Nina’s eyes dulled. “Scurry,” she said.
In the distance, the screech of metal rent the air in time with the fracturing of his mind, an uproarious crash of iron he couldn’t place, sending larks into the night.
THE TRENCH TRIBUNEHEAD OF HOUSE SURVIVES TRAIN CRASH
Startling reports from the National House confirm that a train derailed yesterday in the continent’s South, with the newly appointed Head of House, Lord Terrence Shop, aboard.
In a statement scribbled toThe Trench Tribune,the House stated that Shop survived the accident with minimal injury, but that his son, Lord Theodore Shop, was killed. This, alongside a Scribbler, Polly Prescott, and several train workers and soldiers also aboard.
The House and this tribune extend their deepest sympathies to their governing leader.
From his recovery bed, the Head of House extended assurances that, despite the tragedy, he was determined to remain a force of strength in these trying times.
Long live Belavere.
KENTON HILL SIGNS TRUCE PACT
Issued today to Belavere press was the announcement that Kenton Hill, the self-proclaimed rebellion capital, has today signed a treaty agreement with the House to cease strike action. A tremendous breath can be felt in the East this winter as the temperatures drop. Kenton Hill will deliver its coal quota to the capital, in hopes to encourage fellow parishes to continue their own labors for the greater good of the continent.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWONINA
We arrived in Scurry in the same way my mother once left it.
Patrick helped me out of the bowels of a passenger boat, his cap pulled low over his brow, adjusting my own hat to keep my face in shadows. “Ready?” he asked.
But there is no readying for the assault of one’s childhood. Particularly if one was a child in a town like Scurry.
John let the boat float away, and there was no one to pay us any mind as we made our way onto the sodden banks, slipping in the slush, skin already mottled with the cold.
John sniffed at the air and looked about the town. “Smells like home,” he said.
“Horse shit and smoke?” Patrick muttered. But I thought he meant the bite in the air, less stinging than Kenton. Never cold enough to freeze the ground, but enough that snowfall melted as soon as it touched the earth, all of Scurry turning to mush underfoot. The roads were the color of molasses. The roofs dripped from their eaves in a perpetual rhythm, sagging under the burden of it.
Everything sagged in Scurry. Women lugged laundry and children and baskets that seemed intent on breaking bones. Men bowed in their miner’s coats, shrinking inward from the chill, bent almost double before they turned thirty. By fifty, their noses skirted the puddles.
Most of Scurry was set atop a hill, cut off like an island between the riverand its mines, so we had to walk the slope, slipping the entire way. I was hounded by sour memories, and some sweeter ones—Ma dragging me up the hill while I sat on a wide tin oven tray, then pretending I was too heavy and letting me slip back down the slope, right to the culvert next to the river. The days I’d spent on this slope, watching the river for boats mooring and pulling away, my mother not aboard, the boatmen watching on with obvious pity.
I thought of the resilient red flowers that dared to sprout heads among the dust in the spring. Widow’s lace, only there for a short while. You had to be quick in the picking before they sagged, too.No one but us has this, Rose Harrow would say, twirling the flower before my eyes.The city might have its own beauties. But no one else gets this.
Midwinter, and the flowers had mostly decomposed. The hills were brown and sullen. But I wondered if perhaps, when Idia lived here, the land was beautiful. Before the hills were plundered and the flowers squashed.
Patrick’s arm caught me as I stumbled, his fingers tightening around my forearm. “Easy,” he said.
I tugged the heavy hem of my skirt away from the ground. Women in Scurry did not wear long skirts in the winter. They wore their husband’s trousers, or their brother’s. Practicality and warmth outweighed fashion.
Patrick took the folds of skirt from my hands and held it aside for me as I walked. He watched me warily. Likely he was noticing the strain taking hold of me as Scurry grew closer. I was trembling a little. Sickness spilled into my belly.
“Do you want to hear a story?”
I looked at him. “What?”
“A story. See if I can’t take that pin out of your arse.”
I grinned, though I didn’t want to. “You’re a pig. Have I ever told you that?”
He nodded. “Among other things. Now, when I returned home to Kenton after our siphonin’, I promised myself I wouldn’t mention your name, not even to my father,” he looked up toward John, who was ten paces ahead.“But I told Gunner. Couldn’t help it. You were bangin’ about my skull and I wanted to brag to someone about you, so I told him your name. I told him that I knew the earth Charmer was the same girl from that courtyard, and that I’d held her hand and kissed her stupid.”
“You barely touched my cheek.”
