Eleven
Oscar rose before the sun and dressed quickly, stuffing notebook, pencil, and telescope into a bag and securing the strap across his chest. The chill morning air seeped through the cracks of his small bedroom above his father’s shop. He winced at the dull throbbing just below his left shoulder. It usually held a small reminder of the old injury, but this cool air only seemed to exaggerate the ache. He rotated his arm several times, stepping lightly so as not to disturb his father’s snores from the room across the pinched landing at the mouth of the stairs.
How could his father sleep? How could anyone in Chuzzlewit sleep, after what happened? Their complacency astounded him, especially after a death. They should be up in arms, they should be in uproar about the attacks or packing their bags to move as far from this accursed shore as they possibly could. And yet they sleep.
Oscar could barely relax last night. Though days had passed, he was still so consumed by the sight of the woman being deprived of her life in such a manner. Something had to be done. He couldn’t fathom how the town had let it go on this long.
Several wooden steps creaked beneath his quiet descent. Oscar winced and waited, but his father didn’t stir, so he continued down into the larder for a slice of bread and an apple before stealing out into the brisk morning.
He stood on the boardwalk’s weathered planks and stared out at the sleepy, yellow-gray sky. Then his gaze shifted toward Down Street. The familiar, darkened stores stared back, until the sea waving from across a long bank of sand to his right captured his attention. He inhaled, basking in the sharp, salty air and the hint of freshly baked bread from Tatter’s Bakery a few doors down.
Ironic, Oscar thought, how peaceful everything was. The shore was a place a family might picnic, or where he might have taken Rosalind for a stroll.
Rosalind. Oscar couldn’t stop thinking of her last night, either. The mere sight of her had been dizzying. Over and over, he’d been forced to smile, to entertain others, and while he’d been grateful for the attention and praise for his recent educational advancement, Rosalind had been the only reason he’d attended the dance in the first place.
He’d practically begged her to rise from the harpsicord. She hadn’t greeted him, hadn’t shown any sign of excitement or relief at seeing him after so long a separation. Perhaps she was indifferent to him after all.
She’d looked so beautiful, prettier than he’d ever seen her. Her face had aged somewhat in the past year. Not by much, but in that subtle way that shows a girl is no longer a girl, but a woman. The subtle carriage of her graceful neck, her face, her figure, it’d been all he could do not to touch her. Raven tresses of hair piled on her head while a small amount spilled along her bare, caramel-skinned shoulder. And those inquisitive eyes, and budding mouth. He’d hoped she’d have gained some small amount of freedom from her father, but clearly Lord Baxter had as much hold over her as ever.
Oscar crossed the street, passing a few wandering gulls searching the sand for some breakfast. Behind Fenstermaker’s Bookshop, the draper’s, and the bakery, was a collection of rocks piling upward for several feet and creating a small cliff overlooking the shore. Oscar passed as light from Fenstermaker’s flickered through the glass. Several others in the lineup of buildings were awakening with the rising sun as well. Arm still throbbing, Oscar scaled his way up the path between the rocks that led to the shore watcher’s shed.
The pack strapped to his back wasn’t heavy, but it weighed on him now. Sweat began to collect from his brief ascent, and he reached the narrow wooden shed atop the crest.
A large window spread longways down the front of the shed overlooking the sea. Oscar wondered if the bookseller’s son, Harry Fenstermaker, was on guard, watching the changeable ocean all night long, ready to trigger the siren at a moment’s notice.
A group of young men had rotated, taking turns during their school years. Oscar had tried it himself, though one night was enough to tell him it wasn’t how he wanted to spend his time. What good was sitting somewhere for long periods if reading was not allowed? He certainly couldn’t read when he was supposed to be watching the shore.
Oscar didn’t enter or even knock on the single door at the back of the shed. He wasn’t here to make a visit. He was here for the view.
“Good heavens, but it’s beautiful here,” he whispered, perching himself on an accommodating rock and removing his pack. The ocean stretched on, a line against the sky. The sun peeked across that line, a half-circle of light spreading rays everywhere it touched, promising hope. Promising change.
He’d love to bring Rosalind here again. They’d come once. Rosalind had told her father she was meeting Victoria when she’d shown up at his father’s shop, out of breath, cheeks flushed and eyes filled with adventure. Oscar had snuck away with her, taking her hand and guiding her up these rocks to hide in the trees. He’d kissed her for the first time here, neither of them speaking, just breathing, existing, inhaling the other’s exhale.
He removed the case from his pack and carefully assembled the telescope he’d obtained during his studies. He’d covered all kinds of topics—philosophy, science, literature—but by far his favorite were those dealing with the world. Geography, geology, and especially astronomy. Instead of gazing at the vibrant hues bursting from the sky, he directed the scope toward the water’s surface, notebook in his lap.
Oscar waited and watched with bated breath. He analyzed the water, his back aching, his shoulder throbbing, thinking of school, of Rosalind, determined to sit all day if he had to when suddenly—there.
A bubble disturbed the water’s surface. It was too substantial and too singular to be a mere wave. Using navigational tools, Oscar marked the location on a map as exactly as he could. A scrape sounded behind him, and he rose so fast he nearly dropped his telescope.
The door to the shed opened, and a tall lad wearing nothing but a shirt and trousers ogled Oscar. His dark hair was slicked into a thick ponytail. “Radley? What are you doing here?”
It was Harry Fenstermaker after all. Oscar couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked with the lad. He scrambled to dismantle his telescope and return it to its case before any harm came to the instrument.
“Just watching the sky, Harry,” Oscar said. There was no way Jarvis Digby could deny this. Not this time.
Oscar had been checking multiple times a day, marking the places he saw movement on the water’s surface. Morning, mid-afternoon, midnight, the bubbles always rose from the same location. The creature never crept near the shore; it never swam around. It remained in the same place, as though it was dormant in there somehow.
Dormant until something triggered it, though Oscar wasn’t sure what that was.
If that was the case, that meant they could make the first move. Why must the town always be on the defensive? Uniformed men on foot routinely patrolled the town. Why not train them? Have the Aviatory design watercraft and go meet the brute instead? Catch it off-guard for once.
“See anything interesting?” Harry asked.
Oscar placed the case in his pack, along with his notebook, and hurried to stand and shake Harry’s hand. “I’m sure you see all kinds of interesting things here,” Oscar said instead of answering, hoping Harry would affirm what he himself had seen.
“That I do. This town would be crushed if it weren’t for me.”
“Why isn’t anything being done about it?” Oscar asked.
Harry wrangled around for the suspender straps dangling behind him. One by one he snapped them to his shoulders. “What do you mean nothing’s being done about it? The Protection Program is in force. We work together; I alert Commander Digby the minute I see anything suspicious, and he gets his Nauts out here.”
“And you think that’s enough?” Oscar couldn’t help the incredulity in his voice.
“Don’t know that we have many other options. It’s not like we can dive out to meet the brute, can we? Not if we want to return with our lives intact.”
That’s where we disagree. “Good to see you, Harry,” Oscar said, urgency pummeling through him. He nodded a swift goodbye and bounded back down the path. He needed to speak with Jarvis Digby himself. Unlike with Rosalind and her father, this was a matter he might have a small amount of influence over. Harry may be content with the beast reaching the shore whenever it pleased, but it wasn’t enough. Not if they didn’t want any more deaths.
Victoria decided to make the most of her probation. She’d gone through the varying emotions, stomping across her room so hard she must’ve sounded like an elephant from below, huffing in frustration at being detained for six whole weeks. Removing her from Flying Officer Naut was one thing. But being denied the privilege of residing at the Aviatory and of flying altogether was a difficult pill to swallow.
No doubt Mama had insisted, probably to push her to discuss wedding plans or to spend more time with the man she had never—and would never—vocally agree to marry.
She’d speak to Uncle Jarvis. She’d protest to the committee. Dahlia needed her help; they all did.
The worst part was that Bronwyn had been assigned the head position in Victoria’s place. Two trainees from Exodus Intermediate level were being moved up as temporary replacements.
“Intermediate Nauts couldn’t handle what we saw last Saturday,” Victoria fumed, staring at the books she’d retrieved from her father’ study downstairs.
The thought made Victoria writhe. Bronwyn was a nuisance, a chattering stuffed shirt who only ever cared about being the best, not about who she took down in the process. Dahlia was Victoria’s true second, but her ankle still hadn’t healed from the attack. She was still in the hospital.
Victoria slumped against one of the bedposts, disturbing the sheer white material serving as a canopy. As the clock on the mantle chimed the one o’clock hour, the desire to mount up for procedures itched through her. By that time the girls would have finished lunch and would be in the simulators, training and preparing for the next attack.
She longed to sneak out, to join them. As it was, books were splayed out across her room, along with papers covered in notes she’d been taking. The cog sat on her windowsill, soaking in the heat pouring in through the glass. Victoria had suspected heat was the reason the Kreak only attacked at sundown. That the sunlight affected the metal in some way. But there was no change in the material.
She hadn’t cared much for chemistry before, but she studied it now, delving deep into her father’s books and attempting to discover something that might help them.
She’d tested the cog in water, in flame, and in vinegar she’d requested from a perplexed maid. But she could come to no conclusions about the piece. After reading of several different acids and their effects on metal—particularly something called nultric acid—Victoria was eager to get her hands on a vat of it, to dip the cog in, and see if her suspicions were true.
The Kreak had to have a weakness. There had to be a way to destroy it for good.
There was a laboratory in one of the Aviatory’s wings. She knew she shouldn’t risk doing anything to provoke her uncle further. It could mean never flying again. But she couldn’t remain here like a sullen child.
If she could get past the lab assistant on duty and get her hands on the chemicals, if it worked, wouldn’t it be worth it? Perhaps then he could see another solution might be achieved.
This was what they trained her for, what she lived for. What a stupid thing—to give her this mantle only to discipline her for acting to save lives? Victoria wasn’t about to stand by, especially since she suspected Charles Merek would be paying her a visit at any moment.
She threw open the doors to her boudoir and paused. Beside several gowns, skirts, and a collection of corsets in various colors, her battle corset hangers swayed, devoid of their charges.
“No,” she gasped. Desperately, she dug through the gowns, tearing hangers away from one another as though the leathers could be interspersed among her daywear, but they were nowhere to be found. “Curse him.”
She stomped her foot again. To remove her gear from her closet? It was the epitome of low character.
She snatched her training corset—silk and steel instead of leather—and to her relief, her boots remained at the back of the boudoir. Lifting her black skirts, she secured her boots to the knees and hooked the latchet, then tied her hair up into a tight bun. She grabbed the cog from its place on the windowsill.
She looked to the door. She couldn’t go out that way. Uncle Jarvis may have loitered to make sure she didn’t do exactly this. Instead, she hefted the door of the laundry chute open and stared down the narrow tunnel.
She hadn’t escaped this way since she was twelve. She lowered herself to the floor, her skirts bunched like too many bubbles in a bath around her, and the corset dug into her ribs. She gasped in discomfort.
Footsteps resonated from the hall outside. Victoria scooted forward, the heels of her boots digging into the wooden floor planks. Her skirt caught on the metal clasp inside the chute’s door, blocking her advance.
“Blast,” she grumbled, reaching back to free them.
Her mother knocked. “Victoria? Lord Merek sent his card, darling, along with a note that he would be paying a call later today. I thought we could go visit dear Cordelia and Jane, and then be back in time for you to meet Lord Merek in the gardens at three.”
“Not on your life,” Victoria whispered. She struggled with the skirt, but the odd angle of her body made twisting difficult. In frustration, she stood and removed the skirt completely. This freed her to bend and see precisely where the black fabric had been caught. She crouched in her boots and white pantalets, wresting with the fabric until it finally tore free. A small hole marked the place it had been caught, but Victoria didn’t care. She tossed the skirt down the chute.
Another knock. “Victoria?” The knob clicked a few times.
“I’m indecent, Mama.” It was entirely true.
In her brown corset, scuffed battle boots and white bloomers exposed, Victoria plunged feet first down the chute, not hearing a word her mother muttered through the door. The drop was just long enough to send her stomach into her mouth. Her hip collided with the side of a large laundry cart, but several days’ worth of dirty clothing and soiled linens broke her fall.
“Miss Victoria!” Linny cried. A white cloth tied the serving girl’s hair back, her apron was sullied with Victoria didn’t want to know what, and her mouth hung open. She stood with her arms full of Victoria’s bulky, black skirt.
“I’ll take that, Linny.” Victoria tumbled out of the cart and snatched her skirt, dipping her feet in to secure it at her waist.
Linny watched in apparent confusion. “Excuse me, miss, but—”
Victoria pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell Mama.”
Linny gave a worried little shrug of acquiescence, and Victoria scampered out the back door.
Despite the bright sunlight, a chill loitered in the air, serving to cool the flush on her cheeks and down her back. Mr. Tolbert, the gardener, bustled among the trelliswork and small, decorative bushes creating a miniature maze around the back of Gingham Range. Victoria snuck a glance up to Uncle Jarvis’s window, unsure whether he was at home or at his office. The curtains were drawn, so either way she was sure she wouldn’t be seen, and she dashed off toward the Aviatory.