6th of Uirra, Continued
For several seconds I stared at the inside of the hatch door, half expecting Father to come popping back in to say this was all a great prank, and that I should see the look on my face.
But he didn't, and the Chief Mate cleared his throat. I took a breath, and then I did it. I pretended I was this Miss Larkham and made a tearful confession of taking a silly dare too far. I apologized for all the trouble I had caused, then meekly followed the Chief Mate down to cabin 406.
A woman I had never met before in my life opened the door at the Chief Mate's knock and, to my amazement, exclaimed, "There you are!"
Then she thanked the Chief Mate for bringing me back and promised to punish me appropriately, all while pulling me inside and shutting the door in his face.
She listened at the panel for a moment then looked at me, a droll grin tugging at her brightly painted lips.
"What is going —" I started to ask, when there was another knock at the door, and the woman calmly unlatched it.
Father handed her a small fold of bills. "Thank you ever so much."
I watched them both in disbelief.
She shrugged and gave him a lazy she-cat sort of smile as she tucked the money into her bodice. She stayed there, lurking in her doorway as Father pulled me swiftly out into the hall and down to our own cabin. Or the cabin I thought was ours. Maybe it wasn't.
With nothing else to do, I sat down on the edge of my bed. For several seconds, silence reigned. Finally, when it became clear that he wasn't going to be the one to say anything, I broke the silence, "What is going on?"
My father was standing there, staring at his berth, and at my question his jaw knotted up.
"Why have you been acting so strange?" I tried. My voice quavered, fear and anger tightening my throat.
He didn't answer.
My tenuous hold on my emotions was beginning to break. "I'm not an idiot!" I choked out. "I can read a ship's manifest. We're not supposed to be in this cabin. I'm not even supposed to be on the Galvania. Why?" When he didn't do more than take a shaky breath, I nearly yelled, "Talk to me!"
Slowly, he shook his head. "I can't." Then he turned to look at me. Really look at me, his warm brown eyes meeting mine fully for the first time in weeks. "I've wanted to. Many, many times. But it's too dangerous for too many people. Too much hangs in the balance. Please..." he said softly, crossing the few feet between us to crouch in front of me. "I know I must seem like a madman. But I swear, I'm only trying to protect you."
Peering up at me intently, he looked so much like the man he used to be. Calm, quiet, reasonable. Until that moment I hadn't truly appreciated just how much I missed him. It was like coming home after wandering alone in the rain, only to find that the rosy childhood impressions of your home are gone, and you can see the cracks in the foundation, the buckled walls, the crooked roof. Tears stung my eyes as I nodded, something crumbling apart in my chest as I went through the charade of giving in.
A small, grim smile crossed his face, tugging his mustache awry for a moment. "That's my girl," he whispered. Then he got to his feet. "Now. There's something I have to do. I'll be back late." He paused for a moment, looking down at me. "Please stay inside. And lock the door."
I nodded again and brushed at the tears brimming behind my lashes.
Still he hesitated. Then he sighed, shaking his head as if he was about to do something he would probably regret as he reached into his jacket. "I didn't want it to come to this..."
He withdrew a Dekker pistol from his inside jacket pocket, palming the snub-nosed barrel for a moment before unloading the reel and snapping it back into the casing. Then he held it out to me, grip first. "There are a few things I can tell you. First, you need to stay in the cabin as much as possible. Second, if anyone other than me comes to the door, you are not to answer. Third..." he took my hand and wrapped my fingers around the pistol grip. "It goes primer, two hands, take aim, trigger," he said, guiding my hands through the motions of flicking the primer lever back, placing my left palm under the butt of the pistol to support my grip, then taking aim at the wall across from us and pulling the trigger. "Say it," he instructed.
Learning to fire a gun was not at all how I had imagined the day ending when I went for a walk that morning. It was unnerving, holding something that could kill another human in the blink of an eye, yet there I was, letting my father show me how to use the thing, if only to ease that intense frown marring his brow.
He made sure I knew at least the basics of using a firearm at close distance, then left me there, the reloaded pistol on my pillow.
~~~
Father was gone for several hours.
Guilt gnawed at me. I wanted to trust him. I tried to tell myself I should. At the back of my mind, though, was the growing fear that I couldn't.
I had never felt so alone. Or confused. Or worried, or lost, or... exhausted. In a way, it was a small relief to know Father had a reason for his behavior. Even if he only thought he had a reason, at least it was a reason, but that left a million other questions clattering around in my head. Why was he really hiding me? Were we in danger? Were we running, and if so, what from? Or who? Creditors? The authorities? Assassins? That last made me roll my eyes at my own morbid imagination, but sadly, after everything we had been through, it was almost more believable than the other two.
After a while, I gave up waiting for Father to come back and began pacing up and down the little aisle between our berth boxes – two steps to the wall, turn, two steps to the door, turn.
"Alright," I announced, (quietly, so no one could hear me in the next cabin over). "For the sake of the absurd, I'll follow that line of thought. Suppose someone is actually trying to kill Father, and this isn't just a fiction. What if the fire wasn't an accident? Or... what if it was retaliation for something?"
I stopped pacing and stared at nothing, then wrinkled my nose. "Why? What reason could anyone possibly have to kill Father? Of all people."
"None," I pointed out.
"Exactly!"
I sighed and covered my eyes with my hands for a moment, then turned and headed for the wall again. "So, the question then becomes... who does Father think we're running from?"
I reached the wall and turned to face the door. As I did, my gaze fell on my father's luggage, stowed in the bulkhead above his bunk.
It would be a simple matter to just... accidentally... give it a bit of a bump.
"Oops! What a mess. I really should clean that up."
~~~
Feeling both guilty and relieved at once, I refolded Father's extra cravat and buckled his bandbox shut again. Unless he was being hunted for his low-shelf cotton shirts, there wasn't anything in his clothing to worry about. Which I should have expected.
Chewing my lip, I turned my attention on my father's satchel. There wouldn't be anything in there, either. Probably.
With a muffled groan, I dragged the satchel out of the luggage netting and plopped it down on his berth, then glanced at the door and hopped off the mattress box. There couldn't be much time left before he came back. I was already halfway done rummaging, though, and if it helped me understand what was going on... I undid the clasp on the front flap of the bag and flipped it up, then peered into the bottom of the main pocket.
The usual items were in there. Pipe. Tobacco pouch. Money purse. Tea ball. The smaller pockets were empty. Of course that was all he would have in his satchel. That was all he had left.
"What am I doing," I muttered, disgusted with myself. I was about to close the bag, when something brought me up short. I frowned. Squinted. Tilted my head. The lining on the front side of the main pocket looked a little thicker than it should. It had to be my imagination. Didn't it? Slowly, hesitantly, I ran my fingers along the double-stitched edge. There was a slight bump beneath the fabric at one end. It gave a little, moving inward then rising again when my fingertip wasn't on it, as if it were spring-loaded. I bit my lip and pushed more firmly. The next instant I jumped when the lining popped apart, revealing a hidden compartment.
My heart set off at a rapid canter. I was looking at the spine of a green business binder. In a hidden compartment.
For a long moment, I simply stood there, staring down at the satchel. Then I whispered a grim, "I'm so, so sorry, Papa," and pulled the binder out.
~~~
Nothing. There was nothing there. Docking receipts and a few odds and ends Father must have fished out of the rubble of the shipyard office. None of the shipments on the manifests matched, and they weren't even from the same year. It was a strange thing to keep as a memento, but I doubted someone was trying to assassinate him over a handful of random papers. I sighed and put everything back in the binder, then closed it back up in the secret pocket again and returned the satchel to the cargo net.
Instead of being relieved that there was nothing there, the weight on my shoulders had only gotten heavier. The only rational explanation I could come up with was that my father had indeed gone insane.
Suddenly that cabin felt like a cage.
When the key rattled in the lock and Father finally slipped in, I was sitting on my bed again, pretending to read. I didn't say anything. I didn't speak at all, actually. Not yet. I needed to find the right moment to confront him, the right words, the right facts. Until then, I would have to bide my time.
...........................................................
'Posy': the colloquial term for a lyr, the second-smallest denomination of Altyran currency. Also known as roses or plunkers, after the wreath minted on one side, and the fact that they're made of tin and silver instead of all silver and make a much different noise in the hand than the gold marks, or silver semi-marks.