Tin Swift

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rose Small dreamed she was swimming in tea and honey. It was a lovely dream, warm and comforting.

“Rose,” Mae’s voice said as she drifted. “Wake up. You need to drink this.”

She wanted to tell Mae she didn’t need anything to drink. She was surrounded by tea. Then something cold and wet pressed against her forehead, and her lips, making her very thirsty.

All the tea around her tasted like dust.

“Wake up, Rose,” Mae said again. “Time to wake up.”

It took Rose several tries, but she finally lifted her eyelids.

Pain rolled through her back and chest, and made her stomach sour. She was cold, hot, and raw from the top of her head, hurting the most down the left side of her face, shoulder, and arm. She bit her lip but could not stifle a moan.

Mae sat next to her. She leaned in and Rose could see her better in the low light of the room.

“Hey, there now,” Mae said. “This will help the pain. Just take a couple drinks.”

Mae held the cup to Rose’s mouth, which was good. Rose didn’t think she had enough strength in her whole body to lift even one hand, much less support a whole cup.

The tea came on bitter and green at first, and then was sweet and strong with the hot burn of alcohol.

“Water?” she asked after taking down as much of the tea as she could. She didn’t want to cough, didn’t want to jangle her body so harshly, but the burn of the tea was too strong in her throat.

Mae pulled the cup away, then held another at her lips. Rose swallowed several gulps of water until the fire in her belly cooled and her throat soothed.

“I’m going to change the compress on your shoulder,” Mae said softly. “I have a new stock of medicines, and it’s going to help you feel better.”

The warm numbing of whatever Mae had put in that tea was already spreading sweetly through her. She felt more awake, and although not completely out of pain, it was at a much more tolerable distance.

“That helped,” Rose said. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“It’s coca leaves,” Mae said. “From Peru.”

“Sounds fancy,” she said as Mae spread a greenish-black paste onto a clean cotton cloth and then poured what looked like tea over the top of the cloth.

Mae whispered something, and the words made Rose’s head itch and her nose tickle. She wondered if Mae’s words held magic, or a blessing.

Rose always did like the idea of Mae having magic at her fingertips. Seemed like such a handy thing to keep around.

“Is that helping yet?” Mae asked.

“The pain is better,” Rose said. “We’re not on the airship, are we? With Captain Lee Hink?”

“No,” Mae said, pulling the covers down to Rose’s waist.

From the coolness, Rose suddenly realized she was mostly naked.

Mae gently slipped Rose’s shift out of the way so she could place the compress over her shoulder.

Rose sucked in a breath and blew it out between her teeth to try to keep from screaming. But it was only a few breaths more before her shoulder stopped hurting so. And then a few breaths after that Rose actually felt…well, not better, but not quite so torn up.

“…so we are in a mountain, a cavern, carved out by the man—Old Jack,” Mae was saying as she gently lifted and turned the cool wet rag on Rose’s forehead. “Who has us as his guests, but only through the generous and constant payment of Captain Hink.”

“Is he here still?” Rose asked.

Mae’s hands stilled a moment and then she looked down at Rose and smiled. “Captain Hink? Yes, he is. And he’s asked after you.”

“The captain?” Rose asked. “The airship captain?”

“That’s the one,” Mae said. “He’s out in the main room eating a meal. Everyone is out there—his crew, Mr. Hunt, and a crew from another airship.”

“Another airship?” Rose said as a flush of warmth spread out to the tips of her fingers and toes. “How wonderful. Could you help me sit? I’d like to see this place.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please? I feel so much better right now. I’d like to see this place. I’d like to see everything I can.”

“Let me get a few things.” Mae walked a little ways off.

Rose turned her head to watch and pain bit down hard enough to make her stop breathing.

She was still under a lot of hurt. But at least she could see a few cots lined off in one direction. The walls were unhewn stone, dark, with clever shelves chipped into them and lanterns set here and there. It almost made the place look like a night sky broken by stars.

“What mountain are we inside, and how did we get here?” Rose asked.

Mae came back with a blanket rolled in her arms.

“We are north of the Bitterroots. I’m not clear as to our exact location. Captain Hink said this is Old Jack’s place. Jack takes in airships for supplies and repairs.” Mae reached down and quick as a wink lifted Rose by her waist and tucked the blanket behind her to prop her up a bit.

It hurt, and Rose let out a whimper, but got over it quick enough.

“How exotic,” she said.

“I think it’s damp, dark, and not nearly as warm as I prefer,” Mae said. “But it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Apparently, Mr. Jack has blasted a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms in the hills.

“I have been informed, in no uncertain terms, that I am not to go wandering off down any random tunnel just because my curiosity takes hold of my feet. Apparently, if I do, I’ll lose all sense and be lost forever.”

Rose smiled. “Sounds like you. Always with a whim in your eyes.”

“Well, there’s some truth to that. Lately.” She paused and took some time to make sure Rose’s blanket was tucked in properly.

Rose stretched the fingers on her good hand, touching Mae. “You’ve done fine. More than fine. I saw you on the ship. We were going to crash. You…you gave us a blessing and saw that we landed properly, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t in my mind. I don’t think I should have…I didn’t ask the captain if he wanted…”

“I’m sure he wanted to see us all back to land safely. You did right by us. Thank you, Mae.”

“It’s done,” Mae said. “If I can undo the harm, I will. But not until I return to the sisters.”

“Do you hear them here? The sisters?” Rose asked.

“No.” Mae frowned. “It’s something about these mountains. The silence is thick. Not that I’m complaining. The spell set on me to return me home is…”

Rose would have said “punishing,” but Mae just set her shoulders straight a bit and said, “Insistent.”

“And we’re not flying,” Rose said. “Did we stop to supply or repair?”

“A little of both, I suppose,” Mae said. “You haven’t had a bite to eat in far too long. Let me see if there’s something left for you.” Mae patted her hand gently and made a motion to move.

“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Rose asked.

Mae stopped as if she’d suddenly been caught by ropes.

“No.”

“I never did think you lied very well, Mae,” Rose said softly. “I can feel it. The thing that is inside my shoulder is digging under my skin, twisting. I can taste it in the back of my mouth. Like hot, sour ashes.”

“You are not dying,” Mae insisted. “We need to get you to the sisterhood. I’m sure they’ll have a spell, a magic, a way of helping you heal, of keeping you strong. Many of the sisterhood are far better with herbs and tinctures than I am—why, sister Adaline alone is an amazing healer.”

Rose studied Mae’s face. “You are the strongest witch to ever come out of that coven,” she said gently. “It’s why they fear you, you know. Why they are tugging so hard on the reins to get you to turn back to them. They know how powerful you are, Mae.”

“Rose…”

“If you can’t break this pain, send healing to this wound, then I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I can’t think of another witch capable of doing more for me.”

Mae’s eyes were sad, but there was that determined set to her. Rose had seen her plenty of times like that before. Times when Mae refused to give up on someone she cared about.

“I’d like to know,” Rose continued, “as one friend to another. Am I dying?”

Mae hesitated, before she nodded once.

“Yes. You are not well. But there is more than just the sisters or my skills to hang our hopes upon. The Madders told Cedar that if we find the Holder we’ll be able to extract the tin key in your shoulder. And I am positive that once we remove the key, you will mend up and be good as glim again.”

Rose managed a smile even though she didn’t think Mae believed what she was saying. Still, hope was hope, and it did the soul good to hold to it. Even if it was a lie.

“Rest while I get you some food. You need to keep your strength up.” Mae patted her hand once again and then walked out of the room.

The tea and compress had done a welcome job of pushing the pain far enough away that Rose didn’t much care about it. Though she probably should. It was strange to think that right here under the cover of a mountain she couldn’t find on a map, she might be living one of her last days.

She drew the fingers of her good hand along the rough blanket edge, wishing she had something to touch, to turn, to keep her hands and her mind busy and away from dark thoughts.

There were so many things she had wanted to see—the big cities, New York, Philadelphia, Paris. There were people she’d wished she had met, family out there, somewhere she’d run out of time to find. And so many things she had wanted to experience. Flying her own airship, falling in love with a man who loved her back, adventures.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Probably wasn’t going to have any of those things now. The look on Mae’s face had told her what she suspected. She had only a few days left, and likely she’d spend each of those getting weaker and weaker.

Such a thing. Here she had set off on the trail looking forward to each new wonder she would discover, all the while not knowing she was just riding hard and fast toward a meeting with her death. Wasn’t at all how she’d expected her life to turn after leaving Hallelujah.

The sound of footsteps stirred her from her thoughts.

“Didn’t think you’d be awake, Miss Small,” Captain Hink said as he strolled toward her cot.

Well, she could be certain of one thing. It wasn’t just the low light of the airship that had given the man a handsome swagger. He was just as good-looking now as then.

“Mrs. Lindson woke me to see to my shoulder,” Rose said. She realized that her shoulder, neck, and a good portion of her chest were bare except for where bandages wrapped around them.

She was sitting half naked in front of an airship captain. It was such a thing she’d only secretly dreamed about. But not like this. In her dreams she’d been bathed, fresh, and certainly not wounded.

The captain’s gaze roamed briefly over her bare skin before lingering on her bandage and then returning to her eyes. “It’s nice to see you feeling good enough to be sitting,” he said as he walked off into the shadows of the room a bit, then returned with a chair into the warm wash of lantern light.

He put the chair next to her cot and sat there, next to her. “Sorry for the landing. Not the smoothest flight I’ve ever offered a passenger.”

“Oh, no, it was wonderful.”

“Wonderful?” he asked. “That medicine Mrs. Lindson gave you must be clouding your memories a bit. Maybe I ought to give it to all my passengers.” He smiled and it put light in his eyes, and an ease in all the rest of him.

Captain Cage was wide at the shoulder, with hair the color of gold and a face that looked like it would fit in just fine with those heroes of Nordic myths. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, which only gave him a sort of devil-may-care air, which she should not find so heart-stoppingly handsome.

But he was. And so far, had been kind to her too.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t enjoy it,” Rose said. “I’ve always fancied what it might be like to pilot an airship, to harvest glim.”

“Well, I can tell you just what it’s like,” Captain Hink said. “Have you ever ridden a horse so fast it’s taken your breath away?”

Rose nodded.

“It’s like that but with more power. Steam train will almost give you the feel of it, except instead of barreling down a track, you’re shooting for the sky, with no rattle of the earth in your bones, and nothing but the soft green fire of glim burning in the sky around you.

“Up there, glim seems so strong and real. You think maybe you could lean out the window to feel the drag of it across your fingertips, taste it on your tongue, or catch a whiff of fragrance. But there’s no sensing it that way, no sense to it at all. Glim is a feast for the eyes only, though some say they’ve heard it ring like an angels’ chorus of bells on the wind.”

He shrugged and slouched in the chair a bit, relaxing into this. “We catch it with nets.” He spread his arms out wide. “Long-armed outrigging that drags through the sky, gathering glim on the strands, like pollen on a bee’s butt. Those strands draw the glim down to finer threads, where it collects like liquid in large glass globes. Can’t box glim up in too small a spot. It’s always looking for a way out, a way back to the sky, I reckon. Keep too tight a hold on it, and it will burst its cage.

“I’ve always thought glim and those who harvest it are much the same in that way. Too much of the need for the open sky in them. But then, I suppose you’ve heard all about how glim is got. Didn’t mean to rattle on.”

“No, it’s fine. More than fine,” Rose said. “I’ve heard some of how it is harvested, read about it in the papers. But that’s all. If you don’t mind, Captain—”

“Lee,” he said.

“If you don’t mind, Lee,” Rose said, liking the sound of his name on her lips, “I’d love to hear more.”

“More about glim,” he asked quietly, “or more about me?”

Rose held his gaze steady, glad she wasn’t blushing from that look he was giving her. A look she was giving him right back. “Both.”

He nodded and leaned in a little closer to her. “I’d be happy to oblige you on both accounts, Rose.”

She liked the sound of her name on his lips too.

Mae stepped into the room. Captain Hink leaned away, but his smile, and the heat in his eyes, did not dampen as Mae walked over to the bed.

“Captain Hink,” Mae said. “Thank you for keeping Miss Small company. I hope you haven’t tired her out too much before her hot meal.”

“Not at all,” Rose said. “He’s been telling me about glim.”

“Has he?” Mae said. “That’s certainly an interesting subject.”

“Just so,” Captain Hink said. “Of course, not much is known as to the whys of glim: why it gathers above the mountains, why it has such restorative powers, or even where, exactly, it comes from.”

“Doesn’t it come from the storms?” Mae set a plate down on the crate next to Rose’s cot and turned with a bowl and spoon.

“It’s not known, really,” Hink said. “I’ve gathered glim on a clear day just as often as above some of the worst lightning storms the range can cook up. There are men with better minds who have tried to argue it out. Haven’t heard they’ve agreed on an answer yet.”

“I’d love to read up on the theories,” Rose said.

“Not until you eat something.” Mae picked up the bowl.

“Let me give you some room for that.” Hink stood.

“No, that’s fine,” Mae said. “It’s no bother.”

“Nonsense. I take up more room than a man ought, and I’d rather not be in the way of Miss Small’s meal.” He stepped around the chair and Mae took his place, settling in next to Rose’s bed.

“Think you can try some broth?” Mae asked. “Mr. Seldom is a surprisingly fine cook.”

Hink chuckled. “I don’t keep him on the ship for his conversational prowess. Ladies.” He tipped his head in a nod.

“Are you leaving?” Rose asked. She really wasn’t hungry, and wasn’t hurting enough to ignore the sheer restlessness rolling through her.

She wanted out of the bed, out of the room. Wanted to explore this mountain, or maybe go see the Swift again while she was awake, aware.

“I have a few things to see to,” the captain said. “Ship repairs being one of those things. I’m thinking if we get all hands on her, we can fly out by the end of the day tomorrow. Dawn next, the latest.”

“That would be a very good turn of events, Captain Hink,” Mae said. “The sooner we can be on the road again…well, I suppose sky again, the sooner we will set right our troubles.”

“I most certainly hope that is so,” he said.

“So,” Mae said, after Hink had left the room, “are you feeling strong enough to do this on your own, or would you like some help?”

“I think if you place the bowl on my thigh, I might be able to handle it.”

Mae helped her to get situated, and Rose took a spoonful of the soup. The broth was rich and filled with meat and had soft salted dumplings in it. If she’d been in better health she might have enjoyed the meal very much. Right now, she just wanted to get out of the bed and follow Captain Hink to watch him inspect the ship.

She could learn so much from him. Might even learn how to fly. Molly had seemed happy with her help on the boilers. Maybe she’d let her help again.

If she had time. If she lived.

In answer to those two grim thoughts, Rose applied herself to the broth. Once a person stopped eating, it was never long until they were in the grave. And she was not going to lie down to rest easily.

After she had determinedly gotten through half of the soup, she gave the spoon and bowl over to Mae in exchange for a cup of water lightly laced with brandy.

“Never drank so much in my life,” Rose said.

“Just to keep the pain at bay,” Mae answered, tidying up things.

Two of the men from Captain Hink’s ship sauntered into the room and dropped down on cots. They didn’t even take the time to undress or shed their boots and harnesses before they were snoring softly.

Molly Gregor showed up next, and tromped over to Rose’s bed.

“Well, don’t you look perky?” She smiled, and dragged her breathing gear off over her head. “I suppose the menfolk will sleep up on that side of the room, so us fine ladies can retire in relative modesty here. Not that I’m much used to modesty, traveling with those yokels.”

She held her breathing gear and goggles in one hand, then looked around, trying to decide where to drop them. She finally took the cot that was set somewhere between the men’s cots and Rose’s. She dropped the gear at the head of the bed, then sat. She unlaced her boots and sighed.

“I do get tired of the boots,” she said, staring down at her stockinged feet as she wiggled her toes. “Now.” She got up and watched Mae fuss about with blankets and such around Rose’s bed.

She gave Rose a wink. “Is there anything you might need my help with, Mrs. Lindson?”

“What?” Mae asked. “Oh, no, thank you, Miss Gregor.”

“Molly,” she said. “Please use my given name. Friends and crew always do.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Mae said. “I can’t see anything else that can be done tonight. And Captain Hink said we might be flying out tomorrow if the Swift is in good repair, so I think sleep might be the best course for us all.”

“He said that, did he?” Molly asked. “Man seems awfully sure of the work he hasn’t even started on yet.”

“Is the ship badly damaged?” Rose asked.

“Oh, no worse than she’s been before,” Molly said. “We’ll fix her up so you wouldn’t even know she’d taken a hit. Whether it will take a day, or maybe two, is more my doubt.”

“But the captain said—,” Rose began.

“Yes, my dear, I know the captain.” She gave Rose a look. “And I know the sorts of things he says.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that you didn’t,” Rose said.

Molly closed her eyes for an extra moment, and a kindly smile curved her lips. “You haven’t said anything to bother me, Rose—may I call you Rose?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Molly strolled closer and then glanced over her shoulder toward the men in the room, listening for their snores.

Satisfied that they were sleeping, she said, “I just think the captain very much wants to see you and all of his passengers safely to your destination as quickly as possible. He has a way of promising the moon when his heart’s in it. And just between you and me? When his heart’s in it is when he always manages to come through.”

“Is it?” Rose asked, searching Molly’s face. Molly didn’t carry a heavy resemblance to Mr. Gregor. For one thing, her hair was iron black, whereas the blacksmith’s wild hair was fire red. But there was something to the arc of her cheek, the square of her chin, that reminded her very much of her good friend.

“Is what?” Molly asked.

“His heart … in it?”

Molly’s eyebrows quirked down just a bit, but she was smiling. “Are you asking me if the captain is concerned about the safety of the people who travel with him, or if he’s concerned about you, Miss Rose Small?”

“Both,” Rose said quietly. Yes, she should be much more modest about these sorts of questions. After all, she hardly knew Molly Gregor. But if she didn’t have much time left to her life, Rose figured she would live it as forthrightly as she could.

“Any passenger he agrees to have aboard the Swift—and those are few and far between—the captain has always seen to their safety and comfort. But you?” Molly unbuckled the tool belt around her hips and slung it over one shoulder. “He’s particularly interested in your safety and well-being.”

“Oh,” Rose said.

“And just in case you didn’t understand that, he likes you, Rose, though he’s barely said more than three words to you. I’m not one to tell the captain who to associate with, but I do want you to know that my loyalties will always fall at his side. Treat him kindly.”

Rose just nodded. It might be the medicine and the pain, but it didn’t seem like Molly was threatening her. It almost sounded like she was encouraging Rose’s interest. Maybe glim runners had a different sort of values when it came to a woman’s attraction to a man.

“Good night, Rose Small,” Molly said as she walked off toward her cot. “And good night to you, Mae.”

“Good night, Molly,” Mae said.

Mae came over to Rose and tucked her blanket in around her. “Cold?”

“No.”

“Pain?”

“Still bearable. The tonic helped.”

Mae smiled. “Good, then. Get some sleep. It’s nearly midnight and I think we’ll all want our wits in the morning.”

“Mae?” Rose asked, catching at her hand before she turned away. “Thank you for taking care of me. I’m sorry I’m…well, I’m sorry I’m such a burden.”

“Nonsense,” Mae said. “You’ve certainly looked after my well-being when I’ve needed it.”

Mae turned down the wick on the lantern next to Rose’s bed. Rose could hear her footsteps as she took to her own cot and settled down upon it, taking off her shoes but not her outer dress.

Molly turned out the lantern next to her bed, and the room was filled with the kind of ink black found only in the deep of caves.

“Mae,” Rose whispered.

“Yes?”

“Do you think it wrong for someone to want…happiness? When things seem so dire?”

Mae was silent for a bit, then said, “We all deserve happiness, Rose. Our lives should be filled with it whether the days are dark or sunny. Happiness doesn’t beg permission. It just walks across our threshold, sets itself down beside us, and waits for us to notice.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Rose said. “Thank you.”

From the sound of Mae’s breathing, she slipped into sleep quickly. Molly was snoring softly, and so were Hink’s men.

But for Rose, sleep was fleeting. To try to work herself down into slumber, she closed her eyes and imagined herself at Mr. Gregor’s blacksmith shop, naming each tool on the wall, in the order they were hung, and repeating what they were used for.

She’d gotten through most of the crimps and hammers when she heard footsteps at the doorway to the room. Not Mr. Hunt. He had a way of stepping so that it was difficult to hear his heel set down.

No, it was the captain, Hink. Her heart picked up a pace and she opened her eyes. She was used to the dark, but he obviously was not. He stepped over the threshold and walked a way into the room. Then he plucked a lantern from the hook on the wall and lit it, turning it low so that only the barest hint of yellow rimmed the blue edge of the wick.

He carried that with him, pacing by the foot of the beds, past his men, past several empty cots, then past Molly’s bed, where he stopped.

Holding his lantern up a bit, he scanned the rest of the room. Rose didn’t close her eyes, enjoying too much the play of softly lit shadows on his face.

She didn’t think he could see that she was awake. She wondered if he would come closer, wondered if he would sit down next to her.

But after a moment of assessing both Mae and Rose in their cots, he turned his back and made his way to the far end of the room, where he set the lantern back on the wall hook, glowing there like a lone star lost in the night. Then he eased down onto a cot without even bothering to take off his hat.

She wondered where Mr. Hunt was, wondered where Wil was. Mae hadn’t mentioned them.

Her curiosity was sated just a few minutes later. Mr. Hunt and Wil came into the room, both of them together on six feet not making as much noise as one man alone on two.

Mr. Hunt didn’t seem to need light to navigate the night. He moved through it naturally and silently, pacing across the room to where he finally settled in a cot between the other men and the women.

Wil made a slow and careful inspection of the boundaries and contents in the room, then set himself by the door, facing outward.

Rose closed her eyes and listened to the breathing around her. She wished she could be sleeping peacefully like the others, but her thoughts were still racing.

She tried to return to imagining Mr. Gregor’s shop, but her mind was crowded with Captain Hink. She imagined his smile, the hard angle of his jaw, and the low roll of his voice. She imagined they were alone on his ship, flying over the green blanket of trees that was interrupted only by fields and mountains and embroidered streams.

She imagined he was showing her how to fly the ship, how to know the feel of the engines, how to sense the stretch of wings.

Then her imagination wandered onward to other things. The taste of Hink’s lips as he kissed her, the heat of his skin, the touch of his hand against her body. Would he want her that way? Would he smile between kisses? Would he hold her gently or with possessive strength? Would he, even for one moment, love her?

Those were things she wanted to know. Things she might never have the time to learn.

She hoped Mae was right. Hoped happiness knew how to find its way into a person’s life. And she hoped if happiness found her, she might have at least one kiss, one loving moment, before she had to lay down this life.