The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance (28 page)

Hell, another night of the vermin increasing and no one would care how he’d returned. But Daeryn couldn’t wait.

chapter thirty-two

Not long after
the bell rang for dinner, Annmar put the lids on the jars. Ten label mock-ups completed. Enough to request another meeting with Mistress Gere. Hopefully, she wouldn’t think Annmar had rushed the work, since this was only the third day of the trial. Another glance through the sketchbook confirmed the latest labels were every bit as good as the first—and her new tradesman’s mark graced each. Annmar closed the book. She would ask tonight.

Annmar gathered her personal sketchbook and pencils in her satchel and wrapped Mother’s shawl around her shoulders, then left her secure room. When Mary Clare had escorted her back, she’d assured Annmar there’d be no going into tunnels on Wellspring land. Mistress Gere’s wards worked on the room and her property. “Because your home is here, within Wellspring’s fences you’re protected,” Mary Clare said. “Her Knack works really well for people, just not on simple wild animals, including the vermin. She’s figuring that out, along with some of the best guards in the Farmlands shire.”

A stab of guilt hit Annmar. Whether it was embarrassing or not, she had to talk to Daeryn to learn the details of his foot’s healing and, if it wasn’t too forward, see it again. He’d honored her request not to tell anyone, but the growers’ discovery of the increased crop damage made it clear Daeryn needed to work.

He wasn’t among the workers lined up at the table under the farmyard walnut tree. Annmar didn’t see anyone whose name she knew, but she recognized several people from today and the night she rang the alarm. Some said hello, but her skirt and satchel received several headshakes when they thought she wasn’t looking. Annmar curled her toes in her new boots. Yes, they viewed her as prim, odd, an Outsider. Well, likely she wouldn’t get questions about her Knack. She plucked a roasting stick from a pile and speared chunks of onion, peppers, squash and other vegetables from platters. Then she followed the others down to the flames leaping in a clearing.

Annmar couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a bonfire. Maybe when she was little, when she and Mother joined other families for a holiday treat. They’d never considered it after Mother’s illness left her so tired she slept every spare minute.

Mary Clare stepped from the group, a grin on her face. “You came. I wasn’t sure you would with all that canned food you carried up yesterday, and your scare earlier.”

Annmar weighed telling her about her newest discovery of the blue lines on Mother’s artwork and her plans to learn more, but too many people stood within hearing distance. “I wasn’t sure myself, but jam and tomato sauces aren’t very filling, no matter how varied the flavors are. How do we cook these?”

“I was just preparing mine.” They added half-cooked sausages from a pan in the fire to their sticks—Mary Clare said they’d flavor the vegetables—and stuck their dinners to roasting in the flames. Nearby some others discussed the Market Day lectures.

“That bloke had some crazy ideas,” Wyatt said. “Outside ideas, if you ask me.”

“Exactly.” Gunther snorted. “Why would a collective like Wellspring purposefully put our members out of work?”

“We won’t.” Wyatt bounced on his toes, like Rivley did, and punctuated his point with a finger-stab in the air. “Though it’s being done Outside, they don’t have the agrarian dedication that comes with good bloodlines. This is what Basin folk are
engineered
for, to use his words.”

Famil flipped her braids over her shoulder. “Routine raising of crops is well within our abilities, once we get past this thorn in our sides.” She pushed to Master Brightwell’s side. “We can devise some machine ourselves to fight the pests, right, sir?”

“Working on it.” The inventor lifted a chin toward his workroom. “About to ask Constance to promise you won’t pull off Rivley before we’re done.”

“By the Path.” Wyatt made a half bow to him. “Of course not.”

Annmar turned her stick. From what she’d seen of Master Brightwell’s inventions, he would create something to rival any machine from Derby. And Rivley would help with a solution.

Several others clapped Master Brightwell on the shoulders, but he waved them off. “Just have a
dash
of it working at this point.”

Their questions ended when a sizzling erupted from the fire. Flames flared around a three-legged frypan.

Mary Clare yanked Annmar away, while others tried to rescue the sausages.

Beside them, Jac cursed. “I had only ten minutes between rotations, and now I’ll have to go without dinner.”

Annmar glanced at her stick. She could try. If she managed a partial peace with Jac, then she might not find it too trying to stay beyond the trial, even if she never did fit in. “Take mine.” She offered her stick of roasted vegetables and meat. Jac frowned, but Annmar stepped closer. “I can fix another. You have to work.”

Jac’s tongue flicked over her lips, then after a long moment, she took it. The spitting fire nearly drowned her muttered, “Thanks,” before Jac stalked to the other side of the fire.

Mary Clare wore a grin, but Annmar put a finger to her lips. “Ah…yes,” Mary Clare finally said. “Some accident like this happens just about as often as Wyatt argues Outside politics. But nothing ever changes in the Basin. My pa says because Outsiders can’t get in, neither can their ideas. But Ma counters the new ideas mostly don’t fit because we’re too strange.”

Yes, the spider machines did look odd, but they did their job. “I don’t think so.”

Mary Clare lifted a brow.

“Well, some, but I’m getting used to it.”

She smiled. “I’m glad. I’d like you to stay.” She inspected her stick. “I think these are done.” She inched off a browned sausage and handed it to Annmar.

I’d like you to stay.
Mary Clare made the decision sound so simple. Annmar ate, keeping a little sigh from escaping. If she stayed, she wouldn’t be an anonymous cog in someone else’s plan. Her work—including help she could give others through her Knack—would be her choice, though earning a living here wouldn’t be any easier than on her own in Derby. Having grown up in the Basin and with her large family to help her, Mary Clare didn’t understand. If only Annmar had family. Could Master Brightwell’s guess of Mother’s name be right? Or—a buried hope dared to speak up—could she find her father? Now a sigh did escape, and Annmar avoided Mary Clare’s glance.

Locating one man was an impossible task with no information. He might be surprised to meet her, but if her father was still alive, then as Old Terry said, she’d learn a thing or two about herself. Annmar shook off dwelling on her history and pulled vegetables from the shared stick. She just had to hope one of her ideas for searching turned up a clue.

They filled more sticks and squeezed among several growers to cook them.

“Miz Gere says the test rows look good,” a girl said. “If the pea nuts continue to avoid the attention of these pests, then we’ll plant a field or two come spring.”

For a second Annmar thought Mary Clare had spoken. But she hadn’t. So this girl, who sounded so much like her she must be her older sister Mary Beth.

“I heard that pea nuts got a high nourishing level,” Henry said. “And, better, I like how they taste.”

Mary Beth shrugged. “You like how everything tastes. It’s more important that the pea nut grows easy. Outside species can be tricky in Basin soils. What I can’t figure,” she said, “is why the pests have ignored it.”

“No kidding. Those gobblers are taking what they can from every other crop,” Henry said.

“Gobblers?” Mary Beth snorted. “For once, I have to agree with you. Gobbling is what the gobblers are doing.”

The groaning over losses began, and though she empathized, Annmar didn’t trust that her comments would be welcome yet. She was still too new and didn’t need to make awkward mistakes when they had worse concerns. She turned her roasting stick over a patch of glowing coals. The gorgeous orange and yellow flickering couldn’t be captured, even in oils. Jac’s mane of curls made a better subject, swinging in drapes as she rose from her seat with a grower girl, or Mary Beth’s woven braid, glinting as she twirled it over a boy’s nose.

How did flirting come so easy for some girls and not others? Annmar had never been comfortable behaving in that manner. She’d done none of the wily acts her roommates did to attract a beau’s attention, certainly not under Mrs. Rennet’s watch. So what had attracted an industrial magnate like Mr. Shearing to her?

“Sweet biscuit?” Mary Clare handed her a giant pale disc. “It’s as big as a moon.”

Annmar hadn’t even noticed she’d left. “The moon?” She nibbled the sugary edge. It dissolved in her mouth.

“Mm-hmm.” Mary Clare brushed crumbs from her lips and nodded eastward. “Can’t see it from down here, but it’ll be high enough soon. Say, what’s with you?” Mary Clare edged into her, then darted a look around. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Jac leaving for her guard duty. The wolf girl sauntered off, and Mary Clare’s gaze returned to Annmar. “Don’t even spare her a thought. She’s not worth it.”

Annmar shook her head. “It’s not her I’m thinking of. Why did I grow up such a good girl? So sheltered?”

“City norms? They do sound more restrictive than the Basin’s.”

Annmar glanced sideways at her. “You don’t act like some Derby girls, but you’ve had beaus.”

Mary Clare snorted. “Boys. Not necessarily beaus. None long enough I’d give them the honor of the title. I have older sisters. That helps to know what you’re doing and not make mistakes.”

“Your mother’s guidance, too. From what you say, she must be less uptight than mine was.”

“Surprising, since yours came from here. I’m developing a theory about her leaving. My guess is”—Mary Clare leaned close and dropped her voice—“she had an unapproved match.”

“What?” Annmar squeaked.

Mary Clare’s eyes widened. “She got pregnant, right, and her parents wouldn’t approve if he was a different species—”

“Why do you think that?”

Mary Clare slipped an arm around her waist and hugged her. “Aw, honey. Your Knacks. Artistic talent of your mother’s level is unusual, but not outrageously so. Healing is another story. Surely you’ve figured out it’s beyond the usual human talents. Your father had to be something different, even by Basin standards.”

Annmar leaned into her comfort. “Maybe still is. Mother was young, thirty-six. He should be alive, but I’ll never know. Mother never gave me any explanation of my father, or I suppose more correctly what Old Terry today called him, my
sire
.”

“She
didn’t
say that.”

“Did. Considering Mother was from the Basin, a non-human sire could be a possibility.”

“No clue who he is?”

She shook her head. Once she knew Mistress Gere’s painting source, she’d tell Mary Clare. “I’m just an oddity with no history.”

“Annmar.” Mary Clare gripped her shoulder. “You’re not an oddity. No more unusual than any Basin-born. We’re alike that way.”

“Alike?” Annmar wrinkled her nose. “But you know so much about country life—”

“And you know so much about life in the city. I would be a fish out of water there, and I want so badly to visit.”

Annmar eyed the redhead. Mary Clare had a point. “Well, society is complicated, but most urban dwellers do master its rules. I could teach you.”

“Just like I can teach you about the Basin. It’ll grow easier, really. Why do you doubt we’re alike?”

She should just tell her. “You also know so much about boys. And I…don’t.”

Mary Clare smiled. “Boys are easy, too.”

Annmar shifted her gaze off, flicking glances around to the groups and couples, some flirting, some showing off in hopes of flirting. It’d be years before she could do that. She sighed. Or at least months.

Mary Clare nudged her. “Step one, you talk to them. You find the one interested in the things you are.”

Annmar glanced around again. “I can do that.”

“Good for you. Practice on Henry. He’s so young, he’s safe.” She took Annmar’s stick. “Henry?” The blond boy turned and, with a big smile, edged closer. “Can you show Annmar the table with the sweet biscuits?”

“You bet. Need to head that way myself.”

Mary Clare gave her a little push, and she followed Henry up to the food table. She felt silly nodding along to his chatter. What should she say? Then he offered her a biscuit. “These are good, but my favorites of Mrs. Betsy’s are the apple tarts. Which are yours?”

Annmar blinked. She had to say
something
. “I…uh…I haven’t been here long enough to have those, but I like these fine.” That answer came easily enough. She took the biscuit, and suddenly her tongue loosened. “They look like the moon, though not tonight.” She held hers skyward toward the crescent moon.

“I can fix that.” Henry grinned and took a bite of his, then held out the bitten treat. “You should see the waxing moon over the cemetery headstones. It’s downright spooky looking, the very thing folks think of come Samhain.”

“Oh, I’d love to draw that. Where do you mean?”

“Over in that first row of trees near the property line.” He pointed, and they walked a few steps. “If you’re going to draw, I’ll fetch you a crate to sit on.”