Twenty
Victoria’s palms sweated beneath her gloves. She wasn’t usually this nervous before patrol, but the prospect of having Graham Birkley with her again set her nerves into a frenzy.
She felt bad for how their conversation had ended and wanted to make it up to him. He had tried to help her, tipping her off about heating the acid. She wanted to repay the favor.
She’d taken extra care with her clothing that evening, even securing her cap so it sat tipped over her forehead in a more attractive way than usual. She paced before the open hangar door, staring up at the exposed framework, willing her pulse to slow.
“For goodness’ sake,” she told herself, stomping to the wall to retrieve her goggles. “It is ridiculous to be so anxious.”
“What was that?”
Victoria whirled around, dropping her goggles in the process. Graham Birkley strode in wearing a cream, button-up shirt tucked into trousers. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows, showcasing his tattoo. A smear of grease streaked on one sleeve, as well as below a days’ worth of growth at his jaw.
“Mr. Birkley! You startled me.”
He flicked the piece of paper in his hand for her attention, like a flag. “But you knew I was coming, right?”
“Of course I did.” She made for the ladder, not wanting to let him see her blush. “Come along. After tonight’s inspection, I’ll fly you to Wolverton. We can see if your friend is there.”
Graham’s brows crinkled. He stood close to her, one hand on the middlemost rung. He smelled strongly of welding smoke, but Victoria didn’t mind. “Really? But your uncle—”
“He has searched all he can of Chuzzlewit. There must be somewhere else we can look.”
She lifted her foot to mount, but Graham stopped her with a hand on her bare forearm. The touch charged like a warm shock up to her shoulder, and she stared at his hand and the grease smiling under his fingernails.
“He put you up to this?” Graham asked. Victoria couldn’t quite read his tone. It wasn’t cocky, but curious in a shy way, as though he didn’t feel he deserved the extra help. He lowered his hand. “The guy probably wants me out of his house, doesn’t he?”
“Not at all,” Victoria said, wishing she could remove her gloves and wipe her palms. “I only wanted to help. I’m sure it must be difficult for you. You want to get back to your friend and your home.”
Graham’s mouth parted for the smallest moment. “Wow. That’s cool of you. Thanks.”
Victoria smiled at him, unsure of what to say. “I did try heat, by the way.”
His brows rose. “And?”
She couldn’t help the grin spreading across her cheeks. “And it did not work. But I appreciate your input, Mr. Birkley.”
Piloting Elsie had only ever come naturally to Victoria. She’d been at home with the gadgets, with the gears and maneuvers—fiddling with machinery her whole life probably helped with that. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t flown with Graham before. But for some reason his presence behind her back—she couldn’t even see him, for goodness’ sake—was distracting enough that she kept fumbling.
She floated along the seashore, scanning the horizon, looking back at the torn buildings on Down Street and the lavish homes beyond. She passed the spot where she’d first found Graham, and the open gape in the corner bookshop, still a mess of clutter and debris. The other hovercraft followed a similar pattern, lingering in certain places, then moving on at the lack of evident danger.
She listened to the light fuzz in her earpiece, but no warnings sounded. There was nothing aside from the usual banter between the Nauts.
“No activity tonight,” said Emma.
“It knows I’ve returned to my duties,” Dahlia said. The other girls laughed.
Bronwyn’s voice crackled over the line. “It wouldn’t dare go up against you again.”
I wonder why we don’t ever go to the monster, Victoria thought. It didn’t make sense for them to always wait for it to approach. Surely there was an easier way of stopping the attacks before the creature made it to shore. She made a mental note to mention it to Graham later. She wouldn’t do so now, not when he was preoccupied with finding his friend.
“Looks like the all-clear this evening, ladies,” Victoria said. The other girls sounded their acceptance and retreated, soaring for their hangars.
Victoria should do the same. She knew she was breaking procedure and couldn’t help hearing her uncle’s reprimand. But this was not for the Kreak. This was to help Mr. Birkley. Surely Uncle Jarvis would understand.
She lagged behind the others, watching their planes veer to the north. Hoping no one noticed her absence, she turned the joystick in her hand and headed east instead.
“You sure this is okay?” Graham asked.
She ached to turn back and see his face. But she focused on her navigational duties, on the gauges of her fuel and on getting to Wolverton as quickly as possible without drawing too much attention to herself. She hadn’t realized how it would look to others if one plane were still in the sky. People would think that something else had gone wrong. Once the planes were called back, they knew it was safe to come out again. She would draw far too much attention.
“It will be fine,” Victoria lied, more to assure herself than him.
“Whatever you say,” he said in a resigned sort of way.
“I do know what I’m doing, Mr. Birkley.”
“Sure you do.”
“We’ll be there momentarily,” she added.
They were approaching Silverton Manor, Rosalind’s estate on the edge of Chuzzlewit’s green and near one of the rounded corners of the lake in the center of the countryside. Stretches of farmland separated the two neighboring towns for forty or so miles, but Victoria had never explored it for herself.
She crossed the farmland, squared off and lined with rows and rows of tasseled wheat in one field, tall stalks of corn in another, and squat, leafy beets in another. Cows grazed along the open grasses in between; farmers guided horses with plows attached to their reins, and a few homes speckled the fields here and there, giving Victoria a glimpse of a life lived more simply than her own.
“You know a guy named Oscar Radley?” Mr. Birkley piped up behind her.
“I know him,” she said, thinking of Rosalind.
“He’s got some great ideas about building watercraft and attacking the Kreak thing head on. You might want to talk to him. Tell him what you’re up to. I think he’d want in on it. He’s been trying to talk to your uncle about it.”
Victoria pushed against the back of her seat, unease fighting the excitement rushing through her. Watercraft was a wonderful idea, and she was sure it could work. Once she discovered the means to destroy the metal, the two tactics combined would ensure their victory.
But Uncle Jarvis. She swore she wouldn’t pester him about the Kreak anymore. And if he was denying an audience with Oscar about it as well, something told her it would be madness to team up with him, no matter how good his ideas were.
“I . . . can’t,” she said. “My uncle would only be more furious. He probably wouldn’t listen anyway.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Graham said. “Are you sure this is the right direction?”
Victoria glanced at the stretch of fields, the hills rising in the distance, the mountain breaking into the sky. From every angle there was nothing but farmland. They should have arrived at the outskirts of Wolverton by now.
“Quite sure,” she said, keeping her eyes open for the Tinswool Bridge where her father had once had a hovney accident. The sight of the bridge would surely tell her she wasn’t making a fool of herself. She’d followed the coordinates for Wolverton. This was the right path.
The plane rocked. The joystick quivered in her hands. Victoria let out a small cry and gripped tighter, struggling to maintain control. The sky was clear and azure—her sky, the way she liked it best. But the wings swayed back and forth through a patch of turbulence as though they’d encountered severe storm clouds.
The vivid blue sky blanked out, turning starkly white. Not again, Victoria thought in a panic. Every one of her joints stiffened, her pulse skyrocketing. But otherworldly images didn’t fill her vision.
Victoria squinted against the brightness, working to keep Elsie steady, when the air itself warped. She gasped for breath. Her internal organs felt as though they were being squeezed through a tube. Graham called something from behind her, but she couldn’t quite make it out.
Her vision cleared. Color returned to the sky, painting it as translucently blue as ever and completely cloudless. But the fields had vanished. Instead, a tumultuous ocean lapped angrily against the shore.