Free A Darkness Strange and Lovely by Susan Dennard

waited until I could hear Laure’s heavy breathing before I switched on an electric lamp beside my bunk, pulled Elijah’s letters from my drawer, and spread them over my bed.
    There were only eight in total, and if Oliver spoke the truth, then these were the most important. I started with the first, dated from the summer of 1873, when Elijah had first left.
    As they had seemed when I’d originally read them, the letters were a confusing, rambling mess. Mentions of his work were dropped in with names. A hotel steward, a cab driver, a librarian—they were all sprinkled around his day-to-day activities.
    And then there were the lines addressed to me. The descriptions of places he thought I’d like, stories he knew I’d laugh at, and promises to come home soon.
    In the second letter, Oliver’s name appeared twice, but it was only in reference to a joke. There was no mention of Oliver in the third letter, nor did anything crop up in the fourth or fifth.
    Until my eyes lit on the name “Ollie” in the final line of the fifth.
     
    Once, in Marseille, Ollie told me a hilarious riddle about Jack and the beanstalk, but since we were in the crypt of Notre-Dame de la Garde, our laughter echoed around all those soldiers’ tombs until the priest finally made us leave.
     
    “Very useful story, Elijah,” I muttered under my breath. “You don’t even share the riddle’s answer.” All the same, now I knew that he must have called Oliver “Ollie,” and that nickname did appear rather frequently.
    A yawn took over my mouth, and my eyes stung with exhaustion. I sank back on my bed. It was late, and I had eight more days of sailing to sort out things with this demon. I hadn’t felt a single twinge in my hand since leaving Philadelphia, and I had three roommates to awaken if anyone entered our cabin. For now I felt safe.
    It wasn’t long before the rocking ship lulled me to sleep.
     
    It was a dream. I knew it was a dream—I’d had it so many times before—and as always, I was terrified it would end.
    Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Smelling of machines and forest, tasting of salt. His lips pressed to my neck, his hand on my waist.
    My hand—my right hand—pushed against his stomach, and my left scratched his back. My eyelids fluttered open, and I pulled back slightly. A yellow streetlamp shone on his sandy hair and sun-roughened skin.
    “Empress,” he whispered. His lips locked back on mine, and I sank into the embrace.
    Then, as always happened no matter how hard I clung to the kiss, the dream shifted.
    Daniel sat at the edge of my hospital bed, his face cast in shadow. My wrist ached—my hand having recently been amputated—and was wrapped tightly in a bandage. My heart was cracking right down the middle, yet as long as I focused on my hand, on the laudanum pumping through me, I could keep going.
    “You’re not in love with me, are you.” I spoke it as a statement and tried to ignore my pounding heart.
    He twisted his head away. “It’s not that simple.”
    “It’s a yes or no.”
    “Then . . .” He set his cap on his head. “Then no. No, I’m not.”
    A howl burst through the night.
    Daniel’s head shot up. For a single breath, all was silent and still.
    Then the howl came again. This was not part of the dream, I knew.
    Daniel lunged at me. “Run!”
    At that instant a wind broke through the open hospital window, as loud as a locomotive and filled with angry baying.
    Daniel yanked me up. My bare feet landed on cold tile. “Run!” he roared, but when I glanced at him, I found someone else entirely.
    Clarence Wilcox, dressed in an evening suit just as I’d seen him last. “You have to go!” He grabbed my elbow and pulled me into a sprint. We bolted for the hospital’s hallway.
    No, now it was the ship’s hall. We were racing toward the main stairwell, red carpet underfoot. And the boat rocked, fighting me.
    “Faster, Eleanor! Faster!”
    Another hand grabbed me from the other side. I choked at the