Jennifer Horseman (27 page)

Garrett got up and walked over to the bookcase, examining the titles as if he might choose one. The movement broke Gayle's silent contemplation and made him say, "Garrett, go to her."

He shook his head. "I can't court her openly, Gayle; it would be a disaster. She has been hurt badly, and God knows, it takes time and patience to earn a wounded creature's trust: two things I am not known to have in any great degree. I want so badly to hurt her no more, and yet—" He stopped, shook his head and said, "Dear God, I am in trouble. . . ."

Sitting on the sofa, Juliet only pretended to read the book in her hands. Gayle and Garrett argued a point, a point she found terrifying.

Gayle pounded the table where Garrett sat peering through the scope. "Why? Why is it the more something rots and decays, the more they come?"

"Most of them feast on dead flesh."

"Aye, but how do they find it? If they have no eyes, do they fly through the air until a scent draws them to it?"

Her large blue eyes widened a fraction. She stared into the empty space of the air, half expecting to see the little horrors flying toward her. They were invisible, though—

"Maybe." Garrett discussed the monsters calmly. "I can't help but suspect they are born on it. That rotting flesh gives them birth—" Garrett stared at the little beasties, gathering and swarming in ever-increasing numbers on the tiny piece of rotting meat. "Gayle, look. Here's one we havent seen before. Long, with dozens of little legs."

Oh my! Juliet swallowed, her gaze riveted to the spot with a wide-eyed look of horror and fascination. Dozens of little legs-

He got up to let Gayle have a look.

Several years ago, Garrett had been introduced to the curved glass that magnified the world a hundred times so that the invisible world of the little beasties became visible. The microscope had so fascinated him that he had had one of the glasses made, at enormous expense, and now he was one of the dozens of investigators the world over who undertook the arduous task of identifying and charting the hundreds of tiny creatures to be found, and what they were found in. He had just charted his sixty-seventh, after spending half a year cross-checking these little beasties against the list of a Viennese doctor, who in turn would use Garrett's charts to cross-compare with another, and so on. The charting alone was endless, but what often consumed Garrett's and Gayle's conversations were the mysteries the little monsters presented.

The two men talked for some time more until Gayle left for his afternoon duties. Juliet watched Garrett return to the scope, her curiosity becoming a different kind of monster.

What were they doing? What did they see through the scope? These little beasties, things that flew through the air to land on dead flesh and eat it?

Oh, how she would love to look and see these queer things for herself! Once, when he had been called out of the room, she had almost gathered the courage to look down that tube. What stopped her was not the idea of what Garrett might do if he found her—she knew now he had no punitive aspect to his nature—but rather the idea of what she might find. Tiny flesh-eating little creatures . . .

Without making a sound she set the book down and moved behind Garrett, who remained at the table peering into the scope. A smaller wood box of slides sat near a much larger shallow crate filled with the jars, each of these holding various identifiable and unidentifiable horrors. They all looked bad, rotting dead things, but the worst, the very worst, she thought, was the jar with a dead chicken fetus inside. He occasionally looked up to write in his ledger or to replace one slide with another. So lost to his contemplation, it was nearly a half hour later that he became aware of who stood behind him, peering over his shoulder with irrepressible curiosity.

He turned around to find her. Juliet jumped back, her eyes making an anxious circle, a ridiculous pretense to find an excuse for why she stood so close.

Garrett was no longer willing to humor her pretense. "That's it. Come take a look, love. I know you want to."

She hesitated but briefly before stepping forward. Garrett pulled the chair back a bit but made no move to relinquish his seat. He motioned to his lap instead.

Her eyes widened in protest. "Gayle'does not have to sit on your lap when he looks through the scope!"

"For good reason. It would be alarming should I want him there, wouldn't you say? Come, love, you're not tall enough to see by sitting only on the chair."

A close inspection of the height lent this statement some credibility. It never occurred to her that she might stand and look through the scope just fine. Sitting might be a requirement, for all she knew. She would have refused had her curiosity let her but the fact was, she wanted to see, and badly. After finally swallowing her pride and the pretense of indifference, she could hardly see how she could beg out now.

She moved in front of him, and as rigidly as possible she sat upon his leg. Her legs dangled between his, while his hands came to her waist as if to provide balance. Immediately she knew it was a mistake. Her heart greeted the chaste contact with embarrassing eagerness. She closed her eyes, trying to control the sudden tumult as she felt his warmth reach around her, while that ever-so-pleasant scent of his, spices and sea and just him, filled her consciousness, leaving little room for the little beasties, small as they apparently were.

"You're blushing, love."

"Who, me?"

He smiled at this. "No, I was addressing little Vespa. Why, just look at that rosy color reaching the tips of her little whiskers."

So concerned about the effect of his nearness, it took her mind a long minute to catch up with the words, then she blushed more with the realization of the effect of his presence on her thoughts. "It's just so warm in here . . . ." She fanned her face to give some credibility to the comment.

"Aye, very nearly unbearable."

She did not understand what those eyes were saying to her, presenting her with warmth and humor and something else she could make no sense of but thought best not to consider. Oh, this was a mistake—

"Go ahead. Look and tell me what you see."

Apparently he remained unaffected. She should be thankful for the small favor. Leaning over, she peered into the tube, and in the moment it took her eyes to adjust to the changed circumstances her thoughts teeter-tottered. She stared at the most curious sight: tiny round blobs, like splattered rain drops crawling on line-thin legs, crawling everywhere. She watched one crawl right off the side and withdrew with a gasp.

Garrett laughed. "They can't hurt you."

"They're like . . . like-"

"Little insects. Aye. And they are everywhere, on everything-"

Her eyes made a study of his face as she took this in. "Everything? Not everything?"

"Yes. They are on everything that was once alive or growing, on absolutely everything that has moisture in it. Yet I've also found them on things like cloth, knives, wood, just everything. As a matter of fact, I can wipe one of my glass slides clean and actually watch them grow from nothing. Here, look again and see if you can spot one that's starting to split in two."

She looked back. She watched the cluster of perhaps two dozen little creatures until she saw one tearing itself apart. It took about two minutes before it was completely split, and now where one had been, two crawled away. "Oh heavens, it had a ... a child!"

"I don't think so. They come apart fully grown and able, at least as far as we can see. It's just how they multiply. Here love, if you promise not to be frightened, I'll show you something."

Garrett removed a clean slide, wiped it with a wine cloth and placed it under the scope. "Look and tell me what you see."

She did and turned back to him. "Nothing, they're all gone."

Garrett removed the slide and holding it, he reached a hand to her mouth. His gaze filled with humor and that something else she didn't understand as he gently pried her lips open and, to her horror, wet his fingertip with her spit. This he wiped on the clean slate and placed beneath the scope again. "Look what's in your mouth, love."

Garrett waited for her reaction, which was slow in coming indeed as she stared incredulously at the swarms of little beasties crawling on her spit. She withdrew slowly, reaching both her hands to cover her mouth as if to stop any more from getting inside. "I ... I need some water."

Garrett laughed, his eyes filling with understanding. For a week after he had first realized they were in his mouth, he imagined he could feel them there. "It won't get rid of them. They're in the water, too. You see," he gently brought her hands away from her mouth to explain, "they live inside of us, not just in our mouths but also in our flesh and blood. They are like air; they are everywhere. I don't think they do anything—"

"But you said they eat flesh!"

"I think mostly—or noticeably—only when you're dead. They seem to grow fastest on dead things. Which makes me think they're the actual mechanism of decay. Think of them as a natural part of the universe; they have always been here with us. It's only that we don't see them with our eyes."

Another half hour passed as he discussed his different theories, showing her different slides, each slide presenting her with a different form. Soon the little creatures didn't seem nearly as frightening to her, they were, after all, so small— "Here, I'll show you a mold." He reached for the jar with the chicken fetus in it.

Juliet's eyes widened, and without thinking of it, she recoiled from the idea—recoiled into his chest. She turned with a gasp to right herself but he caught her in his arms, cradling her as one holds a small child. He only laughed. Her clothes proved a flimsy barrier to the warmth and sensation he caused in her, renewed and redoubled by the brief absence of her self-consciousness.

Juliet found herself staring into his eyes—absolutely the worst thing she might do according to all the sentimental poets she had read. Yet she could not turn away, as if he had caught her in a strange and magical spell that kept her to his will, making her aware of danger.

"Garrett."

She said his name in a whisper and then forgot why. Time stopped, stretching as he studied her: the uncertainty in her eyes, the darkening blue color there, the dark lashes and the satin arch of her brows, all set against the smooth white skin. Those lips were the opening to desire, a desire he fought now to tame. A single, faint mark, a quarter the size of a button, scarred her cheek, a tiny remnant of a childhood bout with the pox. He brushed his thumb over it, banishing stray wisps of her hair as he did so.

A shiver went through her. She reached her hand to the spot, her confusion plain. She wanted badly to get up, but she was afraid he'd stop her. For reasons not clear to her, she shied from putting him to the test. As if she couldn't bear the thought that he'd force her again, a thing that would upset this fragile truce between them. Yet she could feel her lips tremble with the idea he would kiss her again—"Garrett, Garrett," she whispered in a plea for help. "You're doing it again."

"What, love?" He lifted a plait of her long hair and brought it to his face, drinking the sweet maddening scent of it her. "What am I doing to you?" She searched his face, trying to ascertain if he teased or no. "You're scaring me so ... ."

"Yes, I know. I know why, too, though I doubt if it's common knowledge between us." His hand fell to her waist with a caress as light as a breeze and yet her entire consciousness centered on the gentle knead of his fingertips through the cloth of her shirt. The movements of that hand suggested he toyed with the idea of untying the ribbon of her frock. She imagined it, briefly, against her better judgment; she closed her eyes and imagined the frock coming off and how he would kiss her as he changed her with the touch of his hands ....

"Why do you think I scare you?"

The thought vanished with his question, leaving a warm surge and a tightening constriction in her throat. He looked amused now, but she could no more stop what was happening than she could stop the sun from rising on the morrow. "I can't talk now. I want ... I want very much for you to let me go."

Emotions passed through his eyes as he considered it, seeing at last she was putting him to a test. What a high price she wanted for her trust, too. He wanted her badly, in truth, he did not think he would last much longer even if she were to go to a faraway place on earth. Yet he wanted her trust as much, he kept having to remind himself over and over and over again. Clearly, he could not have both now.

"I'll give you less than a minute to put some distance between us, love. Go on, get up." He cursed when he saw he had to say it twice. "Go on, love, before I change our minds."

Within that minute, she had put herself through the door.

With increasing irritation, Garrett saw the situation as playing court, Juliet was the princess and his men her knights, ever eager to pay her homage and surround her feet with their prizes. A daily roll of the dice determined which man would escort her on her daily walks, giving a sailing lesson as they went. Then came her endless questions: "Why are the fore and aft rigs hoisted on standing string lines?" "That's stay lines, love. Because—" Or, "Every one of your men, Garrett—the gunners, the top-men, even the boatswain and their mates—they each swear they have the most dangerous task. They said I might cast the final say during the next battle .... Over your dead, what?" Or, "What exactly does head mean, and where is it? Cosmo said it's the darkest place on board, that I shall never see the inside, and he thanked God for that. But then when I asked Gayle he said it was the quickest way to send a man to heaven, that I should be asking you about it. He thought you might show me if I asked nicely. Will you, Garrett? Why, he thought it was funny too!"

Then in the afternoon, beneath a wide-rim sun hat, she adjourned to a chair on the main deck, with ten grown men vying for the prize of her attention. The odd thing of it was that nine voyages out of ten he brought a woman with him—the exceptions being when it was too dangerous to do so—but never had any of his other women solicited more than polite stares from his men. There she was each day, helping Pots cook, climbing the masts, ringing the ship's bell to the wild applause of his men, shouts that it was, "the best darn ring we ever had heard," learning stuff stitchery or chalking and scraping oakum and pounding it into the sides of the hull, all the while listening to the most outrageous sea stories.