Passenger

by Alexandra Bracken

  Smoke clogged the air, a steady breeze carrying it across the bobbing water of the East River. Etta could taste it now at the back of her throat. Buried beneath the overpowering smell of charred wood was a rotting sweetness and hot manure, but Etta wasn’t sure if it was coming from the burning garbage or the smell of the soldiers moving around her.

  The first time she’d seen the pops of vivid scarlet scattered across the rolling green landscape of Long Island, she was shocked. She recognized the famous red coats at once—the uniforms the British soldiers wore as they made their way through the towns, patrolled the roads, stopped and read the papers the driver handed them at each checkpoint.

  Up close, Etta could see the careful white-and-gold detailing on the lapels, the shine of the buttons running down the cream-colored vests they wore underneath. Most of their breeches and stockings were splattered with dust from the road, and each wore a different version of the same exhaustion as they milled around the ferry landing, ushering crowds to and from the flat barges, away from the burning New York City.

  “—would burn it to the ground before they’d let us have it, would they?”

  “—deliberate, the fire’s taken it all from Broad Way to the Hudson, going north and west and taking the only decent taverns with it—”

  Etta turned as two soldiers strode around her, heads bent closely together. Seeing her, they both nodded politely and went on their way with nothing more than, “Evenin’, ma’am.” The faces beneath the black hats were surprisingly young—why was she always assuming everyone in the past was so much older than she was? In the whole course of history, war had always fallen on the shoulders of the young.

  After some negotiation, the ferryman agreed to make one last trip over the river before night fell and he was due home. Sophia charged forward like a gunshot, practically pushing her way onto the low, flat boat. A hand appeared in the corner of Etta’s eye—Nicholas, offering to help her step down. After his earlier aloofness, Etta didn’t feel much like validating his chivalry, and instead fixed her gaze on the forest of masts and sails drifting along the river.

  The nonexistent skyline of this Manhattan made it impossible to figure out exactly where they were; somehow, not even being able to orient herself in the city she’d grown up in made something twist sharply deep inside her. The distance from the very tip of the island, what she knew as Battery Park, the view of it…She closed her eyes, picturing Brooklyn Bridge stretching over her head, the fanned-out cables, the sturdy stone arches. But when she opened her eyes again, there were no glossy-windowed skyscrapers scratching at the violet evening sky. The smoke wasn’t drifting around the faces of luxury high-rise apartments. None of the buildings seemed taller than a few stories.

  Two ferrymen moved them along the river using what looked like long oars, splashing and thudding—nothing like the mechanical roar of the modern ferries’ motor engines. It was so quiet without the highways, the traffic. Etta looked up, waiting to see a plane cross the sky overhead.

  This isn’t New York, she thought, this isn’t my home, this can’t be it—

  Do not cry, she ordered herself. Don’t you dare.…It wouldn’t do anything except draw more unwanted attention to the fact that she was out of place.

  Nicholas stood nearby, leaning against the ferry in his usual pose—arms crossed over his chest, face devoid of almost any emotion. She didn’t understand how one person could guard their thoughts and feelings as fiercely as he did.

  “Are you talking to me again?” she asked.

  “I was born here, in 1757.” His eyes shut briefly, but Etta saw something move in them. “Initially, it wasn’t…pleasant.”

  Etta waited for him to continue.

  Nicholas swallowed hard. “Captain Hall, whom you met briefly…he and his wife had a little house near the commons. After he purchased my freedom, I went to live with them, and my life was vastly improved.”

  Purchased my freedom. The pain lanced through her, hot and jagged, chased by confusion.

  “You mean…” Etta began. “You were born into the Ironwoods, but they—”

  Anger choked the rest of the words from her throat. Nicholas shrugged.

  He shrugged.

  “I wasn’t legitimate, nor was I wanted. A child takes on the status of its mother in this time period. My mother was their property; therefore, so was I.” Nicholas glanced at her. “They didn’t know that I’d inherited their…gift…until later, after I’d already lived for a time with Hall and his wife.”

  “You grew up with Chase too, right?” she asked. Seeing a flicker of surprise, she added, “He told me a little about it a few days ago, while we were walking on the deck—that Mrs. Hall told the captain he wasn’t allowed to take either of you out to sea until she taught you to read and write.”

  At that, he actually smiled. “She was a lady of uncommon kindness and bold spirit. Once we lost her, there was no reason to come back here, aside from occasional business.”

  “How did Hall find you?” Etta asked. “Why did the Ironwoods…” She couldn’t bring herself to say sell you without wanting to vomit.

  Nicholas lowered his voice. “You know, I presume, that the ability has become rarer as the family has moved forward, yes?”

  Etta nodded.

  “Hall is a more distant relation to the Ironwoods—in fact, he was taken in to the Ironwoods when Ironwood finished off his family, the Hemlocks, and brought the survivors into line,” Nicholas explained. “But he isn’t as you and I are; he’s what we call a ‘guardian.’ They cannot travel, and are stationary in their natural times. But they watch the entrances to the passages to ensure the safety of the travelers, and take note of all comings and goings. They also do other work for the family—see to their financial interests and property in various eras, relay messages between the centuries.”

  Etta’s eyes widened. “How in the world do they do that?”

  “If they precede us, they leave letters in various family vaults which are checked by other guardians. If they follow this era, the letters are brought back by a designated traveler. Hall himself was required to oversee the transportation and sale of sugar from one of their plantations in the Caribbean from 1750 until just recently.”

  She was missing a piece of this. “Had you met Hall before you went to live with him?”

  He shook his head. “Ironwood decided to have the old family house on Queen Street sold, along with its possessions. My mother was purchased outright with another house slave, and claimed I ran away. She left me hiding in a cupboard, and hoped I’d be able to escape and live a life of freedom. I would never have agreed if I’d known what was truly happening.”

  Etta was about to ask what had become of his mother, but he barreled on quickly.

  “Hall found me when they came to inspect the house before the purchasers arrived. I was half-dead from hunger, filthy as a stray pup—my mother had told me to stay put and keep silent, and I was much better at following orders then.” Nicholas gave her a wry smile. “He carried me out. Made sure my freedom was legal. It was years before Ironwood came back to that era and learned of me. I trained and traveled for a time on Ironwood’s behalf, but no more. I’ll not leave the sea or my true family again.”

  Etta forced herself to move past the thought of him as a young boy, hiding in the dark for days. “What will you do after you finish your business with Ironwood?”

  He shifted, absently reaching up to rub at his shoulder. “I need to meet Chase and the others to see to my responsibilities as prize master. Captain Hall will be back in port before the month’s end, and we’ll sail again soon after.”

  Of course he had responsibilities. That was his life—it had just so happened to overlap with hers for a few days. Why did Etta feel so anxious at the thought of him walking away? “Is it safe to travel? Will you be all right?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about me, Miss Spencer,” he said as they bumped up against the other ferry landing. “I always manage.”
/>   “You could call me Etta,” she said, smiling. “I’d like that.”

  There was a crack in that calm mask—a flash. Etta’s eyes read it as anger, but instinct registered something worse: a painful kind of shock, as if she’d knocked him off the ferry and into the cold river.

  “You—” he began, his gaze shifting up to the sky, a small, pained smile on his face. Etta couldn’t look away, not at Sophia, who was calling her name, not at the sails cutting through the blooming dark. He let out a quiet laugh, sounding almost dismayed, his hands pressed hard against his sides. “There are times, Miss Spencer, you defeat me utterly.”

  Before she could process those words, he’d moved to the front of the ferry, to assist the other men in securing it. And when it came time to disembark, only Sophia was waiting for her.

  “Was he bothering you? Thank God he’ll be gone soon enough,” she said, loud enough for all of the city to hear.

  “No!” Etta said quickly. “Not at all.”

  Still, Sophia eyed Nicholas as he strode in front of them, blowing past a cluster of women with bright eyes and rouged cheeks. They were nearly spilling out of their low-cut dresses.

  “Looking for a place to sleep, love?” one asked, trailing after him. “’Ope the fire didn’t get your pretty house. I’ve got a spot that’s warm—”

  “I’m spoken for,” he said, gently removing her hand from his shoulder. “Have a nice night, ladies.”

  Spoken for? Etta watched his back, the stretch and bunch of the muscles as he moved.

  Sophia then let out a strangled gasp and swore a blue streak as she stepped directly into a pile of fresh horse droppings. Etta’s stomach actually cringed at the way the smell tangled with the smoke. “Of all the rotten luck!”

  It was nearly pitch-black by the time Nicholas found Ironwood’s carriage in the chaos of the fire refugees—they were staying, in Sophia’s words, at a “mean little tavern” called the Dove outside of the city proper—outside what Etta knew in her time was the financial district. Cyrus Ironwood had thrown enough money around to convince the proprietor to let his family’s rooms in the attic for three nights, while they and their servants slept in the cellar.

  “Why not just buy a real house in the city?” Etta said, thinking of Nicholas’s story. Clearly, the family could afford it.

  “Grandfather is making inquiries about available property,” Sophia explained, her voice strained. “He’s decided to subject us to this era for the foreseeable future, so he’ll need more permanent accommodations. For now, he requires us at the Dove, so that is where we’ll go.”

  “Not looking forward to all that ‘rustic’ living?” Etta asked, arching a brow.

  Their path ran along what the driver had called the Old Post Road. Etta had recognized the names of streets when they were in the thick of this version of Manhattan—Wall Street, Broad Way. But once they were past the commons—a green park crowded with fire refugees, their rescued possessions, and all the soldiers trying to keep them in line—the city turned to farmland.

  Empty.

  Rolling.

  Farmland.

  Etta shook her head in amazement.

  “I know,” Sophia murmured dreamily. “It tempts one to buy up a few parcels and hold on to them for a few centuries.”

  In the city—her city—you got used to moving in the shadows of giant buildings during the day, and sacrificing your view of the stars to light pollution. But out here, the sky was naked, untouched, revealing all of its thousands of glittering lights; there was nothing to see beyond occasional houses, some small, some grand. Etta heard the bleating of sheep and whinnying of horses, the quiet bubbling of what sounded like streams. She missed the rapid pulse of life at home; the way the heat rose off the cement, the sunlight’s reflection in endless glass windows, the crowds; the constant drone of traffic, alarms, trains.

  This will be over soon, she reminded herself.

  Hopefully.

  The tension that wrapped around her stomach spread through her veins like spiderwebs, too sticky to dislodge completely. Etta tried to picture what this “Grandfather” would look like, what he would think of her, but she’d only had Sophia’s and Nicholas’s descriptions to go on; together they had painted a rather vivid image in her mind of a man with a bloody sword, guided by a shriveled lump of ash and ice for a heart, in possession of actual fangs and claws.

  Breathe, she thought a bit desperately, breathe. What else could she do? Whatever information she might squeeze out of him would only help her to get away, to figure out how to get back to Alice.

  The Dove Tavern was farther uptown than she’d expected. She spent most of the ride trying to use the position of the East River to figure out where they were on the island—toward the east, but still close to the center—maybe what she knew as Lexington, or Third Avenue?

  “What is that?” she asked, leaning forward to get a better look at the constellation of small campfires on the ground up ahead.

  Nicholas leaned closer to see, his warm arm pressing against hers. “The Royal Artillery Park, if I had to guess.”

  The guess was a good one. As they drew closer, the torches and lanterns in the camp blazed; the evidence of war gleamed. Beyond the impressive row of cannons were lines of wagons, carts, stables, white tents. What plain buildings Etta saw were flanked by the few trees that hadn’t been hacked to pieces for firewood and stacked nearby.

  The Dove stood directly across from the park, hugging the dirt road. The candles in its windows warmed its plain wooden face, and it looked more like a large colonial house to Etta’s eyes than a tavern. A two-story house, in fact, not including the attic, and one that seemed to lean ever so slightly to the right. Someone had tried to add a bit of charm with red paint on the shutters. A wooden sign hung over the street, swaying as Sophia passed it. In the dark, the soaring bird carved onto it looked more like a crow than a dove.

  “Come along,” Sophia said, after the driver had lifted her down from the carriage.

  Etta trailed behind her, trapped between the thorns of anticipation and trepidation; no matter which way her heart swung, she felt stung by the intensity of the feeling. Her own lingering excitement at being brought into the fold of this secret history sickened her, twisting her insides so much more than the dread of what Ironwood really wanted from her.

  This is it.

  She could go home.

  This is it.

  Find a way to save Alice.

  This is it.

  Etta just needed to breathe.

  Nicholas stepped up beside her, gazing up at the tavern’s windows. It was dark, but the light from the lanterns reflected warmly against his skin. Etta looked away quickly; she knew he could read her anxious expression as easily as she had read his, and she couldn’t stand the thought of him seeing her weak and out of her depth again.

  “The only way out is through,” he said.

  Etta nodded, squaring her shoulders.

  The noise from the tavern burst out onto the road like a tangled chord as a patron, a soldier who’d only managed to get one arm through his uniform coat, staggered out. He patted at his wig, swinging around unsteadily to stare first at Sophia, then Etta.

  “Hullo, girls.…” he began softly.

  Etta stepped back, bumping into a solid warmth. Nicholas’s hands closed lightly around her elbows, and she was lifted that last step up past the soldier, to the door.

  “Good night, sir,” Nicholas said firmly. When he opened the door, he released the muggy air trapped inside.

  “Don’t look at them,” he said. Etta barely heard him over the roar of conversation. It was minutes past midnight, but there were more than enough soldiers and common men circling the tables, hauling themselves up out of their seats to stagger toward the bar. She sucked in a deep breath; the air was flavored with wax from the dripping candles, sour body odor, and the hoppy tinge of ale.

  The skirt of her dress caught on something, yanking Etta hard enough to stumble
into Nicholas again. She reached down to unhook it, and jumped when her hand brushed warm, damp flesh. Nicholas let out a sharp breath and reached down to push away the meaty hand. The soldier seemed to be sweating out every ounce of alcohol that went into him; his shirt was drenched at the pits and all along his back.

  “Keep going,” Nicholas murmured. Etta tried to turn back, to cut the man with a glare, but Nicholas guided her toward the stairs at the back of the room.

  “I could have handled that,” Etta muttered.

  “I know,” he said, his breath on her skin. “I did him an undeserved favor. But if you demand blood, I’ll give him a scar to remember on my way out.”

  The words rocketed through her. Etta turned so quickly on the bottom step, and the bulk of her gown threw her so off-balance, that he had to reach up to steady her. The weight and warmth of his hands bled through the gown, the stays, the shift, but she hardly noticed. They were finally standing eye to eye.

  He quirked a brow in response.

  “You’re leaving tonight?” Etta asked.

  “For Connecticut? No, not until the morning. But I’ll need to find an inn.”

  “You can’t stay here?”

  His expression softened, and Etta could have sworn, just for an instant, his grip on her tightened. “No, Miss Spencer. I cannot.”

  “Come on, Etta,” Sophia called. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Etta didn’t budge. Softly, Nicholas asked, “Do you really believe I’d take my leave of you without so much as a good-bye? If nothing else, I gave you my word that I would take you away from here if you were in danger.”

  “Promise?” Etta whispered.

  “Always.”

  The stairs creaked under their combined weight, and were so narrow that Etta was tempted to turn to the side and walk up that way. Nicholas had to bend at the waist to avoid bashing his head against the low-hanging ceiling.

  Etta glanced at the second floor as they passed it, trying to spy through the cracks in the doors that had been left partially open. They must have been private rooms—there were fewer men up here, with their uniforms in better shape than the ones she’d seen below.