Aether Spirit (27 page)

“Or we’re both caught up in the same sort of shared hysterical delusion that happened last night.”

“Hurry,” Emma said. “He’s fading fast.” She wrung her hands and glowed brighter than previously. “I want to go to him, but I don’t want to frighten him.”

“Just go,” Claire told Radcliffe. “Talk to him. Would you deny a young man the chance for some sort of comfort as he dies? One last conversation with the woman he loves?”

Radcliffe gave her a suspicious look but wisely didn’t say anything aside from, “Wait here.”

Chad tied the cloth over his nose and mouth and went into Private Smith’s room. The boy labored to breathe, but he lay with his eyes open.

“Are you Thaddeus Mitchell of Baltimore?” Chad asked.

The soldier turned his head to Chad and struggled to raise himself on his elbows. “Who told you? Did you capture my commanding officer?”

Chad shook his head. “I’m not sure what to think right now. Tell me what your father did.”

Thaddeus gasped out, “Horse trader. In Baltimore. Then Miss… Miss…”

“In Mississippi. I got it.” Claire’s odd story checked out. He still wasn’t sure what to think, but if there was some way he could bring comfort to the dying boy, he would do it. Regardless of which side of the conflict the soldiers were on, in the end, they were all just scared young men. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

“Not going anywhere.” Thaddeus collapsed back, and Chad ran from the room. He grabbed another face-cloth for Claire.

“The story checks out. Come on, but put this over your face so you don’t contract consumption.”

“Thank you,” she said and complied. They went into the private chamber.

“Private Sm—er—Mitchell, this is Doctor McPhee.”

Thaddeus narrowed his eyes. “Don’t. Know. Her.”

“No,” Claire said, “but I have someone here who knows you.”

“Who? Cold.” He burrowed under the blankets.

“Yes, she can’t help it. Will you hold my hand?”

Chad kept himself from leaping forward so she wouldn’t touch the sick man. He didn’t want to play the same scene in a few months or years at her deathbed, but he found himself trusting her strange abilities.

Thaddeus pulled one of his hands from beneath the blankets, and Claire took it. Her other hand curled as though it held the hand of someone invisible, and Thaddeus gasped, “Emma!”

“Yes, she’s here. She’s overcome right now, but she wants you to know she’s here to help you to the next step so the two of you can be together.”

Claire drew her left hand toward her right and released Thaddeus’s hand while putting the invisible hand in his.

Chad shook his head. If it hadn’t been for the wide-eyed joy on the boy’s face, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible or true. And maybe it wasn’t, but did it matter?

He swallowed around a lump in his throat, grief that he and Claire wouldn’t—couldn’t—spend their last moments together. Her mind would be shredded by then if she continued to push against the blocks.

Claire stood and backed away. Thaddeus murmured something too quiet for Chad to hear and laughed. He pulled his other hand from beneath the covers and held the hands of his ghostly love.

“He can see and hear her now,” she murmured. “I didn’t know if it would work.”

“That’s good because I can’t. This is either the saddest and sweetest thing I’ve ever seen or the work of a master neuroticist planting a very good suggestion in a patient’s brain.”

Claire’s eyes narrowed with hurt over her facecloth. “It’s real. She’s been haunting me hoping I could help her. Once she helps him cross over, they’ll both be at peace.”

“And what about you?” He resisted the urge to pull her close as they watched over the deathbed of the spy and soothe the delusions away. He wondered if he should give Thaddeus some privacy.

“I don’t know what peace feels like. I haven’t had it since the accident, and I don’t remember before.”

“I wish I could help you remember,” he said. “I wish it was possible without hurting you.”

She assumed what he’d come to think of as her neuroticist expression—kind and sympathetic, but with a core of determination. “This moment isn’t about us and what can or can’t be. Let’s just be here for Thaddeus and Emma.”

“I wish I could concentrate on the boy, but we have other things we need to do.”

“Like what?” she asked. “You made it clear that there can’t be anything between us.”

“I’m starting to believe that your hysteria might not be merely the lesions of a damaged mind.” He gestured for her to follow him out of the room. Once they walked back on to the ward, he flexed his hands to bring the blood flow back to normal after being in the chill of the individual room, which made his capillaries contract until they stung. They removed their face cloths and tossed them into the laundry bucket. Then Chad poured whiskey over both their hands.

“At least this war has taught us something about how diseases are spread, considering every fort is its own experimental site,” he said. “And of course, there was Doctor Lister’s work.”

“Right.” She shook the alcohol from her hands. “Don’t try to retreat into your scientific theories to change the subject. Do you believe me now?”

“Yes, since there’s no way you could know what you did about him. He’s been more tight-lipped than most of our other prisoners.”

“Then perhaps tomorrow we could start over?” she asked. “Pretend that we’ve just met and fallen in love?” She rubbed her temple, and he caught her hand.

God, how he wanted to hold it forever, but he squeezed her fingers and released her. “I’m afraid we have about as much chance of succeeding as a Union general’s daughter and a Confederate spy.”

“Just let me work through this. You’ll see—it will be fine.”

“I wish I could believe you. And even if we could rekindle something without it hurting you too badly, we still have the same problems as previously.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re white. I’m half Negro. We can’t legally marry.”

“That doesn’t matter to me! We’ll do it in secret. We wouldn’t be the first. Look at your parents!”

“My parents have been in hiding since the start of the war. I suspect they’re part of the Underground Railroad, but I saw enough of what they faced when I was younger.”

She clasped her hands together, but the little muscle at her temple still jumped. That told him all he needed to know. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—deliberately cause her pain.

“Go to bed, Claire.”

She nodded, her lips pressed together, and the corners of her eyes scrunched. He knew she struggled not to cry. She left, and he turned back toward the prisoner’s room to listen for the boy’s labored breath and offer him laudanum to ease his last moments, but he walked into a solid wall of cold air, like an ice barrier. He heard one word before it faded and allowed him to pass into the now dead man’s room—“Stupid.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Fort Daniels, 3 March, 1871

Late Friday morning, Chad was walking to the mess hall for an early lunch when the sound of a crowd gathered in the square in the middle of the base pulled him from his frustrated thoughts. He pushed aside the memory of the conversation he ruminated over—Perkins was being difficult again, and since Chad’s last conversation with Claire, he didn’t have the patience he once did—and followed the noise. The crowd parted for him, and he took note of the facial expressions. The soldiers smiled, even the ones on crutches or with empty sleeves pinned up.

He reached the front of the crowd, where he found Patrick and Claire, both smudged with dust and looking exhausted. Not that he could see much of their faces under their tinted goggles, but the slump of their shoulders told him that hope and their mission kept them going. They each stood on either side of a weapon that looked like some sort of cannon but with a narrow mouth. It had a small steam engine attached to it, and Claire fiddled with the alignment of something in the back chamber. She closed the door and gave Patrick a thumbs-up.

Patrick sat on the seat attached to it on the back end, and Chad wondered what he was doing—wouldn’t there be some sort of kick back that would crush him? He also noticed that the wheels under the weapon were unsecured. Patrick used handles on the side to aim the large gun at a target across the square, and everybody hushed. He pulled a lever at the back, and a beam of light shot from the front of the weapon and burned a hole through the target and singed the brick steps of the building twenty feet behind it just before a sound like the crack of a large whip stung Chad’s ears.

The men erupted in a cheer, and Patrick and Claire hugged each other before they stepped back to a more decorous distance. Chad plucked the seed of jealousy that tried to sprout in his chest—they were only colleagues celebrating a great achievement. She took off her goggles, and her eyes met Chad’s. Her mouth tightened, and he knew without her telling him that while she was proud of her engineering feat—
an aether weapon!
—she already thought about the young men who would be in its path and the destruction it would wreak. It would blow burning holes through their middles before they recognized what happened. He could almost hear their screams and knew she already had in her nightmares.

General Morley detached himself from the crowd and held a hand out for Patrick to shake, which he did. The general also shook Claire’s hand, and some of the tension around Chad’s heart eased when she smiled. She was so obviously thrilled to be appreciated for her skills. He berated himself for not doing so when she’d first arrived, for not trusting her with the patients and giving her some comfort that way even if he couldn’t become her lover again.

There was a lot to berate himself for these days, especially when it came to Claire. But he didn’t have time because the general held his hands up for silence, and the soldiers quieted.

“I’d like to thank Mister O’Connell and Doctor McPhee for their hard work this week on the aether weapon. What did you call it?” he asked Patrick.

“
La Reine
. The queen that will defeat the Confederates and their French helpers.”

General Morley clapped Patrick on the back. “I like your sense of humor. Yes,
La Reine
will be the key to our victory, but time is of the essence. Major Longchamp, sound the muster whistle! We go to battle against Fort Temperance this afternoon. Let’s see what this baby will do against the fort that’s been the thorn in my side for years!”

The men cheered, and the steam whistle blew its call to arms. Chad turned to head back to the hospital, but he felt a hand on his arm.

“Tell me what I can do,” Claire said. “I know you’re short-handed, and neither the general nor Patrick will allow me on the battlefield.”

They walked toward the hospital. Chad’s mind was half on the conversation and half on what he needed to do to prepare for the first wave of wounded. He hoped to God that it would be a short battle. The morphine supplies had gone down more quickly than they should have again, but no one had been able to catch the culprit.

“Good,” he said. “There’s no reason for you to see what that weapon will do. It will haunt you forever.”

“It already does,” she murmured and then stumbled.

He caught her arm. “I’d say you can go to bed because you’ve obviously not gotten any sleep since…?”

“Since Tuesday night. We’ve been working straight through. I got a few hours here and there.”

“But I know better than to think you’ll be able to sleep through a battle. No one could. You can come assist at the hospital with simple tasks.”

“Thank you. I won’t be in your way.”

But you will be where I can watch over you so I won’t be distracted with worry.

Claire turned to see if Patrick followed her. They’d both caught occasional naps over the past few days when they were ready to drop from exhaustion, but he’d slept less than she had. He stood by
La Reine
talking to the general, then nodded and followed Longchamp out of the square.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital in a few,” she told Radcliffe. She caught up with Longchamp and Patrick and asked, “Where are you going?”

“If he’s going to be manning the artillery, he needs a uniform,” Longchamp said.

“You’re going to be the one to shoot it?” she asked.

“Who else did you think would?” he asked her.

“One of the artillerymen, obviously. Someone who’s been in battle before and won’t be a stupidly easy target with red hair and beard.”

“She has a point,” Longchamp said. “I’ll get you a hat as well, and it’s cool enough for you to wear a scarf.”

“Not sitting behind the steam engine,” Patrick said. “Don’t worry about me, lass. We Irishmen are tough.”

“But you’ll be the one they’re all shooting at!” Her eyes burned, and she willed herself not to cry. The tears came too easily with her current state of exhaustion, and she suspected Patrick wouldn’t make the best decisions in his fatigue.

“One or two blasts from
La Reine
, and they’ll all go running scared.” He put his hand up. “Now go back and help Chad at the hospital. I need to get dressed. If you want me to have the best chance of survival, I need to get out there early.”

She stopped and watched him, a gaping hole of helplessness growing in her middle. She’d made herself come to terms with the idea of nameless faceless youths being the victims of the war’s final battle, but her mind hadn’t allowed her to consider the possibility that her friend might be sacrificed to the cause.

Beth found Claire blinking back tears and stumbling toward the hospital.

“Now don’t start that, dearie. I know you’re tired, but we just need to pull through a few more hours at the most. Then you get to celebrate being the heroine of ending the war.”

“But at what cost?” Claire asked. The question seemed so stupid now. Whether it was war or negotiation with the Confederate States, it was too much. She didn’t feel like anyone’s heroine.

* * * * *

When Claire arrived at the hospital, Chad noted the determined expression on her face but didn’t ask if she was all right. She’d tell him if she wanted him to know what was on her mind.

“Will Patrick be all right?” she asked. “Does he have experience in battle?”

He wished he could tell Claire yes, that Patrick was a seasoned soldier, but he wasn’t going to start lying to her now, and the glimpse of a ropy white scar peeking from the space between her glove and her sleeve reminded him there were no guarantees.

“Even if he was a seasoned soldier, he’d be in danger,” he said. “The best thing to do is stay busy and keep your mind occupied. Worrying about him won’t keep him safe.”
Like your parents worrying about you didn’t keep you safe.

“That’s not helpful,” she grumbled, but she followed him.

The boom of the field artillery provided a heartbeat for the rhythm of the work. Chad thought he might hear the occasional whip-crack of the aether weapon, but he also recognized that as long as he thought he heard it, it meant that Patrick must still be alive.

Soon it felt like Claire had been by his side all along. She seemed to know what each soldier needed, whether it was a word of comfort, a gentle touch, or a drink of water. When he pulled her into surgery, she assisted him like she’d been a trained nurse, and he reminded himself that she was a physician like him, although with a different specialty. She’d have more minds to heal after this battle.

The young men who returned from the battlefield had been mostly wounded by their own weapons—steam rifles and pistols that had overpressurized and exploded in their hands—but they had a haunted look like they’d peeked into the face of Hell. Chad didn’t ask, but he guessed that they had seen the handiwork of
La Reine
.

Finally, a few hours into it, the stream of wounded slowed, and they had a break before the field teams brought in the men who couldn’t make it from the battlefield on their own.

“How do you think it went?” Claire asked. Sweat matted her stray curl to her cheek, and she brushed at it with her wrist. She had discarded her gloves earlier, and he averted his eyes from the wreaths of pink and white. He still felt responsible for them, and ashamed that he couldn’t face them because the scars had given many of the boys hope that they’d be able to use their burned hands again.

“The main injuries we saw today were from our own steam guns and some of the enemy’s artillery explosions, which means the Confederates didn’t get close enough to hit anything accurately with their rifles. So I bet we won.”

“But was it the rout the general hoped for?” Her mouth twisted around the word “rout.” They both knew what it meant—carnage.

“We won’t know until later. Now you go eat and for god’s sake, get some sleep.”

She looked at him from narrowed eyes. “And what about you?”

“I’ll be going with a medical field team to do field triage.”

“What? But that puts you at risk! A spy could snatch you up, and you’d be lost forever.”

“But some of those boys need to be patched up before they can be moved. It’s my job, Claire. Besides, the battle is over.”

“Fine, then I’m going with you.” She brushed her hands on her skirts. “Just give me some time to change clothes. I can pass as a boy.”

“No, you stay here.” He felt like a hypocrite saying he didn’t want her risking herself when he’d just assured her he would be all right, but he also knew what he was doing.

“But Patrick hasn’t returned yet.”

“He’s probably guarding
La Reine
. Look, we’ll find him at the armory, and then the two of you can eat and go to your beds.”

But Patrick wasn’t in the armory. Nor was he among the stragglers returning from the battlefield or on the wagon that brought
La Reine
back to the base. The men reported that the aether gun had performed beautifully, and it had looked like the rout the general wanted.

“Where is he?” Claire asked. “He couldn’t have been hit!”

Chad refrained from remarking on the obvious, that Patrick had been the most desirable target on the field. Plus, none of the men had said anything about the gunner being hit.

“I’ll look for him first. Now you eat and go to bed.”

“Fine, but I’m not sleeping.” She gave him a classic stubborn Claire glare. In spite of his concern for Patrick, Chad had to press his lips together so he wouldn’t smile. She sounded so much like his Claire.

Then he remembered why they could never be together, and exhaustion crept into his muscles. For the first time in a very long time, he considered how nice it would be to have a partner to share his troubles with, someone to go home to who understood him and didn’t see his half Negro or half white side, or even his doctor persona—just him.

Claire had been that for him at one point.

“You had better not have gotten yourself killed, you stupid bastard,” he muttered at Patrick, wherever he was.

* * * * *

Patrick looked out across the battlefield that had been cleared of trees long before he’d arrived at Fort Daniels. Now it was dotted with shadows. No, those were the blue uniforms of the casualties. He knew the field teams would emerge from the base once the all-clear was sounded. He couldn’t tell if he’d actually hit the rebel base with the aether fired from
La Reine
, but it had done its job and allowed the Union soldiers to advance along both flanks and trap the Confederates in between them. The general wanted to give Fort Temperance a chance to surrender before destroying it because it, like Fort Daniels, contained civilians.

It’s amazing that even now, there are some honorable men and women in this war.

He finished supervising the loading of
La Reine
on to a wagon and sent it ahead of him to the base.

“You sure you don’t want a ride?” Bryce McPhee asked. He was still weak from his amputation, but he’d come to do what he could with his one arm. He’d been picking up steam weapons that had been dropped by the wounded and killed and placing them on the wagon.

“Yes, I need to walk to clear my head.”

“You want company?” Bryce asked. He slipped off the wagon.

“Are you sure? Your cousin’ll have my head if something happens to you.”
And you’ve overstressed yourself before. That’s how you ended up losing your arm.

“Yes. She’s my cousin, not my mother, and you look like you could use someone to talk to.”

Patrick removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. The shadows grew longer with the setting sun, and the air grew chillier by the minute, but he still had a shaky, sweating feeling. He thought he’d stayed in the “safe” range of aether frequencies, but he knew the stuff was sneaky. Or maybe he still had the screams that echoed from the first knot of Confederate soldiers he’d fired
La Reine
at ringing in his ears. They were of pure terror and despair, and he’d been far enough away, but had the wind shifted to bring him the smoky-sweet smell of burning flesh?