Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] (2 page)

Easily, he swung over the rail of the boat and landed in the water with a small splash. Standing in the shallows, he opened his arms to her.

Kali gingerly lowered herself into his embrace. This was the first time a man other than a doctor had held her in over three months.

Campbell mistook the stiffness in her body for fear. “Never fash yourself, lass. I’ll have you safe and dry in just a minute.”

He slogged through the water, and though the hem of her skirts dragged a little in the surf, the captain held to his promise and kept her dry.

He set her down awkwardly on the rocky beach, and she fought to keep from stumbling. When he reached out to steady her, she held him off with an outstretched hand. “Only getting my land legs,” she said briskly.

Which must have been a common complaint, because he didn’t press for more details.

She shook out her skirts and readjusted her cloak. She tugged the tethering cord through the waves, pulling the control box out of the water. “Many thanks, Captain. I can manage from here.”

He stared at her, appalled. “Just leave you here? In this blighted place? Alone?”

“I made myself perfectly clear when I hired you. You were to ferry me to Eilean Comhachag and then return in a month’s time to resupply me.”

“But . . . but . . .” He turned in a circle, taking in the beach, the slope leading away from the shore. The utter isolation. “You’ll need shelter.”

“And I have it.” At the captain’s skeptical look, she sighed inwardly. Normally, she’d have been charmed by Campbell’s consideration. Yet things hadn’t been normal for her in months. “Here—I’ll show you.” It’d be the only way of getting rid of him. Damn these islanders and their thoughtfulness.

Leaving her belongings on the beach, she climbed the slope leading away from the shore. Tall grasses shivered in the breeze. Campbell’s heavier footsteps sounded behind her, and he snorted with effort. He was like a turtle—far more fleet in the water than on land.

Away from the beach, they headed inland, crossing a small, rock-strewn field. More windblown trees stood like lost souls hovering around the gates of Paradise, denied entrance but unable to move forward or back.

“There.” She pointed to the far edge of the field. “My shelter.”

“It’s naught but a pile of rocks,” Campbell protested.

“But it’s my pile of rocks.”

The cottage had been built some hundred years ago by an enterprising MacNeil, presumably thinking that because the island wasn’t inhabited, it would make for perfect fishing. Alas, the catch hadn’t been enough to warrant the relentless loneliness, and the cottage had been abandoned. But every few decades, another MacNeil thought to try their luck again. And every few decades, the cottage was deserted again.

Now it had a new MacNeil taking up residence. Though she had no intention of fishing. And the very thing that had driven her ancestors away was precisely what drew her.

She approached the cottage, with Campbell slowly following. For all the wonders of this modern age, none of those advancements had touched this place. The cottage was nothing more than four stone walls with a slate shingled roof. Two narrow windows—the glass cracked—flanked a single door, barely holding onto its hinges. A heavily rusted pump stood close by. Likely the only source of water.

Pushing open the protesting door, Kali peered inside. The movement startled some creatures living within. Birds darted past her, chittering as they wheeled up into the sky, and furred little beasts scuttled into the walls. She smiled to herself as Campbell yelped in alarm.

The interior of the cottage held a table, a single chair, and something that at one time had been a rope-strung cot and horsehair mattress, but was now likely the furry little beasts’ nest. A cupboard had been mounted to one of the walls, its sole occupant a chipped clay mug and plate. Smoke from the hearth had stained the ceiling. The hearth itself contained just a spit and a grate for burning peat. It had been so long since anyone had lived here, there weren’t even ashes in the grate. A rusty basin on a narrow stand must have served as the sink. There were no taps. No running water. No water closet.

For the first time in her life, she actually hoped for an outhouse.

Dust and cobwebs filmed every surface, giving the inside of the cottage a hazy look, as if it was a half-remembered dream that the dreamer would gladly forget upon waking.

“I have ample shelter,” she said.

“Here?” Campbell’s eyes were round. “You can’t mean—”

“But I do.”

“It’s not fit for the veriest bedlamite.”

She walked farther into the cottage. Cleaning wasn’t one of her favorite activities, but she’d have a full agenda for the next few days. Or weeks. At least she came prepared. “Perhaps I am a bedlamite, Captain. And this is my asylum.”

He chuckled at that, then his laugh turned uncertain when she simply looked at him.

“Lass—Miss MacNeil, it’s not safe here.”

“On the contrary. No place could be safer.”

“What if the Hapsburgs or Russians find you?”

Burning ice spread along her back, and ached in her leg. “The Russians and Hapsburgs were chased from Liverpool three months ago. They won’t be returning to Britain for a long while. And they wouldn’t bother with this place. No one cares about Eilean Comhachag.” Exactly why she’d come here.

The captain exhaled loudly. “I don’t like it.”

“Fortunately,” she answered, “you don’t have to.” Her conscience pricked at her rudeness, but now that she’d finally set foot on the island, all she wanted was its promise of solitude.

“What if I came back in two weeks instead of a month?” he offered. “Just to be certain you’re well.”

“A month will suit me perfectly. And I want you to let your fellow watermen know that I don’t desire any visitors. Only you, once a month.”

“For how long?”

She hadn’t considered that. How long did she need this self-imposed exile? How long before she’d want to join the world again? “As long as it takes,” she finally answered.

Campbell tugged on his beard, his gaze fixed upon the floor. “Lass,” he said haltingly, “is there . . . are you in hiding?”

More cold fire fanned through her. She could barely move her lips to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“There’s no shame in it.” The captain spoke quickly. “My own grandda was a smuggler—whisky, silk, clockworks—and he’d have to go underground sometimes when the tariff men came sniffing around. If maybe you took something, and needed to keep low for a while, well, I’d not think less of you.”

Kali almost laughed. “I assure you, Captain, that I’m no thief.” Aside from the ether tanks and control box, everything in her possession truly belonged to her. If anyone had been stolen from, it was her.

“Time for you to go,” she said.

Despite her poor manners, Campbell still looked reluctant to leave her. She pulled a half crown from her pocket. “This is yours, if you leave now.”

He eyed the coin warily, clearly torn. Finally, he took it from her. “What about your things on the beach? You’ll need to get them up here.”

“Same way I got them off the ship.”

“And setting everything up?”

“I’m stronger than I look.”

At last, he seemed to run out of excuses to stay. Grumbling, he walked out of the cottage. Kali followed him down to the beach. His little boat bobbed in the surf, looking almost eager to leave the island.

Summoning the last of her civility, she stuck out her hand. “Thank you, Captain.”

He shook her hand, though he also shook his head. “It’s an ill world when a pretty lass like yourself strands herself on a cursed piece of rock.”

“It’s an ill world, indeed,” she answered, pulling her hand from his grip. “Goodbye.”

With that dismissal, Campbell waded back into the surf. He pulled himself over the rail of his boat and hoisted the anchor. Taking the wheel, he backed the vessel out of the small bay. For as much as he protested leaving her there, a look of profound relief crossed his face the farther he got from the island. His hand went up in a final wave, and she returned the gesture. The boat chugged as it sailed away, growing smaller and smaller. She watched until it wasn’t more than a speck, then it disappeared.

Alone. She was finally alone.

And not the type of solitude one might find at a single table at a tea ship, or at the end of a jetty. This was true isolation.

She stood upon the beach, listening to the waves beat against the rocks. The wind sighed through trees and grasses. A bird—not an owl—chirped. These were the only sounds. Not the hiss of welding torches or the shouts of dockworkers. Nor the quiet voices of her fellow engineers consulting with one another about their latest projects. No tetrol-powered wagons rattling down the street. No vendors selling everything from meat pies to automated egg cookers.

All silence. And herself.

Kali waited for the iron cage around her to loosen. This was what she wanted. What she’d dreamed of for three months. Surely once she’d arrived here, to this desolate place, she’d finally feel at peace?

Peace didn’t come. She felt exactly the same.

Disappointment pierced her like an ether-powered bullet. Had she run this far for no reason?

She shook her head at herself.
Of course I don’t feel at ease yet. I’ve still got to get everything up to the cottage and clean. I’m sure once it’s all in place, I’ll be fine.

Picking up the control box from where she had left it in the sand, she guided her pallet of belongings up the hill and toward the cottage, the tether dangling between them.

Anxiety tightened like a steel corset. She wondered if there was anyplace she could go that would make her feel safe and whole again.

N
othing could be set up until the cottage was reasonably clean. She unfastened her cloak and hung it from the lone peg on the wall, pushed up her sleeves, and got to work as the afternoon stretched out like a pale shroud, though the inside of the cottage was murky with dust and age.

Anticipating the dilapidated state of her new home, she’d packed a few brushes, as well as a clockwork sweeper. It was her own device, constructed of a central brass cylinder with three rotating brushes—whimsically, she thought the brushes looked like spinning dancers—but their purpose wasn’t whimsical. They carried dust into a central pan that needed periodic emptying.

Kali carried all the furniture outside, then wound up the sweeper and let it run back and forth across the floor. Several times, she had to shake loose a particularly large clump of grime caught in the brushes. Mice fled in advance of the sweeper, probably thinking it some demon device of the apocalypse.

She felt a little sorry for the rodents. That same fear had chased her, too. But either the mice would adapt to their new home outside, or they wouldn’t. That was the way of things. One adapted, or one perished.

The clockwork sweeper didn’t work on walls, so it was with her own labor she scrubbed at the stone, a kerchief pulled up over her nose and mouth to keep out the worst of the dust. Spiders scuttled like asterisks in an annotated manuscript. She knocked out decades of accumulated soot from the chimney—narrowly avoiding a face full of grime as it came sifting down, and swept that out.

Gods and curses
,
I’m becoming almost domestic.
Something she’d never wanted to be. But that was the nature of adaptation. Demands were made, and ideologies couldn’t stand in the face of those demands.

There wasn’t much to do about the windows. She washed them down as best she could, but wind whistled through empty panes. The sun had begun to dip toward the horizon, and a cold embrace settled around the cottage. She’d need to patch the windows to keep from freezing. Tomorrow, she’d work on a more permanent solution. For today, she tacked up pieces of coated canvas and hoped to make it through the night without succumbing to frostbite.

But she had a means of keeping herself warm. And fed. The two most important elements of survival—or so her father had taught her from his years on long army campaigns.

Not wanting to waste her minimal supply of ether, she dragged into the cabin the large, heavy metal contraption that made up the bulk of her island possessions. She brought in her leather satchel full of tools, as well. Light inside the cabin began to fade, so she lit an oil lamp to help guide her in her labors.

The large metal device folded down for relatively easy transport. Now she loosened the screws and pulled on the steel panels, until the mechanism stood nearly as tall and wide as a cottage wall. She shoved it against the fireplace, then connected a wide vent from the back of the device to the hearth. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to use electricity or even tetrol on the island, she’d made adjustments back in Liverpool so that her cooking and heating device ran on peat—of which there was no shortage on Eilean Comhachag.

Once all the pieces had been put in place, Kali stood back to admire her handiwork. The large machine vaguely resembled a modern stove, with a range, oven, and even a salamander for putting the finishing touch on meat. But her cook-apparatus also used a series of heated glass tubes to purify water. Gears along the side turned a small barrel fan, circulating warm air through the cottage. There was even a timer built into the device so that if she wanted to begin cooking a stew or brewing a pot of tea, she’d only to twist the dial, and she’d have her food or drink at the time she wanted.

“All the comforts of home,” she murmured. Though home had become far less comfortable these past months. The island, and the cottage, would be her new home, and if it was more Spartan than she’d been used to, she simply repeated those important words again.
Survival. Adaptation.

Night was descending quickly. Far from inhabitation, darkness laid its claim with greater authority. She needed to work hastily. The bed and mattress were a loss, as she expected they might be, but her unfolding cot and tightly rolled mattress would serve as her bed. The rest of the furniture she brought back into the cottage, as well as her trunk full of clothing, a brass hipbath, and the wooden crate packed with books.