Echoes
By Jon Sleeper
Shiloh, Tennessee, April 4 1862.
Peach blossoms. Falling like snow. Falling on what was left of my brother. Falling on my face, on my body frozen from shock. Falling.
I was the perfect target for even the most novice Rebel marksmen. But I didn't feel the shock as a bullet hit me in the right arm. Not until the arm lost all strength did I collapse to the ground, the arm folded underneath me. With the pain brought release. I screamed at the top of my lungs! But less from the pain then of the knowledge that it was my fault Henry was dead!
My fault.
I used what strength I had to throw the gun away, it only went a few inches. At least I could no longer touch it. I never wanted to see the damned thing again! My injured arm felt numb, and I was getting weaker. The battle raged around me, and over me. I was nearly trampled by the stamping hooves of a Rebel horse.
I wish I could've thrown myself under, but I had no strength left. I simply lay there, waiting to die. But it would not come. Then I got thirsty. Somehow I dragged myself towards where I knew was a small pond. It was now twilight, and the battle had decreased to only a few shots. The dead and the dying surrounded me. I had to crawl over them to get to the water.
What was I doing? I was trying to die, wasn't I? Water wouldn't help me. So why was I crawling?
I made it to the pond, and reached down to use my good hand to scoop out some water for my parched throat. But there was a metallic tang when I tasted it... Blood?
Blood! I gagged and nearly lost my meager breakfast.
I groaned and rolled onto my back, going into a delirious daze. My thoughts going randomly in many directions. But mostly that ever-present question of "why?"
Why had I insisted on joining the army? Why did I ask Henry to go and get me ammo, when I knew he'd do whatever I told him? Why?
The world was growing dimmer, I saw things that were not there. Even what looked like a fairly large woman that could best be described as "handsome", though I wouldn't say that to her face! It's not that she was ugly, but from my spot on the ground she looked incredibly tall for a woman, with a long shock of dark hair that reminded me of a horse's mane. She was looking over the dead soldiers around me, pushing at them with blunt stick, or shaking them frantically. Then she saw me. "Coryn! I found another one!" she yelled in a surprisingly deep, yet feminine voice.
The voice that responded was quite the opposite. Soft, caring, but also frustrated and fatigued. "Don't just stand there, Amara. Pick him up so we can get him to the surgeon!"
"Right! Sorry. I'm not used to this, yet..." She lifted me up like I was nothing, her grip was stronger than anybody's I'd ever felt. Even a man's. "You're as light as a feather!" she said with a toothy smile.
Those teeth I'd seemed to have seen before. But they belonged in the mouth of a horse, not a human. I took one look at that and croaked, "You're as strong as a horse!"
"Why, thank you!"
I was placed in a cart with a few other surviving wounded, who were also groaning. And as we got closer to camp, I heard another sound. Screaming.
I was still delirious as I was put on the surgeon's bloody table. I saw the glint of a sharp knife before the horsey woman held me down. And then there was nothing but pain.
When I came to I knew my arm was gone, just above the elbow. The pain was so intense it was all I could do to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs! In fact, I did so on numerous occasions. Only the face of the nurse that tended me would stop my screaming.
The face that belonged to that soft voice was just as odd as the horsey woman's, but it had a very different quality to it. Her eyes were large and brown, with large irises. Her hair was shoulder-length and a shade of red that I'd never seen before. She moved with a grace that was almost inhuman.
She moved like a deer, and with those features, perhaps one could say she looked like one, too.
I was one of hundreds of wounded, yet for some reason she was always there when I opened my eyes. I slept little, for whenever I closed my eyes all I saw was my brother being blown to pieces by that cannonball. But always, when I opened my eyes, was the kind face of the graceful nurse. She was a very silent person, and rarely said anything to me.
There was one rare moment when the pain had lessened, when I reached towards her while she was changing my bandage. "Please... I have to get out of here! I can't stand this! There is nothing for me here!" I would hardly remember what I said, as the movement produced pain that made me fall into unconsciousness.
But before I passed out completely, I saw her nod.
When next I awoke I could already tell I was no longer in the manor house that had served as a hospital. I felt a warm, wet cloth on my forehead, I was weak and unable to move. A soothing voice came from above. "Shhh. Don't say a word. You've been very sick. Your wound got infected."
I groaned but couldn't croak out anything other than a weak, "Where am I?"
"In my cabin about twenty miles west of Boston. You said you wanted to leave, so I decided to grant your request. You've been sick for quite some time." The cloth was once more wiped across my brow. "Sleep, and get well. We'll discuss your future once you regain your strength."
Sometimes in my delirium, I'd open my eyes and see not the face of my familiar nurse. But instead the face of a doe. Yet she had hands, hands that were covered by fur and were tipped by thick black nails. Sometimes it was like I was seeing both faces at once, the human inside the doe. There was a deep concern in either face, as well as an equally deep curiosity.
This time there were no nightmares. Only odd dreams. It felt like my mind was being peeled away, to reveal memories so deep that I never knew they were there. They were made of strange images in muted tones of gray, my field of view distorted in such a way I seemed to be seeing things nearly behind me. The feeling of walking on all fours, moveable ears that were very large. And a tail.
Thought was simple and instinct-driven. A large thing blocked my vision directly forward. The world was a grayish mass of leaves and grass that I seemed to be eating. They tasted quite good, actually. Those were the most peaceful of images. Others weren't quite so benign...
I stared at the other buck in front of me, ears backward against my neck, head lowered and antlers forward. But he didn't back down. So the battle was joined in earnest. CLACK! The sound echoed through the woods. CLACK! We only tangled twice, but that was enough to teach my rival that I could not be beaten. He turned and galloped off as quickly as he could! I chased him for a short time, then returned to the doe I'd defended...
I awoke from the dreams with a feeling of complete satisfaction, though I didn't remember any specifics. I felt much better, though weak. I snapped open my eyes, and found myself staring at the wooden roof beams of a small cabin. I turned my head to the side, and found it to be just as small as I thought. Perhaps ten feet by twenty, with a stone fireplace at one end; where a fire was merrily burning. There was a kettle on a hook, with a lid that was making a sound like there was something being cooked inside. It smelled like some kind of soup or stew.
For a brief moment it felt like my right arm was still there, but when I tried to move it all I saw was the stump. But the end looked to be better than the raw meat it'd resembled before, when I looked under the bandage. There was a bandage of medium thickness over it. I put the bandage back and sat up in bed.
I was certainly alone in the cabin, but there was obviously somebody else taking care of me. The look of the place indicated that person was female. I suddenly remembered her soft voice and gentle touch. I was hungry, but since she wasn't around I resolved to get out of bed and get myself some of that meaty-smelling stew.
My coordination was off, and I was unused to missing an arm. I flailed around with my left arm until I managed to grab a hold of the covers and throw them off. Ever so slowly, I stood up on weak legs. There was a small window just above the bed, so I looked out to get an idea of what the world out of doors looked like.
Oak trees full of the dark green of late Spring, the leaves moving back and forth in a gentle breeze. I loved trees, we had a few to act as windbreaks at the farm, but nothing like this! I looked down. There were at least a dozen deer just in the narrow view out the window! They all scattered the moment they saw me, except for one doe. One that looked somehow familiar. She was gone when I blinked. Then the door opened and the nurse walked in. "You're awake. Good."
It was the red-headed, graceful nurse who had tended me back at the manor house after the battle. She was clothed in a simple gray dress and blouse. She came in and closed the door, sitting down next to the fireplace to stir the stew. "I hope you like this. I'm not all that good at cooking," she got a disgusted look on her face, "meat."
I sat back down on the bed, still a bit too weak to stand. "Why did you bring me here?"
"You asked me. Don't you remember? You said you wanted to leave the hospital, among other things. And I was getting sick of tending all those wounded. So much blood..." She took a deep breath, closing her eyes as if to wash them of things she didn't want to see. "I think you can understand."
I understood all too well. "That still don't answer my question," I replied. "Why me?"
"I don't think you would believe me if I told you. Once you regain your strength we can decide what you want to do next. I'm quite willing to help you go where you want to go, since you've already answered my questions." She took out a bowl and ladled in some stew. It smelled a bit odd, but had large chunks of meat and vegetables. She put the bowl on a plate and put a large slab of bread next to it. "I hope you enjoy this. I got the recipe from a friend of mine in Boston."
It was quite good, actually. Though I wasn't used to having acorns in a stew! A little later in the day we had company. A woman and a short man. The woman looked not unlike my benefactress, having the reddish hair and deer-like grace to her movements. But the man was a bit plump, with faint dark patches around his eyes. He also had odd hair that was grayish with black hairs mixed in. He had nimble-looking hands she was always doing something with, at that particular moment he was whittling.
The trio came into the cabin while I was still struggling to use my left hand for eating. I'd been right handed before. I probably spilled half the stew. They sat down in roughly-made chairs set near my bed. My nurse spoke first. "We need to introduce myself ourselves, I think. I'm Coryn, that's Whitetail," pointing at the other woman, "and the one with the stick is Bandit."
"Odd names ya have," I commented. They were an odd trio.
The two women looked at each other for a moment. I got the impression that Coryn was somehow a subordinate to Whitetail. The little man just sat there, whittling away at his wood. Coryn looked at me again. "We're an odd group," she said with a grin. "But we also can feel the pain you must be going through."
I set my spoon down. "Ya do? How? I haven't told ya anythin'!"
"Like the woman said," the little man said, "we're strange people." For a moment the man's hands opened enough that I could see what he was carving. It looked like a raccoon on a log. "But perhaps we can help you out in some way, in return for what you've already told us."
I blinked. "I haven't told ya anythin'! I just want to know what's goin' on!"
"What's going on, Michael, is that in return for services rendered, we're willing to send you anywhere you want to go. If you want to go home..."
My response to that suggestion was immediate. I don't know what I'd done for me, but their offer seemed genuine. "NO! I don't want to go home! Father..." Father would kill me. I was sure he had that shotgun all polished up just so he could shoot Henry and I as soon as we appeared on the road up to the house. Except Henry was already dead.
Why wasn't I? Because, when I thought about it, I really didn't want to die. But I couldn't return home. Where could I go? "I don't know what I want to do..." I said with a sigh.
Whitetail smiled and leaned back in her chair. Her ears seemed to move a little, but that was probably only a trick of the light filtering through the trees. The sun was low in the west by now. "It's a big world, Michael. Do whatever you want to do."
I stood up and looked at the forest out the window. I remembered that Coryn had said that we were close to Boston. That was the farthest east I'd ever been in my life. Far from the farm where I'd grown up. Far from Shiloh. Far from Henry's memory. The farther, the better. "How about east? I'm sure there are other places out there. My grandparents came from someplace called 'Great Britain', or so Father said."
Coryn pointed to a few bookshelves that were nailed to the wall opposite the fireplace. "I've got one or two things about Britain. Maybe you can read them while you get better."
"Uh... I can't read. Father always said it would 'give you bad ideas' or some such." I thought a moment, then smiled when I knew that reading was something father would definitely disapprove of. "But I'm game to learn."
"'Game'?" Coryn said. "Oh. I see what you mean. I'm willing to teach if you're willing to learn." She looked at Whitetail, who nodded approval. Something else seemed to pass between them. "I'm willing to have my friends here look into passage eastward if you want to go. Just tell us where and we'll send you."
That seemed agreeable, so we shook hands on the deal. Our two guests lefts not too long after. Though they seemed to not have used any horses or anything. They'd just vanished into the forest without a trace. As if they'd never existed. "Gawd Almighty..." I swore.
"Shall we get started?" Coryn said.
It wasn't easy by any means. Some of the words were complex and their meanings often escaped me. But as the weeks passed and spring turned into summer, I was actually able to read through several pages without needing to ask Coryn what a certain word meant. My speech even changed, I no longer said "ain't" or clipped words short. The book itself was fascinating! It was a history of Britain from Roman to modern times. Coryn looked on approvingly. "You're about strong enough to travel. Have you decided where you want to go?"
I closed the book and smiled at her. The first smile since Henry and I had left to fight the war.
We left for Boston the next day. It was early in the morning, and when I looked out the window there were all those deer again. They'd gotten used to my presence, and I theirs; though they would always would stop eating and watch me as I moved around. They looked at Coryn with what seemed to me a sense of awe and respect. I glanced back at the deer-woman. "They like you, I think."
"Oh? How can you tell?"
I looked at the ten deer or so that were closest, then I looked back at her. I'd always seemed to me that they were always one and the same. Coryn was a very mysterious woman, with a lot of secrets. "They almost seem to consider you one of them."
Her laugh seemed to go on just a little bit too long. "Perhaps I am, and you just don't know it." She took a deep breath to stop chuckling. "Now, shall we go?"
I looked around. No horses were present. She had no wagon. "How? Walk?"
She put a hand on my right shoulder. It seemed to be glowing the color of the leaves that surrounded us. "Exactly."
The next thing I remembered was awakening in a new bed, with an odd scent in my nostrils. I sat up in the bed and looked around the room. I'd never been in one before, but I could only be in some sort of inn. Coryn walked in as if called. "Good, you're awake."
"What happened? I seem to have lost track of several hours..." I looked down at my arm. I swore that the hair there had a reddish tint to it. But that was rapidly fading.
"It's not as long a walk as it seems. There was a train station not to far from my cabin. It took us about four hours to walk there, then we took the train into the city. Right now we're in a dockside inn. You made a beeline for the bar then spent the rest of the night drinking."
I'd done something like that once before, when father had sent me into town. I'd gone into the local saloon and drank more than was perhaps wise. Yet another reason for Father to beat me. But with Father no longer a part of my life it was no surprise that I'd want to try it again. That would explain the headache, actually. As well as the momentary double image I saw... Coryn looked for an instant like some kind of deer/human cross. "I'll never touch beer again..." I swore. When I looked up she was normal again. Though she still smelled like a deer. Only now did I notice, since they were always around before. Not all that unpleasant, actually. "What next?"
"I've booked passage for you on a clipper ship owned by a friend of mine. He's bound for Liverpool in two days. I'll give you some British money and once you're there, you're on your own." She put a small duffel bag on the bed. "I got some clothing for you. I hope it fits."
I opened the bag. There were three shirts, three pairs of trousers, a pair of boots, a frock coat, a hat, and some underthings and socks. "They look about right. What's the name of the ship?" I took another breath. "And what's that smell?"
"The ship is called the Actaeon, and that smell is the harbor. It doesn't smell very good, does it?"
I took another deep breath. "Actually, it's sort of like freshly turned earth after plowing."
She just stared at me for a moment. "Whatever you say. I'm going to be leaving in the morning. So don't spend all your money in one place. Boston is a big city. If you want to explore then don't go far. You could easily get lost."
I never left the inn. I was leaving the United States of America forever, as far as I was concerned. For what possible reason would I want to see more of it? The next day I saw Coryn off. There was little I could really say to her that I hadn't already. She'd saved my life. Perhaps I'd find a way to repay that one day. Though how I did not know.
I did spend the time I had before the ship was supposed to leave walking the docks. The first time I left the inn I must've stood there for at least fifteen minutes, simply staring at the forest of masts from ships of every kind. I felt a sudden surge of curiosity. And I wondered how it all worked.
The next day I went to find the Actaeon. Coryn had given me directions to a certain dock, as well as a description of the man whom I was supposed to meet. Strange she hadn't just described the ship, I thought. I found the man at the end of one of the long wharves on the North End of the city. He was dressed in a pair of rough canvas trousers, a kind of floppy hat, and a shirt made out of equally rough blue cloth. He caught sight of me, and then surprised me with his voice. "There you are! Coryn said you'd be here by noon, it's half past now. I was beginning to think you'd gotten lost in the city." He shook my hand and hurried me into the longboat. "Well, don't waste time we sail with the afternoon tide, you know."
I barely had time to throw in my duffel bag before the lines were undone and the four other seamen started to row out toward the many ships that were at anchor out in Boston Harbor. About fifteen minutes after shoving off, I caught my first sight of the Actaeon.
She was beautiful.
"Never seen a tall ship before, my boy?" Said the man I'd met. I shook my head no. "Never? Where are you from?"
"Missouri. I've never even seen the ocean before!"
He looked as me as if I was some sort of alien thing. "Perhaps before we go further I should introduce myself. I'm Captain Edward Farthing of the Actaeon."
That the captain of such a wonderful ship could look so much like his crew had never occurred to me. "Pleased to meat you," I replied, once again extending my hand, which nearly unbalanced on the slightly rolling longboat. "You'll excuse me if I don't shake your hand this time. I'm Michael Bates."
"Pleased to meet you, again." He looked at my missing arm. "Fought in the war? Don't answer, because it's plain on your face. I take it that's the reason why you're leaving the States?" I nodded slowly. "Ah. I see. No reason to go into specifics. I just want you to have a pleasant voyage to Liverpool."
I looked at the ship, she seemed to be riding high in the water. I asked about this while we were drawn up to her side. Captain Farthing smiled sadly. "I'm afraid we don't have much cargo for the voyage east. But I have a mind to try my luck on getting a contract to ship Chinese tea. We Brits love our tea, we do." He chuckled.
A rope ladder was dropped over the side. My duffel bag was tossed upward onto the deck. "I don't know if I can climb that, sir..." I was only barely used to using my left arm for easy tasks, let alone climbing.
"Nonsense!" He turned to his crew. "Hoist the landlubber up, boys! Then make fast the lines! We sail in a half hour!"
I was hauled up on deck before I could say otherwise. I felt not a little bit humiliated. I wasn't helpless after all. I just stood next to my duffel bag and waited for orders on what to do next, spending my time looking at the ship around me, amazed by the complexity of the rigging and the fact that the crew seemed to have no trouble remembering what went there. It was an odd feeling just standing on the deck. There was a tension... no... an anticipation in the air as the crew made ready to sail. I could feel it so acutely it was almost physical.
The air was filled with the sounds of booming canvas as a few small sails were unfurled and caught on the fresh breeze out of the west. The anchor was raised, and with the ease of long practice, Captain Farthing maneuvered out of Boston Harbor out into the Atlantic. All the while I just stood there, dumbfounded and ignored by the crew. Listening to the sounds of the wind through the rigging, and the orders barked by the Captain.
Perhaps an hour or so later did he return to me. "Are you okay, my boy? You look a might flushed. But I thought you'd like to see your home country one more time before you leave it forever."
He led me over to the stern rail, I finally looked up. My last sight of America, a place I'd always considered home, was a dim purple haze on the horizon. But there was nothing for me there any more. I turned my back on it. Captain Farthing gave me a sad look. "Come, Mr. Bates. Let's get you settled below decks. You have a long trip ahead of you. Perhaps longer than you think."
Little did I know just how right he was.
Liverpool, England. August 23, 1862.
It was raining when I stepped onto the dock. And, as I would quickly discover, rain was the norm for most part of the British Isles. But I didn't care. I had a fistful of sketches that I'd made during the two week voyage across the Atlantic. Little did I know just how important those would be to me.
The first day out from Boston I'd spent standing in the bow of the ship, hardly moving. I listened to the sound of the wind through the rigging, the splash of the water against the hull, the booming sound the sails made. I took deep breaths, just taking in the soul of the ship and the Sea.
It was love at first sight, really. The way the light shimmered and changed late in the day as the sun went below the horizon. The up and down of her waves, forcing me to shift my balance to keep from falling over. I looked--no--stared at her in utter speechless admiration. What else could it be? The Sea and I would be lovers forevermore. There could be no others.
The ship was carrying a small cargo of something unbreakable, so the cargo hold was very empty. Empty enough for me to look and see how things were made. There was a central large piece of wood called a "keel", flanked by regularly spaced struts called "ribs" that made up most of the structure of the ship. But these were just the basics. I wanted more.
Spar, rigging, mast, sail, ratlins, backstay, halyard, braces, downhauls, shroud, foremast, mizzen mast, top sail, royal, topmast, stud sails, stay sails, flying jib, outer jib, crossjack, spanker... There was just so much to learn! I wanted it all! But my initial hopes were dashed to bits. There was no use for a one-armed man on a ship of any kind.
I'd never know what prompted me to pick up some paper and a pencil from the Captain's store of them, after asking his permission first. From then on, about two days into the voyage, I could be found sitting on the deck with the pencil in hand, sketching what I saw. They weren't very good, but I could decipher what each thing was and deduce what it did when the crew wouldn’t answer my questions.
During meals, when I'd look over the day's sketches, the Captain would answer my questions more thoroughly. When I was confused between what exactly did what, he would gladly clear up my confusion. It was the beginning of a working knowledge about ships and how they worked.
I was a bit unsure of what to do next after I stepped off the ship, though. Here I was in Britain, finally. But I honestly didn't know what I was going to do next after I got there. I had one hundred "pounds" (of what, I wondered), that Coryn had given me. So I decided that I'd find a boarding house or someplace to stay until I decided what to do with my life, now that I was here.
Liverpool was alive with travelers on their way to other places. I heard people speaking in many languages, and in that ever-present English lilt that was music to my ears. No American spoke as they did! I suddenly found that I wanted to speak like that. Correction. I had to speak like that. This was home, and I was going to become as British as I could.
I started by drinking tea. Something that seemed rather small at first, but it was a step in the right direction. I also spent my days in the Liverpool marketplaces, listening to the way people spoke; then at night I would practice what I heard. In only two weeks, when I was buying my tea, the merchant gave me a startled look. "You sound like you're from Kent, but you look like an American."
There was a flaw in my plan, I saw.
My funds were reduced to under fifty pounds after a trip to the local clothing shop. But now I looked as well as sounded British. But unfortunately, the façade didn't work on everybody. It came on a day that I'd spent thinking about what to really do next. I had to find a job of some kind. Something to do with ships. Anything.
My applications to the various shipping and passenger ship lines were all rejected. The apologies were all polite, of course. And all proper. All. Very. Proper.
By the tenth rejection I wanted to punch the man out. And I nearly did. If not for a man I would soon call my closest friend. The man grabbed me by the jacket and dragged me out the door. "So sorry, old boy! My friend here had a bit much to drink last night and I'm afraid he's still over the barrel. Cheerio!" When we were out in the alley he dusted me off and apologized. "Sorry, but I don't think you want to spend any time with the bobbies. They can get rather rough." He looked at me close, I could smell fish on his breath and on his mustache. "You're a very good English imitator for an American."
I leaned against the wall, still coming down from my overreaction. "Thank you very much. I was on the verge of doing something rather stupid. Your name is?"
His black handlebar mustache seemed to cover his lips almost fully. It moved back and forth, giving his facial expressions a rather comical bent. "Brendan Lyons at your service." He was wearing a suit of clothes that looked old and frayed, but at some point must've been very fine. He was otherwise well-groomed, and his bowler hat was perhaps the newest thing on him.
I took his offered hand and shook it gratefully. "Michael Bates. And you're right, I'm an American. How could you tell?"
"Let's just say that I see things very clearly. But it was my pleasure." He looked at me again. "Perhaps we have a bit more in common other than the fact we need a job. What say we discuss it over dinner. You're buying."
It was the least I could do, so we went to a small café close by the boarding house where I was staying. Over dinner, he told me a bit about himself. "See these rags? They used to be quite a fine suit. I wore it to many a dinner party. Ah... those were the days." He took a sip of some beer. His third glass for the night.
"What happened to make you lose it all?" I asked, taking a bite of fish.
"Bad luck, I suppose. I really can't put a finger on it. But within a week the bank came and took everything. I barely got out the door with the clothes on my back. That was nearly three years ago, when I was forty. I've been a vagabond ever since, moving from job to job. I may have been rich but I do have some skills. Carpentry was a hobby of mine." He took another deep gulp of beer. "So, what brings you here to England?"
I drummed my fingers on the table, unsure of how to answer. "Escape, I guess. I've read a lot about Britain and decided to try it out for a while. As simple as that."
He gave me another one of those penetrating looks, wiping the beer foam from that mustache of his. "I see," he said simply, looking at my missing arm. "So, tell me. Exactly where in America are you from?"
I gave him the short version of my life story while he drank more beer. When I was finished his eyes looked a bit glazed over and unfocused. "Thas a good ssstory. Sad story, too. But ya got any skills you can use?"
I hadn't touched any drinks beyond milk, keeping true to the promise I'd made in Boston. "Well, living on a farm you have to know a lot of odd jobs. I know a bit of carpentry and other odds and ends. What did you have in mind?"
He gulped down another half tankard of beer and wiped his mouth. "I've heard of a company down in Wales that hires anybody they can get their hands on. But I've not had the money to get me there. How much of that hundred pee you got left?"
"'Pee'? Ah. You mean 'pounds'." I checked my wallet. "About ten..."
He raised his half-full tankard of foaming beer. "Terrific! Tomorrow we shall leave for Gwynedd and see what the future may bring!" His brief moment of steadiness vanished as he downed the beer, then suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor.
I paid for our meals and considered what to do next. I couldn't leave my new friend sprawled on the floor in such an undignified matter, of course. "Can somebody give me a hand, here? I'm afraid I only have one..." I said, smiling. Two acquaintances of mine obligingly carried him up to my room, and dumped him unceremoniously on the floor. "Thanks," I told them. They tipped their hats and left me to my unconscious charge.
It was then that I found out just how difficult a drunk could be. He flailed around when I tried to move him, making growling sounds like some sort of sleeping lion. He'd flex his hands like he had claws, even. I once more swore to myself that I would never touch drink or spirits. I used what dexterity I had to maneuver him into my bed. But I was unexpectedly knocked out when he made a slashing motion with one arm.
When I opened my eyes the next morning, what I saw nearly scared me out of my shoes! There was a lion's paw right above my face! I moved backward against the wall, knocking myself on the head again, but not enough to knock me out.
There was a lion on my bed.
Frankly, I didn't know they could get that big. He had a full mane that was nearly black, and a pair of dark marks over his eyes that gave him a permanently angry expression, even with his eyes closed. I could see his tufted tail swishing slowly behind. Yet there was a gentleness to the beast that showed through that scowl. And his whiskers seemed overly thick and hung down over his mouth. Exactly like Brendan's mustache. I blinked.
Then there was a shift in the light, and it... changed. Or did it? I had to see if what I was seeing was real. There seemed to be both Brendan and the lion occupying the same space. I reached out to touch him, just to be sure what I was seeing was right. But I only felt his normal clothing.
What was wrong with me?
I went and threw open the curtains and turned back to face him. The image was still there, but was nearly drowned out by the bright sunlight. The light stirred him, and he groaned. "Bugger," he said, "I did it again, didn't I? Complete with those dreams, even..."
"What dreams?" I asked, still trying to shake the image from my mind. It was still there, faintly. And it moved as he did.
"Odd ones. I'm a lion, living at they do. Mostly lazing about in the sun, really. That's all the males really do. Silly, eh?"
I nodded agreement, putting the whole thing out of my mind. "Yes. Silly. Perhaps we ought to get moving?"
"Not until I've at least had some tea... Lord, I feel awful." My new friend groaned and collapsed on my bed again, the double-image finally vanishing without a trace. Though I still had a headache.
"I'll go down and get us some. Just sit tight." I left the room and went down to the boarding house's kitchen, where a small pot was always kept at the ready. When I returned I found my hair-lipped friend looking at the ship sketches I had laid out on the small table. "Don't laugh. They're how I use my copious spare time."
Brendan looked a bit injured. "I'm not laughing, Michael. They're very good. In an exacting sort of way..."
"Oh? What do you mean?"
"They look more like a draftsman's work. I don't see any rulers or anything around here, either. You said last night you were right-handed?"
"When one loses certain things, one learns to adapt. Here's your tea." I set the cup down on the table. "I don't know how you take it, so I have a few lumps of sugar on the tray. Take it as you please. And when you feel well enough, we'll leave for Gwynedd." I felt a sudden need to move on. I'd worn out every possibility here. And I'd need to find a job to fill my pockets, and soon.
We left Liverpool just as soon as Brendan was steady on his feet. I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. I'd come into this country with no skills whatsoever! What the hell was I thinking?
Wales was a mountainous country. But is was as beautiful in the rain as the fields of Missouri were after planting. We rode the train towards Gwynedd, watching the scenery go by. I recited some of what I remembered about the town's apparent namesake. "'Gwynedd' was the name of one of the most long lasting lordships in Wales. Gwynedd and England warred with each other for two hundred years, until in about 1282 the last ruler of Gwynedd died." I pointed at the ruins of the castle looming in the grayish gloom, "That's why the English built so many castles. To put down rebellion."
My friend stared at me for a long moment. "I'm embarrassed. You know more about my country that I do."
"Reading your history is one of the things that inspired me to come here." I leaned out the window. "Looks like there isn't far to go. Funny, I thought it might take longer..."
"We're not as big as the States. Just sit tight. You young people are always so impatient."
My headache had returned. And with it, the odd double images. But this time it wasn't confined to Brendan, whose head was once again overlaid with that of the lion I'd seen earlier. I swore I also saw a ghostly tail swinging behind. But my hallucination wasn't confined to my friend. I saw... other things, too.
Over in the front of the car was a woman who seemed to have a pair of horns, and small ears that went straight outward from her skull. Against her black hair there was a sheen of stiff whitish fur. I heard the faint sound of stubborn bleating in her direction, where she was arguing with her husband. Her husband was quite a contrast. A long spotted feline tail swished behind, and as he argued with his wife in a calm, purring voice. Lastly, the child who was standing between them had the look long-snouted lizard with many pointed teeth. The child was ravenously biting into a lollipop.
There were others, too: A fly-headed man read a newspaper sitting next to a window, his antennae seeming to be feeling the page. A cute freckle-faced girl not more than four looked like she had the bare head of a vulture. I had to close my eye for a moment, or at least look away from the visions. I decided to look down at the floor, where someone had brought along a terrier... A terrier with a human face. I felt faint and shut my eyes.
After some minutes of deep thought, I came to a kind of realization. Looking at these images, there was always the feeling of seeing something that once was. An Echo of the past. Of course, following that line of thought meant that my friend Mr. Lyons had been a...
I decided that I must be going quite mad. But the realization didn't go away. But the visions did, at least. For a while. Brendan looked concerned. "Are you okay? You look a bit peaked."
The world would never be the same again. I just nodded numbly and waited for the train to stop at the station. My friend and I joined the rest of the throng of other hopeful workers. The train was about a third passengers and the rest was cargo. About thirty flatcars of lumber for the ships that were being built here. Seeing that, I decided that this might not be a bad alternative to working aboard ship. After all, somebody has to build them. Why not me?
But the others tended to give me looks that said "What are you doing here?" It was in their eyes. But I had to try. We were forced to go to an area that was marked "New Workers", for people with little or no experience with shipbuilding. There were at least fifty of us waiting in front of a raised platform, wondering how many of us they would choose. Or if they would choose any at all.
When nobody appeared, a quiet murmur slowly spread around the crowd. A murmur which got louder and louder as some of those more vocal voiced the opinion "We've been stiffed! They're not going to hire us! I'm leaving!" About seven followed him out the door to the courtyard. While I was focused on more pressing matters. My headache had returned in full force. And with it, the visions.
One man got fed up enough that he waved his fist angrily in the air. What I saw was like the end of a bird's wing. I could just make out the tips of black feathers, and the long beak of a human-sized crow around his head, as it cawed with his shouting. One man, who was wearing clothing that was little more than rags, was clothed in an illusion that made him seem like a very well-dressed bird of some sort. A tall bird that stood upright and made it look like he was wearing a tuxedo over his rags.
I felt like I was standing in the middle of some cageless zoo, and the animals were getting angrier and angrier. Then two men appeared from a door behind the platform. When I saw them I absolutely knew I was going mad. For their forms seemed like more than an illusion, but totally real. One man looked like a tiger, and the other a dolphin. Their blending of human and animal features was so complete that I gaped openly. I saw no double-image as I did with the others. I had to be going mad.
The happy-faced dolphin looked in my direction, and made a startled sound from the top of his head. He poked his striped companion on the shoulder and said something too quiet for me to hear over the crowd. The tiger looked directly at me with his inhuman amber eyes that widened in shock. Oddly, for a moment the tiger-man looked panicked as I felt! Then a look of concentration crossed his face...
"Are you okay, Michael? You have that look again," Brendan said, interrupting my line of thought.
"What? Oh." I looked up towards the platform again, to see the two men, one who looked to be from India and a happy-faced Englishman, who were both scrutinizing the crowd closely. "You really must've hit me on the head hard last night."
"I did that? I'm sorry." He raised his right hand. "I'll never touch spirit or drink again. That better?" His promise had the air of something he'd done many times before.
He didn't mean it. He was chewing on his mustache nervously. But I didn't want to come right out and say that I didn't believe him. So I nodded. "Better. Now let's see what these men have to say."
The Indian raised his hands in the air and his voice rose to a volume that it was almost like he was roaring. An incredible thing for such a short man. "ATTENTION PLEASE!" That shut up the lot of us instantly. "Thank you," he continued in a lightly accented voice, "and welcome to Gwynedd. As you may know already, Cetacan hires a certain percentage of you unskilled folk with each job. In case you are wondering why, it's very simple. We benefit just as much for teaching you skills as you get from the skills themselves.
"Anyway, on with the questioning." He looked around at the crowd with a penetrating, almost predatory, look. "You there, sir!" He pointed right at Brendan. "Do you have any experience with carpentry or metalwork?"
It surprised me that he'd called on Brendan first, and my friend stammered an answer. The Indian seemed to like what he heard and my hair-lipped companion was taken into the building. As he walked away he whispered in my ear. "I'll put in a good word for you!" I didn't doubt he would. So I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited.
Then when I was finished waiting, I waited some more.
Out of the fifty of so men that had originally been in the courtyard, there were only five of us left. And those four were watching me with a certain distaste. A good portion of the men had been just given a cursory glance and dismissed outright. Except for me and these few others. It was getting dark and I hadn't eaten a bite since the morning.
The Englishman ("Mr. Happy Face", as I thought of him) reappeared out of the door, looking over the rest of us. "We just need one more man to fill out the roster. So one of you is going to come in for tea and dinner, while the rest of you will have to try your luck elsewhere." One by one, he fixed each one of us with a certain look. It was a very, very odd stare, really. Each man seemed to become a little dizzy under it. And them he came to me.
For a brief moment, it was as if a window had been opened in my mind. An instant where the years past stretched out behind me like a train two million cars long... Then the door closed, and vanished. Happy Face extended his hand. "Come on in, sir. I'm James Bottleman. And I've got a job for you."
The other four men started to yell. "Why him?! He's a cripple!" "One arm can't handle lumber!" "Why not pick a man who's all in one piece?" "I'll punch yer face in!"
The last man did try to take a swing at Happy Face, but the smile never left his face as he met the angry man's fist in midair. "Naughty, naughty." Then the smile dropped from his expression. I saw then that this was a man you did not want to get angry. The look he gave the man was pure ice. "Do that again and I'll toss you out by your ear." He glared at the others, who withered under his stare. "That goes for you, too. Good evening." The men left with nary a word.
The smile reappeared just as soon as they left. "Now, where were we... what was your name?"
"Michael Bates." I smiled widely. Then I thought a moment. "Just what kind of job can a one-armed man do, anyway?" Not that I cared what I got. Anything that got me closer to the ships that I'd seen rising in the yard.
My only answer was a wider grin.
Gwynedd, Wales. September 3, 1865.
Three years of sweeping floors. Three years. And I didn't mind a bit. For the place that I cleaned up was the Research and Development Department, located in a building that had a spectacular view of the Shipyard. I worked mostly in the evenings, with the light of the oil lamps illuminating the large space of the Drafting Room, where often there were various in-progress designs laid in full view on large angled tables.
I truly wondered why they needed me at all. The draftsmen were very clean, and I only needed to mop the floors and clean the tables once before my job was mostly finished. This gave me time to look at the ships that the naval architects were working on. I took what I saw, then when I wasn't working, went back to my sketches at home and made changes. Yet, there were times when what was drawn on the paper didn't quite seem right to me. A spar out of place, too many shroud lines, a bit less curve on the sternpost than I thought would work. So, about two years after my arrival, I started to make small corrections to their work.
Nobody caught me.
Ships were launched. Schooners, clippers, barks, brigs, and others. Eventually virtually no ships left the Yard that hadn't known my touch. But I never made it obvious.
For my friend Brendan and I life had taken a turn for the better. Normally when a ship was finished a man was out of work until the next one was contracted. But Cetacan did things differently when somebody shows some kind of talent at what they do, they were normally kept on. Such had happened to Brendan.
When I wasn't working I was at our small house in town, making my own designs and putting what I'd learned into practice. It was too bad that none of these ideas would ever be built, I thought. I only worked half the time that Brendan did and got less than a third the pay. But with the both of us we were able to find a two-bedroom house that had everything we needed. So while he worked, I drew.
My current project was a little craft called a "gaff-rigged catboat". It was a small boat, about twenty feet long with a fairly wide beam compared to her length and deep draft, giving her a lot of stability in the water. Her single mast was stepped on very nearly the point of the bow, and was rigged in the way that gave the boat her name. The mast supported a boom about halfway up that angled out about ten degrees from the vertical, which in turn supported a four-sided sail. She had a very small cabin for comfort, equipment, and enough stores for a full day's sail in any direction. The perfect little boat for Brendan and I to have a bit of fun on the water. And with luck, we'd soon have the money to build it.
The house was rather small, but it had a large yard and a shed in the back. It was placed on a small hill that had a view of the Menai Strait, with the island of Angelesey in view just across; though most of the time the island was nearly hidden by the frequent rains that swept across at any time of the year. The masts of the clippers and other ships being fitted out in the Shipyard were also plainly visible, though partly hidden by the other houses and warehouse buildings. We were often awoken by the supply trains arriving with their lumber early in the morning, blowing their whistles. It was a very pleasant place to live.
Then how come I still felt like my life was going nowhere? Like I was running in place?
I gazed at the piles and piles of rolled-up vellums that occupied a corner of the room. I'd experimented with dozens of kinds of ships, trying to find the perfect combination of material, hull lines, rigging plan, and what I hoped would be the same kind of "Soul" that I'd felt aboard the Actaeon three years before. But I doubted I'd ever find out of anything I'd done might come to fruition. I was only a lowly janitor, after all. And a useless one at that.
I was still staring at the nearly-finished catboat when Brendan arrived, whistling happily. "Michael, I have some great news!" He said loud enough for me to hear him from the front room. "I just came from the bank, and I do believe we've gotten enough saved up that we can start up that little project of yours." When I didn't answer, he came into my drafting room. "Michael? Are you okay?"
I looked up at him, seeing that ghostly leonine double-image once again. A sight I'd slowly gotten used to in the years since I'd first seen it. In fact, it'd gotten harder and harder for me to separate the image from the man, so I no longer tried. The lion was Brendan, and Brendan was the lion. They were inseparable. But I hadn't seen that particular image in at least a month, since the last time I'd gotten a headache. It was only then that I noticed that my head was hurting just a little bit. I only got these headaches when I was under a lot of strain. "I'm fine. Just got one of those blasted headaches again..."
My mustached friend looked at the backs of his hands. "I still don't see any paws. Are you seeing the lion again?" I'd told him about my little problem about a year ago. It was a month before he'd even speak to me again after I'd done so. I still wondered if he thought I was mad. Hell, I still wondered that myself! I nodded, and my leonine friend continued. "I just wish I could see it, too. No matter. But if you're ready, we can go see about buying the lumber. I remember our agreement, after all. You draw it, I'll build it." He smiled, the lion-image's tail swishing back and forth.
Even the image had changed over the years. Most of the time it was like a normal lion, on all fours. But today, it was more like some kind of cross with a human. It was as if my friend had become more closely related with his Echo. But this was a puzzle for another time. "I thought you'd never say that! Let's go!" On the stump of my right arm I strapped on a special prosthetic that I'd had made. It wasn't anything fancy, but it had a hook for hanging things like a pouch for my designs. Very useful.
In a town where half the population or more was people who worked for the Company it was surprisingly hard to find the right lumber. It took a week to get all the materials into the shed, and another month before Brendan could even start on it. Such is what happens when manpower is too small for the amount of work that the Company had, since he had to put in extra hours. Trainloads of workers arrived daily, yet there always seemed to be not enough people on hand. But that wasn't the oddest thing about the Company.
There were always a small group of people who seemed more than a little odd. I would watch them from the windows of the R&D department in the early morning, when most of the workers arrived. One could almost say that they didn't act quite human. But after a while I at least had a few of my questions answered. But those only gave me more questions to ask, if I could ever get the courage to do so.
I must be mad, I thought.
One morning, around dawn, I'd paused in my clean-up and decided to watch the group as they arrived on site. It was rather odd that they were there at all, since it'd been a rare time when there were no ships arising in the Yard. I watched about ten men go behind a large pile of scrap wood. Then came a strange feeling that pulsed through the air like a thunderclap. The whole world seemed to throb, and my headache returned in force. Then an acquaintance of mine appeared through a side door. "Good morning, Michael. I thought you'd been told that you had the day off." It was Mr. Bottleman. Or "Bottle" as he preferred to be called.
I looked at him. He was a humanoid dolphin. Again. He had a tail with flukes, a dorsal fin, smooth grayish skin, and a dolphin's snout and forehead. But it wasn't a double-image. Somehow, the real thing was standing before me. For some reason this man merely chose to look human to everybody else. But for what purpose? I could never form the question, or it was somehow being repressed. Bottle seemed to know that I knew what he was. He knew that I knew he wasn't human. But, for some reason, he either didn't care or he had some ulterior motive.
I leaned against my broom. "I know I had today off. But I feel at home here." I looked around at the huge room, its skylights, its row upon row of drafting tables. The images of ships yet-to-be dotting the room.
The dolphin-man looked at one of the designs, a clipper ship to be called the Star of York. He looked directly at the sail plan, where I'd modified the placement of the flying jib. "You're very good, you know. That'll increase her speed a quarter knot in a good following wind. In theory, at least."
"Theory? Is there a problem with that?" I was more surprised at his commentary then the fact he seemed to know what I'd been doing.
He made a clicking sound and shook his head. "Not as such, Mr. Bates. But thought and application are two different things. A ship is an entity unto itself, you must come to realize that." He pointed at my broom. "And until you do, you'll just have to be satisfied with that."
I had so many questions for him. Not the least of which was exactly what he was, and why he allowed me to see him as he really was. But only one question left my lips. "What am I missing?"
"You know it already. And in fact, you'll be correcting it soon. But for now go home and enjoy your day off." Then he'd fixed me with a certain look, and I felt a certain pressure on my mind. "You're a very special man, Michael. Though this goes against my better judgement, you will remember this conversion, and remember what I am. You deserve to. Are you frightened at what you see?" He moved his tail up and down.
I shook my head of my own accord. "Afraid? After watching people be blown apart by cannon shot? No. I cannot be afraid. I just wonder if I'm going mad..."
He smiled even wider. "You're not mad, Michael. Let's just say that you're one of those extremely rare people who see things a little clearer than most. Something very valuable to people like me." He turned to leave. "If you would like to talk again, just call me." He left the room, the door nearly closing on his flukes.
I never told anybody about that encounter. And I hardly saw Bottle around the Yard. When I did see him, he was human.
What most surprised me about that conversation was that I didn't really think of it very much. Like I was supposed to think of it as "normal", even though the man looked like he should be standing on his tail in the bay. What made me remember it all was when, about two days after Brendan started building the catboat, my friend walked into my drafting room and said "I have a problem."
I looked up from the spread-out cross section and blinked. "Oh? What do you mean?"
He walked over to the table and pointed at a certain part of the keel, where one of the ribs attached at the bow. "If I put that there then she'll spring a leak the moment we put her in the water. There's too much curve to the bow for the type of wood we have."
"Didn't we get the best?"
"You can't get too much for seventy eight and six. I had to compromise. You'll have to make a few changes before we can move on."
I stared back at the boat on paper, and sighed. "Give the specifics and I'll be right out to take a look."
I would have to make many, many changes to that little boat. So many, that it was hardly the same design I stared out with by the time we were finished. The mast was too short, the sail too large, the hull too fat, the rigging not strong enough. Over the four months it took to build it I nearly burned both the plans and the shed. But as she reached completion, I noticed something.
Even a small catboat can have a soul.
And then the day came. My leonine friend put on the finishing touches, but for one. "What do we call her?"
I'd never really considered a name. But considering the love I had for the Sea, there was only one name for her. "How does Seawind sound?"
My friend nodded. "That just might turn the trick. There's some paints over in the corner. You can go and paint the name on her while I go see about getting a cart to bring her down to the water." With that, he left the shed.
I spent the better part of two hours trying to get it right. By that time it was late in the evening and I was forced to use oil lamps to finish. First I tried a rather extravagant font, but that didn't seem quite right. So I started over and painted it in simple, plain lettering. She was finally complete, we only needed to put her in the water.
Nature had other ideas.
By that time it was deep winter, and it snowed more often than was normal. Or so I was told. But all that mattered was that there was little work in the Yard, and no chance to put the Seawind in her element. So we spent time making small changes to her design, adding another ten and six to her total cost. We must've put in six coats of paint during that winter, finally settling on a basic black and white color scheme. White above the waterline, black below.
When Spring finally came we were both anxious to get her down to the water. On the first clear, calm day that we both had off, we got the cart from a friend of ours, and with the help of others we took the Seawind down to the Yard, where to our surprise many other friends were awaiting us. Including Bottle, and the owner of the Yard, Thomas Cetacan III. The dolphin-man's smile was wider than normal. "Word gets around in a town like this, Mr. Bates. I just thought you'd like a proper send off for your maiden voyage."
With the help of ten others we righted the boat and stepped her mast into place, tightening the rigging, then lifting her up once more and taking her down the launching ramp. Oh, what a thrill that was! And when she touched the water, she seemed to sigh in delight as she became one with her element. The Company's president congratulated Brendan and I for a job well done! I blushed. "Well, we haven't actually sailed in it yet, sir..."
"What are you waiting for, then?" The president was a man of medium height, with black hair, and was graying at his temples. There was an odd quality to his voice, almost like some sort of singing.
I looked at my leonine friend and without any further words, we walked over to the moored Seawind and prepared to raise the sail. "We've got a nice fresh breeze, watch that luff." The "luff" of the sail was the leading edge. I sat down next to the tiller while Brendan cast off the lines. The wind was out of the southwest, and we both hoped we'd be able to get back to the dock.
The moment the sails filled with air my life changed yet again. For the ten glorious minutes of our maiden voyage I felt a oneness with the Sea that I never felt before. I loved her, and she loved me back. I watched the sail carefully, turning the tiller left and right, making sure we stayed on course; while Brendan worked the rigging. He tightened the mainsheet gently to camber the sail to get the maximum use out of the following wind. "We must be going ten knots!" he shouted excitedly.
We didn't have the experience to really be out long, and we didn't want to break in the boat too quickly, so with great reluctance we turned back towards shore. But the wind had shifted and we were forced to try a tack course for the first time. The Seawind's large sail was hard for one person to manage. He slackened the mainsheet line and the sail filled out, I turned the tiller a bit away from the wind. But there was no way we'd make it to the right place on the dock.
"Coming about!" I yelled, going for the opposite tack. We overshot the mark, but we now had momentum on our side. As soon as the group standing on the dock was behind us I once again swung the tiller around and ducked as the boom swung toward the portside. The sail filled and shot us forward right towards the spot on the dock. I trusted Brendan's judgement, here. At the proper moment he dropped the sail and we coasted right up to the right place to the applause of Bottle and the others.
"Good show!" Mr. Cetacan said. I beamed back at him. "Now tell me, Mr. Lyons, how long did it take you to design and build this boat?"
My friend hopped back onto the dock. "Well, sir, my friend Michael drew the boat. I built her."
The owner of the Company looked at the boat, then looked at me. "You're a janitor, aren't you?" I nodded slowly. "And you're the one who's been making changes to our designs! And good ones, mostly..." I gaped openly. He continued. "I see I've been blind. Bottleman here told me you had some hidden talent, but he never told me what it was." He glared at the smiling man. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Bottle shrugged. "I wasn't quite sure if he had the gift, sir. I had to be sure. So with your permission, I'd like to apprentice him to the Chief Designer. Especially in light of certain recent developments. We need to cultivate all the talent we can get."
Cetacan sighed deeply. "I'll see about making the announcement next month. We've delayed long enough as it is. At least we have the money to make the changes to the Yard that are needed." They were quite clearly talking about something else now. I wondered what that might be. The president shook his head in a resigned matter. "I'm getting ahead of myself, here. Come, let's get you set up in the R&D department. I sense a very happy future for you."
William Wallace had been the Chief Designer for over twenty years, and had been a shipwright for at least forty. He was getting on in years, but the whole staff revered him and thought of him as a father-figure of sorts. He took me under his wing with a smile, and my life once again changed forever.
I'd been doing a lot of that lately, I thought.
However, my first task as an apprentice was rather different than I'd hoped. Once he introduced me to the ten other draftsmen I was led into a large room that had seemingly hundreds and hundreds of rolled up plans. "Your first task is to choose three of these, and to copy them. I need to see what your skill level is before I know what parts of the ship you're best suited for working on."
I was to choose plans from three different time periods. There was a copy of each type of ship that the Company had ever built. Which was rather a lot, since Cetacan had been operating since 1630. Nearly two hundred distinct designs, all perfectly preserved and usable even over two hundred years. From the earlier period (before 1700) I chose a simple merchantman, from around 1750 or so a Man-of-War battleship, then lastly a recent brig from the 1830s. The first and third of those choices were the easiest, and only took me a week each to copy. But the middle one gave me headaches like there was no tomorrow.
Wallace looked remarkably rodent-like, I soon found out. A large, gray rat with beady black eyes that still somehow didn't give him the mischievous look that most rats had. During the worst of my headaches I would sometimes not see the man, but only a giant humanoid rat; in the same way Bottle was a dolphin. But there was a difference, I noted. Much like the way in which I continually saw Brendan.
Even though this I worked on the plans of the H.M.S. Wadsworth with great enthusiasm and respect for the man who had designed her. She had seventy-two guns on three decks, and was a hundred twenty five feet long. Her length-to-beam ratio was better than 3 to 1, and though she was by no means fast by modern standards, in her day she was the pinnacle of sail.
It still gave me headaches beyond belief, though.
I was still in mild pain when I finished the last set of plans. When I finally inked the last line I could hardly keep in my child-like enthusiasm! I waited until the first possible moment and presented them to Wallace. He looked them over carefully, his expression neutral. Finally, I could stand the waiting no longer. I was twenty-three and I felt like a child. "Well?"
He spread out the elevation plan of each vessel, the man-of-war in the middle. He motioned for me to come over. "Is there a problem?" I asked.
"Of sorts, laddie," he said calmly, the ears of his rat Echo's head flicking back. The image was faint, and mostly around his hands and his head, but present. He pointed at the bowsprit of the merchant ship, and a spot close to it on the brig. "You made changes to these two. And the only reason I know it is that I've seen these particular vessels so many times that I know what they look like backwards and forwards." He turned a few pages on the battleship's plans. "But you didn't make any changes to this one. Why?"
"They just... well..." how could I put this without hurting him? The hell with it, I thought. "They just seemed right to me, sir."
He just stared at me, a smile hovering in his expression. "Laddie, I'm so glad you said that. Because the changes that you made are very much like those that I would have made." He turned to the archives of more recent ships, specifically, the ones that had been done since I'd arrived here. He gestured to the many cubby holes where the finished plans were kept in leather pouches. "Would you mind doing me a favor?"
"Anything, sir."
"Show me which plans you made changes to. Because for the life of me, I cannot think of where you might have made your alterations."
I nodded, then reached for the first set of plans.
I finally got home that day two hours after the sun had set. Brendan had his own good news for me. "I've been promoted to Yard Supervisor! With what we make now, we could probably afford a larger house... With a larger shed in back. We've gotten so many comments about the catboat that I think we can have a bit of business on the side..." He broke off as I saw I was staring at him. "Seeing the lion again?"
I shook my head. "I am, but it's not that. I don't have a headache right now, but I'm still seeing it." I stared hard at my hair-lipped friend, and the dark brows and mane of the lion that he had been came into clear focus, even in the candlelight of the front room. But when I focused on his humanity, the lion Echo faded into near-invisibility. "In fact, it won't go away."
My friend sighed. "I wish I could help you, Michael, but I really can't see how you're seeing what you're seeing..."
I grabbed my coat and left the house before he finished his sentence. There was only one person that I knew might have the answers to my questions, and he normally went to a pub called "The Animal House" most nights. The place was nearly on the other side of town, and it was raining lightly as I walked along the streets that were lighted with gas lamp. I didn't care about the weather, I just pulled into my coat and settled a hat on my head.
There was a buffalo-man outside the door of the pub. The sounds from inside confirmed what I knew was the only possibility for the place. I heard growls, squawks, bleats, squeaks, yowls, and clicks. All sounded like jovial, happy sounds. I felt no fear as I walked straight up to the horned brute and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm told that Bottle spends much of his time here. I'd be much obliged if you'd take me to him."
The shaggy man merely gazed at me with one of those penetrating looks. "Bottle said this might happen," he rumbled. "Come in. And don't be afraid at what you see. We're all family, in a way." He opened the door.
The room was silent when I walked in. The door was closed quietly behind me. I swallowed my nervousness and looked around at the animals that had gathered to stare at the lonely human. "Uh... Is... Bot.. uh..." I stammered.
"Is Bottle here?" came a faint, familiar voice from in the back. I then saw several of the taller species move aside. "Move over, Daniel. Your tail's in the way..." A crocodile moved aside. "Thanks." Then the dolphin finally came to the front, after having to move a pair of horses who were standing on their hind legs. He looked at me with that happy grin of his. "So, you finally decided to accept my invite, eh?"
"After what's just happened to me I... I thought I could use some help." I felt a little bit uneasy under the gaze of so many with such predatory eyes. I even felt that way from the look a long-horned gazelle was giving me. I looked at Bottle rather sheepishly. "I just hope you all know the answers I'm looking for."
Bottle nodded solemnly, unusual for him. He seemed to sigh through his blowhole. "I wish we had those answers for you, my human friend. But we don't. We're as mystified as you are about why you see what you see. Even our Guardians don't know..."
Guardians? These people--they were undoubtedly people, even though they had fur or feathers or scales--were obviously part of something that was a lot bigger than I'd thought. I'd ask about that later, though. "Then I don't suppose you can help me get rid of these visions."
"I'm afraid not. Come with me, please." He reached out with a webbed hand and took hold of mine. His skin felt smooth and like rubber. I was led through the crowd, who had started to mill around again, to a bar stool. I reluctantly sat down. Bottle lacked his fluked tail, I noticed. That made it easier for him to sit. "What I'm going to tell you next will shock you. Though perhaps not as much as some. So just sit tight, enjoy your beer, and listen."
He held me enthralled for several hours at least. Nature, he told me, had an actual spirit. She was the maker of Life. She encouraged it to grow in the most inhospitable places. But her focus was so large that she could not care for the millions of individual species that inhabited this world. So from the life that had come out of her, came her children. The Guardians were also sentient spirits, but their focus was on the different like-types. They often showed a preference for either a male or female version of one of their Children. But it's how the Guardians and species themselves were born that was most interesting for me.
Nature is not static, as most humans seemed to believe. She is a dynamic, changing thing of both incredible complexity and astonishing simplicity. The changes she made to the Earth's climate and things that were even beyond her control (the sun, for instance), forced her Children to make changes to the species that were under their care. And so new species arose, and with it, new Guardians.
Humans had a Guardian. But he was little more than a child, even after millions of years. He's experimented with his Children (apes... I couldn't believe I was related to a monkey) to such a degree that something new had happened, the first time for a land creature, or to Bottle told me. Humans became sentient. "We whales and dolphins talk, Michael. We are sentient, and we ponder this question of what we are, just as you do," Bottle explained, "But look at what you're doing right now." When I didn't respond he grabbed my hand, where I'd been just holding onto the beer glass I hadn't drank from. "These hands are what sets you humans apart from we cetaceans. This combination of hands and language." He paused and gestured at the pub itself and all that it symbolized. Progress.
"So what's the problem?" I managed to ask.
"The problem will be hard for you to accept. The problem is that humans are doing too well at things like this. We don't object to all the progress you've made, my human friend. It's just how you've gotten here and where you are going that worries our Guardians. You see, if Ape was doing his job and making sure you didn't unbalance the Whole, we Disciples wouldn't be here right now."
"Wait just a moment... I just had a thought." I looked at the others in the room, most of which were staring at me again. "From what I've gathered in the past few years, from the things that I've seen. The Echoes. This would mean that you've all been human at some point. It seems to me that you're all here to halt all the progress we're making! Don't you care about your former lives? Why would..."
Bottle made a clicking sound. "God, no! You have it all wrong. We are here because our Guardians care for Ape and his Children, even though they don't always agree. They're family." He raised his beer glass. "All one big happy family, right?" He threw the question to the room.
His answer was an incredibly enthusiastic and jovial "NO!", followed by a chorus of animal laughter that grated on my nerves. Bottle laughed in dolphin manner and drank some beer, some of which spilled down the sides of his mouth between his conical, pointed teeth. "See? One big, happy, though sometimes argumentative, family. Just like any other."
He had a point. "You mentioned a role for normal humans, earlier? Acolytes?"
"Well, yes. But I'm afraid that due to your unique situation that you're just not suitable for it."
"Oh? Why?"
He gestured widely at the room behind us, while the bull-man bartender everybody called "Donny" served him another beer. "You see, we normally choose humans that are Sensitive to one of their past lives. They act as go-betweens when there isn't a Disciple to do the necessary work. But you're different from those humans. You're too sensitive. If we did for you what we normally do for activating Acolytes, I fear you would go mad.
"Quite frankly, no Disciple in history can do what you do. See those 'Echoes' as you call them. At least, not in the exterior sense with the ease that you seem to naturally possess. We know our own past lives, but in order to get an inkling of what a human has been in the past we have to touch them physically." His snout briefly shrank into a human mouth and nose, he sipped his beer, then he changed back again. The sight nearly made me faint, and he had to reach out to steady me on my chair. "Sorry about that. Anyway, I'll discuss this with Orca, my Guardian. But I'm sure that we'll just let you continue in your chosen profession that you've shown so much talent for."
I couldn't help but smile. Yes, ships and the Sea were my life. My Calling, as it were. I really didn't want to do anything else. But at least now I had some people to talk to about certain things. Something I'd been craving for years. "I'll do whatever you want me to. Just as long as I'm not taken from that drafting room."
Bottle turned to the other Disciples. Most of whom were Disciples-in-training, actually. "Agreed?" He once again threw the question to them.
"Agreed."
Gwynedd, Wales. May 21, 1888
Memories. Why did there always have to be so many of them?
The house was empty of people. I'd given my servants the day off, as was my custom on my birthday. I had three good people working for me. A cook, a maid, and a gardener. And though my house was not large, it still echoed with the emptiness.
So empty, since Brendan had died. I remembered it like it was yesterday.
It started when Mr. Cetacan announced, a month after I'd started working in the R&D department that the Company would start building steamers. "They are the future of the Sea, I'm afraid," he'd said in his speech to all, "so changes are going to have to be made in the way we do things. And I expect you all to do your part. Details will be given to you by your Yard Supervisors. Good day."
I'd walked in the next morning to find that a quarter of the available drafting tables were now marked as "Reserved for Steamer Division". I'd complained about this to Wallace. "It's only temporary, laddie. They're building something special for the steamies, but until that's finished we have to share. We've got more room than we really use, anyway."
The head of the Steamer Division was a man by the name of Spencer Chapman, from London. He clearly didn't think much of our little town compared to "his" London, and I had to keep reminding myself that it was only temporary that he and his draftsmen were here. My other consolation was that Spencer's Echo looked like he'd be perfect on a Thanksgiving dinner table.
Sometimes the noise from the Yard, combined with that from the construction being done close by, gave me such a pounding headache that it was impossible for me to work. Under such strain I lost the bit of control over my ability to see these Echoes that surrounded me. There were times when I only saw a normal sized rat where Wallace should've been.
Even after the migraine relaxed it was a full week before I could see anything close to normal again. During that time it was as if I was in a world populated by animals that talked and acted like humans, and some few humans that behaved like animals. I got to know the Echoes of my colleagues quite well until I even started to get used to them. Not for the first time I pondered the meaning of what I saw. Sometimes there was a total contrast to the human form of the present and the animal one of the past.
For instance, Jacques Petard, a French-Canadian and one of the Yard Supervisors, had the body of a lumberjack and the attitudes to match. However, his Echo was that of a delicate whitetail doe. The only reason I'd known it was him was because I'd been looking at the Echo, remembering Coryn and the deer around her cabin, he'd (she'd?) trotted up to me and in his deep voice had said "what are you looking at?"
I made it a point to never openly stare after that, no matter what I saw.
Life settled down afterward. Time moved on, the Steam Division did get their own building. I watched steamers take half our business away, and the ten draftsmen in my department were reduced to eight, then six. I watched the clipper ships that had so dominated the seas during their time start to fade into the past, becoming uneconomical. Steamers were slowly taking over the shipping lanes, even though they were so much slower than sailing ships. So the Company was suddenly going full pelt to build them. The pace was literally deadly.
I was looking over some plans that had been sent to me by a friend of mine in Belfast. He'd sent me some blueprints of a new type of sailing vessel that some called a "windjammer". It showed great promise over the steamers, in fact. Something that heartened me greatly.
The noise was the cracking boom of tearing metal that echoed from the mountains to the Strait. I covered my ears as best I could with my one hand but the clatter only lasted a short time. Then, a dreadful silence.
The man who'd I'd always considered the father I never had was dead. Crushed when a boiler that was being lifted into a new ship fell from its crane. The investigation revealed that the crane wasn't strong enough for the weight that it had to lift. The thing had fallen to the ground and bounced, rolling Brendan and three others over. If it hadn't been one of the newer cylindrical boilers then they might have been able to escape.
That was ten years ago.
A knock on the door startled me out of my memories. I reluctantly left the candlelit dining room and opened the door. Bottle was standing there, actually looking apologetic. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding, but I thought you might like to talk."
His arrival awakened a hunger to talk in me that hadn't been there for years. "No. you're not bothering me. Please, come in out of the rain." For once he was his human self, wearing one of those new waterproof coats. "Can I offer some tea? Coffee? Some fish, perhaps?"
He walked in and hung his coat on the rack, and his hat, too. "Thanks. I was starting to freeze my tail off out there..."
"You don't have a tail right now, my finny friend," I pointed out, my mood lightened by his arrival.
He made a show of turning around in circles, looking at his behind. "I guess it was colder out there than I thought!" His laugh was dolphin-like even as a human. Then he stopped and his expression turned sober. "How are you feeling, old friend?"
"Lonely, if you haven't figured it out already. I have my work, and little else." I led him into the Study, where one table always seemed perpetually piled high with books and issues of Shipbuilder magazine. The drafting table next to it was hardly better. A pile of large half-rolled vellums was on one side, and the paper that was mounted had scribbles of various thought experiments. Some of which had actually been built.