The Unmaking (14 page)

The door to their berth opened.

“Coffee?” asked the kindly attendant.

The elderly couple was sitting by the door and held out their cups to be filled first. When the attendant went to fill up the young man’s cup, something strange happened. The top of the coffee pot had not been put on tightly enough and it came loose all of a sudden, hot coffee gushing out the top. It would surely have burned the young man’s hand and gotten all over his lap. But the young man gasped a few words and the coffee seemed to leap back into the pot, the lid tightening itself firmly. It happened so quickly that only Nell and the young man were sure that it had happened at all. The attendant and the elderly couple tensed when the spill began and when it was averted they relaxed. The attendant poured the coffee and said apologetically, “Thought the lid was going to come off there.” He tightened it a bit, unnecessarily, before refilling Nell’s cup.

When she thought it over, Nell could not remember exactly what she had seen but, unlike the attendant and the elderly couple, she could not simply shake the strangeness away and forget it. She had seen
something
, after all, of that she was sure. She fixed her eyes on the young man, who drank his coffee quickly, looking out the window. His hands were trembling.

It was evening when they arrived in Elmount. The elderly couple had taken Nell under their wing and bought her dinner at a noodle shop by the port. They wandered around looking in bleak little shop windows until it was time for the boat to leave. They had arranged for cabins but Nell only had a Basic Passenger ticket so she bedded down in a hallway with everybody else who couldn’t afford cabins. She lay awake as the boat rocked pleasantly beneath her. Eventually she slept a little but woke every time the boat stopped at one of the islands and other passengers stepped over her on their way to disembark. Early in the morning, she bought some bread for breakfast in the cafeteria and went up on deck. She walked up and down the deck, breathing in the sea breeze she had known all her life, watching people disembark at various islands to be embraced by their families. Then she saw the young man, bending into the wind with his threadbare coat clutched around him. He looked a very sad figure, with his untidy hair and too-narrow frame.

She approached him and offered him a piece of bread. He gave her a wary look, but he took the bread and devoured it as if he had been starving.

“Where are you going?” Nell asked, trying to sound friendly and nonthreatening.

“Stoot,” he said.

“I’m going to Holburg,” Nell said, although he hadn’t asked. “I grew up there, aye. I’m a student in Kalla. Are you from Stoot?”

“Ye-es,” he said vaguely, as if this might be a trick question.

Nell decided to be direct.

“You’re nay from Stoot,” she said firmly.

He stared at her, terrified.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m nay going to tell anybody. You’re a wizard, are you nay?”

His eyes grew even wider and he didn’t reply.

“Or praps nay a
wizard
, but you can do Magic. I saw what you did on the train, aye.”

“This is my only pair of trousers,” he said plaintively, by way of explanation. “If I got coffee all over them, what would I wear?”

“What’s in Stoot?” Nell asked. “It’s not one of the popular islands among vacationers.”

His eyes brightened a little. “Coral!” he said, and then looked around anxiously.

“For spells,” said Nell, and didn’t wait for him to contradict her. “So
are
you a wizard?”

“Just a womi,” he said shyly. “Not a
wizard
.”

“Lah, it’s good you averted that spill,” said Nell. “It would have been a job to clean up.”

He nodded. “Are you...?” he didn’t finish his sentence and it took Nell a moment to understand what he was asking. She was delighted to be mistaken for a Tian Xia worlder, and was tempted for a moment or two to tell him that she was a witch.

“Human,” she said regretfully. “But I’ve been to Tian Xia.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe her. Nell could see Stoot, a low cone of an island, growing nearer.

“Have you heard any rumours like what that couple was talking about?” she asked him quickly. “About attacks?”

He looked down at his feet. They were absurdly long. Looking at him now, Nell thought she should have known at first glance that he wasn’t a Di Shang worlder.

“I dinnay know anything,” he said.

“It concerns me a little,” Nell explained. “My best friend is the Shang Sorceress....” She had been going to continue but he froze her with such a look of horror that she broke off in the middle of her sentence. Then he turned and fled. Nell stood staring after him for a moment before following.

“Wait!” she called. Passengers enjoying the bright balmy morning stopped to stare at them.

He ran indoors but there was nowhere to hide and she caught up with him in one of the second-class cabin corridors.

“Why are you running away?” she asked breathlessly. “Because of what I said about the Sorceress? She’s very nice, really, she wouldnay be bothered about a harmless
womi
,
whatever that is.”

“Like a wizard,” said the man, rabbity eyes darting here and there. “Only less so.”

“But you see why I want to know what’s going on?”

“Your friend should know,” said the womi. “
She
should know.”

“Know what?”

“Lots of crossings. I don’t know
why
but I know that there are lots of crossings. It’s a good time to be far out in the islands. Wouldn’t want to be on the mainland now.”

“Tian Xia worlders coming to Di Shang?” asked Nell, stunned

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’re almost at Stoot. Your friend is going to be busy. You shouldn’t bother her about me.”

“I’m nay going to turn you in,” said Nell. “I just want to know what’s happening.”

“I don’t
know
,” he said, backing away from her. “Lots of crossings, that’s all I know. I just want to be out of the way, see the coral. I’m not powerful, you know. Di Shang is a safe place usually but not right now.”

Nell let him walk away from her swiftly. “Good luck!” she called after him, but he didn’t reply.

~~~

The big boat didn’t stop at Holburg, so Nell had to get off at Murda and pay one of the fish
ermen to take her across. From Murda, Holburg looked like a dense green hook or a beckoning finger laid flat on the surface of the water. The fishing vessel bobbed on the bright foaming waves and it was late afternoon when they docked in Holburg’s harbour. Everybody who saw her as she made her way through Holburg Town stopped to say hello and asked for news of the city, so it took her some time to reach the dilapidated white house with chipping paint and a broken fence. There was not much winter to speak of in Holburg, just a pleasant cool wind, and the front door was wide open. She could hear the sound of the television inside and her brothers talking loudly over it. Nell was the youngest of five. Of her four older brothers, Danil and Som were still in school. Marik had graduated from high school last year and manned their father’s cigarette and magazine shop now that their father had become one with the sofa. Alban, the eldest, had bought a fishing boat last year, married pretty Marti Somerset, and was building his own house. For now, the happy couple lived in Marti’s uncle’s van, whose engine had given out six years ago.

Nell dragged her bags into the front hall and called, “I’m back!”

“Nell’s back!” roared Marik, in case anybody had missed her announcement.

Her mother Onni came bustling in from the kitchen to embrace her. Onni was a mass of pale flesh with fair, wispy hair and tiny, startled eyes. She had grown up on Holburg, a romantic, dreamy girl without much sense of the world beyond, and as a grown woman she seemed bewildered by, if not actively averse to, what had happened to her life. Nell felt a confused mixture of impatience and protectiveness towards her mother, while Onni was rather in awe of her clever and beautiful youngest child. She hugged and kissed Nell several times and then ushered her into the sitting room, where her father Gladd took up half the sofa.

Gladd had been a big noisy boy and had become an enormous silent man. He had a bit of brownish hair stuck to the top of his sweaty head. His chins rolled down his neck and became mounds of chest and further mountains of belly. He did not care to leave the sofa anymore and so there he remained. He was a bit puzzled by Nell’s sudden fame as the first islander to win a scholarship to that fancy school in Kalla but it pleased him insofar as it must mean she was doing well. And so when he saw her he grinned. Nell kissed him on the cheek. He raised a fat hand to pat her hair. Her brothers nodded and smiled shyly and dragged her bags up to her bedroom for her.

Ander Brady, the chief of police, was sitting in the tattered brown chair they referred to as “the guest chair,” drinking a cup of coffee. He greeted Nell cordially and asked her about school. Ander, unlike most of the islanders, had actually been to the mainland and even to Kalla. It was well known by everybody except, apparently, Gladd, that Ander had long ago been very much in love with young dreamy Onni. Older than she, he had joined the army for a few years while she was still in high school, writing to her every week, but when he came back she was married to Gladd, for reasons nobody but Onni would ever know. Devastated, Ander had gone back to the military and become a war hero. Upon returning, he and Gladd struck up an unlikely friendship and he was the only person really who ever sat in the guest chair. Ander didn’t look like a war hero to Nell. He was rather overweight, with a receding hairline, big pouches under his eyes and a shy but affable manner. Still, the fact remained that he had on his mantel more medals than anyone in Holburg had ever seen.

Nell politely told Ander a bit about her school. Onni stood behind her nodding enthusiastically as if to confirm what Nell was saying and Gladd stared open-mouthed at the television. Tiring quickly of her own story, Nell glanced at the television and saw a dashing, uniformed man speaking at a podium.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Lah, that’s General Malone!” exclaimed her mother, delighted to be able to provide some information. “You know, the one who disappeared for
nine years
!”

Nell looked even more closely when she heard that, realizing he must be the General Eliza had found in the Arctic.

“Something going on, aye,” mumbled Gladd. It was not usual for Gladd to say something and so they all paused to take this in respectfully. Then Ander explained, “In the last twenty-four hours, they’ve confirmed a great many Tian Xia attacks. Nay just in the Republic, but all over Di Shang.”

“And the Mancers?” asked Nell, who fancied herself a bit of an expert on the mystical. After all, she was the only ordinary human in the Modern Age who had been to Tian Xia, even if she couldn’t remember it. She had given up her memories in exchange for passage back and had regretted it ever since. It was terrible not to remember anything at all about the greatest adventure of her entire life.

“There’s no word, aye,” said Ander. He knew a thing or two about Tian Xia attacks and he was troubled.

“But we’re quite safe
here
,” said Onni. “Lah, nothing ever happens
here
. Will you stay for supper, Ander?”

“Oh, no. Mother’s expecting me.”

“Lah, you know she’s welcome also, Ander!”

“No, no, she’s poorly, I should get back, aye.”

This was their ritual. Ander heaved himself up out of the guest chair and reached out a hand, which Gladd shook, mumbling something indiscernible.

“Same to you, Gladd, same to you,” Ander said affably. Nell wondered if he actually knew what her father had said. “Good to have you back, Nell,” said Ander as he made his way to the door in a slow shuffle, nodding to each of them in turn. “Boys, good evening. Thank you as always, Onni.”

“Goodnight, Mister Brady,” said Nell. He edged out the door and then broke into a stride that reminded Nell he had been strong and athletic once.

Supper was a raucous affair. Onni wanted to hear about Nell but Nell was tired after her journey and didn’t have the energy to try to drown out her brothers. Alban and Marti came by after dinner and they all had some wine and became very jolly. Nobody remembered or cared that Nell was still a bit young for wine and so she got drunk for the first time in her life.

When her father had gone to sleep on the sofa, snoring so the floors trembled, and Alban and Marti had laid sleeping bags out on the floor in the hall, and the others had all gone to their beds, Nell sat by her bedroom window and breathed in the salty night air for awhile. She had never been drunk before and didn’t want to sleep through the novel experience. So far, she just felt foggy-minded and a little sad, which wasn’t terribly exciting. However, having witnessed adults behaving very stupidly when drunk, she was waiting to see if she herself would be suddenly compelled to do something idiotic. The town was silent. If she listened very carefully she could hear the pull of the sea. Then all of a sudden something fell out of the sky and crashed into the yard. She leaped to her feet and leaned further out the window, straining to see by the moonlight. The thing had wings and it was the size of a small car. It changed shape and became a boy staggering towards the house.