The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance (26 page)

One part of Annmar cringed. Worse than the ropen men? The other part of her set her jaw at this insinuation. This country girl had no idea what a borough of rough fellows was like to navigate. Annmar could rebuff the ropens if they approached her on the streets of Chapel Hollow. And likely they were retiring after their night’s work. But Mary Clare looked so serious and only meant to be helpful. “I’ll stay with him.”

Mary Clare grabbed her into a quick hug, then turned to Rivley. “Annmar’s safety is in your hands. If you care anything for me, you’ll look after her the way you would me.”

A blush blossomed under Rivley’s freckles, and he put up a hand between them. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I
mean
it.” She clasped his hand and drew it to her.

“Don’t nag at me,” he muttered. He pulled away with a quick side step and gestured Annmar to the street.

Mary Clare frowned and pushed her after Rivley. “See you soon.”

chapter twenty-nine

In the branches
over Wellspring’s market stand, Daeryn’s fur bristled. Paet had no reason to speak to Annmar.

But he was. Daeryn leaped to his paws and stalked along the elm limb, despite the danger his movement might be seen by his co-workers below.

Mary Clare sidled up to Annmar. The growl rumbling through his chest halted. Rivley’s headstrong female did have her uses, thank the Creator. Daeryn scooted behind a clump of yellow leaves, firmly anchored his claws and crouched.

None of them better look up, Jac especially. She’d recognize his ’cambire form more readily than the growers and wouldn’t see any need to keep his presence quiet. Tired as the wolf was after the long nights, Daeryn had no doubt she’d howl across the stand without a thought.

He spared the wolf girl a glance as Jac thrust a crate at the talkative ropen and sent him in the opposite direction from two growers. The ass was bothering every female. Well…speaking to them. Daeryn didn’t suppose saying “good morning” could be construed as annoying, but his hackles kept rising.

Daeryn passed a paw from ear to nose. He
intended
to visit the town chapel today, and the stone tower rising from the treed hollow
was
leaps away. Why didn’t he just go and make his appeals to the Creator?

Because he didn’t want the ropen anywhere near Annmar. Her delicate hands adjusted the jars nearest the carrots she’d stacked, then returned to swipe at the orange roots again. Rivley moved to work nearby. Between the hawk-eyed avian and Mary Clare’s continued glances to that end of the stand, Annmar was well watched.

Miz Gere may not be ’cambire, but their employer certainly had innate sensitivity where it counted. Her attention to Annmar might have been praise of Daeryn himself, the way it soothed his fur.

His haunches rose, and Daeryn inched deeper into cover, to a spot where he could still keep one eye on Paet. The unloading was complete. The ropens pitching in on their way back to their rooming house had helped the shorthanded farmworkers, giving Daeryn no right to be grumpy.

The head grower, Mr. Hortens, dismissed the extra people. The tractor’s engine turned over and jerked the wagon forward. As it pulled off, the ropens stopped Mr. Hortens. Maxillon had a hand out.

Why? With Jac gone and the chances of Daeryn being recognized reduced, he stalked forward and swiveled his ears toward the conversation.

“…this evening,” said Mr. Hortens. “She’ll be in her office while dinner’s out at the bonfire. Just stop by.”

They were looking for their pay, which Miz Gere didn’t give out until after Market Day.

Maxillon stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and turned without saying a thing. Paet frowned, but a second later he followed, donning the black duster he’d removed while helping with the unloading. The crowd parted for them.

Good, they were leaving, taking away their sullen temperaments that made Daeryn’s current mood look housecat-like.

They stopped to speak to someone. Daeryn caught a glimpse of a yellow coat and dark hair beneath a top hat. Nothing more. It wasn’t worth moving to inspect some random market-goer, so Daeryn stayed put.

Then Paet craned his head and looked back at Wellspring’s stand…to the end where Annmar leaned against some crates, drawing.

No
. Daeryn was on his paws, ready to leap, to warn Rivley. Hell, to change if needed…

A hand, scarred across the back, pulled Paet around by the shoulder. Anger flashed across the ropen’s face. The man in the yellow coat dropped his hand immediately, but dipped his head, blue eyes narrowed and cold. In the next second, passersby blocked Daeryn’s view. The man gestured and pivoted. The ropens followed, their dark bodies bobbing like muskrats swimming through the waves of more colorfully dressed people. The three disappeared.

Daeryn watched, making sure they didn’t return and taking periodic checks of the stand. Annmar had put away her sketchbook and stood, shifting nervously between Rivley and Mary Clare. His friend’s low tones didn’t carry, but Mary Clare’s higher-pitched words did—wails about Annmar getting lost. A worthy concern. Daeryn perched on his paws while the female worked at Rivley, making sure the birdbrain would look after this lovely girl. His respect for Mary Clare was growing. Perhaps these persistent traits in humans weren’t so bad.

Rivley stalked off. Annmar joined him, and they left Mary Clare behind. She should have gone—that redhead understood better how to care for the innocent Annmar. Daeryn spat, nearly yowling his annoyance.

His protective urges surged, bidding him to follow. But how? He scanned the limited trees here at the central square. None spanned the more open area, but those farther down did. He spun and climbed the trunk, chose a branch, bounded to the end and jumped to a crisscrossing limb from the next tree around the chapel.

By instinct, his paws raced along branches until he spied a suitable limb on the opposite side of the street. Daeryn wiggled into a crouch and flung his long body forward. He landed squarely, but when he darted a look to Annmar and Rivley, they were moving faster.

Daeryn stared after them. The damned buzzard had taken her arm—and Annmar was
laughing
.

* * *

Annmar walked side
by side with Rivley up the rapidly filling street. Every third or fourth person was unusual in some way. Familiar and unfamiliar animals walked by on their hind legs with furred, feathered or scaled skin, and sometimes ’cambire appendages. Some of their clothes, bags and jewelry were in the brightest, most colorful and outrageous combinations imaginable, while other garments faded into the background with muted earth tones of brown, ocher or gray. The people—she had to think of them in that way—inspected the sales goods, carried on conversations and chased after their children.

She wanted to record it all but, with her sketchbook tucked away, settled for committing the images to memory.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” Rivley leaned to her ear and whispered, “You can’t dawdle every time you see someone different. We’ll be all morning going one block.” He took her hand and linked it through his crooked arm. “Do your looking while I fly you—while walking.”

His technique of escorting her was most proper, the same as any town gentleman. She was instantly reminded of the last instance she’d witnessed, Mr. Shearing offering Polly his arm. Rivley was younger, not dressed as a gentleman, nor did he have Mr. Shearing’s ulterior motives. Yet he was equally confident in the posture, like nothing would ruffle him. She giggled at how Rivley’s bird characteristics now naturally fit into her thoughts, causing him to look at her curiously.

She smiled in return. “Thank you for your consideration.”

“At your service anytime.” He dipped his head, a flicker of avian features showing.

They arrived at the side garden of a stone house where a woman in a red apron served food from an outdoor table. They joined the line, bought breakfast pasties and took seats in the garden. As soon as Annmar bit into the flaky crust, she fully expected to have a vision. But she didn’t. The eggs and squash tucked inside were simply eggs and squash, and it was wonderful to just eat.

Rivley finished first. He slouched into the bench back and closed his eyes. He looked about to nap. Annmar hated to bother him, but over the garden wall streets of new and exciting sights waited.

“Rivley? Won’t Mary Clare find us if we stick to this area? Another farm stand is right there. Scarpel’s Farms. You could keep a lookout for her while I check its promotions.”

Rivley cracked one eye. “They’re in Mistress Gere’s consortium. Try not to be too obvious. Once MC arrives, we’ll visit the others on the way to the Town Hall. Mistress Gere is speaking at the monthly lectures, along with other Basin agriculturalists. They share seasonal updates and present new inventions for use here or that might be introduced Outside. We seem to always be in competition with Outside, though they have no notion of us.”

“Very well,” she said, but the thought of being indoors wasn’t as interesting as the market stands. Steps ahead of Rivley, Annmar headed to Scarpel’s, identified by the hand-painted name on a canvas strung along the front of their stall covering. Wellspring had neither, or hadn’t put up a covering on a clear day. The identification helped, but its serif letters were a little roughly executed. Inside, she discovered the sign’s artist had attempted to copy the professionally printed name that graced their crates and jar labels. Nice, but nothing unique to a farm.

Mary Clare hadn’t arrived, so Annmar wandered to the adjacent stand. It held fancy pewter plates. The next displayed hand-knit woolen wear and the third, used children’s shoes. Clearly, Market Day was part farm market, part sales of handcrafts and part secondhand store.

She nearly bypassed a small, covered area tucked between others, but noticed the moving hands of the proprietress sitting outside the canopy. A shapeless dress of the dullest brown practically hid the woman. The color matched the plowed fields Annmar had viewed crossing the Basin, and the lady’s graying mousy hair resembled twining branches of shrubs where it wrapped her bent head in two long braids. Escaping strands jiggled as the woman worked at something in her lap.

Annmar stepped closer. Slick with mud, the woman’s short, fat fingers pinched and squeezed at a lump of clay, molding it into…a figurine. Annmar caught her breath.
Doodems
. She darted a glance into the shaded booth. A table held trays of clay animals and plants, each nestled in cotton batting. They stared up at her, just as the doodem in the workshop had. But none of these was oily-looking or blue, so they looked more like Mother’s totems.

“You’re new to our market,” the lady said in a raspy whisper.

Annmar started and met the gaze of two bright hazel eyes set in a pale, fine-lined face. The wrinkles deepened into a smile. Annmar nodded cautiously. She looked around for Rivley. He wasn’t far, just a few feet away at a table of jumbled tools.

“Shopping for the zoolet or biota for the next phase of your life?” The woman must have realized Annmar didn’t understand, because she added, “Or is our worship tradition but a bit of local folklore to you? A little good luck charm for your home?”

She knew better. Doodems held some meaning. “Charms aren’t how my mother treated them.”

“A smart woman, your mother. If she honored them as the Creator’s Path directs, I’m sure her doodems brought life spirit to your home, healing if she cared for them properly.”

No, not healing. Tears sprang to Annmar’s eyes. To keep the woman from seeing and asking awkward questions, she stepped into the stand and bent for a look at the figures.

“Take your time, pet. Study them carefully to find just the right one.”

All were roughly the same size, two inches long and an inch wide, something that easily fit in the palm of one’s hand. The primitive style gave only a hint of the features, yet subtle differences easily identified the species. One had the ears of a rabbit, another a fox tail. Mixed in were doodems of leaves or flower buds on short stalks rising from a seed or corm.

The creaking chair signaled the old lady rising, so Annmar wasn’t surprised when she ambled to her side.

She touched a few of the figures, adjusting them in their bedding. “Doodems connect the earth to the body, bringing the wayward to themselves and home. They can bring you full circle, settle your body and your life.”

The little old lady turned and caught Annmar’s hand in her mud-stained palms, rubbing Annmar’s fingers with her own.

This stranger’s cool touch felt nice. The lady collected up her other hand and stroked both in a washing motion that spread a comforting sensation up Annmar’s arms and through her torso. The smell of moist earth filled the cozy enclosed tent, and Annmar closed her eyes to breathe it deeply.

Spring…damp soil…growing roots brushing past bits of stone. Last year’s leaves crumbling away to nothing as the worms chewed their way through. Their crunching in the dark was barely audible, yet joined the thrum of tiny noises surrounding them. The soft
churr, churr
of a content cricket rose to lull Annmar deeper into this peaceful tunnel’s fascinating nooks and crannies—a sparkle here, a thread of pulsing blue light over there—all waiting for her pencil to capture them.

Who are you, child that sees what no one else sees?

The voice belonged to the old woman, but came as a rasping echo from the dirt walls.