Chapter 257 - Ships Passing in the Night

Siobhan 

Month 4, Day 5, Friday 8:00 a.m.

Siobhan stared in horrified fascination at the blood egg until Aimee lunged forward, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her away from the mixing bowl as if the contents might jump out and attack Siobhan.

The woman began drawing warding symbols in the air—hedge-witchery at best and completely useless the other ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time—and choked out in an anxious, high voice with her accent coming through strong, “It’s a curse. Blood yolks mean death of a child.” Her hand was trembling around Siobhan’s, and she pulled her back farther, as if to position herself between the egg and Siobhan. “We—we have to put it under your bed. You’ll sleep with it zere for three days, and then take a bath in goat’s milk, and you’ll be fine,” she said, though her tone suggested she doubted that and was merely trying to reassure Siobhan.

Siobhan heard Grandfather’s quick steps coming through from the other side of the dining room and pushed herself out from behind Aimee. “It’s fine,” she told the young woman, somewhat exasperated. “That’s just a superstition. And anyway, do you think some curse is going to kill me with Grandfather around?”

Aimee calmed somewhat, though she still made an aborted motion to stop Siobhan as she approached the mixing bowl again.

“What is all this commotion about?” Grandfather asked gruffly, his voice still harsh from sleep.

Aimee began to explain, but Siobhan was too fascinated by the egg to pay attention. She leaned closer, then poked at its slimy surface. The yolk broke, but didn’t spill with the same viscosity she had expected. Instead, it was much thicker, and had a strange grainy texture. Siobhan poked her finger deeper, then drew back and rubbed the deep orange yolk between her fingers. It was gritty and had a strange smell. The smell of blood from the egg white was strong and distinct, and she couldn’t quite distinguish the scent of the yolk past the overwhelming notes of salt and metal.

Grandfather placed a hand on Siobhan’s shoulder to and pulled slightly. “Move aside, little hazelnut.” He picked up the mixing bowl and peered at the contents while he tilted the bowl around. “The chickens must be sick. I will see to them.”

“I will not be cooking anything in this kitchen until the curse is cleared,” Aimee announced adamantly, turning her nose up high. She took off her apron, bunched it up, and threw it onto the counter.

Grandfather ignored her. “Surely you’ve seen something like this before, Aimee. It’s caused by a minor bleed during the formation of the egg.”

Aimee crossed her arms over her chest. “No. I have never seen anything like that.”

Siobhan agreed privately that she had never seen a blood egg quite like that, but she’d never known Grandfather to be wrong. The chickens must be terribly sick, for the yolk to come out so wrong. “Is it something you can fix? We won’t need to slaughter them, will we?” She disliked eating the old laying hens, and not just out of sentiment. The meat didn’t taste the same, but Grandfather wouldn’t abide senseless waste, and she would be forced to finish every morsel on her plate. If they had to get rid of the whole flock, she would be eating tough, gamey chicken for weeks.

From the doorway, Claudio said, “I will be no help with something like this. I’m afraid I am quite useless outside of my small area of expertise.”

Siobhan stared at the man’s bare feet, wondering when he had joined the household. She hadn’t seen him again since their initial meeting yesterday, so he must have come back quite late. One of his eyes was bloodshot—not the kind that came from a sleepless night, but crimson around toffee, as if he had been punched and damaged something delicate. But he didn’t have a black eye or any swelling.

“I will handle it,” Grandfather said simply, placing one large hand atop her head. He gestured vaguely to Claudio. “This is my associate, Claudio Tierney.” Just as casually, he introduced Siobhan and Aimee.

Aimee examined Claudio, then smiled prettily and batted her eyelids, at least half of her anxiety seemingly forgotten.

Siobhan rolled her eyes. Claudio looked so young, he couldn’t be any good at magic yet. She didn’t understand how anyone could be enamored of someone weak. Of course, one didn’t need to be as old as Grandfather to be respectable, but Claudio failed in comparison to Grandfather in several other ways, too. His hair looked like it hadn’t been trimmed, shaped, or even combed recently. His clothes had obvious thin, worn spots, and his shoes were scuffed and warping, as if he didn’t even know a basic mending spell. Moreover, his posture held none of the strict, precise discipline that characterized Grandfather’s every movement.

At the reminder, Siobhan corrected her own posture slightly and lifted her chin in the pose that looked a little like the one she had seen Thaddeus Lacer using in the newspaper. She had practiced it in the mirror. “Well met, Mr. Tierney.”

“Well met,” Claudio replied, giving her a flourishing bow and a wink that Grandfather couldn’t see.

“What happened to your eye?” Siobhan asked.

“Siobhan!” Aimee exclaimed, half-scandalized.

Claudio reached up to touch the skin beneath his red sclera. “I strained it trying to look at something not meant for mortal eyes.”

Aimee gasped, but Grandfather gave Claudio a sharp, disapproving look. When Claudio stared back innocently, Grandfather took a long look at the ceiling and sighed long-sufferingly.

Siobhan crossed her arms. “You’re very dramatic, aren’t you, Mr. Tierney?”

Claudio smiled at her. “Am I? I suppose I do have a certain sense for the theatric. I find it a useful trait for my work. And please, call me Claud. My friends do.” After that, he engaged Aimee in conversation, and they sat at the dining table chatting while Grandfather went out to the chicken coop and then returned to tinker in his workshop for a while.

By that point, Siobhan had already decided that she was dying of hunger. She knew a bit about how to cook over a campfire and what local plants and herbs were edible, but she had no experience in an actual kitchen, and Aimee was still stubbornly refusing to cook. In the end, Siobhan raided the pantry for some of Mom and Father’s old travel rations that hadn’t gone bad yet, along with a few sneaky spoonfuls of honey. It was amazing that bees, generally so frightening and dangerous, produced something so delicious. If not for her fear of them, she would have learned a divination to track down nearby honey stores and collected her own private stash.

Grandfather obviously found Aimee to be rather ridiculous, but he wasn’t the type to get angry and terrorize the servants, so when he finally got hungry, he suggested they all go down to the tavern in the village.

Siobhan put on her waxed boots and cloak and tied her hair into a single long braid, skipping beside Grandfather as they all made their way down the muddy, rocky road. The air was fresh with the scent of a just-passed storm, though the smell of dark mud and cold sea would soon take over again. They passed several pastures with goats and sheep, and a few meadows where some of the villagers cultivated flowers or herbs for a short period every year, which would be processed and sold to the mainland.

The occasional person along the way waved and bowed as they passed. They never slighted her family to their face—mostly because Grandfather was so respected, while also being just scary enough that no one came to him with trivial requests.

Old Lady Hebbers was in her porch rocking chair, staring out at nothing. When they approached, the tiny, leather-skinned woman set down her jug of moonshine and squinted at them while puffing on her pipe. “An eckle-lectick bunch, if I ever did see one.” She spoke loudly, and Siobhan wasn’t sure if she meant to be heard, or if she was too deaf or drunk to modulate her volume.

Siobhan looked up at Grandfather, who seemed to be ignoring Old Lady Hebbers. When Siobhan had been young, she thought that Grandfather just looked different from her and Mom, the same way that Ennis looked different from Siobhan. “The blood runs true,” Grandfather would say, and though Siobhan hadn’t known what that meant, she just assumed that the men of their family looked different from the women.

When she had found out that Miakoda was adopted, she was shocked, and was suspicious for a while that she might have been adopted, too, until Mom had a long, private talk with her about how she was hurting Father’s feelings.

Then, Siobhan had thought that maybe Mom had been kicked out of her tribe for marrying Father, the same way Father had been disowned from his rich family. However, as she got older and began to understand more about the subtle interactions between those of the People that would occasionally visit, Siobhan began to suspect that Mom’s tribe just didn’t exist any more. All of Mom’s People friends were loners and wanderers. Mom had tried to teach Siobhan a little about their ancestor’s ways, but they lived in a settled village among outsiders, and unlike with sorcery, the apprenticeship to a wise woman could not start before the age of thirteen. Mom had died before Siobhan’s birthday.

Siobhan could feel her muscles tightening and her throat beginning to ache, so she cast out for a distraction. “Are you working in the tower with Grandfather, Claudio? What exactly are the two of you doing up there?” she asked, her tone slightly high-pitched with desperation. She was too old to be crying in public.

They had been talking while she was lost inside her own head, and her outburst had interrupted them. Grandfather sighed. “I’ve told you several times, Siobhan. I have enlisted Mr. Tierney’s help with my ongoing project to map and catalogue different types of flora, fauna, and any valuable resources within the search range.”

This seemed ridiculous, because what around here could Grandfather be so interested in? Even if his divination range extended far into the ocean and across the entirety of the Northern Islands, that was not the kind of project that someone like Grandfather would sink so much time and energy into. Either he was looking for something specific and particularly valuable, or he was lying to her.

Siobhan narrowed her eyes, raised her eyebrows, and looked silently to Claudio.

He blinked and almost stumbled when he realized she was looking to him for confirmation. “What? Oh, yes. That is what we’re doing.” He nodded several times.

Siobhan wasn’t good at telling when someone was lying, even after Father had tried to teach her. When he and Mom were home from a trip a couple of years ago, he’d put her through card game training to learn to understand people’s tells. She had tried her best, but while she was able to notice and catalogue people’s small movements and micro-expressions, she had trouble telling what they meant. Then, Grandfather had taught her the basics of card counting, and Father had given it up as hopeless.

She pouted. “You’re not searching for treasure on the ocean floor or something, are you? Or something equally interesting. Because if you are, you should tell me that!”

Grandfather sighed. “We are not. But if I were, why should I tell you? Hazelnut, you are still useless as a thaumaturge, and your brain is still attempting to develop to the point that you can show good judgment. If anything, you would be a liability to my hypothetical hunt for ancient treasure.”

Siobhan gaped in outrage. She tried to come up with a good counter-argument, but she couldn’t think of anything rational and fact-based enough to sway him. Unlike Father, Grandfather was not one to be influenced by emotional arguments, praise, or the fear of judgement from others. And unlike Mom, he couldn’t be softened by thoughtful gifts or a child’s tears.

While Siobhan thought, Grandfather and Claudio had returned to talking about some sort of labeling system and were arguing whether a three-coordinate pinpointing system was sufficient, or if they should use four.

Siobhan listened for a while, something inside her sinking as she realized it really did seem like they were doing some sort of mapping project. Maybe she should have been pleased that Grandfather wasn’t hiding anything nefarious from her, but instead, she could only wonder why he preferred to spend all of his time and energy on something so boring, rather than with her.

She was his granddaughter, and since he’d never really accepted Father, that meant she was also his only remaining family.

Siobhan nudged Aimee and gave her a few significant looks and exaggerated facial expressions behind the backs of the men. Aimee responded with her own exaggerated nod and some winks. Then, while Aimee slipped up beside Claudio to draw him into conversation, Siobhan slipped her hand into Grandfather’s to recapture his attention.

“Do you think a trip into the ocean would be a good test run before making my first attempt on the stratosphere?” Siobhan asked. “The compressed air tank and my protective suit would probably work for both, right? But do you know if sky kraken can swim?”

“Swim?” Grandfather asked, distracted. “I have seen them slam their prey into the surface of the ocean at incredible speed and then drown the victim while they are stunned from the impact, but I am not aware of any that actually hunt in the ocean.” He turned back to Claudio. “I would like to assess and quantify the rate of equalization and degradation to see if we can predict it. That’s the first step to long-term stabilization, which seems the obvious long-term goal.”

Claudio’s attention turned back to Grandfather immediately. “I agree that should be our goal, but I would suggest that a focus on improving the input parameters, rather than quantification, is the most likely pathway to success.”

Grandfather’s eyebrows rose with both surprise and outrage. “That would obviously be skipping over any attempt at initial understanding and directly into manipulation, like some child sinking their hands into a cauldron full of something they don’t understand. How can you know if your efforts are working if you do not truly understand the nuance of the magical output?”

“Do we need precise numbers, to the point that we can make predictions, though? I think we’ll be able to see with our own two eyes if it’s working or not, and we could save months of time while still gathering those numbers, just at a less snail-like pace.”

Grandfather threw back his head. “Hah! I’m surprised you’ve lived this long, with an attitude like that.”

Siobhan gritted her teeth and let her hand slip away from Grandfather’s. He didn’t even notice.

Author Note: Sorry about the late chapter. I hurt myself moderately severely on Sunday and have been lying in bed all week healing, until yesterday when an emergency popped up with someone repeatedly trying to commit fraud using my books and other people's credit cards...

In any case, the combination of those two things caused me to completely lose track of what day it was. Until about 30 minutes ago, I thought it was Thursday today...

OTL

I have handled the fraud situation but after posting this I still need to lie down again because I'm hurting a bit too much to be at the work computer. I have managed to write a bit while lying in bed, which is nice, but not very much past the pain pills. Luckily, I have next week's chapter already completed so there will be no delay in posting. Yay, backlog!

This Chapter's Discussion Thread: https://alcove.azaleaellis.com/t/chapter-257-weekly-discussion-ships-passing-in-the-night/752