Airs & Graces (36 page)

[Excerpted from the letters of Gregory Conan Watts to his fiancee]

…While they were at that, Miss Bowe had found herself having drawn a great deal of attention from our assailants, having ruined the first shot. Somehow she had found a second blade from the table, and thus was fighting at least three men, perhaps more, though I could not be sure, armed with a bodice knife and a steak knife. Despite this poor armament, she was holding her own, though her breath was labored, and she could barely move — and certainly not lunge into her efforts — due to her own dresses and bindings.

The table she had knocked over guarded her back, with Julietta Penn remaining behind her and the table for cover. Our gypsy woman meanwhile had leaned herself across the table and was desperately sawing through the threads of Samantha’s bodice with another steak knife, that Sam might fight and breathe. It came free at last, and Samantha lunged forward in her far-less-restrictive undershirts, surprising the men who thought they had her pinned down.

I do not know if she dispatched them or simply fought past them, for even as the others were fighting for our representatives here, she headed for the new royals of France, the original targets of the assassination attempt, and there found their guardsmen fighting a desperate battle. I imagine they were quite surprised to find a woman armed with a pair of mismatched knives, in a torn dress and her undershirts, fighting on their behalf. She has even said since that they at first attacked her themselves, but she convinced them of her good will when she felled a gunman coming at them by throwing her steak knife. She then re-armed herself by groping about on the nearest table for further silverware while fighting off another assassin using the bodice knife she’d borrowed from Miss Penn.

Somewhere in the chaos I lost track of Giovanni Franzini and assumed he’d crawled under a table or under some rock to hide. He quite surprised me later, when we learned he’d run down two of the assassins who had attempted to flee in the chaos and felled both, albeit from behind as they were running.

I could not see all of it, but by the end as we regathered, I would swear Samantha had gone through at least two table settings, but had held onto Miss Penn’s knife. She was bleeding from half a dozen cuts, at least, and looked a wreck, her hat hanging from one side of her head, still held to one now-loosed braid by a single hatpin. She was decent only by the simplest definition, but for all of it, she looked quite pleased with herself.

Our small group was once more gathering, soon to be helping in a call for order. We would assist in patrolling the grounds all night, trying to make sure that we had all of the assassins and that no one attempted to flee before they might be questioned. First, however, Miss Bowe asked, somewhat too loudly, of Sir James, “That was fun; do all your parties end like this?”

This is what drew the final scandal, which has hit the rumor mills, I understand. Overhearing our American misfit, the Queen of France fainted.

With love, always,

Gregory Conan Watts

Chapter 1

The ivy of despair had taken root in my chest months ago. There was nothing specific that had happened, that I can remember, that brought on my depression. I didn’t lose my job, or a boyfriend, no one had died, still, it had taken root within me somehow, and as the days grew shorter and the rains had come the vines had grown, constricting my heart within my chest, blocking out all light and anything that was good, and warm, and comforting. Things I had once taken great pleasure in doing, the restoration work I did at the museum, painting, the theater… all of it suddenly seemed dull and I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

Some of my acquaintances had stopped calling, I call them acquaintances rather than friends because true friends wouldn’t give up on someone simply because they were feeling blue, even if that blue period lasted longer than a few days or weeks… would they? No. I don’t think so. Roxanne, my oldest and longest friend, my best friend, had not given up on me. She’d said to me: “Gracelyn, I’m here for you. No matter what, you just call me.” I had smiled and we had hugged but I didn’t know how to quantify what it was that I was feeling.

I was sad, all the time, but I didn’t know why I was sad. I hurt for no reason, cried for no reason, and I was tired all the time for
no reason
. I had finally gone to my doctor who had diagnosed me with depression. She’d given me pills, which I dutifully took, but they didn’t help. I felt lost and adrift and therapy wasn’t an option, not only was it not covered by my medical plan, you had to have a problem to work the problem out, didn’t you?

The heels of my boots clicked sharply against the pavement as I made my way home to my apartment. The January wind bit along the exposed skin of my face and I scrunched down further into the collar of my black winter pea coat.

I had no problems, I grew up in a loving home, raised by my grandparents after my parents had passed in a bad car accident… which is something I had come to grips with a very long time ago. While I had not been popular in school growing up, I hadn’t been unpopular. I’d had friends, gone to college, gotten my Masters in Science of Historic Preservation and was certified by The Academy of Certified Archivists and was working on a dream project preserving historical artifacts from an archeological dig. I mean what was more exciting than preserving artifacts from a Viking raid in Scotland?

I turned and clacked up the steps to my building and let myself in. I lived in a modest high rise apartment in a relatively quiet neighborhood… well as quiet as any neighborhood in New York could be. It was relatively close to the museum I worked out of, only two subway stops away. I could walk if I wanted to most days and I did, the life as an academic isn’t exactly an active one so I walked to and from work and ran two or three times a week to stay in shape. It was getting harder and harder to resist the call of the subway though as all the joy in my life slowly leeched away worse than the color out of a painting left too long in the sun.

I unlocked my apartment door and closed it heavily behind me, locking the deadbolt and leaning against its worn surface. I dropped my purse and tote bag in the entryway and my keys into their dish on the little hall table I kept near the door. I hung my coat and scarf on the back of the door and before I did anything, unzipped my riding style boots from knee to ankle and toed them off.

“I’m home.” I called to no one in particular. I lived alone. Hence why it didn’t really matter if I left all my stuff in front of the door. I padded in my tights clad feet to the kitchen and opened the fridge, then closed it with a groan. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t hungry. I used to enjoy cooking for myself but not since the black ivy of my depression started choking the life out of me last year. I went into my bedroom and undressed, hanging my black blouse, and deep green skirt, and jacket back in their places.

I peeled out of my tights and underwear after casually flipping my bra into the dirty laundry basket. The tangle of undergarments sulked on the top of the pile and I let them as I padded across the hall into my bathroom. I let the shower heat up, pulled some towels out of the linen cupboard and climbed in, letting the hot water beat my tense shoulders into some semblance of submission.

Today had been meeting after meeting with the walking wallets that were funding our project. I hated dealing with the suits with a passion, my time was better spent in the lab with the tools of my trade, brushing dirt away, recording details and small discoveries about whatever artifact happened to find its way to my worktable. My day had been especially frustrating due to the fact that what currently occupied my worktable was the hilt and a good third or more of a genuine Viking blade, circa the tenth century. That’s right, the tenth century… you know it gets exciting for a history nerd like me when you start dropping into the lowest double digits before the word century.

I plucked the hair band off the end of the long golden braid hanging over my right shoulder and worked the strands of my dishwater blonde hair out of their thick rope. The water against my scalp felt good, but maddeningly I remained numb and indifferent, which frustrated me. I scrubbed my hands over my face and stuck it in the shower spray, huffing out a sigh. It was late, I was tired and all I wanted was my bed so I decided to make some seriously quick work of this shower, lathering my hair and rinsing it quickly, I skipped the conditioner and used my honey and milk body wash equally as quickly in a quick head to toe lather with my bath poof. I rinsed well and shut off the water, reaching for a towel.

The storm of a meltdown was brewing, I could feel it in my chest, and behind my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to be alone and yet I couldn’t help it, the tide of emotion was rising and I was about to be swamped. I wrapped the regular sized bath towel around my hair and twisted, straightening up and flopping it back turban style on my head. I used the bath sheet to dry my body, starting with my face before finally wrapping it around myself twice below my arm pits and tucking the corner tight so it wouldn’t slide off.

I wiped a streak in the steam coating my bathroom mirror with my hand and looked at myself. Cornflower blue eyes stared back at me, high cheekbones and a narrow chin bracketed a full mouth above and below. I was pretty by the generally accepted standard but I had never relied on it. I valued brains over looks and didn’t have time for people that wanted to base their opinion of me on my packaging rather than what I had to offer in the intellectual department. Sometimes it got lonely, okay most of the time it got lonely, especially after the black ivy of despair moved in on me. I used my Tuscan honey lotion on my hands, arms, and legs and wrung my hair tightly one last time with the towel before letting it down. It was a tangled mess of snakes and there was no way I could sleep on it this wet, so I brought out the brush and hair dryer.

I shouldn’t have skipped the conditioner. The brush snarled painfully in my locks and the sharp pain in my scalp brought the sting of tears to my eyes and that did it. The floodgates opened, the tide rose, crashed into my careful walls and decimated them with the force of a tsunami. A tsunami that pretty much poured out my eyes.

God damn it, I couldn’t do anything right!

I cried my tears and dried my hair, brushing through the snarls and the pain on autopilot. Once dry I pulled it over my shoulder and braided it quickly to keep it from being a nightmare in the morning. I tossed the towels into the dirty laundry once back in my room and slipped a satin and lace nightgown over my skin. All of my sleepwear is sexy, an indulgence, my underwear is much the same. It was something Roxy had talked me into trying. An attempt to drag me out from beneath my black cloud. At the time it had been a marginal success, but they’d just rolled right back in again.

What was wrong with me?

I crawled into bed beneath my thick down comforter and lay in the fluffy marshmallow softness of my bed. The tears welled hot and immediate and spilled over. I just wanted this to end so badly. I wanted the hurt to stop, I wanted to sleep forever. Nothing helped, not my friend, not my work, not the pills. I felt like I was going mad and the fight, well the fight to just get out of bed in the morning was becoming harder and harder. I just didn’t know how to cope with these feelings, and I didn’t know how much longer I could live like this. So I sobbed into my pillow and hugged another to me, helplessly caught up in the storm of my emotions. I don’t know how long I lay this way, weeping brokenly, alone in my apartment, but eventually, I fell asleep.

About the Authors

A.J. Downey is a born and raised Seattle, WA native. She finds inspiration from her surroundings, through the people she meets and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine. She has lived many places and done many things, though mostly through her own imagination. An avid reader all of her life, it’s now her turn to try and give back, entertaining as she has been entertained. She blogs regularly at
http://authorajdowney.blogspot.com

If you want the easy button digest, as well as a bunch of exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else, sign up for her mailing list right here:
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Jeffrey Cook lives in Maple Valley, Washington, with his wife and three large dogs. He was born in Boulder, Colorado, but has lived all over the United States. He’s the author of the
Dawn of Steam
trilogy of alternate-history/emergent Steampunk epistolary novels, the YA Sci-fi thriller
Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets
, and the YA Fantasy novel
Foul is Fair
. He’s a founding contributing author of Writerpunk Press and has also contributed to a number of role-playing game books for Deep7 Press out of Seattle. When not reading, researching, or writing, Jeffrey enjoys role-playing games and watching football.