From behind a fort of books came someone so short as to appear a child, but was on closer inspection a frightfully old woman with dark skin and thinning hair.
She licked her gums, took her spectacles off, and rubbed them against her blouse. Her chin quivered as she peered at them all. After a moment, Patrick realized that she was speaking to herself in silence. Her lips forming words they couldn’t hear.
She came around her piles and stacks in a practiced way, her squat form somehow avoiding any obstacle, until she came before Nina. She looked at her as though she were a collectible to peruse, picking up her hands and turning them over to see their backs, pulling on her curls to test their spring.
Then she smiled, patted Nina’s cheek.
“Hello, Mrs. Trunk,” Nina said warmly, smiling back.
Patrick felt punched through by that smile. She’d used it on him once or twice. He doubted there were many with hearts and eyes who could refuse it, Mrs. Trunk included.
The old woman’s eyes then swept to the rest of them, not stopping until they found Theo, propped between Patrick and John, recognition dawning.
“We’re sorry to call on you without an invitation,” Nina said to her. “But I’m afraid we had no choice. Theo is… injured,” Nina said.
Mrs. Trunk patted her cheek again. There was a shake to her hands. She wore a gentleman’s dinner jacket and dungarees—hardly swank fashion—and if it wasn’t for the piano that started playing of its own accord in a dusty corner, Patrick might have thought her a Craftswoman.
Except that the keys trilled suddenly in a strange and complicated ascension of notes. It made John spin and lift a pistol from his coat, made Polly duck and cover her head.
But it only made Nina smile.
Patrick watched the dark wooden keys settle back into place and frowned at them.
“Mrs. Trunk is a wood Mason,” Nina offered.
At that, the piano warbled again. One solitary, piercing tone, as though to affirm.
“She uses the piano to speak.”
Mrs. Trunk’s lips moved soundlessly. She moved to a chair overturned and took it by its legs. With precarious movements she righted it on the floor and pointed abruptly to Theo. The piano sang again.
“I think she wants to see Theo’s injury,” Nina offered, and Mrs. Trunk nodded brusquely.
Theo groaned as he sank onto the chair, but he had the wherewithal to nod his head to Mrs. Trunk—the perfect gentleman. “Pleasure to see you again,” he said through gritted teeth.
Mrs. Trunk unwrapped the sodden bandage, shook her head in reproach, her lips moving, piano playing in double time, the tone somber, as though she were giving them a tongue lashing.
Without warning, she went shuffling off into the maze of junk.
“Lord,” John said in her absence. “Ain’t a single marble left, eh? Complete nutter.”
“Mind your manners,” Nina said, eyes stuck on the weeping sore on Theo’s side. His head was hung back over the chair, his eyes closed. He drew deep, deliberate breaths through his nose.
“Well, she ain’t a threat, that’s for certain,” John continued on, going to an old wall clock discarded on the floor and picking it up, turning it over to view its cogs. “We ought to take advantage if we can. Lay low for a few days or more, let the Scribbler work on the translations.”
Patrick was already shaking his head. “We haven’t got time. The longer we sit still, the more likely it is we’re caught.” Patrick felt that screw wind itself tighter. “We need to find the Seam. I need to return to Kenton.” He felt it like fingers clamped around his windpipe. Every day, his dread compounded.
“Theo can’t travel like this,” Nina said, her eyes roaming over the man, brow furrowed.
At the sound of her voice, Theo’s eyes opened. They caught hers.
Patrick heard bones break, the spray of blood. He swallowed. “Then he ought to stay here.” He said it with deliberate slowness. He wanted her to hear the sense in it. To bring this juvenile bond to an end. “He can stay in the care of Mrs. Trunk, and we’ll carry on to Hoaklin as planned. Polly can translate on the route. Then we head straight for the Seam.”
Nina turned her head to Patrick, and he thought her expression was laced with apology.
His stomach fell.
“We can’t leave him here.”
