Oscar waited and watched with bated breath. He analyzed the water, his back aching, his shoulder throbbing, thinking of school, of Rosalind, determined to sit all day if he had to when suddenly—there.
A bubble disturbed the water’s surface. It was too substantial and too singular to be a mere wave. Using navigational tools, Oscar marked the location on a map as exactly as he could. A scrape sounded behind him, and he rose so fast he nearly dropped his telescope.
The door to the shed opened, and a tall lad wearing nothing but a shirt and trousers ogled Oscar. His dark hair was slicked into a thick ponytail. “Radley? What are you doing here?”
It was Harry Fenstermaker after all. Oscar couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked with the lad. He scrambled to dismantle his telescope and return it to its case before any harm came to the instrument.
“Just watching the sky, Harry,” Oscar said. There was no way Jarvis Digby could deny this. Not this time.
Oscar had been checking multiple times a day, marking the places he saw movement on the water’s surface. Morning, mid-afternoon, midnight, the bubbles always rose from the same location. The creature never crept near the shore; it never swam around. It remained in the same place, as though it was dormant in there somehow.
Dormant until something triggered it, though Oscar wasn’t sure what that was.
If that was the case, that meant they could make the first move. Why must the town always be on the defensive? Uniformed men on foot routinely patrolled the town. Why not train them? Have the Aviatory design watercraft and go meet the brute instead? Catch it off-guard for once.
“See anything interesting?” Harry asked.
Oscar placed the case in his pack, along with his notebook, and hurried to stand and shake Harry’s hand. “I’m sure you see all kinds of interesting things here,” Oscar said instead of answering, hoping Harry would affirm what he himself had seen.
“That I do. This town would be crushed if it weren’t for me.”
“Why isn’t anything being done about it?” Oscar asked.
Harry wrangled around for the suspender straps dangling behind him. One by one he snapped them to his shoulders. “What do you mean nothing’s being done about it? The Protection Program is in force. We work together; I alert Commander Digby the minute I see anything suspicious, and he gets his Nauts out here.”
“And you think that’s enough?” Oscar couldn’t help the incredulity in his voice.
“Don’t know that we have many other options. It’s not like we can dive out to meet the brute, can we? Not if we want to return with our lives intact.”
That’s where we disagree. “Good to see you, Harry,” Oscar said, urgency pummeling through him. He nodded a swift goodbye and bounded back down the path. He needed to speak with Jarvis Digby himself. Unlike with Rosalind and her father, this was a matter he might have a small amount of influence over. Harry may be content with the beast reaching the shore whenever it pleased, but it wasn’t enough. Not if they didn’t want any more deaths.
Victoria decided to make the most of her probation. She’d gone through the varying emotions, stomping across her room so hard she must’ve sounded like an elephant from below, huffing in frustration at being detained for six whole weeks. Removing her from Flying Officer Naut was one thing. But being denied the privilege of residing at the Aviatory and of flying altogether was a difficult pill to swallow.
No doubt Mama had insisted, probably to push her to discuss wedding plans or to spend more time with the man she had never—and would never—vocally agree to marry.
She’d speak to Uncle Jarvis. She’d protest to the committee. Dahlia needed her help; they all did.
The worst part was that Bronwyn had been assigned the head position in Victoria’s place. Two trainees from Exodus Intermediate level were being moved up as temporary replacements.
“Intermediate Nauts couldn’t handle what we saw last Saturday,” Victoria fumed, staring at the books she’d retrieved from her father’ study downstairs.
The thought made Victoria writhe. Bronwyn was a nuisance, a chattering stuffed shirt who only ever cared about being the best, not about who she took down in the process. Dahlia was Victoria’s true second, but her ankle still hadn’t healed from the attack. She was still in the hospital.
Victoria slumped against one of the bedposts, disturbing the sheer white material serving as a canopy. As the clock on the mantle chimed the one o’clock hour, the desire to mount up for procedures itched through her. By that time the girls would have finished lunch and would be in the simulators, training and preparing for the next attack.
She longed to sneak out, to join them. As it was, books were splayed out across her room, along with papers covered in notes she’d been taking. The cog sat on her windowsill, soaking in the heat pouring in through the glass. Victoria had suspected heat was the reason the Kreak only attacked at sundown. That the sunlight affected the metal in some way. But there was no change in the material.
She hadn’t cared much for chemistry before, but she studied it now, delving deep into her father’s books and attempting to discover something that might help them.
She’d tested the cog in water, in flame, and in vinegar she’d requested from a perplexed maid. But she could come to no conclusions about the piece. After reading of several different acids and their effects on metal—particularly something called nultric acid—Victoria was eager to get her hands on a vat of it, to dip the cog in, and see if her suspicions were true.
The Kreak had to have a weakness. There had to be a way to destroy it for good.
There was a laboratory in one of the Aviatory’s wings. She knew she shouldn’t risk doing anything to provoke her uncle further. It could mean never flying again. But she couldn’t remain here like a sullen child.
If she could get past the lab assistant on duty and get her hands on the chemicals, if it worked, wouldn’t it be worth it? Perhaps then he could see another solution might be achieved.
This was what they trained her for, what she lived for. What a stupid thing—to give her this mantle only to discipline her for acting to save lives? Victoria wasn’t about to stand by, especially since she suspected Charles Merek would be paying her a visit at any moment.
She threw open the doors to her boudoir and paused. Beside several gowns, skirts, and a collection of corsets in various colors, her battle corset hangers swayed, devoid of their charges.
“No,” she gasped. Desperately, she dug through the gowns, tearing hangers away from one another as though the leathers could be interspersed among her daywear, but they were nowhere to be found. “Curse him.”
She stomped her foot again. To remove her gear from her closet? It was the epitome of low character.
She snatched her training corset—silk and steel instead of leather—and to her relief, her boots remained at the back of the boudoir. Lifting her black skirts, she secured her boots to the knees and hooked the latchet, then tied her hair up into a tight bun. She grabbed the cog from its place on the windowsill.
She looked to the door. She couldn’t go out that way. Uncle Jarvis may have loitered to make sure she didn’t do exactly this. Instead, she hefted the door of the laundry chute open and stared down the narrow tunnel.
She hadn’t escaped this way since she was twelve. She lowered herself to the floor, her skirts bunched like too many bubbles in a bath around her, and the corset dug into her ribs. She gasped in discomfort.
Footsteps resonated from the hall outside. Victoria scooted forward, the heels of her boots digging into the wooden floor planks. Her skirt caught on the metal clasp inside the chute’s door, blocking her advance.
“Blast,” she grumbled, reaching back to free them.
Her mother knocked. “Victoria? Lord Merek sent his card, darling, along with a note that he would be paying a call later today. I thought we could
go visit dear Cordelia and Jane, and then be back in time for you to meet Lord Merek in the gardens at three.”
“Not on your life,” Victoria whispered. She struggled with the skirt, but the odd angle of her body made twisting difficult. In frustration, she stood and removed the skirt completely. This freed her to bend and see precisely where the black fabric had been caught. She crouched in her boots and white pantalets, wresting with the fabric until it finally tore free. A small hole marked the place it had been caught, but Victoria didn’t care. She tossed the skirt down the chute.
Another knock. “Victoria?” The knob clicked a few times.
“I’m indecent, Mama.” It was entirely true.
In her brown corset, scuffed battle boots and white bloomers exposed, Victoria plunged feet first down the chute, not hearing a word her mother muttered through the door. The drop was just long enough to send her stomach into her mouth. Her hip collided with the side of a large laundry cart, but several days’ worth of dirty clothing and soiled linens broke her fall.
“Miss Victoria!” Linny cried. A white cloth tied the serving girl’s hair back, her apron was sullied with Victoria didn’t want to know what, and her mouth hung open. She stood with her arms full of Victoria’s bulky, black skirt.
“I’ll take that, Linny.” Victoria tumbled out of the cart and snatched her skirt, dipping her feet in to secure it at her waist.
Linny watched in apparent confusion. “Excuse me, miss, but—”
Victoria pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell Mama.”
Linny gave a worried little shrug of acquiescence, and Victoria scampered out the back door.
Despite the bright sunlight, a chill loitered in the air, serving to cool the flush on her cheeks and down her back. Mr. Tolbert, the gardener, bustled among the trelliswork and small, decorative bushes creating a miniature maze around the back of Gingham Range. Victoria snuck a glance up to Uncle Jarvis’s window, unsure whether he was at home or at his office. The curtains were drawn, so either way she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, and she dashed off toward the Aviatory.
Twelve
Jarvis Digby stood before the window in his office, overlooking the lake separating the wealthier classes of Chuzzlewit from the working class who lived above their shops near the ocean. It wasn’t a true lake, Jarvis knew, having seen what an actual one looked like, but it would do well enough for what purpose it served. And while the rest of the town wasn’t aware, Jarvis knew it was manmade.
Some repercussions were sure to arise this morning, when the men returned to work after the funeral. Repercussions always occurred after an innocent person was injured. While most people were content to continue on with their lives as usual, there were always one or two who seemed to persist in stirring the pot.
A knock came to his door. He opened it to find Maizey Flowerhaven with her bobbed brown hair curling longer over one cheek as it always did. Instead of the bright gleam in the girl’s eyes, a somber confusion resided there.
“Maizey?” Jarvis said. “What can I do for you?”
“May I have a word with you, sir?”
“Certainly.”
Jarvis gestured to the chair, but she didn’t take it. She closed the door behind her and stood poised and dignified in her training-wear.
“What’s on your mind, Maizey?” Jarvis asked kindly.
“Sir, it’s Victoria. It doesn’t seem right to fly without her tonight.”
Jarvis withheld a groan and worked to keep a pleasant expression on his face. It was always difficult dealing with ladies, especially young ladies, but he and the board had determined they were best suited for flying the planes instead of drawing skilled men away from their posts in building the machinery. There were only a handful of citizens who could do what his men did.
These young ladies had proven their intelligence in the tests he’d offered. They’d proven their reliability and capability to him, and he didn’t object to the fact that not every young lady was content with sewing and polite idleness.
“I can understand why you’re upset by her removal, Maizey. Victoria was your friend.”
Maizey nodded. “That she was, sir. But it’s not only that. We haven’t trained with the new girls you picked to replace her and Dahlia. We don’t know Aline or Orpha well, and it’s just—it’s too sudden, sir. Bronwyn doesn’t handle well. Victoria acted and saved Dahlia’s life the other night. What if that was to happen again? What if the Kreak attacks again tonight, and Bronwyn doesn’t help us? I don’t feel right flying without Miss Digby, sir.” She wrung her hands in front of her, her shoulders shaking.
Jarvis stood from his seat. “Are you all right, Miss Flowerhaven?”
Her jaw trembled, and she turned away from him. This wasn’t about Victoria. Something else was bothering the girl, and Jarvis couldn’t blame her. Maizey was one of the youngest in the program. Seeing Mrs. Powell’s death up close, and then witnessing her fellow Naut be attacked by the creature shortly after would have an effect on any feeling person.
“What’s really bothering you, Maizey?”
Her hands wrung harder, her jaw trembling. “That could have been me,” she whispered.
“And you don’t trust Bronwyn to lead you?” he guessed. “Or you don’t trust yourself to fly tonight at all, is that it?”
Maizey’s eyes closed. “I’m not blind to the danger, sir. I’ve known it, I’ve trained for it. But I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t function, sir. Fear treads over me like a scuttling spider. A spider I can’t flick off, no matter how hard I try.”
Agitation surged in Jarvis’s chest. These ladies were tested time and time again to make sure they could handle the stress of the attacks. They’d passed those tests. He made a mental note to check Maizey’s scores again.
“If I give you the night off, I’ll also release you from your position, Maizey. Is that understood?”
A tear slid out from beneath Maizey’s closed lashes. “I understand, sir. I can’t go back out there.”
Jarvis’s throat closed. “Very well. You wish to be relieved of your duties?”
She stared at him with tears glistening in her eyes. Her shoulders shook, and she gasped for breath in the confines of her brown corset. “I do, sir.”
Jarvis gave the girl the customary release-forms. She signed her resignation with a shaking hand and sobs escaping from her lips, and after Jarvis’s instructions to clear her things from their bunk room, she left without a word.
What is to be done? Jarvis questioned whether he was the right man for this, or if he had done the right thing leaving his home all those years ago to establish Chuzzlewit. He had done what he could to protect the citizens. But the truth was that Mrs. Powell’s death had unsettled him as well. Was he right in his methods?
“It must be done,” he told himself firmly. He shouldn’t allow himself to get so forlorn about the whole mess. First Victoria, and now Maizey. They’d be down two Nauts that evening. It wasn’t as if he orchestrated the attacks, he told himself. And once the mayor returned to town, the mantle of responsibility could be removed to its rightful place again.
He moved to the window, ruminating over his dark thoughts. Movement caught his eye. His niece, Victoria, hustled along the path outside. Victoria was a lovely girl, but he stiffened at the suspicious combination of her black skirt with the old battle corset he’d left in her boudoir, and not slippers, but boots on her feet.
“Oh, no, she doesn’t,” he muttered to himself. But he waited, watching as she paused to speak with that Oscar Radley, who seemed momentarily thwarted at having to stop and say hello. Especially when the two new arrivals trailing behind Victoria veered off toward the park by the lake.
Pity, how some things never turned out the way he wished they would, Jarvis thought, watching his niece and the boy smile politely at once another. Oscar tipped his hat to the Baldwin
sisters, and then each went their separate ways.
Jarvis was lost in thought, disappointed in how Victoria hadn’t welcomed the two girls with open arms as he and the mayor had hoped, when something startled him.
Unbeknownst to the teenagers speaking beside it, the surface of the lake bubbled slightly, just in the center. It happened so quickly Jarvis wondered if he hadn’t made it up. Nothing lives in that lake, he told himself. His hands ached, and he realized too late how tightly he was clenching them.
A sound from the speaker at his desk drew his attention.
“Sir?” the voice of Harry Fenstermaker crackled through. “Sir!”
Jarvis pried his attention away. Any other time he’d have rushed to his desk, but the Kreak never attacked in daylight. It was always at sundown.
“I hear you, Harry,” Jarvis said, pressing the button to speak into the receiver. “What is it?”
“I can hardly—I can’t be sure, but—”
“Out with it!” Jarvis barked.
“Sir, the Kreak.”
“Yes?” Jarvis’s patience grew thin.
“It’s rising from the depths.”
Jarvis froze, glancing back at the window. Something was changing. Something was off, and he wasn’t sure what it was, or how to stop it. He bolted for his hat and cane in their resting places on the wooden stand near the door. He rushed to his desk long enough to press the button a final time.
“Very well. Sound the alarm,” he ordered before rushing out.
The Aviatory was a broad, gray structure, spanning the length of an entire field. It was flat on top, unlike the other larger buildings in Chuzzlewit. An outsized stone fence barricaded it from the town, encasing it from every side. Two guards generally manned each of the four entrances, ensuring no one but those permitted could gain entrance.
Victoria received a nod from the tall guard at the south gate and crossed from grass to the long expanse of pavement surrounding the building. Several chimneys spewed out bulging stacks of smoke, and the smell of burnt metal stung her nostrils.
The Perilous In-Between (The Chuzzlewit Chronicles Book 1) Page 7