The Golden Specific (8 page)

By now, even Bronson had observed the patchy pattern of Wren's knowledge. We had discussed it at length in private and reached no conclusion, other than to agree that whatever Wren was concealing could not be ill-intention toward us. He seemed to genuinely care for our well-being. Sensing this prompted me further to seek the cause of his sudden confusion. I fully expected that the explanation would be illuminating, not incriminating. “You seem to be very familiar with some aspects of New Occident, Captain Wren,” I said gently, “and very unfamiliar with others. How is that?”

He sat silently for a moment, taken aback by my direct question. Then he smiled, and his white teeth gleamed. “I set
sail for the first time when I was only a boy. I've spent most of my life at sea, and I've never had any formal schooling. You must excuse my ignorance. I am sure most of my secondhand knowledge is very ill-informed.”

Bronson and I listened silently to this explanation, which I, at least, found entirely inadequate. My husband seemed more inclined to indulge Wren, not because he believed him, but because he trusted Wren's motives. Politeness prevented me from pushing further, and so that evening we learned nothing more. I was ignoring my better instincts; I knew, then, that Captain Wren had no personal knowledge of New Occident at all. But I could not imagine what interest he had in pretending so arduously otherwise. So I remained silent, and the deception continued.

 7 

Gordon Broadgirdle, MP

S
OPHIA
LEFT
THE
kitchen reluctantly, following Theo through the corridor and up to the second floor. They had reached the landing when they heard a booming voice: heavy and commanding, in a tone long practiced at the podium, it crashed through the house like a wave.

“My dear Shadrack! So sorry to surprise you like this, but I simply could not wait until tomorrow.”

Theo froze on the landing, his hand still clasping Sophia's. His fingers gripped hers with a sudden intensity. “Ow!” Sophia
exclaimed, trying to pull away as she looked at him in surprise. “What was
that
for?”

His face was blank with panic. Sophia had seen that look once before, but she could not remember when or where. Fear was so unusual in Theo that it sent a flash of sharp unease through her. “What is it?” she whispered. “What's wrong?”

Theo's eyes fastened abruptly on hers. “We have to go back down,” he whispered back. “Now.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“Just come.”

Sophia hesitated, more troubled by the moment. “Shadrack told us to go upstairs.”

“They won't see us.”

Theo tugged at her hand, and Sophia gave in. She thought for a moment that he was leading her back to the kitchen, but instead he opened the short door to the closet tucked beneath the stairs. He edged silently past a broom, a dustpan, and a precarious pile of hatboxes to kneel on the wooden floorboards. Then he turned to Sophia, a finger raised in warning to his lips. She stepped in after him and crouched down.

“Take a look,” Theo whispered. He pointed to a crack in the wall.

Sophia peered through and realized she was looking into the study—the closet was situated behind a set of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. She pulled back. “This wasn't here before!” she exclaimed as indignantly as whispering would allow.

“Shhh!”
Theo glared at her. “I cut the wallpaper in the study.
It's behind the shelf. Not even noticeable.” He turned back toward the wall. “What do you see?”

Sophia shook her head, dumbfounded. “I can't believe you cut the wallpaper. What for? There's nothing to see in there.”

“Well, I think right now there probably
is
, if you would only bother to
look.
”

Sophia took a deep breath, shelving her outrage for the moment. She leaned in toward the crack in the wall. She saw the tops of several books. Inching herself down, she saw the back of Shadrack's chair, his shoulders, and the back of his head. Beyond him, in front of the curtained windows, sat a huge black-haired man whom she had only seen depicted in the Boston papers: MP Gordon Broadgirdle. He wore black and gray, with a charcoal felt hat that he held loosely in his lap. She realized then that the room was silent. Shadrack was staring at an open book.

She drew back. “Shadrack is reading something. Broadgirdle is just sitting there.”

“What does he look like?”

“Shadrack?”

“
No—
Broadgirdle.”

She leaned back toward the wall. “Relaxed. Arrogant.” She hesitated. “Scary. I can't say why.”

“But what does he
look
like?”

“Oh. Very tall. Broad-shouldered. He has black hair and a full beard and a wrinkly sort of mustache. I don't like his eyes.”

“What about his teeth?”

“His
teeth
?” She turned to Theo in astonishment.

“Yes, his teeth,” he whispered nervously.

Then Sophia remembered when and where she had seen that look of panic on Theo's face: Veracruz, almost one year ago, when a raider with sharp metal teeth had chased them through the market. “You recognize him,” she said, eyes wide.

“I recognized his voice,” Theo replied. “I've never heard another like it. But I might be wrong. It could be a coincidence. Can you see his teeth?”

Sophia tried again. “I can't,” she said soberly. “His mouth is closed. But I think someone would have mentioned it if Broadgirdle had metal teeth. No one in New Occident has them.” She paused. “Why don't you look?”

Theo took a deep breath and wiped his palms on his pants. “Okay. Okay, I'll look at him.” He dove forward and peered through the crack. After several seconds, he pulled back.

Just as he did, Shadrack spoke; his voice, wary and more than a little defensive, reached them clearly in the closet. “I didn't write this.”

Sophia leaned in to watch. Broadgirdle was smiling, revealing a row of very large, very white teeth. “Not yet, perhaps.”

“No. Not ever. I have not written this and never will. This is not me.”

“Shadrack,” Broadgirdle said earnestly, bending forward so that his massive shoulders crowded the space between them, “there is a larger purpose here. We are behind. Terribly behind. Those maps prove it.”

“I don't see it that way. You know I have a very clearly defined view on policy for the Indian Territories. It is not our land.”

Broadgirdle suddenly rose from his seat and placed his hat carefully on his head. “I want you to think carefully about your next move, Shadrack. You have a choice, and it could be the right choice or the wrong one. I would be so disappointed if you made the wrong one. So let me say that I
will
be very glad to hear it is the right one.” He was still smiling, the thin mustache, wiry and mobile, contorting with the effort. But his words had no warmth to them. “Good evening. I will see you at the ministry tomorrow. I'll let myself out.” He nodded. “Keep the book.”

Shadrack sat motionless in his chair as Broadgirdle left the room. “I don't understand,” Sophia whispered anxiously to Theo, still watching. “What choice? What is he talking about?”

Theo didn't answer. She turned and saw him slumped against the closet wall with a lost, pained look on his face. “Theo,” she said, reaching out to clasp his scarred hand. “Is it him? The man you know?”

His words were almost inaudible. “It's him.”

“But he had white teeth. They were normal.”

“He must have covered them somehow. Ivory caps or something.”

“Who is he? Is he another raider?”

Theo shook his head. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Sophia frowned. She was about to remonstrate him when she heard Shadrack finally rising from his chair. Through the peephole, she watched him open the hidden door to the map room. “Miles, Bligh. He's gone,” Shadrack called down. Then he dropped back into his seat.

A moment later, the two men emerged from the map room. Sophia could not see the prime minister, but Miles went to Shadrack immediately. “What did he say?” he demanded.

Shadrack simply handed Miles the book. “He gave me this.”

Bligh joined Miles, looking over his shoulder as the explorer first frowned at the cover, and then began furiously turning the pages. “What does he mean by giving you this dreck?”

Shadrack did not answer.

“I believe I understand,” Bligh said slowly, a sad expression in his gray eyes. “He wants you to feel as though you are already committed to this path. That this future is inevitable.”

“Because of
this
?” Miles protested. “But that's absurd!”

“Of course it is.” Shadrack's voice was weary. “But Cyril is right. That is what he wants. Naturally, I did not accede to his demands.”

“And what will be the consequence?”

“He did not say,” Shadrack replied. “We are to speak tomorrow.”

“We are pressed on both sides,” Bligh said quietly. At Shadrack's inquiring look, he added, “I was just telling Miles what Lorange informed me today. While Broadgirdle is bent on dissolving treaties with the Indian Territories, the United Indies are threatening an embargo if we do not reopen the borders.”

Shadrack let out a breath. “An embargo would ruin us. Half our trade is to the Indies. Boston would starve.”

“Of course it would. We must stop it at any cost.” He put
his hand on Shadrack's shoulder. “But you have been burdened with enough for one evening. Get your rest, and we will speak of it tomorrow.”

Shadrack rose to his feet. “Thank you, Cyril. Though I'm afraid it will be a sleepless night. And we have one more matter to discuss,” he added. “The Eerie.”

Miles shook his head. “I told him when we were downstairs. I could find no trace of where they are this season.”

The prime minister sighed. “Poor Goldenrod. I'm afraid she's going to die on our hands, my friends.”

“I am sorry to let you down,” Miles said, his voice heavy with regret. “I was certain I would find them. I was somewhat constrained by Theo's presence, but in any case I needed to return. My best contact told me that the Eerie had departed for the Prehistoric Snows, which will require a different manner of expedition.”

“You plan to head north?” asked Shadrack.

“At the end of the week. I'll take a route directly into the snows.”

“Very well,” the prime minister said as he left the study, his footsteps falling lightly on the floorboards. “Though I worry that Goldenrod may not make it through the summer.”

“Believe me,” Shadrack said quietly, “we are well aware of it.”

As Shadrack and Miles followed Bligh out, Sophia sat back, her brow furrowed. She turned to ask Theo what he knew about the Eerie and Goldenrod but found, to her surprise, that he was gone.

—19-Hour 54—

I
N
THE
FALL
and early winter, before Theo had departed with Miles for the Eerie Sea, Sophia and Theo would sometimes stay awake talking until the early hours. Theo's room—a fourth bedroom on the second floor that had previously been tenanted by roughly five thousand disordered maps—was across the hall from Sophia's, and it shared a wall with the house next door. Almost every night, the neighbors would play music on their Edison phonograph—a wondrous invention as yet owned by no one else in the neighborhood. Sophia and Theo would listen to the music, or talk and listen, or just talk. Many late nights were spent laughing so hard they had to cover their faces with pillows to avoid waking Shadrack. Many nights were spent remembering the previous summer: their trip by train to New Orleans, the pirates, their journey into Nochtland, and their confrontation with Blanca and the Sandmen.

Sophia had not realized how important those evenings with the Edison phonograph had been until Theo and Miles had gone. And she had not realized, until she found Theo vanished from the closet, that she had been expecting to end this evening talking conspiratorially with her best friend, listening to the muted music next door. When Miles and Shadrack returned to the study and then descended to the map room, clearly intent on further discussion of Broadgirdle's visit, Sophia crept out of the closet and up the stairs.

Theo's door was closed. When Sophia knocked quietly,
there was no answer. “Theo?” Sophia said, knocking again. “Are you all right?” She waited, her ear to the door. After several seconds she began to worry. “Theo. Are you there?”

There was a quiet scuffle as Theo walked across the room toward the door. “I'm here,” came the muffled reply.

“May I come in?”

There was a long pause. “I'm sorry. I can't talk right now.”