The Scrimshander stiffened, scrabbled to maintain his hold upon her. “You’re—”
“Not Ophelia!” Her fingers closed around a handful of feathers; fractal and stiff-soft, they tore free as he struggled against the revelation and the winds.
He immediately headed for the ground, angling over the brackish green dimple of a pond before an icy downdraft hurtled them at the water, tearing Bertie from his desperate grasp even as it tossed him back into the sky like a child’s toy. She fell, the rush the same as it had been when she jumped from the cliffs: hair whipping about her face, her skirts like the unfurling sails of a ship. The Scrimshander cried out, an anxious bird calling to a hatchling precipitously shoved from the nest before Bertie hit the water with a smack and sank like a stone.
The shock of the impact deprived her of all reason as she drifted down, down, Gertrude’s voice from Hamlet ringing like a clarion bell in her head:
“‘Her garments, heavy with their drink, pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death.’”
Eyes squeezed shut, Bertie understood why Ophelia never fought the written pull of the water that had dragged her under: Everything inside was sharp bits of broken glass from a shattered spotlight, the dull throb in Bertie’s head the same as the time a trapdoor had slammed shut atop her. She held very still for a moment, entangled in pain that was like the rough, coiled ropes backstage, then realized her options were to swim or to drown like her mother.
Opening her eyes, it was impossible to tell which direction was up, but the slime of waterweeds tangled about her ankles gave Bertie one clue, then a glimmer of the fleeing sun overhead gave her the second. Kicking hard, she surfaced seconds later, gasping for air. A few feeble thrusts put sand underfoot, and she staggered from the pond, thinking only one thing:
Ariel wouldn’t have dropped me.
She stood a moment, dripping water from the Mistress of Revels’s skirts, once a lovely emerald green, now sodden and three shades darker than midnight. Twisting around, Bertie tried to get her bearings, tried to pinpoint where the journal might have fallen and prayed it hadn’t been in the pond. When a shadow flickered over her, she tilted her head back, Raven’s Wing Black dye dripping from her bangs into her eyes.
“You aren’t taking me back!” Her hand swept the ground nearest her and closed around a rock.
But the Scrimshander dipped low, no doubt meaning to catch hold of her again, so she threw it with all her strength. The years spent flinging glitter bombs, water balloons, and stale pastry made her aim true; the jagged edge of the rock struck him between the eyes, and he reeled back with a squawk.
“Leave me alone!” For an encore, Bertie threw another rock, larger than the first, and hit him in the breastbone. The Scrimshander only just managed to evade a third projectile. “If you touch me again, I’ll kill you!”
He must have taken her at her word, for he wheeled about and flew, hard and fast. Bertie could hear a thin, golden noise, like a chain hissing along the ground, dragged in the dirt: a reminder of the link between them.
“Not again.” Wrapping her arms about the nearest excuse for a tree, Bertie braced herself for the painful tug that came only seconds later. She ducked her head and pressed her cheek to the rough bark, trying to imagine she had roots that went deep, roots that would tether her to this place. Another tug, harder than the first, that jangled her bones within her skin.
That’s when she spotted the journal, leather cover half buried in the loam. Only a few feet away, it was still too far to reach unless she let go of her anchor. She’d have to time it just right and have luck on her side. Thankful to find the fountain pen still firmly stashed in her bodice, she pulled it out and took a deep breath.
Deadline indeed.
The third time the Scrimshander pulled at the chain connecting them, Bertie waited for the exact moment the line went slack and dove upon the journal. On her knees in the dirt, she fumbled with the cover, traitorous hands trembling as she scrawled,
A single link in the chain breaks.
Bertie felt the snap! when their connection gave way. With his tether to humanity severed, the Scrimshander raced from her, taking with him her hopes of finding Sedna, of reaching Nate. Had she been onstage, a tragic, broken heroine, she might have performed a moving soliloquy, a heart-rending aria or, at the very least, crumpled to the floorboards and wept. But she couldn’t cry on the scrimshaw.
And you’re not a soprano, so get moving. You have to find the others before you can even think about rescuing Nate.
She paused only a moment to check her arms and legs, fingers and toes. Though the shock of the water had been frightening, it had also saved her ending up a brilliantly dressed pancake upon the ground and left only a residual ache. Then, cradling the journal and wincing with every step, Bertie picked a delicate path through the worst of the marsh, stumbling twice, refusing to cry out both times. The terrain was treacherous: uneven and damp in the best of places. Without warning, the ground would drop away into sinkholes filled with noisome and brackish water. The Mistress of Revels’s golden sandals were a mucky green-brown, the hem of her damp skirts similarly filthy by the time Bertie climbed a short, steep bank and found herself on a deserted country lane. Although not the road they’d been traveling on, it was nevertheless a welcome change from the mind-numbing slog.
Which way?
She missed the fairies, who surely would have provided ridiculous commentary on her situation. However annoying they might be, however much she’d once longed for quiet and solitude, she’d trade the gold belt around her waist to hear that cascade of infectious giggling, the perfectly pitched straight line of “Shall we go west?” so one of the others could immediately demand, “Your west or mine?”
“True west, I think.” Bertie peered down the road, trying to ascertain which route might lead back to the village. Surely the others would have noted her absence by now, but they’d have no idea which direction she’d been taken. Bertie didn’t like to think what the irate air elemental might do when, or if, they managed to find each other.
“And this wasn’t even my fault.”
Wasn’t it? he might as well have whispered in her ear.
Shoving away the unwelcome thought, Bertie trudged down the lane. Though she had a lovely view of the mist-enveloped fields, the road rolling out like a rust-colored ribbon before her, she soon learned it wasn’t at all like an idyllic traveling scene at the Théâtre, where a continuously moving backdrop would indicate the passage of both fields and time, and set pieces would fly on and off the stage on wires and wheels. Even after a hundred steps, the distant rock she had chosen for a marker appeared just as distant. And her feet! Heels blistered within the Mistress of Revels’s ridiculous sandals. The sun disappeared, a spotlight switched off, and a chill wind taunted Bertie with icy fingers along her hemline.
“I shouldn’t like the journal to be ruined.” She gazed up at the ominous gathering clouds. “Though it’s not like I can get wetter than I already am.”
No one shared the road with her, neither coach, nor cart, nor rider on horseback.
“That’s a little odd. The bit about not having met anyone else yet, I mean.”
The solitude grew progressively more disconcerting. A thick layer of fog crept over the fields, and Bertie didn’t need the Theater Manager’s pocket watch to know hours had passed since the Scrimshander had so unceremoniously dumped her in the marsh.
A few more steps. Reach that cursed rock, then you can have a moment’s rest.
Her teeth were chattering by the time she collapsed atop the pert granite square marked MILE 478. Opening the journal, Bertie thought of summoning the troupe to this spot, but feared the caravan might land on her, finishing her off for good.
“Not the sort of finale I’m looking for, not after the day I’ve had.” Surrounded now by shifting layers of fog, she uncapped her pen and wrote,
All roads lead to Bertie.
and crossed her fingers, won
dering how long it would take Ariel and the others to reach her.
“I should have eaten something in the village.” She’d had nothing at all today, and a strange buzzing set up between her ears.
The mist swirling about her shifted, revealing a tiny stone cottage that had not been there three seconds before. A large tree crouched over the house, and a woman bustled out to gather the clothes flapping upon a laundry line.
It was a scene straight out of How Bertie Came to the Theater, the place she’d always imagined her Mother lived, before the startling revelation that Ophelia was her mother.
Bertie rubbed a hand over her eyes, but the vision remained. “I like to imagine she was a simple person,” she whispered, rising to her feet and drifting across the road, “with an uncomplicated life. She married her lover and raised a family. She looked beautiful, even when doing her chores.” Leaning against the low rock wall that surrounded the garden, she couldn’t find the words to call out.
The woman turned nonetheless, the dark braids twisted about her head the same Raven’s Wing Black as Bertie’s shaggy mane. “Can I help you?”
Though Bertie knew the line, she could not speak it aloud.
I picture her with my father, along with five or six of my brothers and sisters. And—
The Family Dog came running. A huge, hairy beast, it dashed past the woman and lunged at the wall, barking madly. With a scream, Bertie dodged back only to whack her funny bone against the trellis. The woman grabbed the slobbering thing and dragged him back.
“Good gracious!” she said with a gasp. “Down! Get down!” Bertie was tempted to throw herself to the ground, so stern a command did the woman issue. The dog backed up with a reluctant whine and another bark. “Sit!” It planted its hindquarters on the ground, tail sweeping through the dirt like a janitor’s broom.
“My apologies,” Bertie finally managed. “And greetings to you, goodwife.”
The woman righted her apron, twisted askew by her canine intervention. “Who are you?”
Bertie took a deep breath and stepped into her proper role. “I am the Mistress of Revels, Rhymer, Singer, and Teller of Tales, on my way to a distant castle to perform for the Royal Family.”
As though on cue, the Incoming Storm arrived. Bertie’s free hand covered the scrimshaw medallion just before a droplet splashed down her nose, immediately followed by a dozen of its brethren. Squinting up, she marveled that the real experience felt exactly the same as the rain machines.
“You’re wet enough already, and it wouldn’t be right for me to leave you out here to drown.” Rushing back to the laundry line, the woman pulled the remaining clothes from their pegs and tossed them atop a wicker basket. “Follow me.”
“Er,” Bertie said, forgetting to be the Mistress of Revels, the Teller of Tales. “That is most kind of you.”
“Come along, I haven’t all day to stand about the yard.”
Keeping a wary eye upon the dog, Bertie followed the woman to the thatched-roof cottage and hesitated in the doorway. A merry fire burned in the hearth, string-tied bundles of dried herbs hung upside down from the rafters, and small pots of wildflowers dotted the table, the windowsills, and the mantelpiece with the sort of haphazard charm that indicated they’d been gathered by chubby fingers. “You’ve a lovely home.”
“My thanks.” The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper as she jabbed at the cradle set in the corner. “It takes a lot of work to make it so, especially with the other children, thanks be they’re yet at school.”
Bertie lowered her voice to match, sitting on a bench at the nearby table and setting the journal before her. “How many do you have? Children, I mean?”
“Six, plus the wee one.” Passing the hearth, the farmwife dropped the basket on the swept-clean stone floor, removed lids from pots, and set the contents a-swish with a long-handled wooden spoon. Though she moved with the silent efficiency of one of the stagehands, a strange noise nevertheless turned into the hiccup-cry of a startled newborn. The woman sighed, and her voice returned to a normal volume. “This one’s hardly let me get a moment’s rest since she arrived.”
Lifting the tiny thing from its cradle, she afforded Bertie her first glimpse of a real baby. There were no infants at the Théâtre; for performances, swaddled dolls took their place, and Bertie had never been a child who played with dolls. Mr. Hastings had offered a parade of teddy bears and dainty porcelain-faced beauties, but why would Bertie want an inanimate sawdust-stuffed thing when she could frolic with the fairies?
Thus she was completely unprepared for the farmwife to ask, “Hold her a moment for me?” Without waiting for an answer, she deposited the baby in Bertie’s arms.
Startled by the soft, heavy weight of it, Bertie stared down into the child’s tiny face. Surely not every baby had hair like golden peach fuzz, milky blue eyes, or brilliant flakes of pink on such fat cheeks. “She’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” The woman opened a cupboard door to sort through a selection of medicinal liniments and powders. “Where did I put that ginger? You ought to have something hot to drink.” The ingredients the farmwife culled reeked of heat and spice, and she muttered to herself as she pulled a gently steaming kettle off the hearth.
Cautiously shifting the child, Bertie realized everything about the creature was as damp as her own skirts, from the spit bubbles the baby blew on berry-colored lips to her suspiciously soggy posterior. “I think she needs a change.”
Tsking under her breath, the woman moved to take her progeny. “Oh, Beatrix, again?”
All roads lead to Bertie.
Bertie-the-elder got chills down her arms from something other than the cold outside. “Such a pretty name.”
“After my mother.” The farmwife whisked the child away, removing the soiled cloth diaper and replacing it with lightning efficiency. Wiping her hands on a towel, she shouldered the tiny thing before handing Bertie a humble ceramic mug filled to the rim. “That will help with the chill.”
My line. I know I have a line here.
“A debt paid today is one that cannot be called in tomorrow, so I will give you something in return. I can weave your daughter’s story on this … er … evening’s loom.”
The woman hesitated. In Bertie’s imagination, a violin held a long, high note; as it descended the scale, the farmwife took a deep breath and joined the Mistress of Revels at the table.
Long fingers flicked the gold belt dangling around Bertie’s waist. “One of these coins would pay for the drink, and a meal as well. There’s bread and stew, a bit of new cheese. Ale, if you’re thirsty.”
Not the line Bertie was expecting, and so the farmwife’s words took a moment to sink in. “Oh. Yes, please.” Bertie pried one of the glimmering discs from her belt and held it out.
The woman bit it, seemed pleased, then spirited it away into her kirtled apron. “Wash up. There’s a pump in the corner.”
There began a dance of plates and pitchers, knives and forks. The farmwife set out a bowl of thick stew, half a loaf of bread still warm from the brick oven, a small wheel of soft cheese. There was butter molded into the shape of a clover, and a stein of dark, home-brewed beer. Trying to remember she had any manners at all, Bertie fell upon the food, dipped up rich broth with the bread, consumed vegetables the fairies wouldn’t have touched even had they been dying of starvation. Between bites, she grinned at the baby, now nestled firmly in the laundry basket atop a pile of clean-but-rumpled shirts, and tried to keep up with the farmwife’s small talk.
“So you’re a performer?” The woman held a heavy iron up to her cheek to test the heat, then ran it over a pillowcase thick with embroidery. “Where’s the rest of your troupe?”
“The next village over,” Bertie hazarded, not knowing for certain if that was indeed the case. “I need to get back on the road soon.”
“Not with the weather as it is.”
“Oh, the rain.” Bertie glanced at the window and saw it was slashed with silver streaks. “Have
you a bit of oilcloth I could purchase? I shouldn’t like my book to get wet.”
The farmwife nodded and went to fetch it, then, with a noise that was equal parts laughter and “silly child,” she took up a napkin. “Hold still, you’ve butter from ear to ear.”
Eyes squinched obediently shut, Bertie could almost imagine she was Beatrix, that she’d grown up in this house, that this woman—
“For another coin, you can stay in our barn. There’s plenty of hay in the loft.” The farmwife returned Bertie’s napkin to her. “More stew?”
Bertie wanted to say yes, but her ribs were already creaking. “No, thank you. I’ve had all I can hold.” Spreading the oilcloth between salt cellar and pickle jars, she managed to wrap it about the journal and secure all the edges without needing to pay for a length of twine, too.
The woman nodded, gathering the plates. “Just as well. The rest of the family will be back soon, and I’ll have another supper to serve. It’s a burden, I tell you, having this many mouths to feed.”
Not quite the right line, but Bertie understood it as her cue. Journal in hand, she rose and looked at the tiny Beatrix, sleeping in the basket, thumb firmly lodged in her mouth. “Does she have stars in her eyes?”
“I beg your pardon?” The farmwife looked up from the dishes.
“Stars?” Bertie’s head swam with the combined effects of her fall, the long walk, the beer, but there was no gainsaying Destiny. “You know, like those in the heavens above?”
Pulling another loaf of bread from the brick oven, the farmwife paused to think over the question. “I suppose so, though I thought it was but a teething fever….”
“She will want a life greater than this, you realize.”
“You mean the farm?”
“I mean upon the stage.”