Innocent Darkness (4 page)

Conversations

“Noli?” Her mother stood in the doorway of Noli’s room, holding a small lamp, the slightest of frowns on her face.

“Yes, Mama?” Noli sat at her desk, doing her homework by candlelight. Running the gas lamps got expensive.

“We need to chat, you and I. Could you please join me in the parlor?”

“Of course, Mama.” Time for a scolding. Standing, she blew out the candle and followed her mother down the staircase, the tiny flame of the lamp casting eerie shadows on the walls.

Mama had been pale and mostly silent when she’d claimed Noli from the station. Actually, tears had glinted in her eyes. Noli figured it a valiant act by her mama to maintain her dignity. Everything now was a pretense to uphold their pride. Why her mother clung to the idea of being high-society when high-society had shunned them, Noli didn’t know. The middle class seemed to have much more fun and not be so stuffy and constricting.

Supper, a simple affair since they no longer could afford a cook, also lacked the expected yelling. Silence unnerved Noli far more than shouts. After supper, she did her chores and started her schoolwork without being asked.

A small fire crackled in the seldom used parlor—the nicest room in the house. She tried to keep it dusted, fresh, and in good repair. Just in case. Not that suitors would come a-calling. No one would want her for a wife—not even V, who was really the only man she knew who her mother would deem suitable
and
Noli found interesting.

The floral settee she sat on only smelled mildly of disuse and dust when she said down. Her insides twisted into anxious knots. Mama sat across from her in a matching chair. The low table between them held her mother’s silver tea service and fine china cups. She’d refused to sell them, saying Noli needed them for her dowry. Mama also refused to use any of the money Jeff sent, tucking it away in a place even Noli couldn’t find, claiming she saved it for Noli’s dowry as well. Did anyone even
have
a dowry anymore?

Noli eyed the table’s setting in surprise, especially the plate of rare bakery cookies. Her mother poured the tea like they were at a tea party. Dress shop aside, her mother remained the same proud, wellborn woman Henry Winston Braddock married twenty-two years earlier back east and spirited away to the wild west so he could build cities, bridges, and other urban marvels.

Edwina Braddock’s chestnut curls were like Noli’s, only hers weren’t unwieldy. Her eyes glowed a startling blue, while Noli’s were an uninteresting grey. Still slender, Mama possessed curves in the right places—curves Noli lacked.

Her mother put the teapot down and held out the fancy plate of cookies, the kind she kept at the shop for her clients. Mama’s hands were still pale and fine. “Would you like a cookie?”

“Thank you, Mama.” Reaching out, conscious of her own rough hands, nails bitten to the quick, she took a cookie and bit into it. Shortbread covered in chocolate— delicious.

Looking around the room, she spied the picture of her mother and father’s wedding back in Boston. No pictures of Jeff, not even family ones, hung on the striped, bluepapered walls.

“These have been trying times for us, with your father disappearing and your brother leaving us.” Her mother took a sip of steaming tea, looking tired and worn, shoulders hunched from fatigue. “You’ve always been clever and willful. Raising you alone is difficult.”

The chocolate cookie soured in Noli’s mouth. Certainly, she hadn’t made the task easier, rebelling and getting into mischief. Tinkering instead of helping in the shop. Failing school because she often fell asleep in class.

“I … I’m sorry, Mama.” She took a sip of tea to wash the sour taste out of her mouth.

“I know. You don’t mean to be naughty; you simply need more attention. Attention I can’t give you because of all the time I spend at the shop.” Her mother’s beautiful face, with her high cheekbones and aristocratic nose, grew forlorn, her eyes downcast.

Guilt would consume her, thinking her place was home raising her children, not at work. If anything went wrong, ultimately she held full responsibility.

“I should have sent you away to school years ago as planned,” she added.

Plans which went astray when her father disappeared. Most young ladies of their class went to fancy day or boarding schools. Her mother had wanted to send Noli all the way to Boston to attend the same posh school she had.

“If I went away, who’d help you?” Fear seized Noli’s heart and she twisted her hands. Mama was sending her away. Whether a detention center or school, she’d still be far from home. Remorse for taking pleasure in vexing her mother consumed her.

Her mother turned the china teacup in her dainty hands, looking into its depths instead of at Noli. “They’re going to drop the charges—”

“Truly?” Noli brightened, ready to bounce out of her seat in excitement. “Wonderful.”

Mama held up a hand to silence her. “You see,” her lower lip quivered, “they don’t consider me fit to care for you anymore.”

Noli sucked in a sharp breath. “What?” Shock gave way to outrage, hands balling into fists. “It isn’t anything you did.
I
rebuilt the Pixy,
I
made V go with me,
I
panicked … ”

Again, her mother held up a hand. “They’ll drop the charges if I send you to a school where you can get the attention you need, one where they can correct some of the … bad habits formed under my neglect. A place where you will come out a functional member of society, if not a lady.”

Mama smiled a sad smile. It must have been a blow to her pride for them to blame everything on her lack of parenting. Noli bit her lip. Some dutiful daughter she turned out to be. She’d promised Jeff to take care of her mother and done a dreadful job.

“We still have your dowry, perhaps you’ll make a good match yet. You’re only sixteen. When you’re finished at Findlay House, I’ll send you to Boston, to my parents, where you can come out to society and have a fresh start.” Her smile brightened.

“But I don’t want to leave, Mama. I’ll try harder, I promise. We can use the money to fix up the house and pay some bills so you can take on less work. I’ll spend afternoons with you at the dress shop instead of here… or I know I can get a proper job fixing things, even if it’s just after school. We can make this work together. I know we can.” Tears pricked Noli’s eyes. She turned away, catching sight of a picture of her father. Her mama was all she had left.

“You are a lady and we don’t get jobs.” Her mother sounded so sad when she said that. “If you go to this school and make good progress, not only will they drop the charges, but they’ll wipe your record clean.”

“Who will take care of you?” Noli asked. Her mother couldn’t do everything herself. Who’d do the washing and cleaning? The shopping and repairs? Tend the yard and garden?

“It’s not open for negotiation. You’ve play the hoyden long enough. Do you wish to bring more disgrace upon this family than you have already?”

Noli drooped over her teacup, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “No, Mama.”

What would Papa say? But never would she have done such things with her father home. He father also believed in upstart notions—like women getting jobs and attending the university.

“The school, Findlay, is quite successful,” her mother added.

“A detention center,” Noli muttered bitterly, leaning forward, elbows on her knees.

“Not at all,” her mother corrected, glaring at Noli’s posture. “It’s a boarding school for girls who aren’t getting what they need from their homes or current schools.”

That sounded even worse. With a sigh, Noli sat back into the settee. A detention center suddenly seemed the better situation.

“The school graciously agreed to waive their tuition due to the court order.” Her mother nodded as if in agreement to an imaginary conversation. “We leave for San Francisco first thing in the morning.”

“San Francisco, Mama?” Noli’s voice shook as her heart skipped a beat.

“It’s far, but they say San Francisco is quite safe now.” She sounded unconvinced.

Noli’s belly flipped. Six years ago a terrible earthquake struck San Francisco. The quake and subsequent fires decimated most of the city. Urban engineers came from around the globe to help the city rebuild—including her father.

San Francisco was also where he’d disappeared.

This wasn’t the first earthquake in recent times to rack the United States. Several decades ago, a series of violent earthquakes struck dozens of cities across the county within hours of each other. This chain of quakes ended Civil War and started the Great Reconstruction. That led to the American Renaissance which had given the world many incredible discoveries and technologies including hoverboards, flying cars, and airships.

She still didn’t like the idea of going to San Francisco. “But … ”

Her mother frowned in that special way that meant Noli was being difficult. “No one has died or disappeared for quake-related reasons in five years.”

Noli continued to fidget in her seat. Unlike the Great Quake Chain, the San Fran quake had no official cause. Many simply blamed it on the aether released by the Great Quake Chain. Some thought aether caused her father and the other men in his group to disappear. Apparently a little aether was good, but too much wasn’t. Some people avoided San Francisco for that very reason. She wanted to avoid the city because San Francisco stole her father from her.

“Do we have to leave tomorrow?” Would she have a chance to say goodbye to V? He’d stood by her after her father’s disappearance, through Jeff ’s departure, and her mother going to work. How would she get through anything without him?

Sure, she called him a fussy old bodger when he acted stuffy, but her best friend always came with her on adventures, helped her fix things, told her bits of useless knowledge and stories, and often took the fall when they got into too much trouble.

“We’ll depart on the morning train.” Her mother squared her shoulders, a look of finality etched on her tired place.

“Train?” Noli made a face. “That’s so last century. Can’t we take an airship? It’s so much faster.”

“You know I don’t like airships. Now, go upstairs and pack your things.” Mama’s mouth set in a firm line.

Couldn’t her mother have told her this
before
she started her schoolwork?

“I’m going outside for a little bit first, Mama.”

Her mother sighed heavily, shoulders rising and falling like something heavy weighed them down. She considered tree climbing improper. “Only for a little while.”

“Thank you.” Putting her teacup on the table, Noli walked out of the sitting room. As soon as she left her mother’s line of site, she took off running, slamming the kitchen door in the process. She didn’t stop until she reached her tree. When confused, angry, or scared, she liked to scale her tree. Everything seemed better among the branches.

Up trunk she went. The gnarled, old oak had been knocked down in a storm, but continued to grow, curving like a “J.” The rough bark under her fingers felt comforting and familiar. Some overgrown branches reached nearly to the ground, like a weeping willow.

V called it a
faery tree
—“but not a real one,” he’d always add.

As if faeries were real. Science had disproven them a thousand times over. But that was V for you, believing in the fantastic even in the face of science. She’d miss him so much. He meant so much to her. Sometimes she liked to imagine what it may have been like had her father not disappeared and she’d actually be considered a possible match for him. V was one person who’d never laughed at her wanting to go to the university.

But that would never happen and the closer V got to being of a marriageable age the less she let herself think such a silly thoughts. Faeries would be proven real before they could be together. V didn’t even think of her in that way.

Higher and higher she climbed in the tree, the pleasant April air kissing her face, until she reached her favorite place—the tree house she and V once built with her father’s help. The little house was made of scrap wood, metal, and whatever they could forage. Once inside, she leaned against a wall that had once been part of an old wagon, drawing her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Resting her head on her knees, she began to sob.