“Do you know me?” I asked him.
His eyes rolled back into his head and he turned his cheek against the pillow. “Vilest fire.” His voice cracked the words apart like they were nutshells in his throat. “Hunters stab never sleeping sky—the seam above the floor. The seam—”
He spoke of phenomenon and contraptions I could not understand while his hands moved against his bonds, fingers straining to reach the unseen. His eyes seemed to watch an invisible dance in the air between the bed and ceiling; flit, flit, glide.
I had hoped to make some sense of the “terrible things” Dr. Griffin mentioned, but as my uncle spoke on and on until his voice dried to a whisper, I could find no reason in the words. There was only one word that made sense to me and when he said it at last, his eyes moved to the far corner of the room.
“Reynolds.”
I turned in time to see the man called Reynolds slink out of the room. The tail of his brown coat (how like the coat my uncle had been found in) slithered out the door a second before it closed.
My heart stammered in my chest. I grabbed my bag and followed Reynolds from the hall, only in time to see his coattails once again slide around a distant corner. I fled past Dr. Griffin and into the blowing rain of the day. Reynolds was a tall man with a long stride and there was no keeping pace with him. By the time I reached the store where I had first met Reynolds, I could see no sign of him.
Then, coming down the cobblestones appeared the same gold and claret four-in-hand I had seen the day before, Reynolds now perched beside the driver. The horses’ hooves didn’t seem to touch the ground, even though I heard them clearly ring against the street stone. I lunged into the street, for the driver would have to stop for fear that he might hit me, but he didn’t. The hot breath of one horse curled over my cheek before the world went black.
I woke, if one can awaken when one does not remember sleeping, atop the auburn horse, harness and tack cutting into my left hand, while my right still clung to my bag with its pistol. The ground sped away beneath me at a dreadful haste and for a moment I buried my face in the horse’s mane. My cheek lay against hot horsehide, silky red-gold mane blinding me, every part of my body jostled as the carriage continued onward.
I chanced a backwards glance at the driver and Reynolds and squeezed my eyes shut a second after. They were not men!
Another look proved this true. The driver sat tall in the seat, a black coat dripping from its narrow body. A tattered blue scarf gave the illusion of a neck, but I feared he truly had none. The octangular head was small and gray, with bulging black eyes that must have taken everything in at once. Surely he saw me staring at his four spindly legs and two arms, all of which seemed employed in driving the carriage. His arms bore spines and hooks, over which he had draped a couple reins, but I felt certain this wasn’t their main usage.
“Miss Franks!”
It was Reynolds who spoke, but a Reynolds I did not recognize. Reynolds possessed a squat body, colored brown with slim yellow stripes, and he now spoke through mandibles. His brown coat had pooled around him; why, his thin arms would never support the fabric!
“Hold fast!” he said. “We cannot stop in the endless lands.”
I turned my head around, so that I might see these endless lands for myself; lifted myself on elbows enough to see around the whipping horse mane.
Every bit of Baltimore had vanished and all around us spread a seemingly endless blur of gold shot through with ruby stars. Whirlpools twisted in the sky, churning nausea within me as I watched them. I watched until I felt I would be ill, then bowed and buried my head again. I prayed the ride would soon be over, but perhaps there was no one to answer that prayer, for the ride went on and on.
The motion of the horse beneath me soon became familiar, enjoyable. I had never known such a sensation. Its warm hide was also a comfort as the air grew colder around us. There seemed to be no sun, yet all around us were slanting shafts of light. Colored golden and ivory, they fell from above and the more I watched them, the more my eyes began to adjust and see what truly lay around us.
The land was no longer barren. Perhaps it never had been. My eyes became accustomed to the light and the way it changed the landscape around us. From one angle, the land was empty; from another, I could glimpse strange constructs in the distance. There seemed to be little near the horizon; everything I was able to see hovered in that sunless sky. If I saw other people, it was only briefly; I saw what seemed a woman, but the wind was tearing her apart. She shredded, arms and legs peeling apart like fabric, and then even her clothing lifted up and away. This didn’t seem to bother her. She smiled and went on her way, into the vast sky.
Oh, that vast sky—my uncle’s sky? Had he seen this place and breathed this air? This air, that smelled vaguely of apricots and roasting meat, washed over us in abrupt gusts, forcing my eyes shut. I savored the darkness.
I couldn’t understand this place. What was it and how could it exist? The more I wondered, the more ill I felt. I remembered my Baltimore with its rain-washed streets, hints of sky caught between close buildings, people rushing to and from work. There seemed no such things here.
The carriage never slowed. My nausea deepened. I became aware of hands on my shoulders, an arm under my legs. Reynolds lifted me from the horse and carried me back into the carriage itself. I lay on the padded bench and stared at him sitting opposite me. In this light, he looked like a man and had a beautiful mouth.
The thought should have shocked me, but it didn’t.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“That much is plain.” I had to fight to say the words and my voice didn’t sound right when I finally forced them out. I fought also to sit up, to focus my attention on Reynolds. Even though I knew he wasn’t a man, he appeared as such and it gradually began to calm my mind.
“You’ve placed me in quite a predicament,” he added.
I could hardly believe he was serious, but I recalled the look on his face the day we’d met, when I’d pulled him back from this very carriage. I now understood I had kept him from returning. What had drawn him out in the first place? What else tied us together? My uncle, I thought as my eyes settled on Reynolds’ vest.
“You—You’re wearing my uncle’s vest,” I said. “I sewed it for him—”
“A gift last Christmas,” Reynolds said.
His dark velvet voice was rough again. “How can you know that?” My hands sought the bag at my side, but I no longer carried it; my pistol was lost.
“Edgar told me all about you.” His mouth bent into a smile and I realized this man knew things about me he shouldn’t know. He knew about my first pet (a kitten named Croak) and my first formal dance (how I’d stumbled down the last two stairs and fallen to reveal entirely too much to those gathered); he knew my uncle’s stories could frighten me, and he knew that deep down, I loved the fear.
“I don’t understand.” I blinked back tears and looked out the carriage window. The angle of light allowed me to see to the horizon this time. Against its water-washed color, I saw a wrecked whale bone ship. Closer to the carriage wheels, I saw pallid bloated creatures upon the shifting ground. One of them held a golden key in its mouth.
“How long have you known my uncle?” I asked. I looked back at Reynolds, who watched me and not the world beyond the windows. “How long was he your prisoner?”
“I did not imprison your uncle, though others of my kind did.”
“I felt you put those shackles on him.”
Reynolds said nothing to that. Maybe it was an action he couldn’t argue; maybe he had been forced. Whichever, he kept his silence, watching me with keen eyes that seemed to see all of me at once. He knew my parents were dead, and he knew— He knew Edgar was my only family.
“Stop watching me,” I whispered.
“I will not,” Reynolds said. “I spent far too many years dreaming of you to look away now.”
I curled my hands into my skirts. “What the devil do you mean by that?” If I thought I could have survived it, I would have jumped from the carriage. I think Reynolds must have known this, for he grasped my hands and held me firm.
“Your uncle should never have come here. I tried to fix that and have failed. The least I could do was see that
