Wayfarer

His unruly whiskers had grown in, a stark contrast to the neat queue of his hair. The afternoon sun drove nearly all traces of silver from it, creating a crimson halo around his skull. Nicholas found himself choking on his next, surprised laugh. The Red Devil, alive and well and stalking toward him.

“What are you doing here?” he managed to rasp out. His legs had not quite steadied enough to gallop the distance between them as he wished. It was left to Hall to come to him, to take careful, obvious stock of Nicholas as he approached.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Nick, but we were to expect you in New London ‘shortly,’ or am I misremembering?” His voice, while not harsh, bore an edge beneath its cheerful note that Nicholas recognized all too well.

“Did you receive any of my letters?” Nicholas asked in a ragged voice. He thought his heart might blow like a grenade in his chest. “Everyone—Chase—are they all alive? Sound?”

Hall took a step back, startled possibly for the first time in his life. “There have been a number of shifts; I’ve felt them all pass like storms. But, Nick, nothing’s happened to us. Not in this timeline, at least.”

Nicholas pressed his face into his hands and laughed and laughed until he was so near to tears he practically choked on them.

“Nick, my God, come here, come—is it as bad as all that?” Hall said. “We were worried for you. Tell me what’s happened!”

When he steadied himself, Nicholas said, “I ran into…unexpected circumstances.”

“Unexpected circumstances?” Hall placed his hands on his heavy belt, the flintlocks and flasks swaying as he began to pace. “All along, I’m hearing stories, terrible stories—the kind that put a guardian ill at ease. The winds of change over the later centuries were foul enough for word to reach me at sea. Imagine my surprise again, lad, as I arrived here to question Ironwood’s guardians about whether or not they’d taken you into their custody, only to find them all a-fluster over that very same passage disappearing. And then, here you are, appearing right out of the air.”

Nicholas fell back, shaking his head, staring down at his burned palm.

“God defend us!” Hall said, seizing his wrist, turning his palm up. “Lad—what is this? What’s happened to you?”

Nicholas blinked fiercely, trying to reconcile the torrent of disbelief. Hall wrapped an arm over his shoulder. “It is over now. All of it. He’s dead. The passages have closed.”

His adoptive father took his meaning instantly. Shock coursed through him.

“You’ll tell me on the way, then,” Hall said. “And tonight you’ll dine with Chase and the crew. They’ll be beside themselves to see you well. Nicholas, I am beside myself to see you whole.”

The emotion that wove through his heart at the thought made his chest impossibly tight. He had dreamt of that moment. But he had dreamt of many others as well.

“That is just it,” Nicholas said, looking down the beach. “I’m not sure I can rightly say that I am.”

THE STORY EMERGED IN FITS AND STARTS OVER THE COURSE OF WEEKS, as the Challenger prowled the Atlantic for new prey. Nicholas supposed some part of him felt that, if he did not acknowledge what had happened, the past weeks would eventually be consigned to memory and stop haunting his waking hours.

Of course, he was never so lucky.

The Revolution continued as it had before; the men of the crew sang songs as familiar to him as the sky; his routine of work became the very plaster that kept him together. Everything had a rhythm, he realized; a recognizable ebb and flow. Love, separation. Work, rest. Pain, rum.

Hall granted him a wide berth, with a patience that somehow shamed Nicholas into feeling like a child. But even that had its limits. His questions—about what had happened, about what would happen—became more pointed. Nicholas found himself grateful for the ever-constant presence of the crew. It provided him with cover, a legitimate reason to not speak of it. As a guardian, Hall was the only one who had ever possessed a key to their hidden world. And now, he was the only one who knew the girl who’d emerged in the smoke and chaos on the Ardent, the very same one who had charmed her way into the hearts of men who no longer remembered her.

So he smiled with Chase; he allowed the gentle rocking of the sea to cradle him; he relished the feeling of warm sunshine spreading its fingers through his dark coat as he walked the length of the deck on watch. The sea, he knew, was his remedy. And time, no longer an enemy, simply existed in tandem with him, not to vex him. Only occasionally did he feel the tug of something else deep inside of him, the burn of the healed scars in his hand.

But sometimes, when he was tired after a day’s work, or deep into his cups, or when he let the strict discipline of his heart lapse, he was clumsy with his words.

“Looks like a packet boat in the harbor port,” Chase said, handing him the spyglass. “They might have news of the war for us, then.”

The crew was restless for a night on shore in Port Royal, but Chase had grown hungry to track the progress of the war, and the growth—or lack thereof—of the Continental Navy. They’d narrowly escaped pursuit by a seventy-four-gun man-of-war only days prior, and Chase was still stewing in the disappointment of the missed fight. His fingers drummed now against the rail like a war summons. Impatient for something he’d yet to articulate.

“When did you become such a Whig?” Nicholas asked, glancing up at his friend’s face. “Surely you’re not that eager to hear about Washington’s latest defeat.”