Jenna Starborn (35 page)

“What is this?” I called to Everett over the rushing sound of animated air. I had to brush the hair back from my face and repeat my words even louder for him to hear me.

“Solar tower,” he shouted back. “We're still protected by a forcefield, but a porous one, and we're up high enough that we can feel the effects of the atmospheric pressure. Breathtaking, isn't it? Makes you feel like you're standing on the very threshold of space.”

Indeed it did. I clung to the rail with even more determination, and turned my face deliberately back into the wind, tilting my closed eyes heavenward. I had the most physical sense of oceans of black space pressing down on me, a great void opening up before me, the limitless miles of the universe piled in spangled constellations above, below, before me. The whistling of the powerful wind seemed to be the whisper of the Great Mother, calming her restless children or adjuring them to behave. The tendrils of breeze across my face—surely no more than my own hair whipping across my cheek—felt like her loving fingertips smoothing away a tear. I felt her presence; I sensed her great and deeply personal interest in me, Jenna Starborn—in all her children. Indeed, as I stood there with my eyes shut and my whole body tense with exaltation, I swear I sensed the life force of every other soul in the universe, embedded in the consciousness of that divine being, who knew us all and forgot none of us and carried us with her wherever her seeking spirit sent her.

“Jenna.” But the concerned voice was male, and human, and called me back from the brink of communal ecstasy. “Jenna. Are you going to swoon? You appear to be in a trance.”

The hand shaking my shoulder was just as urgent and even harder to ignore. I opened my eyes and turned back to him with a wide smile. “I am quite all right. I am just listening to the Goddess.”

This admission earned me a skeptical look and caused him to drop his hand. “And what did she have to say?”

“Merely that she is here and she loves me. Loves us all.”

“Who loves us?” Ameletta wanted to know. She still had not released Everett's hand, and she looked very small and windblown, and not entirely happy. I bent to kiss her cheek.

“The Goddess. The unifying spirit of the universe.”

“I did not hear her say anything,” Ameletta said.

“How odd. Neither did I,” Everett murmured.

I smiled again and opened the door to our round little car. “I heard enough for all of us,” I said serenely. “You will simply have to take my word.”

This event was clearly designed to cap what had been a successful but very long day, and soon we were back in the Vandeventer, heading toward home. Ameletta fell asleep between us almost as soon as we were strapped in, and Everett and I talked in quiet, comfortable voices during the whole trip. I enjoyed those final hours nearly as much as I had enjoyed the entire rest of the outing, and I returned to the manor house as happy and content as I had ever been in my life.

T
he next week flew by Everett and I had, with very little more discussion, settled on a day in the middle of the following week as our wedding date, which gave us exactly seven days to prepare. I, of course, had little to do except fold my new clothes and await the delivery of my wedding dress. Everett was much more occupied, for he had to notify lawyers and financial institutions of his impending change of status, and he had to advertise for my replacement, and he had to make arrangements for Ameletta's care while we were gone. Mrs. Farraday, of course, could watch the little girl some of the time, but she had duties of her own, and auxiliary help was required.

“And then we must come up with a plan for her once we have returned to Thorrastone Park,” I told him on the evening before our wedding, as we sat together quietly in his study. “For I don't imagine I will be free to tutor her as she should be tutored, and—”

Everett looked up from where he was sitting in front of his computer monitor, entering computations. “Return to Thorrastone Park!” he repeated. “But we will not be living here. This is not my primary home—indeed, I have already stayed here much longer than is my wont.”

“Oh? And where will we live?” I asked calmly, though I felt a certain nervousness jolt through me. I had known this, of course, but I had not really considered it. The place that I had come to consider home was to him no more than a stopping place, a seasonal house, a property to be maintained.

“On Salvie Major much of the time, and Corbramb, but we will be traveling as well,” he said. “There is so much I want to show you, Jenna! So much you have not seen! We could wander for five years and not see all the wonders of the universe.”

“Keep in mind that I am not much of a sojourner,” I said. “I like a settled place, and a familiar roof, and faces that I grow to love. And Ameletta will require such things as well.”

“Ameletta! She will be enrolled in school very soon. I shall look into that as soon as we are returned from our honeymoon.”

“But I thought you had only agreed to send her to school to appease Bianca Ingersoll,” I said, troubled. “I had thought we would keep her with us always, or at least near us. I am very attached to her—and I cannot help but look on her as your daughter.”

He seemed somewhat exasperated by this, but he threw up his hands and laughed. “We shall discuss this further,” he promised, turning back to his computer screen. “I will make no plans for her of which you do not wholeheartedly approve.”

And I believed him; therefore, I was certain Ameletta's future would be as happy as I could make it. “What are you engaged upon so industriously?” I inquired then. “I can leave the room if I distract you.”

“No, stay—I enjoy having you nearby, and this is not work that requires much concentration,” he said. “I am informing all my acquaintances of my coming change of status. I imagine by the time we return, we will have a backlog of congratulatory messages awaiting us—and perhaps a stack of gifts as well.” He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Feel free to send the news to all of your friends, Jenna. I assumed you had done so, but in case you thought you needed my permission, I tell you to go ahead now.”

I smiled. “No, indeed, I did not think enough of your consequence to keep this news a secret,” I said. “Though, in fact, I had very few people to tell. I sent a message to my aunt's estate, in case they would have some need to look for me, and letters to a few friends from Lora. Also my aunt's housekeeper, Betista, who was always kind to me. But no one else would think to wonder where I was or what had happened to me if Jenna Starborn, transformed to Jenna Ravenbeck, were to disappear from the folds of the universe.”

Once again he turned to look at me, and the expression on his face was most serious. “I would know,” he said quietly. “If you were to disappear into the black mystery of the galaxy, I would feel the loss.”

I smiled again. “Yes, but you are the person with whom I am going to disappear,” I pointed out. “So you will not need to wonder where I am.”

He worked perhaps an hour more in silence, then shut down his monitor and came to sit beside me on the sofa. “And so, Jenna, our last night together before we are husband and wife,” he said, taking my fingers in his hand and playing with them as if they were separate and distinct toys that he could roll together to make a bony, hollow music. “Are you nervous? Hopeful? Frightened? Jubilant? You are so quiet I cannot always tell, but sometimes a fugitive joy fizzes behind those earnest eyes and I think, ‘Aha! Jenna is happy!' ”

I took his restless hand and laid it against my cheek, and I turned my earnest eyes on him with all the soulfulness I could muster. “I am happy, Everett, for I love you with all my heart,” I said simply.

He turned his head quickly to plant a kiss in my palm. “Sweet Jenna!” he whispered. “I pray every night that I will be a good husband to you—that you have not misplaced your trust by giving yourself into my care.”

“I need no such prayers,” I said. “I have no fears.”

He was silent a moment, as if mulling over something else he might say, and then he gave a short, rather strange laugh, and stood up abruptly. “But I forgot! This is our night to celebrate! You promised long ago to wait up with me the night before I wed, and I promised to share with you that bottle of aprifresel wine. I put it in here somewhere—now where the devil has it gone?”

He searched for perhaps five minutes before locating his prize, and shortly the two of us were sitting on the sofa, toasting each other with the wine. Mr. Ravenbeck tossed his back with every appearance of a man swallowing poison as quickly as possible; I sipped mine more cautiously. And immediately coughed on the sweet, syrupy stuff.

“Everett! This is dreadful!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, but you must drink it anyway,” he said, pouring himself another glass. “That is why you brought it back from Baldus, and a bargain is a bargain, no matter how distasteful. Drink-drink-drink—there you go,” he said admiringly as I managed to choke down a few more mouthfuls. “You worried that you would be drunk on the stuff, but you're more likely to contract a stomach disorder.”

“I am likely to be both sick and hungover in the morning,” I observed through watery eyes as I held out my glass for another portion. “This is positively the last time I will allow you to make me drink a liquor I do not like—but since we
did
make a bargain, I will stick to it. And by that you can judge the extent of my loyalty in future endeavors.”

“Done,” he said, touching his glass to mine again. Again we drank, and again filled our goblets, and drank again. Soon enough we were both groaning and laughing, and the evening ended on a note of rather disorderly merriment. I stumbled to my feet as the clock struck midnight and gave him an exaggerated (and somewhat unsteady) curtsy.

“Everett Ravenbeck, I will see you in the morning,” I said formally.

He bowed in return. “And Jenna Starborn, in the morning I will make you my bride,” he said. “Sleep deeply, my beloved. Dream of me.”

“I always do,” I said, curtsied again, and left the room.

 

 

T
he morning dawned as all mornings on Fieldstar did, to a cold, filtered light, but to me the day was washed with iridescence and suffused with magic. I had slept very little, but woke feeling light and brittle, almost weightless, buoyed by an indescribable joy. Mrs. Farraday had told me the day before that I should keep to my room until the travel vehicles had assembled at the door to convey us to the Registry Office in town; among the elite on Fieldstar, as in many societies, it was customary for bride and groom to not view each other on their wedding day until the very moment the ceremony was to begin. Of course, it was rare that bride and groom shared the same household—thus my confinement to my room.

So I lay abed lazily long after I should have been up, bustling about, and then I took a lengthy shower. I washed with perfumed soap that Mrs. Farraday had given me, and shampooed my hair with an herbalscented concoction that had also been a gift from her. I was touched at these evidences of her affection—and at her realization that a hardworking half-cit girl would never have thought to indulge in such extravagances. But I loved the luxuriant feel of my washed hair and the silken texture of my pampered skin, and I silently blessed her.

Mary brought my breakfast tray and set it on my little desk, then burst into tears and hugged me. “Congratulations, Miss Starborn,” she said. “What a grand day for you!”

“Why, thank you, Mary! It means so much to me that you and the others wish me well.”

But then she recollected that I was now to become mistress of Thorrastone Park and that we were not really friends, and she flushed, bobbed her head, and backed out of the door with some haste. I felt a moment's sadness at this, but I strove to banish it. Nothing, as far as I was concerned, would occur to dim the brilliance of this day.

Ameletta joined me as I was finishing my meal, and she sat at the desk and bombarded me with questions. Was I happy? Was I scared? Did I know the things a bride should know? (I hoped devoutly that she knew less about those mysteries than I did, though, given the worldliness she exhibited in other instances, I was not prepared to be certain of this. In any case, I merely answered “Yes” and turned the subject.) Could she come to my room and be dressed alongside me? Could we ride together in the estate car?

At this last question, I laughed and said, “You know, I'm not certain what the travel arrangements are. I know that Mr. Ravenbeck can fit three into his Vandeventer—but only if one of those three is a small person like yourself.”

“Mr. Ravenbeck said he would fly the aeromobile and that Mrs. Farraday would ride with him. He said I could accompany them, but I would much rather be with you in the estate bus, Miss Starborn.”