Cherie Priest - Fiddlehead

“Henry!”

“Trust me or die!” he told her. With one hand he seized her by the waist. With the other he snapped the hemp belt free and stood up inside the shattered, uncovered cab, taking her with him. Dangling in the firmament, he grabbed her tightly—both arms now—and kicked free of the wreckage. And then they were still falling, but falling together … above the battered Dove, and then beside it.

Maria’s clothes billowed violently and her hair tried to tear itself off her head. She wanted to fight Henry, in order to … what? Swim in the sky? Fall by herself? Take these last seconds in silence, to pray or to reminisce, regret or wonder, and prepare for whatever came next?

His grip was a vise around her ribs. He shouted into her ear, but still she barely heard him: “Hang on to me! Now!”

She gave up her struggle and did as he commanded, because why not? Let their bones break together, and let them dig a crater to be both of their graves.

But instead, Henry ripped at a cord that dangled from the pack on his back, and the fall jerked to a shattering stop—still well above the trees below. The terrific yank sucked all the air out of Maria’s chest and nearly snapped her neck; but she thrust her face into Henry’s throat and clung to him for dear life, now that she understood. Or, if she didn’t understand, she believed, and that was close enough for now.

As long as they floated in the middle of the sky, held aloft by a great umbrella-like cloth that flapped noisily over their heads.

“Emergency harness!” he said loudly. “One’s required in all these little passenger crafts!”

“Emergency,” she muttered into his neck, refusing to open her eyes or look down. She damn well assumed it was an emergency piece, for surely no one in their right mind would don such a thing recreationally.

Her head ached, her ribs were bruised all the way around, and she could scarcely breathe. Her arms felt as if they’d been half pulled from their sockets, and her feet dangled until she wrapped them around Henry’s legs, seeking whatever slight stability she could glean from the situation.

And still they fell.

They swayed back and forth, buffeted by the wind and without any protection at all, not even the pitiful guard of the tiny craft, which crashed somewhere below them. She heard it hit and crumple, and she thanked heaven and Henry that she was not inside it. Though being in midair was only marginally better, as she was still definitely alive—but for how long?

She could feel the wind dragging them in this direction, then that direction, and on top of everything else she was dizzy. “Can you control this at all?” she begged him, nearer to tears than she’d been in a decade.

“Not at all, I’m afraid,” he replied, and he did in fact sound sorry. “Hold on tight, Maria! We’re going down. We’re going down fast. ”

Not as fast as they might have otherwise, but fast enough that when they fell through the tops of two trees it was like being beaten by a mob, and when the final tree caught them in its uppermost branches it was such a horrible way to stop that she almost envied the Black Dove —for at least its awful fall had ended already.

Their fall continued, though she clung to Henry until she was knocked free of him—and then she fell alone, down branches, through dead leaves and abandoned squirrel nests. Her body stripped a line of bark bare from the tree, and her gloves were no protection at all. Her skirts did a somewhat better job of shielding her legs, and her corset may or may not have guarded her organs like armor, but none of it helped very much. When she finally landed on her back, staring up at the hole she’d left in a tree, she watched the emergency sheet snag, tear, and wave forlornly above her.

And then she wondered where Henry was.

He told her: “Ow.”

“Oh, dear—I’m … I’m sorry…”

She rolled off his arm, then kept rolling until she was on her back again, beside him. She hadn’t left him after all.

She couldn’t breathe. No, she was breathing. She put her hand to her chest and felt it rise and fall, but she was so winded that it meant very little. She could do nothing but lie there, as still as she could manage, and wait for her lungs to catch up to the rest of her.

Every inch of her body hurt. She scarcely knew where to begin to check for injuries, so instead she asked Henry, “Are you all right? Mostly? More all right than not?” The words came out in whispers, in time with her every exhalation. It was the only way she could speak at all.

“Yes,” he said in a similar gasp. “No. Wait. Mostly, I think. My arm, though.”

“The one I was lying on?”

“The one you landed on.”

“Ah. Is it…?”

He rolled over onto his side. “Broken. Not as bad as it could be,” he said with a wince.

When she turned her head, she could see that yes, his hand was lying at an unhealthy angle. “Oh, no. We need to brace it.” She wiggled a bit and frowned. No longer lying on his arm, but she was somehow still lying upon something. Ah. Her satchel. Still slung around her chest. Would wonders never cease?

“There seem to be plenty of promising sticks lying about, thanks to us. As for you,” he said, “we need to see about that pretty little head of yours.”

“What about it?” she asked. But now that he mentioned it, a spot to the left of her forehead, just above her ear, felt hot. When she touched it, it stung, and it left the tattered remnants of her glove covered in blood. “Hmm.” She wasn’t sure how much of the blood was from her head, and how much was from her hands—the gloves themselves were in shreds, and scraped skin showed through them. She was quite confident that when she warmed up enough to feel her fingers again, every single one of them would be in agony.

“Let me see it,” Henry suggested.

“First, let’s see about that arm.”

“Heads are more important than arms.”

He had a point, so she let him probe the problem, but only briefly. “You see? It’s all right. I’m fine,” she assured him. “If that’s the worst I get from the adventure, I’ll be in excellent shape. Now. I can stand. Can you?”

“You can stand? Prove it.”

“Fine, I will.” She did, and though the effort was at first unsteady, she settled the matter by arriving upright. “Your turn.”

She offered him her hand and he grasped it, clutching his broken arm to his chest and letting her pull him to his feet. “See? Me too.”

“Apart from the arm, are you intact? How do you feel?”

“Like I just fell out of an airship and crashed through a tree. How about you?”

“The same. Now, let me bind up that arm, and I suppose we’ll have to get on our way. Did I mention I used to work as a nurse?”

“Don’t believe it came up.”

“No? Well,” she said, eyeing the ground for a promising splint. “I didn’t last very long. I don’t mind blood and bones, but I have trouble with vomiting and pus. Here. This will do nicely.”

Before long, Henry was as patched up as he could expect to get, his injured arm fastened tight to a piece of wood, courtesy of the remains of the hemp belt, which had accompanied them to the ground. Maria had found it nearby and rejoiced. Henry’s scarf served as a sling, tied up in a knot behind his neck.

Maria used her own scarf to staunch the bleeding above her ear. Her options were few, and it was dark enough that the stain scarcely showed. Maybe with a good laundering, it would vanish altogether. Or perhaps she’d pester Mr. Pinkerton for hazard pay, should she escape the mission alive. He could damn well buy her a new scarf for her pains. And maybe a good winter coat, too.