15. Through My Eyes Stare Into Me

Betsy drank all her broth, and was afterwards able to stand at the washbasin to scrub her teeth with a bit of bicarbonate of soda, though the effort clearly tired her. Holly wondered if this small accomplishment should be reason for hope. She helped the child to wash up, using a basin of soapy warm water and a clean flannel cloth, and dressed her in one of her own chemises. The sleeves had to be tied back, and it reached past her feet, but at least it was clean. Holly smiled as Betsy ran the soft linen through her tiny fingers. “We’ll have to call up Madame Lilly, and have her sew you some proper dresses,” Holly said.

The girl’s eyes shone. “I can have a new dress, Miss Holly?”

“Well, of course you can, duckling! And shoes and stockings, and ribbons for that pretty hair.” Holly carefully brushed out the tangly locks, wishing her tiny charge was well enough for a real bath. That hair could shine like amber, if I could get it clean. Betsy crawled under the heavy blankets, her movements revealing how weak her little body still was, though she’d slept off and on throughout the afternoon. Holly regarded the soft features and dimpled smile a moment. “Betsy, how old are you?”

Uncertainly, Betsy held up three fingers, then slowly unfolded three more, counting under her breath. “My birthday’s in May...”

“Why, then, you’re already six and a half!”

Betsy beamed at her. “I was already big enough to work in the mill!”

Shocked, Holly tried to hide her dismay. “Why, that’s...that’s very brave, dear. But what did you do in the mill?” Oh sainted Howard Philips, please don’t let it be the lumber mill, or the paper factory, with those immense saws and rollers...

“I was one of the girls what grabbed up the bits of cloth from the sewing tables,” the child bragged, then became almost shy. “My Ma worked there. She said in another two years I might learn to work the machines like she did.”

Eight years old? Children, slaving at the sewing machinery, where they might catch a finger or cut their hands, for hour upon hour each day? Holly swallowed dryly. “Were you paid anything for your work? Did they treat you well?”

The girl scowled. “I had a cup of broth a day, ‘til Mr Slaghorne said they couldn’t feed extra mouths with my Ma not working, and turned me out.”

The factory only gave her one scant meal a day, and kicked her into the street after her mother was too sick to work anymore, Holly realized, and anger welled in her chest even as heat prickled the corners of her eyes. She turned her head, pretending to adjust the plague-mask over her nose and mouth, wiping away the nascent tears. Vonken said from the doorway, “Better the factory than the streets. There are worse uses for a little girl in this city.”

“That’s what Ma said,” Betsy agreed, still studying her fancy new nightshirt. “Did you do this flower, Miss Holly?”

Holly looked down at the delicate embroidered leaves and berries on the collar of the chemise. “No, duckling. My mother had marvelous needlework skills. And that’s not a flower, it’s a holly...see, that’s a leaf, and that’s another, and those are its berries.”

“Like at Yule?” Holly nodded, and Betsy smiled. “Like your name!” Holly smiled back, and Betsy fell silent a moment. “I wish my Ma had made me a pretty dress like this. She sewed some for my sisters, before...”

Holly squeezed the child’s hand, her throat tight. She brushed her other hand across Betsy’s brow, and looked back at Vonken. He met her gaze, and wordlessly came to the bed, drawing a glass thermometer from his bag on the way. Betsy obediently opened her mouth and held the instrument under her tongue until Vonken checked it. “Still a slight fever,” he said quietly, showing Holly the mercury, which had reached over ninety-nine degrees. He produced a faint green glow in one palm, and sterilized the thermometer with Dust-energy before returning it to his bag. He glared at the closed blinds, then at Holly. “What part of one hour was not sufficiently clear?”

She opened her mouth to retort that if he was to sleep like the dead, she thought it fit to leave him for such, but the sight of a pulsing string of pearlescent light emanating from his chest silenced her. Vonken gave her a puzzled frown. “What are you gaping at?”

Holly blinked. The light vanished. “Nothing,” she murmured. Must have been a reflection. The street lamps... But the blinds were shut tight, she’d made sure of that at sunset, wary of unseen spies outside.

“Where’s that tea I was promised?”

Holly recovered herself and glared right back. “I imagine it’s in a pot in the kitchen, waiting for you to go boil water for it.”

Vonken left the room, muttering imprecations concerning promises unkept. Betsy shifted under the blankets, drawing them up to her chin, which caught Holly’s attention. “Are you cold, sweetie?”

“Maybe a little,” Betsy said. At once Holly went to the hearth and stirred around the still-flickering pieces of wood to make room for two larger logs. She was going to run out of firewood tomorrow, at this rate, but she couldn’t deny the child the warmth. She’d ring up Mr Havegood at the Market Exchange tomorrow and...no.

No sooner did I get used to the annoying thing than I had to drop services, she thought. Mikael had been very insistent on their installing one of the new televoxic devices, a convenience which just a few years ago had been the luxury of only the very wealthy and the buildings of government, until the repairs to the local exchanges enabled more of the citizenry to have their very own Concordia Televox. Mikael had even paid for Autumn Hill to have its own private line, rather than share a party line as many of the middle class opted to do...and after his death, Holly had determined that her greatly revised budget wouldn’t allow for such a silly luxury, and had the line disconnected. She sighed. Since she couldn’t call the market for a cartsman to bring up more wood, and her presence was needed here by this hopefully not-dying child, well... Vonken will just have to accept a few jobs ordinarily beneath him. If he really wants to contribute, let him get the firewood!

Satisfied with this plan, she returned to the bed and fussed with the pillows. “There we are. All comfy?”

“Yes, Miss Holly, thank you.” Holly smiled, but Betsy seemed uneasy. Suddenly she asked, “Are kraken real?”

Holly thought of the Pilot upstairs. Things had been silent from that quarter for hours; she should make sure Vonken went up and saw to the monster’s care before he departed tonight. The thought of possibly having to do so herself sent a chill down the back of her neck. She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to appear reassuring. “Well, yes, they are, but you needn’t worry about any of them coming here. The only place they land in Concordia is at the Airship Docks.” A memory clouded her eyes a moment. “Mikael and I used to ride the ferry just to watch the ships taking off, when we were little. It was only dirigibles, when I was your age...the krakenships came later.”

“People really ride them?”

“Well, not ride them like you would a horse...” Holly realized the girl would never have been on a horse, and most likely never even sat in a carriage until she was brought here. “There’s a sort of cabin, like you might have on a ship at sea, and the kraken carry this strapped underneath them when they fly.” Seeing Betsy’s dubious expression, Holly patted the blankets. “Wait just a moment. I’ll be right back.”

She hurried to the library and returned swiftly with the correct book. She opened it to the frontispiece and turned it toward Betsy. “That’s a krakenship.” The child studied the five-color chromatograph of one of the mighty, enigmatic beasts carrying a cabin full of passengers. The image had been taken from the docks, and looking up, the chromatographer had captured blurry hands and tentacles in motion: the passengers gaily waving to the spectators below, and the monster sweeping its many arms through the air, flying with imperturbable and implausible grace. “Of course, they didn’t always fly. They’re born in the ocean.” Holly gently took back the book, turning pages past Mikael’s rather pompous introduction. Of course that Pilot must have frightened her. Good thing she didn’t see the body-tentacles; its face is hideous enough. Betsy still appeared troubled, so Holly found the start of the first chapter, and began to read aloud, in a soft but clear voice. “’Sailors of centuries past had many tales of the dangers of the sea; many stories of sea-monsters were shared by old salts over a ration of rum to the newer crew, and no doubt vastly embellished in order to fill their audience with wonder and terror. We know now that the sea-unicorn is a race of whale, more properly called the narwhal; and tales of mermaids have never been proven. However, the most fearsome creature of the deep has indeed shown itself, in this age of wonders, to be quite real: the many-limbed behemoth whom Norwegian sailors called the kraken.’”

“You’re reading your brother’s treatise to the child?” Vonken demanded. Holly glanced back to see him easing into a chair by the fireplace, carefully holding a full teacup.

She gave a small shrug. “I find the best way to combat a fear is to attack it with knowledge.”

“That’s hardly a children’s story.”

“I fear I don’t have any children’s books in the house, Dr Vonken.”

He smirked. “Silly me. Of course you were never a child. Probably sprang from your father’s forehead with your nose already in a book.”

Ignoring him, Holly resumed reading. “’Although it is presumed the creatures inhabited the oceanic depths, far below the level any bathysphere could penetrate, deeper than any man could hope to survive even in the toughest iron suit, the Cataclysm seems to have wrought dramatic changes in their physiognomy...’”

Betsy frowned. “Miss Holly, I don’t know them words.” When Holly stopped, chagrined, the girl winced. “I’m sorry.”

Holly sighed. “No, dear, don’t be. Let me...let me see if I can translate it for you, all right?” She shot a look at Vonken, but he seemed for once to be holding his tongue, brows raised in interest. “What this says is...the kraken once lived in the deep, deep parts of the ocean. Hundreds of years ago, there were stories about them. Supposedly they would drag ships under the sea, and they were so big they could cause whirlpools that...” Seeing fear in those wide, bright eyes, Holly reassessed her approach. “Those were just fairytales, though. Scary stories, but not true.” Vonken, if you say a word, I will throw you out. However, only the sound of the fire crackling reached her ears. “When the Cataclysm occurred, a lot of things changed. I’m sure you’ve heard some scary stories about that, too.” Betsy nodded. “Well, some animals...changed, because of the Dust. A lot of things are different now than they were before, and the kraken are one of the creatures that changed a great deal. Where they used to live in the ocean, and were hardly ever seen, so that most educated people thought they weren’t real, suddenly they began coming out of the water...and flying.”

She paused, remembering the panic which had swept the city when the first of the monsters soared overhead. “At first, it was pretty scary. Kraken are very big. Bigger than a house!”

“Bigger than this house?”

“Some, yes. But don’t worry, they don’t come into the City itself. The noise...all the people make so much noise, the kraken don’t like it, and they usually fly around us by miles.”

“The wharfs are really noisy in the daytime,” Betsy agreed, nodding sagely. “All them men yelling while they unload the fish and crabs.” She shuddered. “I don’t like the crabs.”

“You want to know a secret?” When Betsy stared at her, Holly whispered, “I think the crabs are awful!” Betsy gave a nervous giggle, and Holly nodded at Vonken. “Our doctor here helped me fight off a whole horde of them yesterday, before we found you!”

“’Helped’?” Vonken muttered, but one curl of his moustache quirked upward.

Betsy leaned forward to look at the book, and Holly gave it to her, allowing her to page through it until she found an illustration, an old engraving of a huge-eyed, snake-limbed monster wrapping itself around a sailing vessel. Tiny sailors leaped into the waves as the mighty arms cracked the ship in half. She gulped visibly. Holly turned to a later chromatograph, this one of a young Pilot holding onto a giant tentacle as another curled around his waist. The great eye of the kraken stared, unblinking, over the shoulder of the Pilot. “But you see, the kraken aren’t quite the scary monsters that the sailors said they were. Every year, a few of them come up on the beach at Krakenspoint, out near where the river pours into the ocean, and they meet the young airship candidates. These are young men who feel...special toward the kraken, and they go out to the beach at Midsummer. Some of them...become friends with the kraken, and those become the Pilots and their ships.” She thought it best not to mention what Mikael had detailed, much to the horror of readers who hadn’t known the truth: not every hopeful candidate bonded with a newly-risen kraken. Sometimes, one or more of the youths would be dragged into the water, as all candidates were, but never emerge triumphant on the mantle of one of the beasts. Some hopefuls never surfaced again.

Although the publication of this book had made waves through the scientific community all along the Pacific coast, and even sold well for a time due to the lurid nature of the truths within it, Holly knew the public generally didn’t believe kraken were capable of reasoning, of feeling, of bonding with their Pilots as Mikael had asserted. Stories almost every week in the Concordia Ledger painted the creatures either as beasts of burden, like tentacled mules, or reminded their readers the wild kraken were dangerous during breeding season. Mikael had detailed the actions of the wild kraken, as well as the hunters who went out each fall to ensure the monsters didn’t roam overland where they might encounter people. Every year, some fisherman would fail to return from the tidal bar where salmon still swam. Breaking into Holly’s thoughts, Betsy asked, “Is it true kraken eat people?”

Startled, Holly hesitated. Vonken spoke up. “Not usually. And I hear they have a marked distaste for little girls, so you’re safe.”

“You needn’t worry,” Holly told her. “The wild ones never come into the city.” And that’s why only well-armed idiots venture to the shore anymore. She stroked the girl’s hair. “Don’t be frightened. You’re completely safe here.”

“What about Jer’my, and Susie, and everyone?” Betsy asked worriedly. “They go down to the river a lot!”

“The kraken don’t like being around a lot of noise, remember? Not just shouting and machinery, but...they hear thoughts,” Holly explained. “We’re not sure if they understand us, but they hear us, and to them it probably just sounds like a lot of banging around.”

“Which is probably why the old ones took down ships...” Vonken murmured. Holly shot him a disgusted look.

“They don’t do that anymore. Never you mind, dear.” Holly forced a smile for the child.

Betsy’s gaze shifted to Vonken. “Even if a kraken came here, Dr Vonken could scare it off, right?” she asked.

“I’m sure they’d take one look at that silly moustache and flee for their lives,” Holly agreed, and Betsy giggled, then glanced shyly at the doctor.

Vonken rose and came closer. His smile was gentler than Holly had expected. “I’m far too handsome for the likes of the slimy beasts.”

“And you’re one of them ‘spark people?”

“And I’m one of those, yes.”

“Okay,” Betsy said, snuggling into her pillow, her eyes drifting closed. Holly stroked her hair once more. Before she’d finished saying goodnight, the child was breathing more slowly, falling asleep. Vonken moved silently to the hallway, beckoning for Holly to follow. She closed the bedroom door partway as she did. Turning into the darker hall, in the moment it took her eyes to adjust, she spied that odd light again, like a slender cord tethered to Vonken’s chest.

“Since it’s already past—“ Vonken began, just as Holly gave in to curiosity and reached for the glowing cord. A violent flash sent both of them staggering back. Holly smacked into the doorframe, pain shooting along her shoulderblade. Vonken nearly went over the railing to the stairs, grabbing it fast just in time. He stared at her in apparent panic. “What the hell?”

Holly sucked in a breath, and quickly examined her hands: for a moment they’d felt burned, but when she looked, they seemed ordinary. “What did you...”

Vonken strode to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, making her stifle a gasp of pain. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

The only thing which kept her from being wholly frightened was the fear in his eyes. She regained her voice, and whispered, “You’ll scare Betsy.”

He stared at her, wide eyes searching her face. Gradually he released those iron fingers, and Holly pulled away. Both of them were breathing shallowly, tense. Holly opened the door to the turret room and peered in, but Betsy seemed asleep. She gently shut the door all the way. Vonken hissed, “Are you trying to kill me?”

“What are you talking about?”

He touched his chest with trembling hands. “The heartlink...that’s the second time you’ve...” His gaze sharpened. “I’ll be royally fucked. You really don’t know, do you?”

A little shocked, Holly grabbed his arm and drew him into the library, well out of hearing range of the sleeping child. “Language!”

“Forgive me, Miss Autumnson, but fuck propriety. Just what the hell did you think you were doing?” Holly stared at him, confused, and he thumped his chest with one fist. “This link is what keeps me breathing, you foolish girl! Why did you just try to yank it out of me?”

“I didn’t—“

“And yesterday, in Wharfside, you jerked on it and damned near pulled my heart out! I thought it was some sort of coincidence, but now this?” He loomed over her, clearly furious. “How is it you can even see it?”

“How should I know?” she shot back. “And what do you mean, it keeps you breathing? As if I would know anything about some bizarre Coldspark...” she fished for words. “Anatomical anomaly!”

He suddenly took her face in his hands, fingers sparking. Holly instinctively jerked away, but he held her fast, dark blue eyes boring into hers. “How can you...but you don’t...” His expression changed to one of fearful perplexity. “But you’re not even a Coldspark! How is it you have so much power?”

Holly planted her hands on his chest and shoved hard. “Let go of me!” A flash of reddish light startled them both. Holly blinked rapidly, spots dancing in her vision, and suddenly saw Vonken’s hands up in a defensive posture, green sparks arcing from his fingertips...and her own hands raised, with a bright crimson glow surrounding them.

They stared at her hands. The glow faded. Holly brought her hands closer, looking frantically from thumbs to fingers and back, feeling a tingling all through them. She didn’t appear harmed; her skin was pink and unbroken, the nails smooth. She looked slowly up at Vonken, who seemed just as troubled. “What the hell did you do to me?” she breathed.

He frowned, shaking his head. “I did nothing! You sparked!”

“I thought you said I wasn’t—“

“You’re not!” He lowered his hands, the energy dying away. “I don’t...this makes no sense.”

Holly paced the carpet, trying to remember all she’d read about Coldsparks and Dust energy. “You said before I had more...core energy?...than most people.” She looked back at him; he hadn’t moved from a spot just within the library doorway. He gave her a nod, watching her warily. “How did you know you were a Coldspark?”

“You’re not a Coldspark.”

“But if that energy just jumped into my hands—“

“You’re not. The...the feel of you is all wrong.”

Holly glared at him. Vonken shrugged, irritated. “I don’t know how to explain it! But your energy doesn’t feel like that of any other ‘spark I’ve met. You feel the same as any other typical human, except for that strange reservoir of power...”

“You make me sound like a keg full of powder, waiting for a match.”

“That’s about right,” he agreed, surprised. “Good analogy.”

“But I don’t know anything about this!” Holly protested. “Until I met you, I was perfectly ordinary!”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Vonken sighed, almost to himself.

“You did something to me, when you pulled that energy out of me to fight the crabs!”

“That was an utterly simple charging maneuver!” Vonken held up one hand to stop her pacing; Holly tensed, but there was no greenfire around his gloved fingertips. “Hold it. Wait. Will you let me try something?”

“What?”

He took a deep breath. “That manifestation you just performed. Did you intend to knock me back with a Dust-powered blast?”

Frustrated, Holly snapped, “I just wanted you to let go of my head, you overbearing idiot!” She swept one hand at him while speaking, as if pushing him back, then froze. They both saw the red glow surrounding her hand again. Just as swiftly, it vanished. Fear crept up Holly’s spine. “I...how did I...”

Vonken braced his legs as if ready for a charge. “Do it again.”

“But I don’t know—“

Vonken muttered something, and cast one hand at Holly as if throwing something; she saw the ball of lightning spring into existence inches from her nose, and with a shriek slapped it away. It careened into a bookshelf, which promptly exploded in a flash of light and green flames. Holly gaped at it, then frantically grabbed a throw blanket from the back of a chaise and beat out the flames. “Vonken! My books!”

He sank into an armchair, eyes wide in wonder, ignoring her efforts to douse the fire. “I’ll be buggered sideways,” he muttered.

Holly whirled, stirring a flight of tattered, blackened bits of paper into a miniature snowstorm. “Yes you fucking are!” she yelled, not caring one whit about language presently. “My books! What in the name of all the unholy deep ones were you thinking?” He simply stared at her, absently toying with one curl of his moustache. Infuriated, Holly picked up one of the half-burned tomes and threw it at him hard as she could. He flicked one finger in the air, and the missile disintegrated in a fizzle of green light. Holly stamped a foot. “Vonken!”

“Amazing,” he murmured.

Holly stormed over to him, holding another burned book. She shook it at him. “Look at this! What the hell are you playing at? Shooting fireballs at me in my library!”

“Not even conscious,” he said, eyes still glazed as he regarded her standing over him. Holly glared at him. With what seemed like a loud crack-crunch in the silence which followed, the singed body of the book she held peeled away from the binding and crumpled onto the carpet.

“Are you completely insane?” Holly demanded. “Did you really just toss a greenfire missile of some kind right at me? The dangerous kind of Dust-power? Right at me?”

“And you batted it away as though it were no more than a gnat,” he pointed out.

“Well what else was I—“ she stopped, shocked. It burned my books. It was real. The real, violent power Coldsparks use to destroy things, like during the siege of Tacoma. He wasn’t tossing silly light effects around. That could have hurt. Could have killed. How the hell did I just slap it away? She looked at her hands. No burns, save for a few specks from the smouldering ashes of a few books. In rising panic, she raised her eyes to the sapphire ones staring back as though he was trying to see through her, see inside her, and failing.

He shook his head slowly, and his voice was soft. “What the blazes are you, Holly Autumnson?”