Elementary (16 page)

Huff kept rocking in his chair near the fire, puffing on his pipe. “Seneca?”

“She lives in the forge.” Josie watched his bushy white eyebrows bounce in surprise.

“You can see her?”

She nodded.

“Seneca's her name?” He rocked slowly back and forth, the creaking wood making its own rhythm to fill the room. “Never occurred to me that she'd have a name we could understand.”

Josie wanted to know why not. Instead she asked, “What is she?”

“Fire spirit.” He gave her a keen look. “You haven't had your menarche yet, have you?” At her blank look, he waved his pipe at her. “Woman's blood.”

Flushing, Josie shook her head. “No.”

“And yet you can see her. Talk to her.” He nodded before she answered, still contemplating her.

“What are fire spirits?”

“Elemental spirits. Earth, Air, Water, Fire. I'm surprised you can see her, talk to her. You've got the talent, Josie. It's rare.”

“You've got the talent, too?” She didn't want to ask more. But she knew she needed to figure out if he was the Master Seneca had talked about.

He puffed his pipe and nodded. “Been a Master for decades. It's rare to find them out here in the west. I don't know why. I think the Chinese brought these with 'em. They look like Chinese art.”

“You're a Master. What does that mean?”

Huff shrugged. “I can control them. Get them to do things for me. They need that. Fire spirits are wild. Dangerous if not controlled. Burn the whole city down. The one in the forge . . . she
is
the forge. She's the main reason I can make my living without the backbreaking work of getting wood. I'm too old for that now. Just change out the rocks now and then.” He looked at her again, a keen interest in his eyes. “I never thought I'd meet another with talent. I could teach you . . .”

Josie put the last dish away and wiped her hands, thinking about that. “Teach me. Is it magic?”

The old man chuckled. “Yes, Josie. It's magic, and it's real.”

 • • • 

Josie lay by the hearth, snuggled deep into her makeshift bed of blankets and Dog. She couldn't sleep. There was too much going on in her head. Huff had talked for hours about magic, talent, training, and about the different types of Elemental spirits. He knew about all of them, but his specialty was the fierce and wild fire spirits. The untamed ones. The ones who could kill you where you stand if you didn't have protection.

And yet . . . there was the crying.
In the hearth,
up the chimney,
Josie thought,
a baby fire spirit cries while outside in the forge, a mother fire spirit sings for her lost child.
It didn't match with what Huff said about the wild, dangerous, free fire spirits. He'd never even thought to ask Seneca her name.

After one particularly mournful wail, Josie couldn't stand it anymore. She threw off the blankets and crawled across the barely warmed brick of the hearth. Braving the still-glowing coals, she looked up into the chimney and thought she saw metal glinting there.

“Scintil?” Her voice was a whisper, but still sounded loud to her. “Scintil? Is that you?”

The crying stopped.

“Scintil?”

There was a tapping on metal.

“Is it you, Scintil? One for no, two for yes.”

There were two taps on the metal.

“Are you stuck?”

One tap.

“Trapped?”

Two taps.

“Do you miss your mama?”

Two taps. Then two more taps. Then a third double tap.

Josie sat back on her haunches. She had a choice to make, and she knew it. On one hand, Huff was offering her a home, a safe haven,
and
magic training. On the other hand, if she accepted, it would cost Seneca and Scintil their family for who knew how long. And now that she knew, she'd be a part of keeping mother and son apart. She could forget this now. Or she could go tell Seneca where Scintil was.

She bowed her head, aching at the choice, and then got up, pulled on her trousers, and padded to the door with Dog following.

It was cold in the darkness of early morning, and the forge glowed the dull orange of banked coals. Picking her way through the yard to the forge, Josie looked into the heat for Seneca. After a moment, the fire spirit came into view. She looked up at the little girl, her eyes dull.

“I found him. I found Scintil.”

Seneca flared in a sudden light of flame. “Where? Where is my son?” She flowed out of the forge in a sinewy slither of rasping curves onto the worktable, moving among the tools.

Dog took off, running from the house and spirit. Josie stepped back, too, surprised. “I'll take you to him, but you have to tell me something. If you could leave the forge, why stay? Why not look for Scintil on your own?”

“The Master hid him from me. I had no eyes to see.”

Josie tilted her head, looking at the fire spirit that looked more and more like the dragons the Chinese who worked the trains talked about and drew.

Seneca tilted her own head. “And it's a pleasure to burn . . .” Her voice almost sounded guilty. “I didn't want to leave him. I had things to burn.”

“So you agreed to work the forge?”

“He had my son. I couldn't leave.”

“Why did he trap your son?”

The creature shook her head. “Take me to him. Please. It's been so long.”

Josie couldn't resist the longing in that voice. She understood it all too well. The want—the need—for family. She nodded and led Seneca to the blacksmith's house.

Once there, both Josie and Seneca were surprised that the fire spirit was unable to enter. The barrier flared as Josie passed through it, but the fire spirit was stopped at the lintel. “My baby. The Master is keeping me from my baby.” Seneca flared brighter in her agitation.

Josie held out a calming hand. “I'll try to get him. If not, I'll get Huff to free him.” She turned and hurried to the hearth on quiet feet. Almost climbing into the still-warm fireplace, careful to avoid the barely glowing coals, Josie reached up into the chimney and felt around. Her hand encountered a small, warm metal thing on a chain. It moved as she touched it.

“Shhh. I got you. You'll see your mama again.” Josie pressed herself against the sooty stone as she reached up to find where the chain was hung. It was a hook. A little fiddling, and she was able to free the chain.

“Hurry! Hurry! Before the Master comes!”

As Josie pulled herself out of the hearth along with what looked to be a small incense burner—like they used in church—Huff's bedroom door opened. “Josie?”

She froze, hugging the small metal pot to her, while Seneca gave a wordless cry of rage and began to beat herself against the ward.

Huff took this all in, his eyes widening. He reached for her. “Don't! You don't understand!”

“You've kept them apart. That's not right.” Josie's heart broke as she betrayed the man who had been so kind to her.

“He was wild! Burned down two farms. She wouldn't rein him in.” Huff nodded at the enraged fire spirit trying to force its way through the wards. “He killed two families! You have to understand.”

Josie remembered the burned-out farm she'd slept in as a feeling of horror grew in her stomach. The metal in her hand suddenly flared so hot that it burned her even before she could drop the small, enclosed pot. Josie gasped, looking at her swelling, reddening hand. The burner's heated metal was already making her blankets smolder. Hurrying from the hearth, Josie grabbed the nearest thing she could find to protect her hand—the dishtowel. She wrapped her good hand in it, then returned to grab the burner's chain, pulling the burner from the blankets before they could catch flame.

When she looked up again, Huff was returning from his room, wearing a thick gold ring with a ruby on one hand and holding an ornamental knife in the other. He was focused on Seneca at the door. Josie could see that fire spirit had cracked the ward and was breaking through. Huff was repairing it.

He stepped into the living room, still looking at the ward as he spoke to her. “If you free the fire spirit, we die. Who knows how many more will die?”

“But it's her baby. Her family.”

Huff didn't say anything. Josie knew he'd turned his attention back to Seneca and the ward. She could actually
see
the magic flowing from him, feel it like you could feel the air after a thunderstorm. Seneca was nothing more than the embodiment of flame and rage now. Huff pushed her back, capturing her in his magic, forcing her into the yard. Scintil cried out in his prison, a wordless wail of longing and despair.

Josie took one last look at Huff, then closed her eyes and made her choice. It was the hardest decision of her life.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered to Scintil's prison. “I'm sorry. If you've killed . . . If you can't be tamed . . .” The wailing grew louder as Josie returned to the hearth and hung the burner in its place in the chimney again. Tears spilled down her face; she knew exactly what she was doing: sacrificing one family for another, the new family and home she had gained.

“I'll find a better way to free you. I promise.” Josie spoke to the hearth but wasn't sure Scintil could understand. She turned away and silently repeated the promise. Then she ran to find out what happened with Seneca and Huff.

In the yard, Josie watched as Huff forced Seneca back into the forge. The fire spirit lashed out at him and everything around him, scorching the ground as she went. Once secure, Josie watched him scratch those strange symbols into the forge's stone and metal sides. Seneca raged inside, glowing white hot in her anger.

Huff stepped back and bowed his head. “That was closer than I ever want to admit.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “You did the right thing. That fire spirit . . . it would've rampaged. Could have lost the whole town.”

Josie was still looking at the white-glowing forge. “Is she a prisoner now?”

Huff nodded. “She has to be. She knows where he is. She won't stop trying to reach him.”

Josie stared at the ground, not seeing it as more tears welled and spilled down her dirty face. She knew what she had done. Feeling a warm, kind hand on her shoulder, she looked up.

“I'm proud of you, Josie. You did good.”

Sobbing, she threw herself into his arms. The feeling that welled up at his praise battled with the guilt of her betrayal of the fire spirits. She had her family now. She had Huff. Someday, she would free Scintil and Seneca. But not today. Today, Josie had a new father, and that was what mattered.

It was a price she was willing to pay.

Tanya Huff

“Marie! It's time to come in.”

She was tempted to pretend she hadn't heard, but that had never worked in the past, and she had no reason to believe it'd work today. “Just a little longer, Mrs. Barton. The doctor said at least an hour a day.”

“It's been almost an hour and a half.”

Marie carefully sculled around until she faced the shore and the ship-in-full-sail figure of her nurse standing back beyond the reach of spray. “Ten more minutes.”

“Only ten!”

“Only ten,” Marie murmured as the nearest undine playfully swung her around to face out to sea again. “Only because I can't get the buckles undone.”

The straps over her chemise buckled in the back, and she'd never been able to make the undines understand what she wanted. Or perhaps they understood, and they weren't strong enough to manipulate the wet leather. Green-gold hair wrapping around her body like strands of kelp, they'd bat at the buckle with long green fingers, but never managed to get it undone. The undines of the deep would be able to, Marie was sure of that. They were larger and stronger, but she hadn't seen them since the accident, and if she couldn't get free, she never would again.

The line tethering her to the shore was the only reason she was allowed in the water at all. Her doctor had ordered immersion in salt water as therapy, but Mrs. Barton had refused to allow it until she'd made certain her charge would not be swept out to sea. “I don't care how well Miss Hudson used to swim.” Arms folded, she'd stared the doctor down. “That was then.”

So Marie swam in water that would have once been barely up to her waist, the undines who lived in the shallows and the nymphs of the tidal pools keeping her company, and she dreamed of freedom and enough salt water to save her.

“That's ten minutes, Marie!”

She relaxed into the pull, easily keeping her head above the surface. Her uncle had sent men to clear the loose stones and rough edges from the shelf of rock on the bottom of the small bay so it was like being tugged across a watery dance floor. Not that Marie would ever cross a dance floor again.

“Good heavens, child, you're freezing!”

“I'm fine.”

“‘Fine,' she says.” With the buckle open, Mrs. Barton tucked large, strong hands under Marie's arms and heaved her up onto a blanket. Marie gritted her teeth and refused to shiver.

The north Atlantic was never warm, not even in late July when Marie wore a thin sheen of moisture under her clothes, her back damp against the woven rattan of her chair. The north Atlantic was never particularly welcoming, either, more often gray than blue, and storms slammed against the outer arm of the small, sheltered bay nearly as often in the summer as they did in the winter. But every day the weather allowed, Mrs. Barton pushed Marie down the ramp her uncle's men had built along the shallows to the shore, lifted her out of her chair, strapped her to the rope, and set her safely down in the water.

Except that the north Atlantic was never safe. Three years ago in the fall, returning from visiting her mother's relatives on Saint-Pierre with her father, a sudden squall had twisted the ship underfoot, slammed it down as she stumbled, and thrown her through the railing. The Atlantic had taken her father's ship, the fifteen men of her father's crew, and her father, but it deposited her alive on L'Ile-aux-Marins.

The fishermen who found her said it was a miracle she'd lived.

When she came home after eight months in the hospital in Halifax, she screamed accusations at the sea. Eventually, she'd had to believe her father was dead before he reached the water and the undines could only guide his body to rest among the bleached bones of other sailors.

“Arms around my neck.”

Marie slid her arms from the warmth of the blanket and hung on as Mrs. Barton lifted her, blanket and all, into her chair.

She gripped the arms as Mrs. Barton backed them up to the shore, her fingers white by the time they reached the level path that led to the huge frame house her father had built for his French bride. Owner of half of one of the most successful commercial shipping companies in Nova Scotia, he'd spared no expense. During the long maritime summers, wide, multi-paned windows made in Boston had opened the house to every point of the compass so any passing breeze could freely enter. Now all the windows on the second floor were shuttered tight. Her mother's spirit was as broken as Marie's back, and swathed in widow's weeds, she haunted the upper story of her own house, locked away from her daughter and the winds that had betrayed her.

“Nice, warm bath, and we'll wash the salt from your hair. You'll feel better, you'll see.”

Marie knew she was lucky to have Mrs. Barton. Her nurse was practical and pragmatic. While of necessity she ran Marie's life, she never took advantage, and allowed her charge as much freedom as she could. She offered sympathy, but never pity.

Marie also knew she was lucky her family had more than enough money to pay Mrs. Barton's comfortable wages and for the half-dozen servants who kept the house running and food on the table.

She was lucky the break had been low enough to affect only her legs and that she could control the rest of her body.

She didn't feel lucky.

She used to love to dance.

 • • • 

“Marie.”

“Uncle Edward.” She turned her cheek up for his kiss, then waited, hands folded on her lap until he sat down behind her father's desk.

“And how is your mother?”

Still hiding up a flight of stairs I can't climb.
“Mrs. Conway says she's eating a bit more.”

“Well, that's something, isn't it. Hard to turn down Mrs. Conway's baking.” Her uncle was large and hearty, sweating heavily in the heat. His own wife long gone, his grief muted by time and temperament, he had no idea of how to deal with his sister-in-law's reaction, and tried not to appear grateful he didn't have to.

Her father's shares in the company were Marie's now. Her mother had money of her own, and Marie suspected her father's will had been written in the belief they'd die together. Her uncle's monthly visits always began with company reports and ended with wider-ranging news of the waters around Nova Scotia.

“Four boats lost this month, all just east of Sable Island.” Fingers turning a gooseberry tart on its plate, he watched her closely, and when she nodded, her own fingers twisting in the folds of her green muslin skirt, he continued. “Three fishing boats, and then . . .” The tart crumbled. “. . . a Baltimore clipper. One of the older ships of the Black Ball Line. No survivors. Fourteen bloody hours out of Halifax, pardon my French.”

His sons, her cousins, captained ships in the company fleet. Brian, the elder, the first of the line's steamships. Bradley, a Water Master like her father and his grandfather before him, stayed under sail in one of the company's big Aberdeen clippers. When Uncle Edward said, “
No survivors,”
Marie knew he saw his sons' bones joining his brother's on the ocean floor.

 • • • 

“You know I'd stay,” he'd said, “but I leave tomorrow for the Sydney shipyard.”

Marie had smiled and nodded. He wouldn't have lied about leaving for Sydney, but if the weather allowed, he never stayed. Her mother's grieving made him too uncomfortable.

She waited on the wide front porch until Uncle Edward's brougham reached the end of the long drive, then wheeled back into the house and called for Mrs. Barton.

“You want go into the water now?” Mrs. Barton's eyes narrowed. “I don't think so. Look at that sky; it's going to storm.”

“But it isn't storming yet.” Marie rolled into her room, the old summer parlor remade for her use when the second floor was denied her, and began unbuttoning her shirtwaist. “If we hurry, we'll be done and dry and dressed in time for tea.”

“Will we now?” But Marie could hear the smile in the older woman's voice, and when she raised herself up off the cushion, teeth gritted against the pain, Mrs. Barton tugged skirt and petticoat down off her hips and over her legs, waiting until Marie was seated again before lifting each foot and sliding the fabric free.

“I can't believe you received your uncle with bare feet. Like a heathen.”

“It's too hot for shoes and stockings, and he couldn't see my feet under my skirt. Not that he ever looks.”

“Of course he doesn't. Men don't see what they don't want to see.”

“Men don't see me, they see the late captain's poor, crippled daughter.”

Mrs. Barton snorted as she draped the blanket over Marie for the ride down to the shore. “That's because men are fools.”

The late captain's poor, crippled daughter could bend society's rules, but Marie had never asked about Mr. Barton. It seemed safer.

The undines and tidal pool nymphs usually waited for her by the ramp, as if their enthusiastic welcome—though unseen by any eyes other than Marie's—would encourage Mrs. Barton to faster movement. Today, the bay seemed empty. Although the sky had lowered itself to touch the sea, gray on gray, Marie knew the coming storm wouldn't have driven her usual companions away. She'd watched them from her window, shrieking with laughter as storm-frothed waves tumbled them about, the smaller nymphs skipping from raindrop to raindrop.

She found them at last gathered at the edge of deep water, where the bay became the sea. A wave crested beyond the breakwater, and Marie thought she saw the graceful dance of a deep-water undine in the curl—the lighter curve of a shoulder, an arm, the long, elegant line of tail.

“Are you ready, then? With the air so warm and heavy, it'll be colder today.”

“Not possible,” Marie murmured absently, her attention on the water.

As soon as her body slipped below the surface, they sped toward her, the nymphs tangling in her curls, the undines winding around her legs and throwing themselves into her arms.

“Is it the ships?” she asked softly, cuddling and soothing where she could. “Did the deep one come to tell you about the ships? Is that what's upset you so?”

She was afraid her hour would end before she could understand what they were saying.

They weren't upset about the ships. Or the loss of life.

It was the serpent . . .

 • • • 

With her uncle in Sydney, Marie had one other option. Three days after she'd learned about the serpent, Conway, the coachman—Mrs. Conway's eldest—lifted her into the family's glossy black clarence as the rising sun painted orange streaks on the sea.

They stopped for tea in Hubbards and again at Upper Tantallon.

“Is it the pain?” Mrs. Barton nodded at Marie's fingers dancing patterns around her saucer.

Marie blinked, confused. Unless she was in the water, pain of one sort or another was a constant companion. Less as time passed, but . . . Then she remembered the reason for their trip to the city. “No, it just takes so long. To get into the city,” she added when Mrs. Barton frowned.

“Ah.” The frown eased. “Well, I can't deny it would have been much more convenient had the new train route run along the shore. I hear the tracks go all the way to Truro now.”

It was just short of noon when they finally pulled up in front of the Victorian General Hospital in Halifax. Conway lifted her chair down and then her into it.

“Wait at the livery, Conway. We'll send a message when we need you. And you”—Marie lifted her hands off the wheels as the chair jerked back—“you may roll yourself about the house all you like, but not here. Here you will behave like the young lady you are.”

Mrs. Barton's dignity allowed her to push the chair up the broad flagstone ramp, but once in the cool central hall of the new building, she flagged down an orderly.

Marie locked her fingers together in her lap and fought the urge to wrest control away. By the time they reached Dr. Evans' office, she was about to shake herself out of the chair.

“When you need me, Marie, I'll be right outside.”

Marie had no idea how Dr. Evans had first convinced Mrs. Barton that he needed to see her alone; she was just thankful he had. Once in his office, having been deposited in front of his desk as though the chair was the patient, not the person in it, she rolled back and forth, unable to stay still.

The inner door opened. She released a breath she couldn't remember holding and froze, the edge of her wheels biting into her palms. “You're not Dr. Evans.”

“Dr. Evans isn't available today, Miss Hudson.” Eyes locked on her file, the unfamiliar man crossed to the desk. “I'm Dr. Harris.”

He was tall and thin where Dr. Evans was stout, with a neat, dark beard rather than the fringe of Dr. Evans' ginger muttonchops, and his accent was evidence of a much more recent crossing from Scotland. But Marie could feel his connection to the earth, stretching down through the stones of the hospital as secure and unyielding as the roots of a tree, and that was all that really mattered right now.

“There's a sea serpent in the waters east of Sable Island.”

“There's a what?” He looked up then and actually saw her. “Oh. Of course . . .” Another glance at the file. “Dr. Evans mentioned your mother is an Air Master . . . to me, personally,” he added, setting the file down. “But he neglected to mention you're a Water Master in your own right.”

“Why would he?” She slapped the arms of her chair. “This is what he sees. But that's not important now,” she added before Dr. Harris could defend his colleague. “Four ships have already been taken with no survivors—three fishing boats and a clipper. It has to stop.”

“And you know there's a serpent because . . . ?”

“A deep-water undine brought the news to the spirits of the shallows. When I went in to swim, they told me.”

Dark brows rose. “You swim?”