Gordon Dahlquist - The Dark Volume

He applied a fresh layer of damp, cool cloths to Miss Temple's body. She had worsened while he slept. He should have insisted she stay on the airship until a boat could be fetched from the village. It might not have made any difference—the airship might have gone under before any boat could arrive—but Svenson berated himself for not even considering it, for not even realizing the danger.

HE RETURNED to the kitchen, hoping to find Elöise, but met only the concerned faces of Lina and Bette, wondering about the poor young lady. Svenson served them a practiced lie—all was improving— and excused himself to the porch, where Cardinal Chang stood at the rail with his own cup of tea. The Doctor suggested that Chang might avail himself of the salve for his own welter of cuts, but knew even before he finished describing where it was kept that the man would not. They dropped into silence, gazing at the muddied yard and the three very squat huts, one for chickens, one for drying fish, and one for nets and traps. Beyond these were the woods, mainly birch, pale bark gashed with black, branches hanging slack and dripping from the fog.

“Have you seen Mrs. Dujong?” Svenson asked.

“She went walking.” Chang nodded toward the trees. “Not that there is any notable destination.”

Svenson did not reply. He found the isolated woods and the heavy sky splendid.

“Celeste?” asked Chang.

“Grave.” Svenson patted his pocket by instinct for the cigarettes he knew were not there. “The fever has worsened. But she is a fierce young woman, and strength of character may turn the tide.”

“But as far as what you can do?”

“I will continue to do it,” said Svenson.

Chang spat over the rail. “Then it is quite impossible to say how long we are marooned here.”

Chang glanced behind him to the door, then out again at the muddy forest, for all the world trapped on the porch like a tiger in a cage.

“Perhaps I will have a walk myself,” Svenson observed mildly.

HE HAD no particular memory of Elöise's shoes—and wondered on the fact that he'd paid them no mind—but the muddy path to the shore showed small fresh prints with a pointed rear heel he doubted came from any fisherman. The surf was a brilliant churning line dragged between the nearly black seawater and the grey sky hanging heavily above it. Perhaps fifty yards away, her feet just above the reaching waves, stood Elöise.

She turned, saw him coming, and waved. He waved back with a smile, stepping clear of a sudden swipe of surf at his boot. Her cheeks were red with the cold, and her hands—in gloves, but thin wool— tucked under her arms. She wore a plain bonnet borrowed from Sorge's wife, but the wind had pulled strands of her hair loose and whipped them eagerly behind her head. Svenson was tempted to put his arm around her—indeed, upon seeing her his feelings were quite suddenly carnal—but instead he merely nodded, calling above the surf.

“Very fresh, is it not?”

She smiled and hugged her arms. “It is very cold. But a change from the sickroom.”

He saw she held something in her hand.

“What have you found?”

She showed it to him—a small wet stone, the water darkening its color to plum.

“How lovely,” he said.

She smiled, and tucked it into the pocket of her dress.

“Thank you for tending Miss Temple while I slept,” he said.

“Thank Lina—you see I am here, having left well before you were awake. You did not sleep long, you must still be quite tired.”

“Naval Surgeons are made of iron, I assure you—it is required.”

She smiled again and turned to continue walking. He fell in step beside her, closer to the rocks, where the wind was less and they could speak without shouting.

“Will she die?” Elöise asked.

“I do not know.”

“Have you told Chang?”

Svenson nodded.

“What did he say?”

“Not a thing.”

“That is ridiculous,” muttered Elöise. She shivered.

“Are you too cold?” Svenson asked.

She gestured vaguely with her hand at the waves.

“I have been walking…”

She stopped, and took a breath to start again.

“When we spoke on the stairs at Tarr Manor, when you had saved me—so long ago, a lifetime ago—well, since we have properly survived, we have not properly spoken again …”

Svenson smiled despite his desire to keep his feelings discreet. “There has been little time—”

“But we must,” she insisted. “I told you that I came to Tarr Manor on the advice of Francis Xonck, the brother of Mrs. Trapping, my mistress—”

“To find Colonel Trapping. But you did not know Xonck was part of the Cabal, and had that very morning put the Colonel's body in the river.”

“Please. I have been attempting to order these words for some hours—”

“But Elöise—”

“A train full of people came to Tarr Manor, to sell secrets about their betters to the Cabal—and I went with them. I was told they might know where the Colonel—”

“You cannot hold yourself to blame, if Mrs. Trapping authorized your journey.”

“The point is that they collected these secrets— my secrets—into a glass book—”

“And the experience almost killed you,” said Svenson. “You are uniquely sensitive to the blue glass—”

“Please,” she said. “You must listen to me.”

Svenson heard the tension in her voice and waited for her to go on.

“What I told them,” she said, “whatever I had to offer…you must understand… I cannot remember it—”

“Of course not. Memories taken into a book are erased from a person's brain. We saw the same with those seduced to Harschmort— their minds were drained into a book and they left idiot husks. Yet perhaps for you this is even fortunate—if these were secrets you yourself were ashamed of sharing.”

“No—you must understand. Confusing, intimate details of my life are missing—not about my employers, but about me. I have tried to make sense of what I do remember, but the more I try the more my fears have left me wretched! Every erasure is surrounded by scraps and clues that describe a woman I don't recognize. I truly do not know who I am!”

She was weeping—so suddenly, the Doctor did not know what to do or say—hands over her eyes. His own hands hovered before him, wanting to take her shoulders, to draw her in, but when he ought to have moved he did not and she turned away.

“I must apologize—”

“Not at all, you must allow me—”

“It is unfair to you, terribly unfair—please forgive me.”

Before he could reply, Elöise was walking back where they had come, as fast as she could, her head shaking as if she was chiding herself bitterly—whether for what she felt or for attempting to speak at all he could not tell.

WHEN HE returned to the house, Chang seemed not to have moved, but as the Doctor climbed the wooden steps the Cardinal cleared his throat with a certain pointed speculation. Svenson looked into Chang's black lenses and felt again the extremity of the man's appearance and how narrow—like a South American bird that eats only a weevil found in the bark of a particular mangrove—his range of habitation actually was. Then Svenson considered his own condition and scoffed at the presumption of comparing Chang to a parrot. He himself might well be some sort of newt.

He could hear Elöise inside, speaking to Lina. The Doctor paused, and then tormented himself for pausing, only to be interrupted by a call from behind him: the fisherman, Sorge, limping across from the shed, accosting Svenson with yet another request for medical expertise—this time for a family in the village whose livestock were ailing after the storm. The Doctor dredged a hearty smile from the depths of his service at the Macklenburg Palace. He glanced at Chang. Chang was staring at Sorge. Sorge pretended the scowling figure in red did not exist. The Doctor stumped down the stairs toward their host.