Deliverance

by Samantha Schinder

  “More petticoats!” the dressmaker, Mrs. Lucinda, declared. She had an odd accent, that one. When Deliverance asked, she explained she was a Frankish immigrant. Apparently all the best designers were.

  “Why are these coats petty?” Deliverance whispered to Eleanor, who stood next to her assessing. She had donned a cheerful headwrap today, hiding her baldness.

  “We shall have the coats that are not petty, please!” Eleanor demanded, laughing. Mrs. Lucinda, whose first language was not English, did not get the joke.

  She stared at Eleanor for a beat, then repeated, “No. More petticoats.” More petticoats it was.

  Mrs. Lucinda was Frankish force of nature. The dresses were more elaborate than anything Deliverance had ever worn, and Eleanor informed her Mrs. Potter would have to help her dress.

  “It’s been ages since Mrs. Potter was a lady’s maid, but she insisted on doing the honors for you,” Eleanor explained. Deliverance was still a little hazy on all the household roles, but understood Mrs. Potter and Stevens held the ranking positions in the hierarchy of staff, and for good reason.

  Deliverance quickly decided bustles and corsets, as well as high heels, were completely incomprehensible and also reprehensible. Of all the ridiculous fashion machinations!

  Eleanor gave a sigh and fingered the dress being constructed on Deliverance’s figure. “I wish I could go to the ball. But this one is for debuts and I am not old enough. I am only 14. I have four years before my debut…but thanks to modern science, I will get to see my debut!” She said, brightening.

  Just then the tinkling of the doorbell indicated the shop had more customers. A group of three, finely clothed young women came sauntering in.

  “Be with you in moment!” Mrs. Lucinda called in her thick, syrupy accent.

  The women wandered around, perusing the fabrics before one of them apparently spied Eleanor’s headscarf and put together who she was. The ringleader of the group, a petite blue-eyed girl with caramel colored tresses, zeroed in on them.

  “Eleanor Quentin! How good to see you out!” she cooed. Her dark brows arched as she regarded Deliverance, still ensconced on the pedestal.

  “Mallory. Lovely to see you as well,” Eleanor replied politely, if not slightly coldly. “Bess, Emily. A pleasure.”

  “And this must be the talk of the town!” Mallory exclaimed, regarding Deliverance boldly. She felt like a piece of cattle for auction, the bidders eager for the Sunday slaughter.

  “This is my future sister-in-law, Lady Deliverance Von Hattern,” Eleanor introduced her, smoothly inventing a Southish-sounding last name. Deliverance repeated it to herself several times in a row to affix it in her memory. It would not do to forget her own last name.

  “Ah, Lady? Jack is marrying up then,” Mallory exclaimed, a hint of irony in her voice. “Oh, but you both hold titles as well, so then he isn’t.” There was something baiting in the other young woman’s tone, like a turtle’s tongue luring in unsuspecting fish.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Deliverance. “I would do my introductions properly, but I cannot disrupt Mrs. Lucinda amidst her craft.”

  Mallory considered Mrs. Lucinda fluttering around Deliverance for a moment. “I stopped in to see how the alterations were going on Bess’s and my gowns. But we shall not interrupt this transformation process.”

  “I told you before. They will be finished by Thursday. I am never late.” Mrs. Lucinda gruffly threw over her shoulder as she kept pinning.

  Mallory sidled around Deliverance, her lady friends in tow, not leaving yet.

  “Mrs. Lucinda…I think for her the best color would be purple…royal purple. You should definitely make all her outfits in it,” Mallory said after a beat, and her friends tittered at some unknown joke. “Well, bye for now.” And they left in a flurry of petty-coats, clearing the air with them.

  “Fades…I meant Christ! Who were they?” Deliverance asked of Eleanor.

  “Society women. Mallory, the little ladder-climbing trollop, has had her eye on Jack even before her debut. It must have been a grave disappointment to her to learn of you. Not that Jack would ever think of her twice. He hates society women and all that fanfare with a passion.”

  Mrs. Lucinda snorted. “Also, grave disappointment when she too fat to fit in her dress. Maybe I make one oopsie.” Eleanor giggled. “Purple, my ass,” the older woman muttered.

  “What is wrong with purple? I mean, it’s not my favorite color but...” Deliverance asked.

  “She meant it as an insult. Purple is a colonial color. It is not a color you would catch a Southlander wearing. It reminds them of their status as a sub-state. Things are much improved now, but there is a long history of bad blood between Arcanton proper and its colonies.” Eleanor informed her.

  “Ah, I see,” Deliverance said finally. How underhanded.

  “Mallory Trenton—she is pain in the rear,” Mrs. Lucinda summed it up and Eleanor burst out laughing. Deliverance could not help but join in. But a small part of her fluttered with concern. Would she be able to handle herself at the ball with all these vipers?

  CHAPTER 16

  Deliverance

  Deliverance’s integration lessons continued over the next couple days. Eleanor took her on sojourns to the sites of Lontown. The most impactful was the tour they took through the old Tower gaol. Its thick, gritty walls left a knot in her stomach, reminding her of her own mother and friend’s likely imprisonment. While this gaol was different—it was above ground and Effie and Cat would most likely be sentenced to labors in the mine, it was just as chilling. This gaol, like the one back home, was meant for people to enter but not leave. The difference was this gaol was now just a tourist attraction, but the one back home was very much active and very likely contained her loved ones. It took all her willpower to tamp down the panic at the thought of the cold, sickness, or even madness that accompanied gaol labors. Cat would not be able to heal herself or Effie without her herbs. It would not take long for them to perish, even if someone were kind enough to bring them food and water. Deliverance swallowed. In order to save them, she would have to focus on the task at hand, her infiltration of this foreign society.

  Wars, innovations, leaps in human understanding…these were all fresh discoveries for Deliverance. Some of it delivered to her fingertips with the flat changing book device called the laptop computer, some of it from oral lessons from Eleanor or Mrs. Potter, some of it read from fading plaques at museums. There was so much more to the world than Deliverance would have ever expected, in what she now considered her previous life on Nar. Not that she did not feel the immediacy of rescuing her mother and Effie—it just felt like a world away, when in reality they were only several score miles out to sea in a westerly direction.

  “My hair is beginning to come back in,” Eleanor announced one evening by the fire. She had been trying to teach Deliverance how to play the pianoforte, but they both decided it was a lost cause after a bit. “See? Feel it!”

  The girl bent her head over Deliverance’s lap. Low and behold, Eleanor was right. There was a fine dusting of new dark hairs emerging from her scalp.

  “Aye, ’tis there!” Deliverance said, forgetting to disguise her Narisi lilt.

 
The girl sighed, being prone, like her brother, to rapid mood swings. She gestured for Deliverance to sit in front of her by the fire. Deliverance complied, and the younger girl began to fuss with Deliverance’s own hair, combing her fingers through the unruly locks.

  “Is it hard for you to block my power stealing like that?” Deliverance asked curiously. She tried to turn her head, but Eleanor firmly turned her face back forward when it interrupted her braid work.

  “Oh, no not at all. See, hair is dead actually. So, none of my power feels wanton to leak across to you,” Eleanor said.

  Deliverance frowned. “If it’s dead, then how does it grow?” There was so much to science she still did not understand. It almost seemed an insurmountable task to catch up to the understanding of a fourteen-year-old, much less an adult. Granted, Eleanor was a precocious fourteen-year-old.

  “Your scalp puts together these complex proteins and then pushes them up out of the hair follicles…at least that is my limited understanding.” Eleanor

  “And you lost your hair…because you were sick?” Deliverance asked, hesitantly. She did not know if it was a sensitive subject.

  “Yes,” the girl said with a sigh, then continued, “Cancer. I had a form of cancer in the blood called Leukemia. Which is why I was not allowed to use my gift for so long. They had no way of knowing how it would affect me or others while I was sick.”

  “Cancer…I am not familiar with that term. For us Cancer is a crab—a constellation in the stars,” Deliverance replied uncertainly.

  “It’s like…when the cells of the body mutate into unusable things. The body attacks itself. Sometimes people develop tumors or growths, and the growths metastasize or spread, eventually killing the person,” Eleanor replied with academic coolness. For her it was water under the bridge.

  “That sounds like wasting disease,” Deliverance said finally. She had watched over thirty people die from it in front of her eyes, and knew before her time many had as well. It was incurable, at least for Cat’s skills as a healer and herbalist. “I never knew it was fixable.”

  “Sometimes it is not. But modern medicine, along with dedicated doctor-healers with strong gifts, has made it possible. Well over 90% of childhood cancer is curable now,” Eleanor said, still tugging at her bushy tresses.

  Deliverance lapsed into a silence. Some of the thirty people she had watched pass into the Fades were children. She wished those children could have had the same chance…the same access to medicine that Eleanor did. And then her thoughts grew into consternation. Why should the children on Nar not have access to such medicine? The consternation was imbued with the unfairness of it all. Why had her people not tried to leave the island before—constructed boats and went into the Outside and found these wonders? Were they so hobbled by their own ignorance that they were killing themselves off slowly, rather than venturing out to gather what the world had to offer? The utter ridiculousness of it all incensed her.

  She sat there brooding until Eleanor announced, “Voila!” and handed Deliverance a looking glass to inspect the intricate braid she had fastened Deliverance’s locks into. It was complicated and made her hair look rich rather than wild.

  “Thank you!” Deliverance said, smiling. “I do not have a sister, but I imagine if I did, I would want her to be like you.”

  Eleanor flushed with pride. “If I were your sister, I would want whoever endowed you with such hair to be so kind to me as well. I shall be stuck with this forest of short stubble for quite some time,” the girl said wistfully, running her fingers along her work one last time.

  Staring into the mirror, Deliverance suddenly had an idea. She sprang to her feet, startling Mrs. Potter, who had dozed off over her embroidery. With a single-minded purposefulness, Deliverance strode across the room to the sewing cabinet, where she had seen Mrs. Potter retrieve her embroidering hoop and bits of thread earlier. As she rummaged through the cabinet, she was aware Stevens had sidled into the room. Perfect. Eleanor and Mrs. Potter looked at her strangely, like they didn’t understand her odd burst of energy, and Stevens’ greeting to them was cut short. They had to be used to such action though, living with Jack, Deliverance reasoned. Aha! She found the item she was searching for.

  Grasping the pair of shears in one hand, and her thick braid in another, Deliverance shore off the thing with a few decided snips at the nape of her neck. Triumphantly, she held the braid out in front of them like trophy.

  No one moved. Mrs. Potter’s mouth fell open. They stared.

  Deliverance dropped the shears back into the cabinet and strode across the room to Stevens.

  “Here!” she said, thrusting the braid into his stunned hands. “Miss Eleanor shall have her hair. Take this to your wig maker. Then she shall have hair just like mine, as she wishes.” Stevens, to his credit, did take the braid from Deliverance blinking, although he and Mrs. Potter were still speechless with shock.

  It cannot be that unusual, thought Deliverance. Women wore wigs on Nar. Did they not here?

  Finally, Eleanor broke the silence with a squeal and bounded up to wrap her arms around Deliverance’s waist. “Oh, that was bloody brilliant!” she cried. “And thank you sooo much. Stevens, would you have one of your men find a wig maker for it? I’m ever so grateful! I just love you!”

  Deliverance felt her heart melt. She just loved this little girl, too.

  ***

  The rest of the evening, Eleanor was on Cloud 9, a new expression Deliverance had learned. Jack had not returned before they retired.

  However, a small knock came at her door later that evening. She was in her dressing gown, but it was decidedly modest, so she bid whoever it was to enter. She had been gazing at the new moon slicing its way across the sky. The stars were obscured, though, by the lights of the city around them. It was like a live thing, humming with lifeblood even at night.

  Jack slid into the room, quietly closing the door behind him, still in his tweed coat. He came to join her outside.

  “Nice night,” Jack commented, then slid his eyes sideways. “But are you not cold?”

  “No, it’s actually quite a warm night,” Deliverance replied, not taking her eyes from the stars.

  Jack barked a laugh and said, “I meant your neck, silly.” Deliverance flushed, drawing a hand to her now very exposed neck. “I heard all about your antics from Mrs. Potter and Eleanor. The girl is still too excited to sleep. She says you will look just like sisters…and I am pretty sure Stevens is too dumbfounded to speak for a week!”

  Deliverance gave a small smile. “I was glad to make her happy. I had no need of it anyway. It is just dead stuff after all.”

  Jack continued to chuckle. “I applaud your rationale, madam. Mrs. Potter says she can clean up the ends and fashion it a bit tomorrow…I rather like it.” As he said this, he reached a hand up and grazed the nape of her neck, where short, wispy hairs wafted in the night breeze. She had to stifle a pleasure-filled shudder. A man had never touched her one way or another before, and any other man, she would have broken a riding crop over their heads. But not Jack. Jack was different.

  He cleared his throat and turned back to the stars. “I’ve had quite a few breakthroughs today. First things first, I was able to track down that lout Lord Ash
er. He shall be back in town the Monday following the ball this weekend…which means we are still roped into going. Sorry, love.”

  “That’s good you found him though!” Deliverance said, filling with hope. Perhaps she would be on her way to sorting this mess out and procuring the safety of her mother and friend soon.

  “Also, I received a communique from your mother,” Jack added.

  Deliverance turned to him abruptly, her eyes widening in wonder. He’d heard from her mother? How? When? But the most important question was— “What did she say!?”

  “She and Effie are imprisoned in the mines,” Jack began, but had to catch a hold of Deliverance’s arm as she started to feel faint and nearly lost her balance.

  “Oh no! There is so little time then! They will starve!” she cried, panic curdling in her stomach.

  “Her message says they have sustainable access to food and water though,” Jack told her quickly, searching her eyes. “Deliverance. They are alive and they will stay alive for the near future.”

  “You’re sure?” she croaked, almost disbelievingly. Her problems from home still roared in her ears, threatening to cause another bout of lightheadedness.

  “Yes, I’ve had it confirmed. The drones caught successive imagery of a pair of women visiting the mines regularly carrying baskets,” said Jack.

  Deliverance stared at him a few moments longer, at the certainty in his eyes. She could trust him, couldn’t she? Why would he lie to her about this? Slowly, she allowed her shoulders to relax—but only a little. Even if her mother and Effie were alive, they were still far away. Still at the whims of the Abbot and other Narisi men. Relief and apprehension tangled together in a ball inside her stomach. Who found it in their hearts to take food to her mother and friend, she wondered? Charity or Amity, she suspected. Both girls had been blessed with caring natures, whether it be by magic or personal will. Would they be able to bring Cat herbs if she or Effie were to fall ill? How much freedom would the Abbot allow them to bring supplied to them, or would it be just meager bare rations? The questions swirled in her head like a potion not yet ready to be bottled.