Chenda and the Airship Brofman (2 page)

In the wake of that fruitless investigation, and not knowing what else to do, the staff quietly returned the space to its ordered beauty. Not a drop of Edison’s blood remained on the fine mahogany desk, or the Tugrulian carpet beneath. Every soiled paper, every hint of the police, even the smell of the newsmen’s flashbulbs had been carefully removed. Clean and proper. Restored.

Shock stopped her tears when she discovered Edison’s body, and numbness covered her as she awaited the funeral. Chenda hadn’t cried once. She had held her tears in for seven days, and there, in the very room in which Edison had been murdered, it overflowed from her. Chenda kicked her feet violently under her long black satin skirts while she wailed. Her thoughts, barely formed enough to be called thoughts, exploded out of her in rage and sorrow.
Why…Why
? the words bubbled through her mind, rising from her chest finally as a screech, “WHY!!!?!?!?!”

Chenda lay there, frightened and completely lost. She sobbed again and again, fighting against her sorrow, willing herself to pull the pain back in, willing herself to become again the dignified wife of Edison Frost. Chenda allowed herself one final sob as she crawled over to the side of Edison’s desk. She rested a moment on her knees there, pressing her face to the smooth desktop, her arms wrapping the dark wood in a weak embrace. She said a small prayer for comfort to any god that could hear her.
Please
, she prayed,
please guide me
.
What do I do now
?

A thought appeared in her head.
Edison would pull himself together and get off the floor
.

Chenda fought her sorrow and searched her soul for a bit of strength. She wrapped her fingers around the wood beneath her hands and squeezed each side of the desk, pulling herself to her feet. When she let go, she heard a small click. A raised panel on the side of the desk swung open.

What’s this?

Chenda’s fingers pressed the panel back to discover a narrow slot, like a small shelf that was covered by the secret door. An envelope made of fine peach-tinted paper fell to the rug.
Chenda
was printed on the front in Edison’s tiny handwriting. She carefully opened the letter.

My dearest Chenda,

Pretty paper for an ugly message.

I know that finding this letter means that you are again alone in the world, and for that I am so very sorry. You have been such a blessing to me in my life, and I have loved you always. But, I now have to ask you to forgive me. Your father and I have kept a dangerous secret from you. Chenda, you have a destiny. I wish I could explain here in this letter, but I am not sure you would believe. You will have to find out for yourself.

Somehow, you need to find a way across the sea to Kotal, and connect with the Tugrulian Resistance. They can take you to a mystic, Pranav Erato. He will help you fulfill your destiny.

Also, I want you to contact a professor at Kite’s Republic University, Dr. Candice Mortimer. Her expertise can help you, and I believe you can trust her.

Go now, and take the bag with you. Waste no time.

All my love,

E

Chenda read the letter again.
Destiny? The Tugrulian Resistance?

Stunned, Chenda swept her hand into the hidden slot and felt a small velvet bag. With shaking fingers, she loosened the knotted silk cord and tipped the contents into her hand. Out fell a gold necklace with a rather dull, deep-red stone pendent. Two other, larger stones also fell into her hand. One was a pale and uninteresting yellow, and the other, blue, the color of an old robin’s egg.

At that moment, Chenda thought she heard someone in the hall outside Edison’s study. She quickly scooped the stones back into the bag along with her husband’s note and snapped the desk panel shut. She pocketed the velvet bag, patted her hair into place, wiped her eyes and smoothed the wrinkles from her long dress. A moment later, Chenda opened the door to find her housekeeper, Alme, raising her hand to knock.

“Oh, good evening, ma’am, I just wanted to see if you were feeling up to any supper this evening?” Alme’s eyes were wide with sympathy.

Chenda frowned.
I probably should eat something,
Chenda thought.
But I just can’t sit alone in the dining room tonight, not without Edison. I feel him in every corner of this house now
.

“Yes,” Alme sighed, as if she has heard Chenda’s thoughts. “Perhaps I could bring you some soup and toast up to your personal study?”

“A very good idea,” Chenda agreed as she turned away from Edison’s office and climbed the stairs. By the time Chenda reached her suite of rooms, her mind had set on several things:

First, she was sure of Edison’s letter. She recognized his writing, and had never known him to lie. Of that she was entirely sure. Edison had cared for her, educated her, and loved her. If he wanted her to follow his instructions, then she would.

Next, she needed to write to Professor Mortimer and arrange a meeting. After a few moments, Chenda had prepared a note inviting Dr. Candice Mortimer to tea the following afternoon and placed it in a silver tray on her desk.

And lastly, Chenda decided she needed to grow up. The time for shopping in town for trinkets and living in her small world was over. Those whispered voices at the funeral may just have been right. Money and fine things were all around her, but what she needed was the ability to take care of herself. To know herself. Chenda looked at her pale, tear-stained face in the mirror.
Who are you now? Can you be more than the Widow Frost? Is there more to you than this?

Alme politely knocked on the door, breaking Chenda’s gaze from her reflection. The housekeeper quietly placed a tray of food onto a side table and retrieved the letter from Chenda’s desk tray.

“Please see that letter delivered tonight, Alme. And I believe I will be just fine here for the rest of the evening. I’d rather not be disturbed.” Chenda looked again at the mirror as Alme silently swept out the door.

The next morning, a reply from Candice Mortimer was waiting. Chenda’s invitation to tea had been accepted. She smiled as she read the letter, and then bit her lip uncertainly. Deciding to follow Edison’s instructions was the first major decision of her life, and she wasn’t entirely sure she had made the right choice.

Later that day, Chenda stood outside the Terminal Tearoom and considered her options. There weren’t but two: go in, or go home. Opening the door meant starting her life anew, but going back to the estate, and forgetting the whole thing, was smarter. Chenda hesitated. The warm and brightly lit tearoom invited, and she could clearly see her intended teatime companion, one Dr. Candice Mortimer, Senior Professor of Geology at Kite’s Republic University. There was no need to wait, but Chenda could not seem to find the will to go forward. She let herself become distracted for a few seconds, watching the light spill though the spotless plate glass window and onto her beautiful and, as Edison would have teased, impractical shoes. The rhinestones across her toes caught the falling light and splashed it upward in the form of glittery rainbows that danced across the complicated folds of her long brocade dress.

She felt so strange, standing there in the fog as people jostled past her, rushing from taxis and trolleys to the station’s various trains and airships. Chenda listened to the familiar sounds of people on the go: the hard clack of a man’s leather shoes on the pavement, the soft swish of several layers of silk skirts brushing over petticoats and the whine of small children, exhausted from being dragged through the streets. Chenda herself stood perfectly still.

She looked up again to see the professor shifting uncomfortably in the delicate cafe chair. Chenda stopped trying to force her feet to carry her through the elegantly decorated and polished brass doors. She let go of her indecision for a moment, and suddenly, thoughtlessly, effortlessly, she found herself inside the cheery shop. Chenda looked toward the corner table where the tiny woman in a sand colored pantsuit waited, her back turned to the whole of the shop. Chenda’s momentum failed her, and she froze again. The Terminal Tearoom bustled around her, the rushing waiters swirling the smells of teas and pastries all around her.

It was safe to say that Professor Mortimer was not accustomed to the afternoon clatter of the tearoom. The fashionable and luxuriant shop was beyond the means of the average university professor, to be sure. Furthermore, the whole facade of the place just wasn’t Candice’s style.

She preferred the musty stacks of the university’s great library and the curling maps and boxes of geological samples scattered all around her small office. Candice often said to herself as she worked late into the night that she had the whole world at her fingertips. Well, at least little scrapings of it.

Candice kept mostly to herself at the university, spending her days teaching in labs and classrooms, and arguing with various committees, jostling to put her research projects closer to the top of the funding lists. Her nights were spent criss-crossing the great library, making connections. Her theories always put forth the notion that, in a very hidden way, all of the world’s culture and society was tied to geology. Geology dictated a region’s topography, which influences weather, the crops that can be grown, and the animals that appear. That all leads directly to the cultures that develop and everything else that defines a society: language, rituals, philosophy -even art.
It’s all rooted in geology
, Candice thought, and she had been single-mindedly unraveling those theories for nearly 20 years.

She was a woman of science, a woman of focus and dignity, but she wasn’t entirely sure why she was sitting in a pompous pastry shop waiting for the widow of
her
beloved, Edison Frost.

At that moment, Candice Mortimer, awash in sadness and annoyance, heard the quiet clack of approaching shoes on the marble behind her.

She turned, glared into the eyes of Chenda Frost and said, “Missy, that funeral was a circus. You should have kept the lid to that casket closed.”

Chapter 2

THE STONES THAT SING

            Chenda gasped as if she'd been slapped. She wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting from Professor Mortimer, but a dressing down wasn't even on the list. Chenda pulled herself together and said, “Excuse me? Are you
Professor
Candice Mortimer?”

Candice put one elbow on the table and her hand over her eyes. She couldn't believe she had been so rude.

“I'm so sorry!” Candice said, standing up and offering her hand. “It's just the shock of it all, I'm certain. Please, sit,” she ordered, waving the girl in to the seat in the far corner, and returning to her own. “Let's start again. I'm Professor Mortimer. You wanted to meet with me?”

“Yes - well, no.” Chenda said, feeling like this conversation would be starting again,
again
.

“I'm Chenda Frost, as I gather you already know. My late husband Edison wanted me to contact you.”

“Edison wanted? After all these years? Why?”

“I'm not entirely sure. Well, then, you did know my husband. How so?"

Candice looked into her lap as she felt herself blush. Coloring her cheeks from the inside was something she did not realize she could still do. “We were sweethearts many years ago.” Candice glanced at Chenda. “I'm guessing it was before you were born.”

Chenda shrugged, ignoring the veiled remark about her age. She wasn't foolish enough to think Edison chastely waited for Chenda to become his wife. She conceded there were likely more than a few of his romantic acquaintances out there somewhere. Now, sitting across the table from such a one, Chenda started to resent the solidification of the abstract.

Edison, why have you sent me here?

“Honestly, Professor, I couldn't say. He never
actually
spoke of you. But he's left me a letter-”

Candice cut in, “Letter, what letter?”

Chenda stiffened and paused to delicately clear her throat “I'm getting to that," she said, enunciating each word. She slid the peach envelope out of her coat pocket and onto the small cafe table. Candice reached for it, but Chenda pulled the letter back towards her chest, as if reconsidering.

“Professor, this letter is the world to me right now,” she warned. “It's my exclusive desire to follow Edison's instructions. As a woman with an impeccable reputation for seriousness and dedication to study, I ask you hold your mind open.” She gently dropped the letter back onto the table and slowly pushed it across. Candice, slightly ashamed of her eagerness, looked past the faint, girlish freckles on Chenda's face and into the brown eyes that were deep with sorrow and resolve.

For the first time in many years, Candice felt regret. Perhaps she was judging this girl too harshly. After all, Edison chose
her
to marry, a decision he would not have made lightly. Candice closed her hand around the envelope, delicately and respectfully. She withdrew the letter and began reading. Her mouth fell open. This letter was an invitation to suicide!