet—he claimed that he was going to cause the eclipse today." Annie rolled her eyes. "Foolishness, of course. It's been predicted for some time now. Someone with an almanac just told him about it."
"That so?"
"Yes." Annie suddenly tipped her head the other direction and frowned again. Then she twisted around to look to the west. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Vincent asked.
She didn't answer for a second, just seemed to be listening.
"Nothing, I guess," she said, eventually. "I thought I heard thunder."
~
Hook the cargo. Drag it free. Stack it. Waves thumped the hull, keeping time with Kellen's movements.
Until, suddenly, it didn't. Until it changed, whispering, into the voices Kellen kept swearing were all in Em's imagination. Her heart froze, and instead of livestock and spilled rum and rotty-smelling mold, she smelled a sharp scent like something burning and the bracing chill of impending rain.
Then the waves and the whispers gave way to what she was really hearing—a murmur of voices from above decks.
"Kellen!" Em's voice trembled with child-like excitement. "Come see!"
Through the open hatch, the sky had gone a weakened, watery version of daylight. Kellen climbed up onto the deck and emerged into a crowd of men all standing together and peering upward.
Eclipse. She heard the word in murmurs and in distant shouts. From Philadelphia's streets rose a din of baying, barking dogs. Gulls and swallows swooped and screeched and dove through an abrupt twilight.
Before she thought what she was doing, Kellen looked up and into the sun—except it was barely a sun, and it hurt her eyes not at all to look at it. Instead, she saw a crescent sliver like a new moon, only burning with a brightness the moon had never known.
Kellen wanted to think it was beautiful, and glancing around she saw wonder and awe written across the faces of hardened dockers and seamen and thought that's what she ought to feel, too.
But there was a strange heaviness in the air, and as the darkness slipped around the Delaware's far shore and dimmed Philadelphia's spires, she started to believe she saw anxiety residing with those other emotions on the faces around her.
~
Ger stood on the docks and looked at the sky, just like every other man, woman, and child in Philadelphia. The sunlight had so weakened that he could now look with naked eyes at the diminished orb of the sun. To the west, stars abruptly blinked to life in a swath of near-night that hung above the silhouetted outline of Philadelphia and hung like silent ghosts, waiting, in the silent air. An unnatural silence fell, like that of the deepest hour of night when all creatures sleep—save perhaps the deadliest predators.
He knew it was likely just the unnerving experience of the eclipse, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something had changed, like the silent awareness that sometimes comes when someone in the room with you has wakened but not yet spoken.
Chapter 30
Ger stayed in Hell Town longer than he normally did, keeping watch outside the rundown house where he thought Ripley might have stayed. God alone knew if Ripley would show his face there again. If he wanted to avoid the wharves in Philadelphia, he could just as easily have headed south to Irishtown or New Sweden. Ger didn't think he'd go back to the Liberties, not even now. Of course, Ripley could've jumped on a ferry for Camden, too, in which case Ger would never find him.
He might never find Ripley in any case, and standing for hours in the shadows across from a shack in Hell Town might be nothing more than futile. But Ger didn't know what else to do.
It was late before Ger dragged himself away, and by the time he neared the familiar territory of the lower wharf, it was full dark. He'd just crossed Walnut Street, unnerved by the wide open spaces of the intersection and glad to be walking in the cover of a building, when he heard that sound again—too much like rushing water to be a whisper, too much like a whisper to be water.
Instinctively, Ger looked to his right, toward the Delaware and the ships moored there. He half-expected to see white shapes frothing over the water's surface, or a gray mist rolling across the harbor. Maybe a ghostly hand reaching up to beckon Ger down to the watery depths.
He saw nothing other than what was usually there—silhouettes of ships and masts, moonlight glittering on the river, a black sky speckled with stars. Ghost stories, he thought. But his heart stayed up in the vicinity of his throat, just the same.
A second later, Ger heard the unmistakable sound of shoes shuffling across cobblestones. He pressed flat against the warehouse and froze there, barely breathing so that he could hear better.
Again. One quiet shuffle, ahead of Ger and to the left, as if someone skulked up a side street or an alley. Ger stayed where he was, listening with every ounce of his being but afraid he wouldn't hear what he needed to over the sound of his own pulse.
All the last few days, he'd been looking for Ripley. He'd forgotten all about what Kellen had tried to tell him.
Ripley might be looking for him, too.
The shuffling didn't repeat itself. Ger listened so long that his legs started to cramp and his shoulders hurt from staying so still against the warehouse. Further up the side street ahead of him, voices wavered, louder as they passed by and fainter again as they went on. Ger's racing heart steadied and slowed.
He started to feel just a little stupid, clinging to the side of a building like a child afraid of the dark. The sound hadn't been ghosts, hadn't been Ripley, hadn't been anything. And wasn't Ger supposed to be finding Ripley, not hiding from him, after all?
Ger pried himself off the plank siding of the warehouse and took a couple of steadying breaths. If it came to the worst, all he had to do was outrun Ripley, lead him up and down the streets until they stumbled across a watchman. Surely Ger could manage that.
Walking to that corner and peering around took more courage than Ger had ever needed. He kept thinking of that other time he'd followed Ripley, of the hand that had darted out from graveyard gate and hauled Ger off. Alvie Fox had been there that night, too. God,
Ger didn't want to wind up like Alvie Fox.
When Ger finally leaned his head around the corner, nothing was there.
Nothing was around the next corner, either, or the one after that. Ger stopped so many times he lost count, listened until he couldn't stand it anymore, and moved on, only to stop and listen again a few minutes later. His imagination sent murmurs and footsteps haunting after him, but by the time Ger had reached the loose board at Hayden's, he was mostly sure it was only his imagination.
Hayden's meant safety. Ger was sure of it—skinny as he was, he had to hold his breath and turn sideways and duck his head just so in order to squeeze through behind that unfastened plank. Ripley would be lucky to fit one arm through the space.
That didn't help Ger sleep any easier that night. Sometime in the darkest hours of the night, with the itch of burlap against his cheek and the scent of old tobacco in his nose, he swore he heard that watery whispering again, and the shuffle of footsteps on the other side of the wall. He held his breath, afraid to move or even breathe, and eventually that moment passed, too.
Ger waited until it was nearly light before he came out in the morning. He knew he risked being seen, and he knew he risked being too late to shape up, but he just could not make himself step out into darkness.
Some hero he was turning out to be. How could he ever hope to face down Ripley when he was scared of things he couldn't even see?
The morning air was cool and damp and laced with the sickly-sweet stink of freshly-gutted fish. The air on the wharves was never what you'd call pure, but this morning it seemed to reek even more than usual. Ger's stomach turned, and his head ached.
Quite abruptly, all he wanted was to see Kellen. To talk to her for just one minute. Or he didn't have to talk to her, even. He just needed to know she was all right.
~
It was still early enough when Ger tramped down the stairs to the Widow's cellar door that Mistress Kreuger wasn't stationed beside her back window yet. Ger felt vaguely guilty as he lifted the latch and let himself in. Technically speaking, he didn't live here anymore. Since his intention was to leave money rather than take it, though, Ger thought he could go easy on himself.
He'd seen Kellen already. He'd watched from across Fourth as she plodded down Chester's Alley and turned south.
Seeing her, seeing that she was alive and well and that his earlier anxiety had been ridiculous, had made Ger feel less like someone who hadn't slept the night before and more like he ought to do something more for Kellen than just spy on her. He thought of paying the Widow directly on Kellen's behalf, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. Who knew if Kellen would ever even hear about that money? What he could do was drop a few extra coins into the swatch of burlap under the loose brick where Kellen kept her savings. God, he hoped she'd remembered what he'd told her about how to count out the right number of the right coins to pay the Widow.
Ger crept inside and down the stairs. The house above him was quiet. If the Widow was up and about, she was still on the upper story.
The scrap of cloth had enough coins wrapped inside it that Ger thought maybe Kellen had heeded his advice. Good. Good for her. He'd known she'd be fine without him.
That didn't stop him from feeling a little sad that she was.
Ger dropped three extra coins into the bundle, folded it up on itself, and put it behind the brick again. Then he stood there a while longer—not that the cellar room itself was such a special place, but beneath the damp and must it smelled faintly like Kellen. He couldn't quite make himself leave again too soon.
As Ger left climbed the cellar stairs and left the Widow's, the house overhead remained quiet.
~
As Kellen climbed the steps from Front Street down to the waterfront, dawn lit the sky across the river with a red-orange glow.
The usual loose gathering of dock workers milled at the foot of Chestnut, and Kellen scanned their half-lit faces in search of Em and Finch. She didn't see them right away, so she moved in closer. Sooner or later, if she didn't find them, Em would find her.
The air was still and heavy this morning, like maybe there was rain or even a storm on its way. Sails stayed furled close to masts, and even the water slapping the pilings seemed quieter than usual.
The birds were loud, though. They screamed and wheeled. And further along the wharf, a tightly-packed throng of men clustered nearer the ships than was usual before crews had been picked for the day.
Kellen stopped walking. A chill brushed her heart. Somewhere in the distance, dark voices seemed to whisper, like the far-off rumble of thunder under clear skies.
Not real, Kellen told herself.
She spotted Michael Finch, then. He shouldered through the crowd along the wharf, aimed for its center like an arrow through an apple.
Kellen's stomach dropped straight down into her shoes. She shoved through the men ahead of her, hurrying after Finch. When other dockers stepped into her path, she shoved some more.
The crowd had gathered at edge of the wharf, peering into the space between ship and dock. It had been just like this on the day they'd found Alvie Fox's body, gutted and tangled in the mooring lines. Just like this.
Kellen wanted to scream, but it caught in her throat. She wanted to run.
But she had to look. God, she didn't want to see. But she had to look.
Golden light fluttered through the trees on the distant shore, driving away the shadows that clung stubbornly around the rocking hulls of ships. Near the jutting top of a piling, a partial page of the Gazette lay nearly flat on the wood.
No.
The edge of the Gazette page fluttered in the wind, but the paper stayed put. Outlines of a footprint patterned a deep brown stain that had stuck the paper fast to the wharf. Dark patches mottled the stones of the wharf, too.
The wind shifted. The stink it carried was as dark as the stained paper, salty and metallic.
No no no.
The crowd shifted, and Kellen saw the body suspended over the river. Hung up in the mooring lines, like Alvie Fox. Slender and blonde, like Alvie Fox. Kellen felt a sick plummet in her stomach, like the one she'd felt when they'd found Alvie, when she'd at first thought it was Ger in the lines, bled like a dressed deer and hanging over the river.
She already knew it wasn't Ger. She wished she didn't know who it really was.
"Oh, God," she whispered. "Jesus. No."
"Gentle, now." Finch knelt at the dock's edge, reaching out massive arms toward the body while other men pulled and shifted the ropes it was caught in. His mountainous rumble of a voice trembled like a boulder about to shatter. "Go gentle with the boy."
Leaning treacherously far over the water, Finch carefully gathered in his terrible burden. In his great, muscled arms, Em Jacobs looked no bigger than a child. Em's flesh, bled white, seemed no more substantial than the ghosts in his damn dumb stories. His head lolled lifelessly against Finch's shoulder.
Ice rippled through Kellen's insides. She could barely move, hardly think, not speak at all.
Finch sat back on the wharf's bare planks, cradling Em's body.
"Wasn't no harm in the boy." Finch's deep voice cracked. "No harm at all."
Tears snapped into Kellen's eyes. When Finch's massive chest heaved and Kellen heard him sob, she turned and ran.
Chapter 31
Ger was nearly to Second when he saw Kellen come bolting up Market. She was too far to shout at; he wasn't sure she'd have heard if he had. He stopped dead in his tracks, caught an elbow in his ribs from a passerby for his abrupt stop, and turned to watch after her.
Whatever was wrong, she could handle it. She could.
But she wasn't just walking fast. She was flat out running. Ger could follow her progress by the people stepping out of her path.
Damn it.
By the time Ger turned into Chester's Alley she was nowhere in sight, but the breezeway gate hung open. Ger latched it behind him, slipped between the houses, and hurried down the steps.
/> When he opened the door, Kellen was pacing, flinging herself back and forth inside the narrow room like a confined animal. She stopped with a jerk and stared at him, mouth open. Her face was pale, and tight lines pinched the corners of her mouth.
"You're all right," she said, but she didn't smile. If anything, she looked about to burst into tears. She stepped toward Ger and then stopped abruptly, like she didn't know what to make of him.
"I saw you," Ger said. "You looked—you're probably right, you know. Ripley's gone, and if you needed me. Needed something. I couldn't just—"
Kellen shook her head so suddenly and so violently that Ger broke off without finishing.
"Em," she said, and her voice slanted up and cracked as she spoke.
That was all she said. Nothing more than that. But Ger finally noticed how hard Kellen was trembling. Her whole body quavered. He thought he could hear her teeth clicking together. All the blood seemed to rush from Ger's head and down toward the floor. The room tilted and swam in shades of gray.
"No," Ger said.
"He got Emmy," Kellen said.
The room was still gray, and Ger felt like he was in a dream, moving without noticing that his legs carried him. Somehow, he was close enough to reach for Kellen, so he did. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed her palms and her forehead against his chest. She shook so hard that the tremors rolled through him, too.
Ger lowered his head and pressed his cheek against Kellen's hair. It smelled like salt and not enough bathing, but he didn't care.
"How?" he asked.
"He went out last night." Her voice was muffled against his shirt, and she gasped out the words like a drowning woman. "He went to look for the ghosts. We told him not to. We told him not to be out there. Jesus. Jesus Christ, why would the dumb son of a bitch do that? Why would he do something like that?"
She slapped her open palms against Ger's chest as she spoke, but he barely felt it. He was thinking about standing on the wharves in the dark the night before, about half-heard whispers and shuffling footsteps and his certainty that Ripley was just around the next corner.
A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 21