Chapter 14
Chapter
Our path to London hugged the southern coastline, and we passed the famous White Cliffs of Dover early next morning.
Lucy and Buckland had sailed this route before but were generous enough to humor me. I pressed my chest against the railing and marveled at the cliffs, like great, glittering teeth.
I peppered Buckland with so many questions about the chalk and its gray-flint veins that he promised to show me samples once we reached London.
“But I’ll warn you,” he said, “the fossil yields from chalk aren’t all that impressive. Your Blue Lias holds a far richer trove than these.”
I preened a little at the thought that my beach was best. Its bluffs might be grayed and chipped, but the treasures were grander than those in the shining white cliffs. It was a silly thing to think, but I thought it nonetheless, and was pleased.
Lucy cleared her throat. “Henry’s walking over here.”
I turned from the railing too quickly and winced. I had to move slowly, or the queasiness caught me.
“Mary,” Henry called.
I was still furious with him—for all the usual reasons, yes, but now also for this manifold reliq business.
Henry’d made me look a fool, letting me run off to Buckland like that, only to learn I was the one in the dark.
I could only assume it was all calculated to ensure maximum humiliation for both Buckland and myself.
Henry broke into a stupid little jog and caught my arm as I tried to hurry away from the railing.
“Are you all right? You look pale.”
I yanked away. “I am perfectly fine.”
Lucy forced him aside and looped her arm through mine. “I was just about to escort Mary back downstairs to our quarters to rest.”
“Yes, of course.” Henry nodded. “I only wanted to ask if Ajax—”
I caught my breath. I’d been down to check on him only an hour ago, with a breakfast of bread, sausage, and fresh fish. He’d been a bit morose, and had ignored the fish, but seemed otherwise fine. “What’s wrong with Ajax?”
“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” Henry assured me. “I was just wondering if you’d like to let him out on deck tonight. I thought the fresh air might do him good.”
“No,” Buckland said. “We can’t risk him being seen.”
Henry scoffed. “Come now, Professor, in the dark he only looks like an odd bird.”
“Buckland’s right,” I said loyally. “It’s too dangerous.”
Henry arched his brow, but then inclined his head. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read, and I gazed coolly back.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll tell the captain we won’t need the deck cleared tonight, after all.”
He walked away, and I glared at his back, watching the wind run like fingers through his dark curls.
The cargo hold had the thick smell of perpetually damp wood. It took a few deep breaths to adjust to the heavy wetness of the air as I made my way to Ajax’s crate. I slid off the lid and scooped him up.
He made a squeak as he fluffed himself, flexing his wings and nuzzling into my palm.
“You seem to be doing better.” I chuckled and scratched his neck.
“He does, doesn’t he?”
I yelped in surprise, knocking over my reliq-lamp.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s only me,” Henry said quickly, shadows morphing horribly over his face as he righted the lamp atop the barrel. Ah, yes, that was exactly why open flames were banned aboard. “I saw you come down.” He raised his palms. “I only want to talk.”
Ajax squirmed in my arms, and Henry eyed him with amusement.
“Why? Do you have any other world-changing inventions to tell me about?” I said, too sweetly. “Any inventions that you stole from someone else?”
Henry’s brows knit. “Is that what he told you? That I stole the idea for the Loom?”
“You cut him out of the project, didn’t you?” I lifted my chin.
He stepped forward. “And did he tell you why I chose to do so?”
My tongue caught behind my teeth. I wished now that Buckland had said what, exactly, he’d objected to. “He said you had a theory. A dangerous one.”
“Ah. He did not tell you,” Henry said, smiling in a pleased way that I didn’t like. “I see.”
What on earth was this theory that neither of them seemed willing to explain? More secrets from which I was excluded, apparently.
Henry glanced at Ajax, still wriggling on my chest. “You could let him down to stretch his legs—and wings—don’t you think? No one will see him here.”
“I was just about to do that,” I said, though I had planned no such thing. But it was an annoyingly good idea, so I set Ajax between my feet and nudged him gently with the toe of my boot.
“Go on now,” I said.
Ajax rose and moved forward tentatively with his wobbling, four-clawed walk.
“He’s not exactly the picture of elegance, is he?” Henry said, and, though I had similar thoughts, I shot him a glare.
Ajax stepped cautiously at first, placing his claws carefully and swiveling his neck as he wandered between the rows.
I had to remind myself he’d only been alive for less than a week, and most of that had been spent on the lush, wide meadow around Lucy’s house. A ship was unfamiliar terrain to us both.
But Ajax grew bolder after a few minutes, almost excited. He began peering in between the boards and barrels and crates, poking around with the end of his beak. He opened his wings and hopped awkwardly along, nosing at the wood. Henry and I followed with the reliq-lamp.
Something small and dark burst out and scurried across the boards, just past our toes. I yelped, but Ajax made a squawk and pounced.
I grabbed Henry’s arm in excited realization. “It’s a cockroach! Henry, he’s hunting insects!”
It was with breathless, hushed wonder that we both watched Ajax, this ancient creature, gulp down a cockroach and promptly search for more, racing along the seam between boards.
“With those teeth, I never would have guessed he would eat insects,” Henry said in a hushed tone that matched my own.
“Never, if we’d only seen the skull, and teeth.”
I hadn’t taught him to hunt like that, and he hadn’t learned it from Achilles, either.
This innate ability was more evidence that pterodactyls likely didn’t care for and teach their young in the way birds did.
They would have been more like reptiles, the young left to fend for themselves from hatching.
“We will have to let him continue to hunt wild as he ages,” I said quietly to Henry. I didn’t want to distract Ajax, who was happily poking around a barrel of turnips. “To see if he is really an insectivore, or—”
“Or if it’s only juveniles of the species,” Henry finished.
“Precisely. Because we know he has the taste for fresh meat, too,” I said.
“But likely not the hunting skill, or size, to catch any larger vertebrates.”
I thought of all the fish I’d offered, which Ajax only begrudgingly ate, if at all. “He doesn’t like fish, either. Dried or fresh.”
“So his species were not piscivores. I wonder why,” Henry mused.
I did, too. My first guess was the pterodactyls were simply graceless fliers, unable to swoop low and catch fish from the surface the way a seabird might. But I could be wrong.
It was still possible Ajax would grow into his skill as a flier and develop a taste for fish later.
Another hypothesis was—and oh, an exciting one—that they’d existed contemporaneously with another species of pterodactyl, which had specialized in hunting fish.
And still another theory: that the oceans of his time were too dangerous for his kind to hunt, given the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs that could catch a winged flier and drag it to the deep.
I laughed, nearly breathless at the glory of it; the buzz of curiosity in my chest, and this new thrill—the incredible, wonderful, wondrous fact that for once all the questions we had could be answered.
We wouldn’t have to guess. We could watch Ajax grow, and learn, and we would know.
And there was nothing more satisfying than to know.
I was alarmed to realize I was grateful to be with Henry.
Now, that was a deeply unsettling notion. I crossed my arms, as if the protective motion could defend me against such foolishness.
But it was true. I was glad to be watching Ajax with someone who understood the significance of the experience. Even if it was Henry.
Henry shifted, pulling me from my thoughts. He was breathing so loudly I could tell he wanted to say something.
“What?” I asked—surprising us both with the softness in my voice.
Henry cocked his head. “What is what?”
“All that huffing and puffing.” I waved in his direction. “What is it you want to say?”
He smiled wryly. “You’ve made it clear you don’t want to hear anything I have to say.”
“I’ll make an exception this time.”
His cheek twitched.
I expected more commentary on pterodactyl dietary habits, but instead, Henry looked at me. The shadows hollowed his face, and his pupils were enormous and black in the darkness. I felt terribly off-balance, like the earth had shifted beneath my feet and left me stumbling.
Then his shoulders loosened, and he chuckled. It was rueful. Amused.
“I’ve missed you, Mary.” He reached out, to cup my cheek, maybe, but I twisted out of reach.
How dare he. How dare Henry Stanton claim he missed me. All that silly, misplaced gratitude—which was far too close to forgiveness—evaporated as I tumbled into memory.