On the opposite side, a blue velvet upholstered banquette-style dining area was positioned to take advantage of the view through an oversized porthole. Currently, the matching velvet curtains were drawn, but the room wasn’t entirely dark. It was bathed in the golden light of warmly flickering gas lamps mounted on the paneled walls.
Zani smelled the clean, masculine scents of teak oil and leather, and something else. Something sweeter, like fruit. She’d need a moment to get her bearings, but her first impression was that the ship was a homey place. It felt warm and welcoming to her.
Burnside pulled out his flask, took a nip of his porting whiskey, and then he sat up straighter.
“Welcome to my place, Zani. Please make yourself at home.” He waved a hand magnanimously. “I’d offer you something to eat, but I don’t think we’ll be here long. Some sherry, perhaps?” He pointed to the mirrored bar, just beyond the bookshelves, where cut-glass bottles sparkled.
“No, thank you,” said Zani, taking in her surroundings. “Where exactly are we? I thought you said we were going tomyhome?”
She saw now that they’d ported in through a large, ornately carved mirror, similar to the one at the Society headquarters. Only this mirror wasn’t hanging in a gallery. It was leaning against the richly paneled wall of the study they were in.
“We’re east of the lighthouse,” Burnside said.
“Why can’t I see it?” Zani peered out the porthole. Judging by the complete darkness outside, it was night. She couldn’t see the horizon, or make out any water below.
“It isn’t lit tonight.” Burnside opened a drawer in the side table beside the couch and pulled out a pipe. He neatly filled it with some cherry tobacco and lit it with a lighter. “And you’d have to be looking out the other side of the ship to see anything from this altitude.”
“What do you mean it isn’t lit?” Zani couldn’t recall a single night that the lighthouse hadn’t been lit. It was almost more shocking than the second part of his statement. “And what do you mean,altitude?”
“We’re on an airship, my dear!” Burnside chuckled and puffed his pipe. Zani was glad that the smoke didn’t seem to linger in the small space. It vanished like vapor, leaving only the faintest hint of a fruity scent behind.
“Airship as in dirigible?” Zani asked excitedly.
“That’s right, my dear. Now grab onto something, if you will. Hold tight!”
At just that moment, the ship dove. The crystals hanging from the wall sconces clinked together, and the entire ship creaked. Zani heard machinery grinding and groaning as they pitched down and to the right. She grabbed onto the back of the banquette seat to steady herself, grateful that the piece was anchored to the floorboards.
“Ah, it’s just about time.” Burnside blew out a puff of smoke and nodded to someone else coming through a door toward the back of the room. It hadn’t occurred to Zani that they might not be alone. The younger man nodded back at Burnside, and flashed a friendly, curious grin at her. It was only when she saw his tooth sparkling that she realized that this man wasalsoBurnside Porter. Just not the same Burnside Porter who was sitting on the sofa.
The younger man crossed to the front of the chamber and opened a heavy door leading to a narrow walkway outside. A great gust of wind blew in as he opened it, blowing her hair back and rattling the crystals. It slammed shut immediately behind him.
“What’s going on? Where is he? I mean, where are you?” Zani looked from the old man, to the door that just shut, and back to Burnside again.
“Watch closely, now.” Burnside stood and directed her to another bay of larger portholes that served as a windshield at the prow. After they were both seated in the well-cushioned captain’s chairs, he pointed toward the shadows on the horizon. “You should just barely see the lighthouse off the port side now. I hope you’ve brought those special hearrings of yours?” Burnside glanced at her bag.
“I have.” Zani reached in her bag and fished the shell-shaped hearrings out of their case. She showed them to Burnside.
“You’ll need them if you’ve any hope of listening in.” He cracked his side of the windshield open and leaned out into the night. Then he waved for Zani to do the same.
“The year is 1905.” Burnside narrated the scene. “And I was here to port an infant mermaid to safety.”
Zani glanced at him to be sure she’d heard correctly. “But what does that have to do with my aunt?”
“Watch.” He pointed outside.
She recognized the coastline they were floating over immediately. It was the same but different from the coast where she’d been raised. The outline of the dimmed lighthouse was unchanged, but the beach and rocks around the shoreline seemed much wider. Time and tide, she supposed, claimed some of that area back by the time she was born.
The night was dark, so dark that she was tempted to scrabble into her bag for her Lunar Lenses to see more clearly. The cat-eyed reading glasses were spelled to provide perfect night vision, amongst other things. But there was no time. The airship was moving quickly, still losing altitude as it cruised along the water towards the shoreline.
And then suddenly, she saw something. At first, she thought the two small dark figures skimming along the surface were birds. Cormorants perhaps. But then she saw they were not birds at all. Rather, they were two young witches, each the mirror image of the other. And they were chasing something. A streak of light that was moving through the water with unaccountable speed.
The dirigible dipped again. They were gaining on the girls, coming closer, lower, lower …
“Look out!” Zani gasped, fearful of a collision. The girls split apart, one to the right of the ship and one to the left. The one she could still see was looking up, not at Zani, but at something, or someone else towards the prow. Zani leaned out further to see. She could see the younger Burnside had made his way around to the front of the ship. He was now standing directly below them on a narrow scaffolding, preparing to jump.
Instinctively, Zani grabbed onto the old porter’s hand.
They both watched as his younger, lone figure took a step onto the railing and dove neatly from the prow.
