Authors: Lisa Mantchev
She didn’t want to hear those words. Like a child, she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and flee. Years ago, she would have crawled under the main stage, into the dark and narrow place under the floorboards where she was safe in her solitude. She could sit, arms wrapped about her knees and mouth filled to bulging with purloined butter-toffee candies and hazelnut chocolates. She could render the candy a bit salty with tears that dribbled, unheeded, down her nose and cheeks and chin. There, she was queen, with no one to gainsay her.
Just now she was neither child nor queen, neither Mistress of Revels nor wordsmith, only Bertie, very much afraid her father might abandon her yet again. Taking an inadvertent step forward, she shoved her trepidation down. “Nate, I’ll be right back.”
Nate’s sharp glance immediately took in both her expression and the Scrimshander waiting for her within the alcove. “D’ye want me t’ come wi’ ye?”
“I’ll be all right.” She gave his arm an appreciative squeeze and turned, quickly bridging the space that separated her from her father. Deciding to be preemptive, Bertie opened the dialogue with “I owe you an apology.”
The Scrimshander jerked with surprise, perhaps expecting remonstrations rather than olive branches. “You do?”
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the Aerie?…”
“Yes, the Aerie. I did wonder what happened there—”
The hollow clang of an unseen bell interrupted the Scrimshander, and the alcove filled with members of the Innamorati taking a break from the evening rehearsal. Their laughter was raucous and their gestures flamboyant. The performers greeted Bertie with small cries and affected cheek kissing, creating as much noise as a flock of pigeons crowded about a bit of bread. The Scrimshander shuddered when careless passersby grazed his unseen wings. The moment a space cleared around Bertie, he stepped into it and dipped his mouth nearer her ear.
“Might we find somewhere more conducive to private conversation?” He indicated a restaurant across the street.
Bertie nodded, extricated herself from the crowd, and followed him. Everything she wanted to say clogged her throat at once as they crossed a small patio crowded with diners, their glittering evening attire tempered by the fire- and candlelight. Her father didn’t pause at any of the tables, instead making his way up a long, narrow staircase, threading through servitors who moved in a saffron-tinted dance of shadows. Their whispers were no louder than the gentle breeze that brought the scent of salt to the verandah where the Scrimshander turned to her.
“Beatrice.” Her name on his lips contained a lifetime of defeat, echoed by the angle of his head and the slump of his powerful upper body.
Afraid of what he might say, Bertie leapt in with “We’ve been summoned to the Distant Castle to perform for Her Gracious Majesty. Though I wish it were not so, we must leave as soon we can make the caravan ready for the journey.”
“Ah.” He nodded, a jerking bob of the head that reminded her of a bird dipping down to drink.
Bertie took a step toward him and shuddered, wishing he’d picked some other venue, someplace more secluded, with a less breathtaking view than the gracious sandstone balcony overlooking the sea. She could hardly bring herself to go any nearer the water, father or no.
“I want you to come with us.” The invitation gushed out of her mouth with the burble of warm froth that comes just before drowning. “We’ll pay our respects to the Queen, and then we’ll go back to the theater. I promised…” Desperate, Bertie managed to gasp in enough air to finish, “I promised Ophelia I would bring you back to her.”
The Scrimshander reached out a hand and traced the shape of her face with rough fingertips, as though to memorize the look of her. Work-scarred, his skin told the story of his struggle to remain human in the face of his wild-bird instincts. The world around them—the ocean view, the scream of the gulls, a bit of distant laughter—filled Bertie’s head so that she could hardly make out his next words.
“I will not go back to that place again.”
They were softly uttered, featherlight, but disappointment lanced through Bertie like a glass blade cutting across her middle, the pain of it tempered only by the sudden and immediate flare of her anger.
“Why the hell not?” She shoved his hand away, feeling as though he’d slapped her. Indeed, the blood surged to her face like the sap in a spring-awakened tree, and she could feel red-rose livid spots of color blooming on her cheeks.
“Not that I won’t, but that I cannot.”
“Of course you can! All I ask for is a short journey, a single meeting, a few minutes’ pleasantries with the woman you once loved!”
“Beatrice—” he tried to interrupt, but she shouted over the top of him.
“I’ve asked nothing at all of you for seventeen years!”
“Beatrice—”
“And the moment I make a request, you deny me—”
He broke in again to say, “I was just there, Beatrice. At your Théâtre Illuminata.”
That brought her to a sputtering halt, the words of her tirade jerked out of her mouth like fish from the ocean. “You were?” The word-fish gaped, trying to suck in water, drowning in the air about them. “But when … how?”
He turned toward the sea, shoulders hunched. Fingertips curved into talons, they gripped the balcony railing and gouged it in ten places. “I flew hard soon after leaving you upon the beach, and the winds were in my favor. I left you a note, although perhaps you did not have the chance to read it before the destruction of the Aerie.”
I have gone to fetch her.
“Not Sedna?” Bertie’s tongue felt thick and rum addled, except she’d had nothing to drink. “I thought you meant you were going to be with her.”
“With the Sea Goddess who nearly killed you?” Her father’s face tightened, a sailor’s knot tied in his forehead and others appearing in the corded muscles of his neck. “Do you really think me capable of such a thing?”
“Do I know you at all?” Her temper flared to match his. “You’re no more than a stranger to me, and you gave me no word of farewell, only a cryptic note I might just as easily have overlooked as misunderstood!”
Her father twitched as though she’d ruffled every one of his feathers. “Then let me hasten to reassure you that I did not go to seek out Sedna.” When he paused, the silence filled with everything that had ever gone unsaid between them, crowding Bertie back against the railing until the stone dug unmercifully into her back. She didn’t think it possible, but his next words made her thankful it was there to hold her up. “I went to fetch your mother.”
Bertie’s head filled with a roar similar to the thunderous applause during a standing ovation. “Where is she?”
He shook his head. “There was nothing for me there.”
And all that was hope and joy burst like a soap bubble against a needle. “Did you not seek her out? Wouldn’t she come with you?” Bertie suddenly understood the terror of a winged creature, batting at the bars of a cage too small.
“Forgive me.… The words do not come naturally when I am so recently changed back into this form.” One hand clutched his ill-fitting shirt, the other curled into a fist at his side. “The theater was closed to me—”
“Do you mean the doors were locked?” As Bertie watched him struggle to answer, she lost her grip on her patience. “Did you try the front door? The Stage Door? Breaking a window? You couldn’t have tried much of anything if your only souvenir is a handful of sorry excuses.”
The Scrimshander shook his head, radiating sadness and—worse yet—resignation. “You are blessed to be a daughter of the earth who is ever growing and ever changing, but creatures of the air are caught between freedom and our abilities to fight the headwinds. Sometimes we must bow our heads and permit the currents to take us where they will.”
As though to prove his point, a sudden breeze swept over the balcony, bringing with it the scent of the sand, of the sea, of lands distant and beckoning.
Nearly overwhelmed by the desire to fling herself onto the back of the wind, to use the stars as stepping stones, to search out Ariel, to run away, Bertie wondered if she could manage it this time or if she’d only fall again. “I might be a daughter of the earth, but I am bird enough that if I fly again, I will fly where I will.”
“What do you mean, fly
again
?” The Scrimshander twitched, shoulder blades immediately aquiver. As though to echo the question, the landing shuddered underfoot, accompanied by the terrible rumble of stone scraping stone. “Get back from the ledge!” He reached out and caught her by the arm, trying to pull her into the doorway as a wet wheezing noise filled the air: the death rattle of every mariner that ever drowned. “It’s an earthquake!”
Bertie shook off her father’s grip and stared at the beachfront, her arms breaking out in gooseflesh as her gaze traveled over the spot where waves should have crashed and foamed. The sand there glistened like a wet, open wound. Newly exposed rocks jutted into the sky, pointing accusing fingers at the moon. The silver suggestion of fish jerked and flopped in a
danse macabre.
“Where did the water go?”
Before he could croak a response, she had her answer. An immense wave was gathering just off the shallows and building to a seemingly impossible height, and a sudden gust of salt-mist brought with it a familiar noise, one that turned Bertie’s very bones to ice: the triumphant laugh of the Sea Goddess, launching her attack.
CHAPTER FIVE
So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion
“We must fly!”
The Scrimshander launched himself into the air even as he grasped Bertie’s wrist, towing her after him.
Skin once more prickling with the promise of feathers, Bertie gained a foothold upon the sky before her ability to fly was plucked from her mind like a weed from a rose garden. Her father scrabbled to hold on to her, but weighted down by all terror, she fell for the second time today, plummeting to the sand-strewn beach below. She cracked her head with such force on impact that only twinkling stars decorated the landscape. They recalled a sudden and vivid image of Bertie’s Mother, the Player who’d taken part in
How Bertie Came to the Theater,
with the sequin-dance of light in her eyes. Then the mental slide show shifted to Ophelia reaching for Bertie from the glow of the quick-change corner.
“Run, dear heart,” her mother whispered, no more than a ghost as the blue light faded. “You must pick yourself up and run.”
Before Bertie could obey, the tsunami overtook the beach. The ocean enveloped her in angry arms, shoving her against the Caravanserai’s outer wall with a bone-cracking thud, twisting her about, heaving her up. As salty as the Dead Sea and twice as dark, every taste of the water on Bertie’s lips was like a death kiss from Sedna.
Go back to hell,
Bertie tried to command her, but the words were only bubbles as she flailed against her unseen foe. Hands outstretched, Bertie’s fingers closed around what felt like the restaurant’s balcony. Bits of kelp lashed about her ankles, a vicious undertow trying to drag her deep, but the Sea Goddess as yet had not the strength to persevere. Bertie clung to the sandstone like a limpet until the water began a reluctant retreat, trickles running off through open windows and pooling upon the beach.
Clambering over the railing and onto the verandah, Bertie landed hard upon her knees. Silver hair swirling about her shoulders, she spit water from her mouth and cleared it from her nose, coughing one moment and retching the next. As though in homage to Ophelia, she dripped as her mother usually did, with a gentle pitter-patter that mimicked rain or perhaps a leaky faucet. There was no doubting it now: Sedna was gathering her strength, and soon it wouldn’t be a single wave, but a flood … the way she had filled the Aerie, trying to kill Ophelia. The way she’d filled the theater’s auditorium to the ceiling before kidnapping Nate.
“Dad?” Bertie pulled herself up and scanned the beach for any signs of her father. A sliver of moon cut the edge of sky, but there was nothing of man or bird anywhere to be seen. With an oath, she turned and ran for the exit, noting that water had sluiced down the stairwell, extinguished torches, and broken the lanterns hanging upon the walls. The courtyard below was sloshing damp. Trays and crockery littered the ground. Dazed servitors picked themselves up off the sandstone floor. Frightened patrons huddled in groups, all of them muttering over the terrors of the last few minutes. Guilt stabbed Bertie in her vitals.
We have to leave before Sedna strikes again. I won’t have anyone else hurt because of me.
Thankfully, the rest of the Caravanserai looked none the worse for the Sea Goddess’s attack, though the news spread almost as fast as the water had. As a result, Bertie’s damp appearance drew looks of varying curiosity and concern. A few called out questions, but she only waved her hand at them in passing, keeping her eyes lowered and her head tucked down, uncertain how much time she might have before the next attack.
Bertie had one stop to make before they departed, a stop that couldn’t be skipped.
The braziers and torches set at regular intervals did wonders for the thin silk of the gown and her fantastically colored hair. Within minutes, Bertie was presentably dry, if wrinkled of dress and tousled of curls, much like a washrag wrung out and left dangling on the line. A chill wind whistled down the alleyway, tugging at the filmy overskirt of the moonlit dress. Fervently wishing Ariel’s taste in clothing had leaned toward something warmer, she tasked herself to search the luggage for a thick, woolen cloak before they drove into another freak snowstorm.
Thoughts thus occupied, Bertie negotiated the Caravanserai’s labyrinthine passages until she reached the desired stall where faded print curtains shifted to reveal the crystal facets of bottles and beakers.
“Come in,” the herb-seller commanded when Bertie was still several feet away. One plant-stained hand adjusted the draperies, and Serefina came into view. Lavender steam unfurled from the spout of the brass kettle in her hand, though she turned around to pour its contents into a teacup rather than the faceted bottles she used for her various elixirs and potions. “It’s a good thing you came directly here, my silver-haired fox, or I would have sent someone to fetch you.”