Free The Golden Specific by S. E. Grove Page A

after the Great Disruption. Is that true?”
    â€œI couldn’t say,” Wren demurred. “Yes,” he added after a moment, “I believe so.”
    â€œTheir territory is very difficult to reach,” I pressed him.
    â€œIs it?” the captain asked, with a cautious air. “We reached the Great Lakes from the north, not through New Occident, so perhaps I took an easier route.”
    Bronson and I glanced at one another again, this time with greater meaning. “The Great Lakes?” I queried. “Do you mean the Eerie Sea? No one in New Occident calls them ‘lakes,’ as far as I know.”
    Wren flushed. “Of course, I mean the Eerie Sea. It’s a local phrase—a seaman’s term. We have difficulty conceiving of those frozen expanses as a ‘sea.’ You can imagine.”
    By now, even Bronson had observed the patchy pattern of Wren’s knowledge. We had discussed it at length in private and reached no conclusion, other than to agree that whatever Wren was concealing could not be ill-intention toward us. He seemed to genuinely care for our well-being. Sensing this prompted me further to seek the cause of his sudden confusion. I fully expected that the explanation would be illuminating, not incriminating. “You seem to be very familiar with some aspects of New Occident, Captain Wren,” I said gently, “and very unfamiliar with others. How is that?”
    He sat silently for a moment, taken aback by my direct question. Then he smiled, and his white teeth gleamed. “I setsail for the first time when I was only a boy. I’ve spent most of my life at sea, and I’ve never had any formal schooling. You must excuse my ignorance. I am sure most of my secondhand knowledge is very ill-informed.”
    Bronson and I listened silently to this explanation, which I, at least, found entirely inadequate. My husband seemed more inclined to indulge Wren, not because he believed him, but because he trusted Wren’s motives. Politeness prevented me from pushing further, and so that evening we learned nothing more. I was ignoring my better instincts; I knew, then, that Captain Wren had no personal knowledge of New Occident at all. But I could not imagine what interest he had in pretending so arduously otherwise. So I remained silent, and the deception continued.

 7 
    Gordon Broadgirdle, MP
    â€”1892, June 2: 18-Hour 11—
    Few explorers have encountered the Eerie, and yet rumors about them abound. The last documented contact took place in 1871, when an injured explorer from New York took refuge with an Eerie during a winter storm. He had slipped on the ice and injured his leg, and the Eerie came upon him some hours later. The explorer recounted spending the two-day storm in a refuge built high in the pines, south of the Eerie Sea; he claimed to wake to find his leg mended and his frostbite healed. One can only imagine how the exposure to cold must have clouded his mind.
    â€”From Shadrack Elli’s
History of New Occident
    S OPHIA LEFT THE kitchen reluctantly, following Theo through the corridor and up to the second floor. They had reached the landing when they heard a booming voice: heavy and commanding, in a tone long practiced at the podium, it crashed through the house like a wave.
    â€œMy dear Shadrack! So sorry to surprise you like this, but I simply could not wait until tomorrow.”
    Theo froze on the landing, his hand still clasping Sophia’s. His fingers gripped hers with a sudden intensity. “Ow!” Sophiaexclaimed, trying to pull away as she looked at him in surprise. “What was
that
for?”
    His face was blank with panic. Sophia had seen that look once before, but she could not remember when or where. Fear was so unusual in Theo that it sent a flash of sharp unease through her. “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
    Theo’s eyes fastened abruptly on hers. “We have to