Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion (14 page)

Del would have taken her for a dollymop, but that she was dressed all in black, more moth than butterfly. Her skin was so pale that it almost glowed in the moonlight and her hair, falling untied and untamed down her back to her knees, was as vivid as wildfire.

Del stopped, her mouth hanging open, right there in the middle of the street, her heart beating loud in her ears.

The girl looked straight into Del’s face and Del flushed, trying helplessly to think of something to say. When nothing surfaced she smiled instead and held out a hand, abruptly remembering her manners. But the girl continued to stare at… no — she was staring
through
Del as if she were not there. Her dark gaze was as fixed and unblinking as a sleepwalker.

Del stepped forward and the girl turned without hesitating, walking out from under the shadow of the Cathedral on feet that made no sound. Despite the night’s chill she wore neither coat nor hat, did not even have a shawl about her shoulders, only that flaming hair. Del’s sudden shiver was not caused by the cold night air.

She turned away from the Ministry without a backward glance and followed.

They passed up Park Street in silence, Del a few paces behind. By the time they reached the beginning of the Downs Del was breathing a little loudly, but the girl seemed not to have noticed the climb at all. Her pace never changed, not to slow down or to quicken and she looked neither left nor right. She did not appear notice the chill of the night nor Del’s shadow at her back.

Still unwavering, the girl paced up into the streets of Clifton but Del hesitated. Clifton village, with its great mansions and its titled residents, made her uneasy. It was so far from anything she had ever known.

Then the girl threatened to slip away into the darkness and Del reminded herself that she was a respectable Ministry Aetheric now, not a thief from the ‘wells. She followed where the girl led, unable to resist.

The girl stopped at the edge of the Downs, beneath stars that were fading in the lightening sky.

She stopped in front of a house.

Actually it was more of a mansion, with a sprawling, whitewashed façade and several floors. It was shuttered and dark, motionless in the early morning stillness.

The girl lifted her face; it was as pale as porcelain while the rest of her was invisible in those dark clothes. The night deepened her hair to the colour of old blood. Her eyes looked like empty sockets as she stared up at the silent house, hands clenched tight into the petticoats of her skirt.

Del watched, unable to turn away until, after a long moment, the girl stepped forward. She brushed against the garden gate as she moved under the dark eaves of the house and disappeared into shadowed air.

“It was obviously a tart, Del. What is so strange about that?”

“Lightskirts do not dress like crows and besides,” Del took a bite of her kipper, “The gentlemen who buy company up there either find it in a brothel down here or take it home with them in a cab. It doesn’t wonder around the village at four in the morning. And, Tom, she disappeared.”

Pickering sighed and picked up his coffee cup.

“It was dark and you were a bit of a go. She probably went behind a hedge or something.”

Del shook her head, “Then how do you explain this?”

Pickering frowned, “Explain what?”

“She was radiating Aetherica like a furnace. It was just flowing off her. Who does that, Tom? No one, that’s who, no one.”

“Well, no one I know.” Pickering said.

The breakfast talk turned to other things. But later that night, Del was waiting beneath the shadow of the cathedral, her cold hands in her pockets, watching for the girl, the girl with red hair.

The city is dying.

I stand on a bridge above the harbour, seeking the water’s warmth, but it is gone. My hands are bare, a flake of ash settles on my palm and burns like ice. I flinch, hissing a curse. Tears fall from my eyes, dampening my face; they taste of salt… or blood.

I turn and leave the bridge, absently rubbing at a sore spot in the crook of my arm. I will walk now, away from the cold water, away from the tall masts of the ships of the sea and the dark bulk of the ships of the air. I will pass up the hill seeking the shadows of the Downs. It is as if I cannot help myself. As if I am searching for something but I do not know what it is.

As I near the burnt shadow of Cathedral, the scent of sulphur and smoke grows heavy in my throat. I do not look up to see the ruined stonework. My legs are weary; the ash is so thick that it is hard to walk.

The flame of my hair spills across my face in a hot wind.

And then I see it, the light. It is faint, a mere flicker amongst the shadows. But it is there. Clear and bright, like a promise or a gift. I quicken my pace, my footsteps deadened by the weight of ash. I move towards it, thinking how warm it is and that light never comes, in this place.

Del watched the girl for a week. Waiting for her in the shadow of the cathedral and following her as she climbed into the Downs. The route was always the same and the girl never spoke, never even turned her head, and yet somehow Del could not help herself. She had to be there.

Afterwards, when she had made the long, cold walk back to her narrow, empty little room in the Ministry, she would fall into fitful sleep and dream of red hair and shadows.

“It’s no good, I have to do something, I have to find out who she is.”

Pickering frowned at Del over his breakfast.

“And how do you mean to do that?” He said.

Del placed her knife and fork down carefully across the plate as she had been taught, laid her napkin aside and rose.

“I’m going to the Archive.”

The Ministry Archive contained everything ever known about both Aetherica and Aetherics, from Gerald Smythworthy’s early experiments in the 1780’s to unpatented designs for Ether-engines and the details of every registered Aetheric in the country.

Del hadn’t been down there since her training and she wondered if Henry Warner was still presumptive king over that dusty, little kingdom. She hoped not. They had never exactly seen eye to eye. She couldn’t figure out whether it was because of the colour of her skin or what lay between her legs. But either way, Warner did not warm her heart, nor she his.

In fact Del sometimes wondered why she had never shot him.

On this occasion, intrigued by her story, Pickering had elected to accompany her and while he engaged Warner in meaningless pleasantries, Del was free to slip past into the shelter of the stacks.

There was a gentle silence amongst the piles of books, scrolls and miscellaneous papers that was soothing. Del had forgotten how much she enjoyed it, when Warner wasn’t around.

She moved hesitantly through a secret dark, lit only by shallow Aetherica lamps (as yet unpatented and not available to the general public). She ran careful fingers along the smooth shelves, feeling their age in the veneer of their finish. They were warm beneath her touch, heated by Aetherica which had no discernible source but was present nonetheless. With something close to a purr of pleasure Del slid on into the dusk.

I am in a room. The ceiling is a jagged hole through which a thousand billion stars shine. I lie on my back on a bed made of nails and broken glass. My eyes are closed but I see everything.

The walls of the room are dark with blood and pain.

As I listen, footsteps come closer; I can hear the creak of weight in each step, the hiss of breath outside the door, the rattle of wheels. I cannot move but my breath hisses into the stillness of the room as the door opens.

He is tall, his hair grey, his face lined. He wears only black and offers a jocular, “Good morning, my dear, you seem in fine fettle today,” as he moves towards the bed. I feel my body press itself into nails and glass, as if to escape his presence. Though it is not him that I fear, not really, it is what his visit means.

It is the machine.

He pushes it before him. A barrel shaped body on a wheeled wooden trolley. It has dials of brass and clips of leather and a coil of rubber tubing, the colour of dried skin. I watch as he positions it beside the bed, my hands are trembling, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.

His long, pale fingers unhook two lines of tubing with brass valves at each end. One end of each tube is fitted neatly into metal ports on either side of the barrel; the other ends are for me. He pauses to stare down into my face.