Free Breath of Earth by Beth Cato

Marconi.
    At the sidewalk she paused for a moment, panting, as she glanced at the slope ahead and whimpered. Two blocks more. Not far as the crow flew, but damned crows had wings.
    Her calves screamed for mercy as she trudged uphill. Broth splashed from beneath the lids and warmed her fingers. Sunlightbegan to fade and colored the clouds in murky pink, like weak watercolors muddled with pencil.
    â€œAlmost there, almost there,” she muttered.
    â€œLook out!” cried a small voice behind her.
    Ingrid turned to see a brown ball flying directly at her. Heat flared to her skin. For an instant it was as though she could feel the very presence of the baseball in the air—an instant that brought the ball alarmingly close. She yelped and stumbled sideways. The kettles clattered as she dropped them with just enough time to catch herself. Her knees banged on the hard ground.
    â€œDamn—darn it!” She propped herself up and immediately set a leaking kettle upright. Branches snapped as the ball smacked into the bushes behind her.
    The tingle of heat lapped against her as a blue cloud arose from the ground. She froze. Another quake, already? So many in a cluster today, especially when she was hurting at the Reiki shop. None since then, either. She rubbed her knees through cloth.
    â€œGomen-nasai! Sorry!” A little white boy dashed up, panting. He wore a battered baseball player’s cap. Several other boys trailed close behind.
    â€œI think it landed over there,” she said, jerking her head as she picked up the soup. “Be more careful.”
    â€œHai. Sorry again!” He offered her a gap-toothed smile then hurried in pursuit of the ball.
    She walked on, new warmth within her skin. She almost collapsed in happy relief at the sight of Mr. Thornton’s narrow town house. Her calves felt the strain as she worked her wayup the stairs to the porch, but her knees no longer hurt.
    â€œMr. Thornton! Mr. Thornton, are you there?” She stepped back to study the windows for any movement. Nothing, not so much as the sway of a curtain. She set down the kettles and knocked on the door as loudly as she could. “Mr. Thornton! If you can hear me, make a noise! This is Ingrid Carmichael!”
    Still nothing. She grabbed the doorknob and rushed inside the dark home.
    Ingrid had braced herself for the reek of illness, and was stunned at the normality of the air. She recalled the switch box was near the door, and fumbled to open the panel and flip the lever. Yellow light revealed a floor heaped with papers, books, and other debris. The china press had notable gaps where pieces once sat on display.
    â€œMr. Thornton?” Her voice was softer now, wary. She dried off her soupy hand and let the fingers rest near her pocket. The bedroom would be the most likely place to find a sick man, but with what she knew of Mr. Thornton, she thought to check the study first.
    A file cabinet drawer dangled like a slack jaw, its contents vomited onto the floor. The bookshelves reminded her of a pugilist’s mouth with many missing teeth. Even a safe behind the desk gaped open.
    A large empty space on the wall denoted where a full-color map of India had been pinned. Mr. Thornton had overlaid vellum and colored it in layers to show the progress of the imperial conquest of the subcontinent. It had been the showpiece of the room and visible evidence of his obsession. He had daily marked the shifts in dominion.
    Bookshelves had been emptied in a way that made it impossible to know what may have been taken. Ingrid nudged a haphazard stack on the floor. The books were about China, the Qing Dynasty, and Japan’s agrarian colonization of mainland Asia. The nineteenth century had brought repeated devastation to China as part of the majority Han populace rebelled against the Manchu Dynasty that had ruled them for centuries, even as Britain, Russia, and the Unified Pacific manipulated the people and economy through