Clockworks and Corsets (2 page)

Now she was left to wonder if she had made a mistake.

She heaved a worried sigh as she shifted her gaze across the deep, endless blue. Her skirts swirled in a flurry of fabric. The breeze picked up strands of her hair, causing wisps to fly askew in a dance that was sure to cause a tangled mess. In violent thrusts, the ocean reached high to pitch against the ship’s hull, spraying Gabriella’s face with a fine mist. Licking her damp lips, she considered the flavors she found there—the salty depth of the ocean mixed with her own bitter tears. She didn’t want to cry, but the ache in her heart betrayed her feral desires. Gabriella scolded herself for feeling homesick. She was a different person now, just barely eighteen, on the threshold of this, her new life. Once she sought freedom, and with the bridges she burned along the way, there was no going back.

Gabriella licked her lips again. She decided that freedom tasted exactly like remorse.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Gabriella jumped at the sound of the voice. She turned to see the shadowy form of Maggie Prunella, the ship’s quartermaster, lookout, and communications specialist, making her way across the groaning wooden deck. Maggie was many years older than Gabriella, her face bore the proof of a life hard lived. She also carried the coarse scent of her messenger birds, lending her a nickname that seemed to suit the big woman fine.

“Magpie, you startled me.” Gabriella heard the hitch in her own voice. God, she hoped the ocean’s spray hid her free flowing tears.

“Sorry,” Magpie said. “Didn’t mean to scare you, child.”

“It’s all right.”

“I see you still favor skirts.”

Gabriella looked down at her plain brown skirt. “I’m sorry, but after so many years of them, I can’t seem to get used to the idea of wearing anything else.” She fingered the patch sewn to the left breast of her brown blouse, tracing the tiny silver outline of the ship amongst the clouds.

“No apologies needed. The Cap wants you to know you have an option. You’re not confined to skirts anymore.” Magpie smacked the knee of her brown breeches to emphasize the point.

“I know.”

“I just wished we didn’t have to wear these corsets. I’m not the right shape for ’em.” Magpie held each side of her large bosom, jiggling the contents until she was satisfied with the fit. “I think Cap gets a kick out of the play on words. The crew of The Merry Widow, dressed in our merry widows? Eh?”

Gabriella gave a half-hearted nod. Magpie joined her at the railing. They gazed across the glittering sea. The perpetual drone of the spinning props filled the silence between them.

After a bit, Magpie drew close to ask, “How’s our newest recruit holding up?”

“I’m fine,” Gabriella whispered.

“Not out here weeping your woes into the ocean, are ya?”

“No.”

“Now, now, Guppy. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Gabriella smiled at the nickname.

“Homesickness gets the best of us,” Magpie continued. She sighed while looking out at the water again. “You know, the old sailors used to say that the ocean was our first home, our mother, and that she weeps for us eternally because we up and left her behind.”

“I’ve never heard it put like that,” Gabriella said.

“But I always think that maybe the ocean tastes so much like tears because she’s seized the sorrow of so many a sailor before us.” The pair fell quiet again for a few moments before Magpie asked, “Whatcha doing out here so early anyways?”

Gabriella nodded to the wooden panel she had spent the last hour fighting with. “I was trying to get a bearing on where we are. I haven’t gotten much practice. Jayne seems reluctant to let me near this thing.” In theory, the panel was a highly developed navigational system, created by the ship’s tinker to simplify course-plotting. In reality, Gabriella thought it was a wild collection of gears and switches that served no real purpose except to inflame the user.

“I supposed you can’t blame the girl. She put a whole lot of hours into that contraption. Like the rest of her creations, it’s one of a kind. Like the rest of them, it’s bound to blow up in our faces. Eventually.”

Gabriella giggled.

Magpie gave an impish grin. “You laugh, but you haven’t been here long enough to appreciate just why we call her Calamity Jayne.”

“The navicom seems stable enough,” Gabriella said. “In a way, it does what it’s supposed to. What could go wrong?”

“Ah, famous last words.” Magpie grinned. “I don’t understand how it works, but she says it does, so it must. I’ve known the girl long enough to trust her instincts. I just don’t trust her inventions. Know what I mean?”

“Is there a difference with her?”

“Point taken.”

Gabriella toyed with the longitude lever before she heaved an exasperated sigh. “I don’t think I’m operating this thing right.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because it says we are out in the middle of nowhere.” She paused to look overboard, at the water that roiled beneath the ship. “But we’re flying so low it suggests we’re preparing to land.”

“Well ain’t you the observant one?” Magpie laughed aloud. “Naw, girly, you’re doing it right. I’ll bet the farm your readings are good.”

“I don’t see how. What business could we have all the way out here?”

“I don’t rightly know myself. I reckon the captain will tell us when she’s good and ready.”

“I suppose so. Do you have any idea why we’re flying so close to the water?”

“Maybe that has something to do with it.” Magpie pointed over Gabriella’s shoulder.

Gabriella turned once again to face the vast ocean.

To the tropical coastline moving steadily toward them.

In the excitement of the view, Gabriella forgot her homesickness. If the navicom hadn’t lied, then the coastline in the distance wasn’t just another familiar port. The land she was squinting at was someplace new. Somewhere she had never set foot on before. The thought of it was terribly, terribly exciting. After all, she hadn’t ran away from home, not to mention the altar, only to be tethered to some foul smelling port, waiting around for someone to trust the crew enough to hire them.

Yet that was just how she had spent the last six months.

When she’d first joined the Widow, the captain explained that employment was few and far between for the all female crew. Gabriella thought she’d understood. She appreciated that a freelance shipping crew had to take what work was offered, when it was offered. She imagined the crew’s downtime was filled with exciting trips to foreign countries or distant islands.

Shopping in Paris. Lunching in Madrid. Relaxing in Timbuktu.

It turned out there was no downtime. When they weren’t on a legitimate job, the girls trolled the lowest, filthiest ports of the East Coast looking for work. Gabriella felt like a common streetwalker, passing out pamphlets or hanging flyers. Even worse than that was her turn at standing watch. All day confined to the deck of the Widow just to ensure no one unwelcome boarded. Which was ridiculous because the crews of the other ships gave the Widow a wide berth with or without a guard.

“Good morning, ladies,” Jax said.

Gabriella turned away from the promise land of beach when the tall blonde joined her at the railing. “Morning, Jax. We’ve arrived. Somewhere.”

“Yes,” Jax answered. Her voice pulsed in a thick, foreign inflection of rolling consonants paired with throaty vowels. “I see that for myself. I wondered why no one showed for the breaking of the fast. I thought I was to eat alone.”

Magpie cleared her throat. “That would be my fault. The captain requested that we gather on the deck. I imagine the rest of the crew is on their way up.”

To say that Jax frowned was quite the understatement. Jax’s mouth seemed set in a permanent frown, so when she deliberately frowned, it was dramatic. Like a scowl with a healthy side of grimace and just a touch of glower.

“So you fetch rest of crew? Did you forget Jax?”

“No, no.” Magpie laughed for a moment. “Lordy, how could anyone forget about you, woman? I was just about to mosey down to the kitchen and tell you, but I got waylaid by Guppy here.”

Jax turned her scowl on Gabriella. “I am first mate. I should be given messages before fledgling recruits.”

Gabriella shrank while sky blue eyes bore down on her with burning hatred. Gabriella didn’t know much about Jax except that she was a top rate scowler and a professional sneerer. Her exotic accent placed her origin in or around Romania, yet her blond hair and blue eyes belied this. The fact that she was first mate made sense because she was shrewd, strong, and deviously clever. Her position in the kitchen, however, was a mystery. Jax was the worst cook Gabriella had ever seen in action. Maybe it was the very qualities that made her an excellent first mate that also kept folks from telling her how horrible her cooking was.

“Don’t take this out on her,” Magpie said. “I tried to raise you on the tubes, but you bang them pots and pans so loud you never hear me. Guppy here just happened to be on the way.”

“Maybe,” Jax said. She narrowed her eyes at Gabriella, switching from glare to glower in one smooth move. “Maybe I will remember this when lunch time returns. Guppy is allergic to the fish with shells? Yes?”

“Maybe,” Magpie said in a sterner voice, “you should just let it go.”

Jax turned her gaze back to Magpie. The two women locked stares. Gabriella worried her skirt between her shaking hands.

The big blonde puffed out her chest, drew herself to her full height, and put on her best sneer.

“Maybe, you would like to argue with fists?”

“And maybe,” a younger woman said, “Guppy should fight her own fights.”

“Girls,” a much older woman added, “that’s enough of that.”

The first voice belonged to the ship’s tinker, Jayne Octasept. She was just a tiny slip of a girl, all freckle-faced and blue-eyed, with a surprising shock of snow-white hair. Jayne reminded Gabriella of her own father—genius, yet socially inept. Yet unlike her father, Gabriella just couldn’t seem to get along with Jayne, no matter how much she tried. Gabriella loved and missed her father more than anyone else...but that life was over. These people were her family now, and she had to make it work.

The other voice belonged to the resident medic, Dorothy Johnson, or Dot as she preferred to be addressed. The gray headed, stooped at the shoulders, porcelain doll, frail matron looked like she should have been home knitting socks for her grandchildren instead of sailing around the world playing the part of an airship’s surgeon. Dot wasn’t just the ship’s medic. She was the crew’s moral compass too. One of Dot’s severe looks would set your blood cold, forcing you to consider the difference between right, wrong, and whatever it was you thought you were going to do.

The appearance of the rest of the crew snapped the tension of the moment. Jax stepped away with a sharp snort, stalking a few feet down the railing. She turned her back, pretending to ignore the others.

“What’s up her nose?” Jayne asked.

“I’m afraid I might have offended her sensitive nature,” Magpie said.

The women paused for a moment before breaking into a wave of cackling laughter. Jax looked over her shoulder with a glare, which only pressed them to laugh harder. Gabriella grinned at the idea that a woman as stoic as Jax could have anything that resembled a sensitive side.

“I’m glad you’re in high spirits,” Captain Rose said.

“Captain on deck!” Jax shouted.

The small crew of the Widow snapped to attention, falling into a neat line.

Stand and Deliver

In which we learn of the dubious job our captain has undertaken on our behalf.

Captain Rose Madigan strode across the deck, eyeing her crew while giving them a wide, knowing smile. Although she was nearly a foot shorter than Jax, she somehow seemed taller. She dressed in the same drab brown as the rest of the crew, setting off the woman’s fiery red hair and sea green eyes. The captain was everything Gabriella wasn’t—worldly, charming, and most of all beautiful.

“Stand down, ladies.” The captain smirked. “If I wanted to spend the morning being saluted, I would have stayed in bed with Click.”

The crew relaxed into easy laughter.

“As you’re all aware,” the captain said, “we’ve arrived.”

A general grunt of approval rounded the women.

Dot raised an eyebrow. “Where exactly have we arrived?”

“Guppy,” the captain said.

Gabriella swallowed hard. “Yes?”

“Would you please tell the crew where we are?” the captain commanded.

Gabriella turned to Jayne, who looked on with an amused smile.

“Guppy?” the captain asked.

Fidgeting, Gabriella cleared her throat before she said, “Based on a rough estimate of our longitude and latitude, and our relative position on the navicom, I guess we’re somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean.”

“You guess?” The captain crossed her arms, looking down at Gabriella as if expecting more.

Gabriella could only nod. Give her a sextant or just the stars and she could plot a worldwide course to her heart’s content. Without proper training on Jayne’s crazy contraption, Gabriella’s mathematical mind was useless. There was no way she could be sure the readings were correct. No way could she answer her captain with anything more than just a guess.

The captain crossed the deck with slow, deliberate steps, her boots clapping hollow against the planks. She came to a halt, looming over Gabriella. “Young lady, did I hire you to guess? Or did I hire you to navigate my ship?”

Gabriella lowered her gaze. “Navigate your ship, sir. But Jayne won’t show me how to properly—”

“Don’t blame your incompetence on me, little rich girl.” Jayne scowled.

“But—”

The captain lifted her hand, silencing Gabriella mid-excuse. “I put it to you again. Where are we?”

Gabriella drew a deep breath. “We are currently located in the South Pacific Ocean. Sir.”

The captain’s firm frown shifted into a partial grin. “Good girl.”

Gabriella smiled while her insides uncoiled.

“Big deal,” Jayne said, clearly annoyed by the captain’s show of confidence in Gabriella’s favor. “We’ve been in this area plenty of times.”