A Latent Dark (14 page)

Marley took one look at her and bellowed “Out!”

Skyla only stared at him, the other man now stepping back from her.

“No children!” Marley hollered, taking a heavy step toward the door. He lowered his arm and picked up another mug that was shaped like a coiled cobra. “And you
ain’t
bringing that rat with wings into my pub either. Now shoo!”

“Maybe he’s deaf,” Dale said, stepping back toward the bar. “It happens a lot with those gypsy kids. They stand too close to a cannon or they get water in the ear—”

“She,” said Skyla, trying to raise her voice above a fresh argument.

“What?” Marley said, leaning in.

“I said ‘she’,” Skyla said, more tired than annoyed. “I’m a girl. And this isn’t a rat, it’s a raven.”

“I don’t care if it’s a talking possum,” said Marley. “Go sell your trinkets somewhere else.”

“I’m not selling anything, I just need a place to sleep for the night.”

Marley laughed, his huge mustache cracking wide to reveal a row of mostly intact teeth. Dale continued to stare at the girl as if hallucinating.

“Does this look like an inn to you, kid?” Marley said, amused. “Go stay in town somewhere. I
ain’t
taking lodgers.”

“I don’t have any money.” She took a bold step into the pub. “And they told me I can’t stay in the city yet.”

Marley already had his palm out. “Not my problem. That
bird’ll
make a mess of the place.”

 “You’re worried about a bird making a mess of
this
?”

Dale snorted then fell silent under the weight of Marley’s scowl.

“The answer’s no,” Marley said, placing both hands on the counter, the wood protesting as it bent inward under his weight. For all his intimidation, Skyla could see his other shadow on the wall. He was mostly safe despite his immense size, his shadow drooping with guilt and shame.

“I can go,” said Skyla, “if you think you can live with yourself when I end up dead, or worse come morning.” She winced inwardly as his shadow looked back.

But Marley only blinked.

After a pause, she broke into a smile. “Besides, you look like you could use some help keeping this place clean.”

Dale watched her take two more steps into the bar and turned to Marley. “She’s right you know. This place is sort of a sty.”—he caught a dishrag with his good hand—“And you could certainly use the help around here.”—He dodged a mug, smiling as Marley hurled a plate at the floor by his feet.

Marley grunted, and then sighed. “Can you use a mop?”

“I can,” she said, then glanced around the floor. “But apparently you can’t.”

Dale laughed again as Marley gave a defeated sigh.

“Mop’s in the back,” he said, jabbing a massive thumb over his shoulder. “You’ll wait the tables and get clean cups from the back if we run out. Think you can handle that?”

She saluted as she headed toward the back of the pub, Orrin squawking from her shoulder. Marley asked her name.

“Skyla,” she said. “And you?”

“Marley,” he grunted. “That bird had better behave itself. You can work for one night, then out you go. There’s a guest bed on the loft above the pantry.”

“Will you vouch for me?” she asked.

“Huh?” He raised a bushy eyebrow.

“The guards said you had to vouch for me.”

He looked between her and Dale. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Upon entering the pantry, and climbing up the wooden ladder, Skyla wondered what sort of guest would actually fit in the “guest bed” which was simply a four foot straw mat and a sandbag for a pillow. She moved some sacks of flour out of the way and found she could barely fit as long as she didn’t stretch out her legs completely. Lying in the loft, she could almost touch the ceiling when she stretched her arms.

Orrin had found a rafter a few feet above her bed and was preparing to settle in for awhile. As he rested directly over her, Skyla wondered what sort of bowel control a sleeping raven possessed.

“Do you think he’ll let us stay longer?” she asked.

Orrin uttered a croak.

“You think we should keep moving…”

“
Pree-cher
.”

Skyla sighed. “You saw how big Marley is. He would crush the man.”

Another croak and a click.

She reached a hand out and petted his soft feathers. Orrin closed his eyes, yawning.

“Customers!” bellowed Marley from the front.

*

Sitting at a table near Dale were a couple of patrons that, by the looks of them, had already been drinking long before they arrived. The woman cast a hazy gaze at Skyla, then cracked a yellowish smile. Skyla grabbed a full mug from the taps and delivered it to them while Marley greeted newcomers from behind the bar.

“Well, look at you!” said the woman, overflowing in all the wrong places from her corset. “And who might you be?”

“I’m Skyla,” she said, placing a dolphin-shaped mug in front of the woman and another in front of the man.

“Very nice to meet you,” the woman said. “Marley! You start hiring any younger, you’ll have to deliver them straight from the mother’s wombs yourself!”

Marley walked back to the counter and waved her comment away. The woman released a high-pitched cackle.

“You must be new!” she said to Skyla.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Ma’am!” The woman gave a wry grin and elbowed her date. She leaned closer and said, “I could tell from the school uniform. You’re a
Bollingbroker
?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“My great uncle was too, you know. Back when times were good.”

She was speaking now with a lubricated nonchalance. Skyla noticed her nose was red, and her breath smelled of whiskey.

“That’s what they do up the hill, you know,” she said. “If you
ain’t
got money, you
ain’t
got a place in Bollingbrook.”

By the time people began to stumble home, Skyla realized that it was nearly sunrise. Her mouth was dry from introducing herself so many times, her head spinning with so many new faces. Some people were asleep in their chairs as the last conscious patrons left, waving and staggering. Marley hefted one of them out the door, suggesting he sleep against the wall outside. He threw them out, one by one, all except for Dale who was passed out at the bar, a small puddle of drool forming around his shallow beard. Marley polished the counter around him.

“Why do you let him stay?” she asked Marley. She was sitting a couple of seats away from the sleeping man. Her ears still rang from the evening’s noise.

“He’s had a bad run of luck,” said Marley, leaning onto the counter. “Used to be lookout crew. Guarded the docks.’

“What happened?” she said. Dale muttered something in his sleep.

“He lost a bet. A
big
bet.”

“What was he betting on?”

Marley polished a spot close by on the bar for a long thoughtful moment.

“He bet on me,” he said, then straightened to his full height and threw the dishrag under the counter. “Hungry?”

Marley disappeared behind the wall as Skyla looked at Dale’s shadow in private. She had seen men like him in Bollingbrook, one violation away from being jailed or banished from the city. She supposed a lot of them ended up here, assuming they didn’t find themselves on the business end of a scout’s crossbow. As Dale snored, his shadow spread out behind him. It was lonely and broken, reeking of disappointment and bad decisions—otherwise harmless. There was a hint of the handsome man he had once been beneath that beard.

Marley returned with a pair of plates garnished with pickled yams and bread. Skyla made quick work of hers and saved a piece for Orrin.

“Why did someone call him Half-Dale?”

Marley grunted between massive bites, his walrus mustache wiggling as if he were about to eat the plate as well. He wiped his face.

“He owed some money,” Marley said. “The arm you don’t see, there’s a reason for that.”

Skyla’s mouth made an O shape and she glanced back at the sleeping man. Marley yawned and stretched before extinguishing the few lanterns in the room. She was headed back to her loft when Marley cleared his throat. She turned.

“You uh… you did really good tonight,” he said, standing sheepishly at the entrance to his room. “If you’re up for it... I mean if you want… I could use the help tomorrow… weekends and whatnot.”

“Sure,” she said, trying to hide her excitement.

“I mean… I understand if you are just passing through,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “We get a lot of folks who are just—”

“No, I can stay,” she said beaming, surprised at how good it felt to say the words.

He nodded, said nothing more and disappeared behind his door. Skyla climbed into her loft and placed the spare food out on the end of the rafter for Orrin’s breakfast. She stroked his sleek feathers.

I could make a home here
, she thought.
A home where I don’t have to hide from the world, where strangers don’t look at me funny then turn away, where I wouldn’t have to run anymore. I wouldn’t even have to go to Rhinewall.

Too tired to struggle with the decision, sleep overtook her before she even finished the thought.

Chapter 9

To:

Father John Thomas: Rt. Rev. Millstone Parish, sub domain, Archdiocese of The Western Territories

The Vatican is aware of the pending investigation. I urge you to cooperate with Reverend Inspector Summers not only for your own sake but also for the sake of The Church. If contact is made with the girl, do not approach her, but instead report
immediately
to The Reverend Inspector Summers. He is to be given full access to any relevant records, which might help him speed his investigation along and result in recovery of the girl.

Dark times may be upon us.

Treat this matter with the utmost importance and urgency.

Sincerely,

The Right Reverend Christopher Boroughs, PhD,
ThD
, Archbishop of Bollingbrook and the Western Territories

PS – My hands are tied on this one, John. If you need to talk in person, you know where to find me.  – Chris

Father Thomas fumed as he read the message again. The top portion had the practiced handwriting of a Church scribe, the postscript in the archbishop’s own recognizable chicken scratch. He hadn’t seen Chris in years, but he had known that handwriting for decades.

Three days I wait for him to get back to me and he sends me this.

He threw the letter into an open drawer and slammed it shut. The past few days had been filled with lackeys arriving, their arms filled with document requests from Summers. After days of messengers barging into his office with their petty, time-consuming demands, he was beginning to fall behind in actual work. But that wasn’t what really bothered him. It was the pace of the Reverend’s investigation. Every unannounced visit felt forced, contrived, a needling distraction. He began to suspect that they had the sole purpose of disrupting him, keeping him in his place.