Her life was short, so short. She’d wasted too much of it shrinking to her father’s wishes.
“It is my life,” she whispered to the darkness, pounding a fist on her knee beneath the bedclothes she could not see. And it was time to start ensuring that things were going as she wished them to.
She threw back the bedclothes, inhaling at the chilled night air, and felt her way across the room to her wardrobe. Blindly, she selected a gown, slipping out of her nightdress and into she wasn’t sure which. She struggled, but managed to lace it herself, slipped into her shoes, and stole out the door.
Moonlight played tricks with her eyes, allowing glimpses of shadows and the outlines of things. Hands stretched out before her, she made her way through the countryside, driven and determined and heady with anticipation. She felt past the fences, through the gravel, and nearly tripped on the boardwalk. The ocean hushed the sand in its slow, repetitive way. She passed door by door, counting as she went, slowing her pace when she realized it was the final door on the right hand side.
Battling her gushing pulse, she knocked, over and over, until someone finally opened.
“Roz?” Oscar’s voice was groggy. How she wished she could see him.
“I love you,” she said without any other preliminaries. She reached for him. His fingers found hers. “I had to tell you. I had to be with you.”
His arms wound around her, securing her to his chest. “I love you too,” he said.
Utter and total completion blossomed in her chest, as though injuries she didn’t know she had were healed. It was all she wanted to say, all she wanted to hear. He loved her. She loved him.
Really, what more was there?
“Be with me always,” she said. “Never, never leave me.”
“Never,” he said, cradling her. He released a low chuckle.
“I know I should do this more formally. I should make a plea to your father and present him with my assets. I should take you to a romantic place and offer my hand. But this is what I have right now. Only this moment, and I can’t wait any longer. Rosalind Angeline Baxter, please say you’ll marry me.”
Her breath caught. Her stomach burned at the words, and she lost all awareness of the wind, of the moonlight, at the sound of him. Fabric rustled. He backed away from her, his fingers slipping. The wood of the boardwalk creaked beneath his shifted weight.
He was kneeling before her.
She gripped him, her hands tight on his muscled arms. “No!” she said.
“No?” She could almost see his confusion.
“Please,” she said, reaching blindly to lower herself before him as well. The boardwalk bit into her knees through the fabric of her skirt. Her hands made their way up his arms, across his shoulders, past the stubble prickling along his jaw. She felt his cheeks, his nose, his lips, with her fingertips. “I will be your wife, Oscar. But please, I don’t want to miss it. Stay close, stay with me.”
She had long dreamed of seeing him kneel before her, offering himself to her. But she couldn’t see it now. All she had was touch and sound, and she wanted the assurance of his nearness at that moment.
“Very well,” he said with a smile in his voice. He rose, helped her back to her feet, and pulled her to him. In that warmth, she no longer cared what her father would say. She would make him see reason. She would marry Oscar, whether he liked it or not.
Thirty-three
“Why, Mr. Birkley!” Mama said the next morning when Graham joined them for breakfast. He wore a tan suit with a blue waistcoat and cravat tied just so. For once, his hair was slicked back to one side, giving him a devilish appeal. Victoria could scarcely breathe, remembering the way he’d taken her hand so tenderly, yet so in control the night before. And the way he’d smelled when he’d held her, like wind and chestnuts. She swallowed, forcing her face down until she could be sure she wasn’t blushing.
Looking up at Graham was a mistake, however. His eyes glistened in her direction, brandished with secrets. She feared she’d never see him again after he’d been carted off the stage by the mayor. The relief of seeing him at her bedchamber window the night before had been overwhelming.
“I see you have joined us again, Mr. Birkley,” Mama said. Victoria blinked in surprise at her mother’s civility. The whole town knew the two of them had snuck out and provoked the Kreak to attack. Then again, Mama hadn’t said much of anything to her since that night.
“Starkey didn’t want me staying at his house,” Graham told Mama, crumpling his napkin to his lap. “He told Jarvis to keep me here.”
“I’ve had a change of heart, it would seem,” Jarvis announced, entering behind Graham. Though he wore a suit and a smile, he looked crankier than if he’d spent the night with the livestock instead of in a comfortable bed.
“How is Rosalind Baxter this morning?” Mama asked him as he took his place at the head of the table. Myer stepped over and carefully poured juice into Jarvis’s cup.
“Starkey said her eyes would heal,” Graham offered before Uncle Jarvis opened his mouth to speak.
The older man didn’t seem to appreciate being interrupted. He snapped his mouth shut and glared. Victoria lifted her napkin to hide a smile.
“Indeed,” Uncle Jarvis said. “Her eyesight will return in a few days, at most.”
“What a relief,” Mama said, apparently oblivious to any contention between the two men. “That poor girl.”
“And what of Dahlia? Have they heard anything?” Victoria asked.
“The constables have found no trace of her,” Jarvis answered. “But they are giving it their very best. You won’t be needed at the Aviatory,” Uncle Jarvis said to Graham as he reached for a scone.
Graham bobbed his head and finished chewing. “No problem. I was planning on going to Starkey’s anyway.”
Victoria couldn’t understand the clamping in her chest. Starkey said he didn’t want Graham staying at his house, but Graham was going back again?
Jarvis slammed a fist to the table, causing the dinnerware to chink. Mama jumped.
“His name,” Jarvis said, looking murderous. His lip twitched. “Is Dorian Goshawk, and it would be wise for you to address him as such while here in Chuzzlewit.”
“His name,” Graham snapped. Then he hesitated, seeming to think better of whatever it was he’d been about to say. He glanced at Victoria. “Sure, whatever.” He wiped his mouth and placed the napkin near his plate. He nodded at Mama, Jarvis, and Victoria in turn. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“Excuse me.” Victoria slid from the table as well.
“Victoria!” Uncle Jarvis barked, but she ignored him, hurrying out to the foyer.
“Graham!”
He paused at the front door only a moment before turning to face her. He stood aloof. She sensed him slipping from her, as though she was losing something valuable and was powerless to stop it.
Her shoes padded the floor toward him. “You’re leaving?” she asked.
Cold washed up her spine with invisible hands, making its way up her scalp. Though his lips moved, it wasn’t his voice she heard. A deeper, darker voice was shouting, yelling at her in the corners of her mind. She flinched at each striking word, at each verbal threat. The sinking pain of memory rammed its way over her, threatening to take over, to knock her from her feet.
“Tori?” Graham’s voice was vague, uncertain. He gripped her arm as if to steady her.
Sweat broke across her temples as he came back into view. Tears pricked her eyes, and she trembled. “I—I must go,” she said, turning and rushing up the stairs.
Victoria had told Graham her mind wasn’t what it should be, that she was overcome sometimes. And if he didn’t know any better, it had happened again when she’d confronted him at the door.
“What’s on your mind?” Starkey said at the base of his stairs. It was still disconcerting to see h
im here, dressed like everyone else instead of his jeans and button-up shirts with the collar open to reveal a small snatch of swirling white chest hair. Miller handed him his cane.
Questions had splintered his skull the whole night. And now, after seeing Victoria tearing at the seams, he’d come to a decision.
“I need to tell her. From the look of things, that cognitive disconnect you mentioned is already happening.”
“You mean Victoria?” Starkey frowned.
“Who else?” Graham said.
Concern hardened Starkey’s brow. “Come here,” he said, leading Graham back to the room with the fire pit and the landscaped pool of water beneath the cable clipped with random sketches.
Without a word, Starkey limped to a different drawer than the one he’d retrieved the lockbox from. He pulled a thin file free from dozens of others. His lips pressed into a thin line, he passed the file to Graham.
“What’s this?”
“Read it,” Starkey said. “If you still think Victoria should know who she was before, then you can tell her and accept the consequences.”
“You mean, you kept files on everyone?”
“Of course I did.” There was no warmth in his old friend’s tone.
The file was thinner than Graham would have expected. What did it have, her story? A record of her life? Her name? It was all right here, in his hands.
Chills swept over his shoulders. Now that he had the information, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Was it worth the risk?
Victoria had nearly blacked out right before his eyes not ten minutes before. It was getting worse, and from what Graham could tell, it wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Wouldn’t it help her if she knew what was happening? If she knew, she could prepare her mind for it. She could even prevent the disconnect.
Graham swallowed, fighting the lump in his throat. “How? How do you erase them? How do you use your stone, Starkey?”
The old man’s voice was soft, and he spoke distantly as if replaying the steps in his mind. “It has a reaction with water. The same continuous movement of water condensing in the air, falling back down as rain, creating the very oceans, happens here too. Combine that water cycle with Charged air, and a power like what’s contained in the rock, and the effects are astounding.”
Water, air, and a rock from the sky. That was all it took to become God. To create a town, transport people to it, to wipe and replace their memories.
Victoria had told him stories about her grandparents. She thought she was really from here. No wonder this disconnect was taking such a toll on her.
Graham adjusted the folder face up, ready to open it.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Starkey said sadly, his cane knocking on the floor with every step.
Graham trembled at the sound of the door closing behind Starkey. He was tormented in body and mind. But he thought again of Victoria, broken and despaired, passed out and trapped in her own mind without any escape, without any peace. If he could save her from that, he would.
With another breath, he opened her folder.
Victoria paced beneath her cherry blossom tree near the lake. She smacked a low-hanging branch in an impulsive huff. Several loose pink petals wafted to the ground.
She’d searched everywhere she could for Dahlia. She stopped at the constable’s station, but they were currently out searching for the missing girl as well. Victoria tried talking to a few of the townspeople, but no one had seen her. She even stopped to pay her condolences to the Fenstermakers at the loss of their son, and they knew nothing about Dahlia’s whereabouts.
Needing to talk to someone about Dahlia, and about Graham’s imminent departure, she’d stopped to visit Rosalind, but Roz had been asleep, and her father wasn’t letting her see visitors.
What she really wanted to do was talk to Graham. After he left during breakfast she was trying to think of plausible excuses to call on the mayor. But she had never done so before, and she certainly couldn’t now without making things obvious.
Then again, hadn’t she made things obvious last night by letting Graham take her hand? By allowing him to draw her to him the way he had? She’d felt so warm in his arms; no form of attack could destroy her peace because she’d been near him. She wanted to feel that again, that desire and the fire of being wanted, but she couldn’t very well go around hugging him in front of everyone.
Don’t be a fool, Victoria scolded herself. Now that he’d found his friend, Graham was going home. It was highly possible he’d already done so. Maybe that was the reason for the hug last night. He may have been saying goodbye. The thought frayed her out on the inside, making her feel like a case devoid of its cargo.
“Victoria.”
His voice struck as though it was tempered to be heard only by her. Her heartbeat speared to a sprint, and she worked to keep her motions steady as she turned.
He was still here. He hadn’t left yet.
He contemplated her with sadness, like the untold secrets of the universe had been entrusted only to him. “You okay?”
She ignored the question. His eyes looked like goodbye. She couldn’t bear it. “Did the mayor determine a way to get you home, then?” Blast her trembling voice for giving her away. She lowered onto the grass, spreading her skirt around her.
“Hey.” He sat down beside her.
“I know it’s silly,” she went on, wondering where the words were coming from. “But I’ve never been one to keep my feelings hidden. The expression of one wearing her heart on her sleeve definitely applies to me. So I simply cannot hide the fact that I will . . . I will miss you when you’re gone, Mr. Birkley.”
There, she’d said it. It didn’t come anywhere near to the wrenching battle going on within her chest, but she wasn’t coherent enough at the moment to think of anything better to say. She knew it was foolish to open her heart to him like this, but she couldn’t have him leave without telling him how she felt. To do so would be like going against the laws of nature.
He nudged her with his knee. “Haven’t we gone over this? It’s Graham.”
“Oh, do not tease me. Not now.” She rose to her feet, unable to remain at his side. “I—I just cannot bear that you will soon be leaving when I, well . . .”
A hovney puttered past, emitting small puffs of smoke from its exhaust and adding a strange, spectral hint in the air.
She tried again. “This town relies heavily on tradition, but I grow tired of the daily routine. And ever since you’ve come, I—oh, hang it all.”
She was such a blithering idiot. She should never have said anything. Suddenly, she wished he’d never come, never seen her sitting here by her tree. It’s my own fault, she thought, for showing him where it was. She turned, bent on heading back toward the Range. His hand caught her wrist.
“Victoria,” he said, his voice gentle.
“Do not restrain me!” she cried, wrenching her hand free. It was unfair of him to torture her like this, to fake friendship or feelings and let her blather on about her own while he said not a word.
He grabbed for her again. This time he cupped her face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks. The fight drained out of her under his touch.
“I know,” he said, his eyes searching hers. “I know.” And he brought his mouth to hers.
Victoria had never felt anything quite like it. Awareness burst over every inch of her. The kiss was soft, and yet charged with a rush like flying, emotive and binding her to him with an unspoken vow. His hands ensconced her waist, securing her to him. His firm, warm lips pressed and moved her to crave the warmth of him, the nearness, his offering of himself to her.
He tasted like her sky, like freedom, the utter and total freedom that came with being so desired. Suddenly she could be anything, do anything, and he would still want her. And she returned it, snaking her fingers into his soft hair.
<
br /> Unwonted, coldness crept up her neck, encasing her skull. Suddenly, it wasn’t Graham she was kissing, but another boy, one far less gentle and enchanting. The image surged in her mind painfully as if trying to rip it from her body.
Victoria pulled away with a cry. Her legs lost their strength, and Graham managed to catch her before she fell to the ground.
“Tori!”
His arms wrapped around her, holding her to him.
Sweat trickled down her back. “What’s happening to me?” She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. He traced her cheekbone with his fingertips, and then scaled down to the slimness created by her corset.
He rested his forehead against hers. He fiddled with the ties of her corset, tucking his finger beneath the bottommost one at her stomach.
“I don’t—I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“You know?” She was frozen, captured by realization. He wasn’t denying it. Even if he had, his eyes weren’t denying it either. “You know why I’m slowly losing myself. Tell me.”
He shook his head, his expression tortured. “I can’t.”
Irrationally, anger flared through every inch of her. She pushed away from him.
She thought he cared for her. He kissed her so desperately just then. He held her heart so completely the realization of just how much stole her breath. She closed her eyes.
“Tori.”
“Go away, Graham.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Starkey told me—he thinks—” He cut off, cursing. “I can’t tell you.”
She sniffed. “If you’re so happy to share secrets with him and not me, I suggest you go back to your precious Starkey and leave me alone.”
Thirty-four
Graham chased after her, following as she circled the lake. Her hands lifted her skirts to make running easier.
The Perilous In-Between (The Chuzzlewit Chronicles Book 1) Page 22