The Isis Knot (3 page)

William gave Jem a solemn nod of approval, then tucked the carved tuppence into his pocket.

Jem sniffled and wrapped his spindly arms around his shins. He stared out the window at New South Wales. When the sniffles overran him, he wiped his nose with a knuckle and smeared snot across his cheek. “For some reason”—he nudged his chin toward the town painted in every shade of drab and brown—“I thought it’d look like England.”

The lad needed to learn to hide his emotions, especially in a place like this, if he expected to survive. There was such a short amount of time left to show him, and William worried that Jem would never be able to stand on his own.

William swabbed grime from the glass with a dirty finger. “Believe me, the only thing that looks like England is England.”

“What’s going to happen to us when they take us ashore?”

There will be no “us.” You’ll be on your own, and I will be searching for the black-haired woman. Because I have no other choice.

Pangs of regret and fear stabbed hard into William’s heart. He worried terribly for Jem. Worried that Riley would be able to get to him again once they were on land and everything changed. Worried that he could never be to Jem what Alastair had been to him.

“I don’t know,” William lied.

“I heard one of the men say he’s running as soon as he gets the chance. Said he can find his way to China from here. Said he even has a compass.”

William snorted. “He drew that compass on a piece of cloth. No needle even, just delusions. I don’t know who’s worse, him or the idiots who follow him. China isn’t anywhere near New South Wales.”

This wasn’t the sole talk of escape he’d heard. Months earlier, after William had been fitted with the weight of punishment, Alastair himself—who sailed as a lieutenant on the
John Barry
—had secretly come down into the hold.

“I can get you back to England, Will,” the officer had whispered. “After we arrive in Sydney I can hide you where the captain will never find you—in a barrel of flour belowdecks where he never goes. You could be back in London before summer.”

The thought of making this arduous voyage again stuffed into a barrel was shocking enough, but not as shocking as Alastair’s offer.

“Why?” William had blinked at the old friend who’d helped him become a man so long ago. “Why would you help me now, when it could mean your own career? Your own life?”

Alastair had gripped William’s shoulder in the way he had when William was just a boy. “Because you’re a good man. Inside, your heart is worthy. I’ve loved you like a son for many years. Even after you…well, even after you fell on hard times. You aren’t like the rest of this lot.” He’d sneered into the cesspool of the convict hold. “You’re one of the best I ever served with. One of the most brave. You don’t deserve this end.”

But he did deserve
an
end. It was time for the visions to stop, time for the Spectre to let him be. Everything must cease here, or else William was certain he would die.

But it’s not the true end. For me, here will be a new beginning…once I find that woman.

“Why did you do it, Will? Why did you steal?” Alastair had asked.

Because I had to. Because I was compelled to
.

William had merely shrugged. “It is what my life has become.”

Alastair had nodded, tight-lipped. So many sailors had been forced to leave the Royal Navy’s service in the past decade. The whole country was riddled with down-on-their-luck seamen who didn’t know how to live on land, and therefore turned to crime to survive. William had to let Alastair think that he was one of them.

“How soon will the
John Barry
return to England after stopping in Sydney?” William asked.

“Two weeks, most likely. I could try to find you, bring you back to the ship somehow…”

Even if William wanted to accept Alastair’s offer, the Spectre would never let him go back to the country of his birth.

He’d tried before to resist performing the tasks the Spectre’s visions and voice told him to perform. He’d defied them time and time again, but the visions had only grown stronger, more insistent. Sometimes they changed to get him to the same endpoint via a different route. The more he ignored them, the more maddening and demanding they became. They never stopped until he did exactly what they wanted.

It would be no different here.

If he were to escape with Alastair, eventually he would find himself right back in New South Wales, shackled to a new vision, a new crime like a noose around his neck. Of that he was certain.

He was
meant
to be in New South Wales. He could not leave. Not as long as that woman lived.

William had had no choice but to refuse Alastair.

Now, in Sydney Cove, the wind changed course again, angling the
John Barry
so William could see another hulk bobbing at anchor. Had it been here yesterday or had it only just arrived, in the
John Barry
’s wake?

William frowned at the white letters scripted along the hull. “Jem, what’s her name?”

“Ah, that one’s called the
Remembrance
.”

The other ship’s occupants appeared on the main deck. Colorful skirts whipped about their bodies. Long hair snagged in the breeze. The women gazed toward shore at their new home, shading their eyes with delicate hands against the blazing sun.

Female convicts.

William suddenly couldn’t breathe. He pressed his nose to the glass, desperate to get closer. To see each of their faces. Was
she
among them? Dear God, he had to know. He squinted and pawed at the glass, but only saw a frustrating, sun-washed flurry of skirts. Then the wind shifted again, turning the
John Barry
and setting the
Remembrance
out of sight. His hand on the glass shriveled into a frustrated fist, and his heartbeat thudded loudly in his ears.

To make matters worse, he and the rest of the male convicts sat in their stinking hold another full day, sweating and anxious, before Alastair finally unlocked and kicked open the hatch. A swirl of fresh air coiled its way down through the hold and every man below turned his face up to it as though it were the face of God.

“Gentlemen,” Alastair’s familiar voice called down. “Welcome to New South Wales.”

CHAPTER 2

She was dead.

She must be…it was the only explanation. The air here smelled too sweet. The vast emptiness of this place carved into her soul, leaving nothing in its wake. The whole world had gone far, far too quiet.

She remembered her name was Sera, but nothing else. Nothing about her life before a searing white light had swallowed her up and spit her out onto hard-packed earth beneath a shockingly blue sky.

The light. She remembered the terrifying light.

Passing a shaking hand over her face and hair, she tested whether she were corporeal. Yes, her skin was warm and the part in her long, tangled dark hair burned hot from the sun.

Underneath her prone body the ground was solid and unforgiving as glass, and the sparse blades of rough grass scraped against the small patches of skin on her calves where her pants legs were hiked up. The strangely sweet air created a tingling that started in her lungs and traveled a slow course through her limbs. Blinking into the hard, brilliant sunlight, she could just make out the fuzzy shapes of trees and shrubs. In the distance came a strange warble, followed by a similar sound from another direction. An animal’s cry?

So she wasn’t dead…but this place wasn’t her home. This wasn’t where she’d been when the white light had snatched her. She could feel it in her bones, in the way her mind rejected her surroundings. And yet…she
belonged
here.

This was the hallmark of a dream, right? Existing sluggishly in a strange landscape, your mind peppered with scattered thoughts and nonsensical musings and random images?

Come on, Sera. Wake up
. Then, when nothing happened, when the sun still beat down on her body, and the trees started to sharpen and she did not recognize their shape or color, and the unseen animals started making alien sounds:
Oh God.

Did she believe in God? In any gods? How could she not even know that about herself?

Her torso crunched, knees coming to her chest, as a cold-hot wave of sensation sliced a river through her body. Fear—of who she was, of what had happened, of the unknown—rooted her in place.

A rhythmic sound started in the distance. A low, creaking
squeak
squeak
that came at regular intervals, growing louder as it slowly drew nearer. Not animal, not natural. Man-made.

The huge, blank void that was her life cracked open a little, and through that brief opening she glimpsed a bit of her true self. She was not helpless. She was many things—not all of them good—but helpless had never been one of them.

Though she couldn’t yet see the source of the squeaking sound, she did find a bush only a few feet away. Its thin branches were covered in waxy, sage-colored leaves, and she dragged herself toward it. Fingers digging into the dry, crumbling ground, knees pushing against the earth, she tried to hide. She curled into as tight a ball as the numbness in her body would allow, and hoped that whatever was making that sound would pass her by until her memory granted her mercy and finally spat out some answers.

The pattern of the
squeak
never quickened, but its volume rose and rose. Getting closer. Other sounds came in underneath. The continual stamp and clop of something on the earth. Footsteps, maybe? Caused by lots of people?

Though her vision was still blurry, she peeked through the scraggly branches in the direction of the sounds. There, in the center of a bright halo of sun, a long, rectangular shape lumbered toward her. It rolled on huge, uneven wheels, a fuzzy, indistinct horse pulling it across the earth.

The presence of a horse and wagon rang all sorts of warning bells in her head. The loudest one told her:
Be strong. Defend yourself.

Sweeping a weak arm over the ground, her fingers found a jagged rock. It fit nicely in her palm.

The hazy driver angled the wagon at Sera. He’d seen her.

She was ready for him. Because she had to be.

After a jangle of rope and metal, the brown horse halted, snuffling and stamping in place. Close enough for her to tell that its odor was awful. The squeak of the wheels stopped and the strange world filled with silence. The wagon was huge, looming over her. Dread and fear made her shiver.

A faint male voice muttered something, and she curled the sharp rock into her chest, preparing. The man climbed down from the wagon seat. Her vision was far from clear, but she could make out the general shape of his narrow body against the dark of the wagon and horse. As he limped toward her, his image sharpened: an old man, a long white beard covering the lower half of his severely weathered face. He was barefoot, his clothes barely tatters. The drab, filthy shirt stuffed into brown pants would have fallen off his body if it weren’t for his suspenders.

As the old man leaned over her, just out of reach, he used a thumb to tilt back his wide-brimmed hat. “Another one of you. Jesus.”

His scratchy voice whistled a little on the
S
. His accent was unfamiliar and it took her a few moments to comprehend what he said.

“Where did you come from, girl?”

His red-rimmed eyes widened as they set on her body. She realized that even though she was clothed—in black pants and a long-sleeved shirt that she didn’t recognize and didn’t remember putting on—she still felt completely naked. Vulnerable.

The rock dug sharp and dangerous in her hand. If he touched her, he’d soon limp on the other leg, too.

He waved a gnarled hand and blinked. “No matter. I think I know.” He
tsk
ed. “You’re in poor shape. Must’ve been terrible. What were you thinking, heading off into the bush alone?”

It
had
been terrible, only she couldn’t remember why.

With a grunt and a mighty creaking and popping of joints, he knelt beside her. “Let’s get you away before they come a-looking. And they will, believe me, for a pretty one like you.”

He shoved one bony arm under her shoulders and wedged the other under her knees, enveloping her in his body stink—layers of sweat and old man and the sour tang of stale alcohol. She wasn’t going anywhere with him.

Fight. Get away.

What little strength she owned she channeled into the hand that held the rock. Panic swung her arm into action, making a great arc out and away from her body. She brought it down upon him, all ferocity and power. She’d knock him senseless, this man who thought to pick her up like a doll and take her who knows where. She’d knock him out and run.
Just watch me.

The old man’s hairy-knuckled hand caught hers with terrible ease. He stared down at her, brow furrowed. Behind the sunburn and underneath his hat, she didn’t know how to read his expression, whether or not retaliation would come. Then some of the wrinkles in his face unfolded and his gray eyes softened. Taking her wrist, he lowered the hand holding the rock back to her chest and gave it a patronizing pat.

“Good girl. Good girl.” He chuckled low in his throat. “You won’t need that with me. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll let you hold on to it.”