Shadows

It was a talent he had discovered quite by accident one cold winter’s night three years ago not long after his thirteenth birthday. Robert had been leafing lazily through an old book about falconry late into the night and the candlelight was flickering and dying. His eyelids had grown heavy and he had felt his head bob forwards. All of a sudden he had found himself falling forwards an impossible distance and he felt the book rushing up towards him but never quite reaching his face. His stomach turned and he felt like he was going to be sick but then as soon as the sensation had started it ceased. Blinking back a dizzying feeling, Robert had found himself staring down at the book from some disembodied point a few feet above it. A man had just finished scribbling the last few words onto the pages and was sitting back contentedly, admiring his work and brushing the feathers of his quill against his chin.

Looking at the man in more detail Robert recognised him from an engraved plate in the book he had been reading as Aramonius Rim, the author of ‘On the Subject of Falconry’. Very confused but also fascinated by the situation he found himself in, Robert cautiously waved a hand in front of the man’s face, who gazed through it unseeingly. On looking around Robert saw he was in a small room mostly bare apart from the writing desk in the centre and a few shelves full of scrolls and manuscripts on the far wall. He tried to step towards them but found he was unable to move more than a few feet away from the book lying open on the desk. Alright, he thought to himself, what now? Pacing back towards the book he glanced down at the pages and reached out a hand to see if he could touch it. As soon as his hand neared he felt the falling sensation again and fought back the urge to vomit as the room became a blur once more. As he pulled back his hand the feeling eased and a new vista came into focus.

This time he found himself floating above the deck of a ship moored up in a harbour he did not recognise. A man was handing over a parcel to a man dressed in maritime regalia who looked like a captain, Robert thought. He felt drawn to the parcel and without seeing somehow knew that the falconry book resided underneath the brown paper that was wrapped around the parcel. Taking in his surroundings a bit more Robert deduced the book was being placed onto a merchant vessel that was being loaded with lots of boxes and barrels by crewmen that bustled back and forth up gangplanks like ants. The captain nodded to the gentleman who had handed him the book, said something slightly muffled in a tongue Robert recognised to be a dialect of Old Elthric[7], and turned to walk into his cabin.

Robert felt a tugging sensation as if he was attached to the book by a rope around his waist and he found himself bobbing along after the captain as he carried the parcel across the deck. Lunging forward Robert reached his hand out towards the parcel once more, which fell through the wrapping and came to rest on the familiar leather binding beneath. The ship, sea and sky blurred into a writhing mass of colour and Robert felt himself falling again.

Robert saw a multitude of different scenes that night as he tracked the book’s journey throughout history from its completion by Aramonius Rim back in his little workroom and its journey across the sea. He saw various past owners of the book, he saw them sitting down to read it, he saw it handed over to a gruff-looking old man who meticulously copied out the words over and over to produce several copies of the book. For what seemed like hours he followed the book’s path through time until he began to recognise areas where the book was travelling through. He saw the book being unloaded off another ship in another time onto the dockyards of Velayne, though there were some buildings that he didn’t recognise and some buildings he knew to be abandoned and decrepit that here seemed brand new.

It wasn’t long until he saw a familiar face. Mr Colywick’s face swam into view, though the Mr Colywick in front of him was a much younger man, with no trace of the wrinkles or blemishes that Robert recognised. He was also without the large, thick rimmed glasses he kept on a chain around his neck at all times these days, but the twinkle in his eyes was unmistakeable. Robert watched as Mr Colywick purchased the book from a stall and eagerly hastened back to his shop with it. Time leapt forward once more until Robert could see himself reaching down to pick the aged book off a dusty shelf and carry it up the ladder to the loft, then suddenly he found himself back in the attic where he had started, staring down at the book as the candle light continued to flicker dimly down.

Robert sat for a while, panting heavily and feeling sweat drip down his brow, until the candle finally went out and a thin trail of smoke hung in the air. After a few seconds more Robert hastily grabbed a match from the box under the stool by his bed and light a fresh candle. Upending the old candle out of its stick he planted the fresh one and pulled a new book, one about pottery making, onto his lap.

How did I do it before? He asked himself, heart pounding in his chest. How can I do it again? Unfortunately he was unable to replicate the effect that night, and was in fact told to ‘stop making a racket and go to bed’ by Mr Colywick after he had been caught repeatedly bashing his forehead against the book in frenzied attempt to view its history.

It took him several agonisingly long weeks until he managed to do it again, this time avidly watching the history of a book about the intertwining lives of various members of the aristocracy written by a young lady whom Robert found rather attractive, if in a sort of surly way.

Over the coming months and years Robert had practiced and honed his gift until he was able to enter a book’s history at will and quickly select a specific piece of time associated with it. He became familiar with the history of a few which he considered his favourites and kept in a small drawer in the attic for frequent re-visiting. He regularly tried to find new books to try it with, and had found he excelled when it came to broken books at diving in straight to the point of damage. He even became so skilled he could read a book’s history without having to space out, as he had been caught by Mr Colywick several times previously staring intently at a wall and unable to be roused. Mr Colywick had feared the boy was having some form of fit and tried to move him, in doing so knocking the book from his hand, causing Robert to instantly throw up and briefly pass out before coming to with a pounding headache. Robert had made a point to practice his art in private after that little incident and nothing similar had happened since.

One day as he had just finished flicking through the history of a copy of Lober’s Chivalry, Robert had wondered to himself if the gift only applied to books. He had tried to dive into the history of various other objects, starting with a candle and working up to the wooden floor of the attic itself, with varying degrees of success. The floor was surprisingly easy to read the history of though exceptionally boring, but his patchwork suit proved quite difficult. Robert later deduced this might have been because it was made up of so many different bits of cloth now it was hard for his ability to distinguish which bit to follow, and if he tried too hard he felt his mind was trying to split into about ten different directions at once so quickly stopped.[8]

He’d not told anyone about this ability as he felt he was already perceived by most people as ‘weird enough’ already without adding fuel to the fire. In all the books he’d read he’d never come across even a mention of anyone else with an ability like his, or any explanation for what it was or why he could do it and no-one else could. Robert had thought hard about whether or not to tell Mr Colywick but he felt the old man had already done enough for him and had enough on his plate without having to deal with this too. Apart from Mr Colywick Robert didn’t really have any other friends apart from a mangy dog that would occasionally turn up in the outside courtyard or Miss String, the teacher at Velayne’s Pausday school who appreciated Robert’s thirst for knowledge and prompt deliveries of new books for the children. Robert had gone to the school to attend lessons there a few times himself but had not really got on well with the other boys and girls despite his best efforts. He had always tried his best to make friends and remembered everything they had told him, but for some reason had found it unnerving when he actually did remember everything they’d said.

This intensity of recollection, Robert had learnt to his surprise and confusion, was considered weird. To remember that someone had told him their aunt was going travelling was fine, he discovered, but to remember the aunt’s entire life story and travelling plans was considered obsessive and discomforting. From that day he’d learnt to tactically forget certain items of conversation but by then the damage was done. Anyway, he had comforted himself, he was much more comfortable spending his days at Mr Colywick’s bookshop working and reading. He could learn a lot more there as well, plus Mr Colywick’s back wasn’t what it was and so his help in reaching the upper shelves and maintaining efficient running of the bookshop was more crucial than ever.

‘Who needed friends anyway?’ He had asked himself, but hadn’t been brave enough to answer.

Angie lived in lodgings on the second floor of The Sailor’s Jaunt, a moderately respectable establishment located fairly centrally in the dockyards. Her room wasn’t large or resplendent, but she didn’t need it to be - it was a room that was used for sleeping and little else. Apart from the small wooden bed against the wall beneath the window the only furniture inside the room was an old, plain wardrobe against the wall opposite and a small chest next to it. A slightly slanting shelf above the chest was adorned with a few choice books: ‘Ardenthorpe’s Guide to Horticulture’, ‘Common Medical Maladies and How to Treat Them’ and a battered copy of ‘Tales of the Sea by J.E. Skittle’. Beside the books was a small satchel, a few vials, a polished seashell, a feather of green and gold and a miniature model of Vaygenspire, the capital of the Empire, in a small glass dome filled with water. If you shook it small silvery flakes floated around inside and made it look like it was snowing.

As soon as she had got in Angie had marched through the main rooms of the pub to the flight of stairs at the back, nodding to the landlord Bob Catteriron and mouthing the words ‘bath first’ to him. He’d nodded politely back, kindly making no mention of her soot-covered appearance. The pub was already beginning to fill and Angie noticed the regulars drifting towards their usual booths and tables. She stomped up the stairs and along the corridor to the bathing room at the far end.[9] Giving a polite knock to check it was empty, she strode inside and quickly filled a large kettle with water and placed it on a grate over the constantly roaring fire before dragging a brass bathtub over to the fire too. Checking she had locked the door she kicked off her boots before slipping her blackened dress off and glaring at it appraisingly. Well, that’s another dress for the bin, she sighed, and chucked it across the room angrily. The last time she’d covered herself in soot setting off a smoke bomb she’d tried diligently to wash it out, using all the knowledge she had from wound cleaning and old wives’ tales, but to no avail. This time she wouldn’t waste six herrings on Mrs DiGeorge’s Infallible Cleaning Spirit that was for sure. Come to think of it, she thought, I never did get my money back for that...

She’d need that eight herrings from Verne if she were to afford a new dress, Angie thought to herself as she stepped out of her underskirt and folded it, placing it off to one side. The kettle above the fire was hissing with steam so she lifted it off the grate and poured it into the bath, which groaned and buckled with the sudden heat. She filled the kettle again and placed it back on the grate. Her underwear was placed neatly on top of the skirt, and then taking a fresh bar of Mrs DiGeorge’s Quality Soap and a well-used loofah in hand she stepped gingerly into the bathtub, the steaming water easing her aching feet as she crouched, sat carefully down, and began to scrub.

By the time she was done and dressed again in a pale blue dress, one of her now three choices of dress wear, she was starting to feel much better. She opened the shutters to her room and, tying her bootstrings together, hefted her boots out and dangled them off a nail she had hammered into the wood – with one of her boots – just below the windowsill to air. The only other pair of shoes she possessed were a pair of sensible leather slippers with a buckle which she wasn’t as fond of, but Mr Catteriron had put to her in polite terms that his customers preferred not having to wear clothes pegs on their noses when they came by for their evening meal and drink, and to please, please, please wear something other than the dreaded boots. He had even offered to pay towards the cost of the leather slippers, which Angie had thought of as very generous but nonetheless declined. Angie was a firm believer of paying your own way through life.

As she stepped down back towards the pub floor she heard the noise rising substantially, as the evening crowd had descended on the bar in force. Making sure to catch Mr Catteriron’s eye as she came down the stairs and nodding towards her normal table in the corner, she settled down and scanned the crowd for Verne. Mind you, she thought, if I can’t hear him he’s probably not here. Angie was eager to hear what adventures he’d been on this time. She’d known Verne for as long as she could remember, and one of her earliest memories was of him carrying her down the gangplank of his ship when it had docked at some port. Angie wasn’t even sure the memory was real, but it was warm and familiar, so she held on to it tightly.

She’d never really known her mother or father. Her mother Florence had died when she was very little and her father Joseph had been a sailor in the Imperial Navy; away from home for months on end. Verne had been a good friend of the Mace family and as she had no close immediate family he had taken it upon himself to sail her out to where her father had been stationed in the Northern Sea.

Before they had reached the Northern Sea, however, bad weather had struck all the way along the coast. The Jolly Wench, Verne’s old ship, had to stop in ports several times as it tried to struggle up north but was eventually brought low during one foul evening on the treacherous sea and suffered irreparable hull damage. Verne had safely rowed to shore with Angie and a few of his crew in one of the lifeboats but the Jolly Wench had been lost beneath the waves. It took another three weeks for the weather to clear enough for Verne to convince another ship to set off further north but by the time they reached the Imperial Garrison in Edgewaters, the northernmost port on Elthrium and two days sail south of Velayne, they only encountered more bad news. Amongst several other ships the HES Courage, which Angie’s father had been stationed on, had not been seen since the storm and had not sent a messenger hawk for weeks. Conflicting reports seemed to suggest it had been caught in a reef, or smashed against the rocky coastline, or just capsized and dragged below by the fearsome waves. None of the reports seemed confident the ship was intact however, nor that any of the crew would have survived.

Unsure of what course of action to take then, Verne decided to take Angie further north across the Northern Sea to the port city of Velayne where he had some connections that he hoped might prove useful. Quelling his wanderlust and putting his first mate Morgan in charge of his ship for the time being, Verne had temporarily taken up work in one of the rope making factories along the dockyards and cared for the young toddler as if she were his own. Using the small wage he earnt he could afford to rent a room above a tailors shop in the market square at the bottom of Slope Street, and helped out the tailor in what little spare time he had in exchange for clothing for Angie and himself. When Angie had grown to the age of eight she had helped sweep the floor of the tailors shop and do odd jobs before gradually earning enough respect to allow her to help sew the clothes the shop sold. She remembered that whilst she found it rewarding work and enjoyed the sewing it was dull compared to the stories Verne would tell her of his exploits on the seas at bedtime.

The years had passed and the tailors closed down, so Verne and Angie had to seek new employment for her. An offer had come relatively quickly from a Mrs Verity Gable whose daughter had left to get married in Elthrium to some vineyard owner and was looking for someone to help her run the family business. Her husband had served in the navy and passed away many years ago so she was in desperate need of aid. Angie readily accepted the job and found a new pleasure and fulfilment in delivering oddments and potions to the people of the dockyards, helping them with their problems and earning a name for herself due to her skill and hardworking attitude. It was around this time she took up lodgings at the Sailor’s Jaunt, and Verne got tired of life on land. He had stayed on in Velayne for another year whilst he gathered up a crew and found a new ship, the Waveskimmer. Then, content that Angie had found a place to call her own and had a steady income and a job she enjoyed, Verne set off once more onto the open seas. He always made sure to stop by Velayne if he was in the area or if a good few months had passed without visiting, but it wasn’t the same. Angie would never admit it but she sometimes longed to return to the days where she and Verne had lived above the tailors shop. Now when she came home there was a certain emptiness, a certain loneliness. Maybe this was what it meant to grow up, she thought to herself as a plate of bread and mutton was placed in front of her by Mr Catteriron. After all, she was turning sixteen later this year. Maybe this was what it felt like to enter the world of adults.

Mr Catteriron placed a flagon of water by her meal and with a polite smile and nod, which Angie returned, he scuttled off back to the bustling bar. She took a good long swig of the water, licked her lips, and picked up the mutton. As she gnawed off a chunk of meat she watched around at the old men and young men getting steadily drunker on the ale that sloshed round their flagons. True, Angie was only fifteen and so not able to lawfully imbibe ale, but she didn’t see the pleasure in the foul tasting drink anyway. She’d tried it one time a few years ago when she’d asked Verne what the big deal was and he’d offered her a drink from his cup. Angie had immediately retched and spat the ale back out, which had had Verne in hysterics. She’d tried once again a few months ago to see if her views had changed, but despite managing to drink the whole cup this time she’d not particularly enjoyed it. It had made her sweat and her fingers tingle, and she’d spent the whole next morning groaning and avoiding the light so she was in no rush to have any more anytime soon.

One drunken young sailor, his cheeks flushed and his friends egging him on, stumbled over towards where Angie sat devouring half a loaf of stale bread and on his last step tripped and spilt half of his ale onto her table. He opened his mouth to make a quick and no doubt charming comment, but the glare in Angie’s eyes sobered him up faster than ice. The young man stuttered and chuckled nervously, making another attempt to strike up conversation when a large scarred hand missing two fingertips placed itself on his shoulder. Gulping as he saw an evil glimmer in Angie’s eyes, he turned around to see a man nearly as broad as he was tall smiling down at him. An overpowering smell of grog washed over the young sailor that made him recoil, knocking his knees against Angie’s table as he tried to back away.

“Were you giving this delightful young lady trouble, young man?” the giant bearded man boomed at the poor sailor, whose bladder was straining to keep control of itself. Survival instincts kicked in and he shook his head side to side rapidly, nearly giving himself whiplash. “Well that is good to hear, for you see if anyone was to be giving this young lady any trouble, they would soon find that I would be giving them trouble, if you catch my meaning?” The man’s bladder lost its valiant battle and there was a faint sound of trickling. “I’ll take that as a yes then, shall I?” The sailor nodded. “Good. Now push off.” The young man tottered weakly back to his group of friends who looked back towards the giant of a man stood next to Angie. He gave them an unsettling grin. The group decided very quickly in communication that needed no words that it might be a very good idea to head to the next tavern along, very quickly, before that man had a chance to get a good look at their faces.

As the group of hapless sailors tried to bundle out the doorway all at once, the man pulled up a stool and sat down next to Angie. In an instant his tough guy act was dropped and he broke into a genuine, hearty smile and chuckled. Angie gulped down another hunk of mutton, wiped her mouth on her sleeve and smiled back.

“Hello, Verne.”

“Hello, m’girl. Good to see you looking so well, I must say! I heard you had a bit of trouble at the market today involving some bookbinder’s brat?” Angie didn’t even question how Verne knew of her earlier incident, it hadn’t exactly been discreet to start with and Verne knew all of the gossips in the Velayne dockyards anyway.

“It was nothing I couldn’t handle. The real problem was with those smoke bombs you made me, they’ve ruined another one of my dresses you understand! I hate going to shop for them at the best of times and business hasn’t been excellent recently so my budget won’t stretch to anything from Mayweather’s which means going to Highton’s where there’s that unbearable assistant called Flower, or Flora, or something, who always insists on measuring me even when I hand her the piece of paper with my measurements on…” Verne cut across her rant with another hearty chuckle.

“Alright, alright, a man can take a hint…” he grinned, reaching into his pocket and tossing a small bag of coins across the table to Angie. “Your eight herrings I owe you, plus a little bonus. Our last client was paying very well.” Angie had already emptied the bag into her palm and was counting.

“Verne, there’s thirty herrings in here! That’s over three times what you owe me, and it was only meant to be five herrings anyway which makes it six times more! I can’t take this from you. I appreciate the gesture but I don’t need charity, I’m quite capable of earning enough on my own.” Angie dropped the coins back into the bag and pushed it back across the table towards Verne.

“You did damn good work sewing up my arm when I cut it open on that nail,” Verne said, resting his left elbow on the table and revealing a thick scarred forearm, with one long and jagged scar fresher than the rest. “And there’s not a soul alive this side of the Northern Sea who’d do such a good job for a measly five herrings. I don’t need charity from you, m’girl, I can pay the proper rates.”

“But that is what I charge for that amount of work-”

“Then you could afford to charge triple,” Verne stated, “And it would still be worth it. The good people of the Velayne dockyards don’t know how good they have it with you attending to them. Why, I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the Empire and a good deal beyond and never met someone with your skill who doesn’t charge an arm and a leg.”

“Flattery won’t get me to accept that money, Verne-”

“I don’t expect it to. I expect you to take that money because I tell you to. You’ve earnt a good deal of it and the rest is my gift to you. It’s about what I’d be getting if I was still working at that rope-makers anyway. So you’ll take it and I’ll hear no more on the matter.”[10]

“Fine.”

“Fine.” There was a brief but intense silence in the corner of the pub which was broken only by the faint sound of clinking as Angie slipped the coin bag into a pocket in her dress.[11]

“I sent your regards to Mrs Gable, by the way. She said you’d be welcome to stop by for tea. I believe there’ll be cake.”

“Oh, good!” said Verne with genuine enthusiasm. The thought of being stuck in a room chatting to Mrs Gable over tea and cake was, to Angie’s embarrassment, one of the things she thought Hell would probably involve. As lovely as the lady was at heart Angie couldn’t stand prolonged conversation with her over tea, especially when she kept trying to read the damn tea leaves. To Verne however the thought of Mrs Gable fretting around him pouring tea and passing slices of cake on paper-thin plates was idyllic. Angie had never asked why, as to her the question felt about as useful as asking a pig why it enjoyed rolling about in a muddy puddle. She probably wouldn’t understand the answer and it wouldn’t have her rolling around in the mud anytime soon anyway.

“Yes, she’s been trying a new recipe for a lemon cake I believe, though the trial cakes she’s had me try haven’t had lemons in so I couldn’t guess at how it tastes.” Lemons were another rare fruit to grace the island of Adwich, so Mrs Gable had been keeping the two she had for a special occasion.

“Oh, lemon cake!” Verne beamed, “My favourite! Did you know when a lemon is growing it’s green until it ripens?” Angie was nonplussed.

“I thought it was green anyway. What colour is it, then?” she asked. Verne deflated a little.

“Well, it’s yellow, isn’t it?” he said, shuffling on his seat awkwardly. “Don’t tell me you’ve not seen a lemon, Ange?”

“Well it’s not as if they’re grown on Adwich, is it? I thought they were big green things?”

“That’s melons, Ange.”

“Lemons, melons, what’s the difference?”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Why do they have such similar names then? Seems poor planning in my opinion.”

[7] Old Elthric was, by and large, very similar to more current day versions of Elthric. The main difference was that Old Elthric was missing some key letters that hadn’t been invented at the time, and suffered from an overabundance of the letters it did have. ‘E’ in particular had got an unfair share of the limelight.

[8] Another idea Robert had thought would be good was to try his ability on food down at the market. Surely, he thought, by reading the past of a fish for example, he could tell when it was caught and be able to select the freshest one. Unfortunately this had led to an incident Robert tried never to think about again in which he had thought he briefly was the fish he was reading and had afterwards spent a rough few days convincing himself he didn’t have gills.

[9] The bathing room had been a suggestion of Angie’s when old Captain Wrangler had passed away. The Captain had been a longstanding tenant at the Sailor’s Jaunt and had occupied a room with a large fireplace that he regularly lit to keep him warm in the night to ease his rheumatism. When he passed away Mr Catteriron had asked the other tenants whether they would like the room for anything, and Angie had suggested a private area for residents to bathe in after a long day of work. As she had turned up to breakfast the morning before covered in copious amounts of sick (having dealt with Mrs Rufford’s new-born twins with projectile vomiting all night), there were no objections.

[10] There was no arguing with Verne. Angie considered herself to have pretty iron willpower and could hold her own in an argument against a lot of people, a trait that was useful when, for example, she was trying to tell Mr Alsop that his diet was the cause of his bowel problems, not a curse that ‘some gypsy woman’ put on him because he kicked her goat fifty years ago. When it came to Verne however, whom she reckoned she’d got part of her arguing prowess from, it was impossible as the man would just not acknowledge any opinion other than his own. She loved the man like a father and would hate anything to happen to him, but at times like this she could have killed him.

[11] Angie insisted that all her dresses must have pockets in, which was another reason she hated going to Highton’s dressmakers. Even if they did remember to include them they would only make them a few inches deep, which was no good for anything.