Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Nina
Saltwick House
Damned if she knew what she was going to do with her monster.
The bond was well and thoroughly established. There was no denying it. Not anymore.
Her family would not take this change in her circumstances well. Her mother would be the most accepting, given time. Her father would treat Anthony as a specimen to be studied. Aunt Prudy would kill him the first chance that came along.
This was a mess. A big wet, fishy mess.
By the time they had extracted themselves from bed, a set of clean clothes at least thirty years out of fashion waited for them.
Anthony had a white shirt, waistcoat, and a pair of buckskin trousers.
Nina was given a dress tailored for an obviously shorter woman.
The amount of calf it displayed was enough to scandalize.
They had missed breakfast, of course. They were served a luncheon of cold meats, cheese, and bread.
They were also served a generous portion of judgmental looks, but Nina found she did not care.
“When might I be able to speak with my cousin?” Anthony enquired, his plate laden with food.
“Mister Roderick had business to attend to. He will meet you this evening for dinner. You’ll be expected to dress for dinner,” Mary said.
Her gaze swept over both Anthony and Nina, taking in the state of their borrowed clothes.
Her expression remained neutral yet managed to convey strong disapproval.
A talent indeed. “I’ll find something suitable. ”
“Excellent. Do,” Anthony said, buttering his bread and apparently oblivious to the maid’s disapproval.
After luncheon, Anthony gave her a guided tour of the house.
He babbled about the town’s early prosperity in fishing and the canning industry.
From what she saw yesterday, she had difficulty imagining the town as a bustling port of industry.
The buildings had once been grand, she could see that, but they had been neglected for some time, much like Saltwick House.
The house itself was uncanny. It was down in the heels, certainly.
Drapes were moth-eaten. Fabric on chairs worn threadbare.
Dust lingered in the disused rooms. Water stained the wallpaper.
It was a gentle poverty, filled with former grandeur and extensive maintenance.
Nina understood that particular struggle.
What truly disturbed her were the eyes. The previous inhabitants liberally decorated with the finfolk motif. Empty eyes stared out from wood carvings, brass fixtures, and even candlestick holders. One was never quite alone.
The portrait gallery was worse. Not only did she have multiple generations of Pearsons judging her, but the finfolk were in the wallpaper. It was subtle, a green figure tangled in greenery that could be seaweed, but once she saw it, she could not shake the sensation of a hundred eyes watching her.
“How did your family get their fortune?” Nina asked, interrupting the lengthy description of various ancestors and their storied accomplishments.
“Pardon?” Anthony stopped in front of a portrait of the famous provincial governor. The governor’s hair was completely silver but otherwise they were the same.
Except for the fins and scales.
The same before his transformation.
“All of this.” Nina waved a hand to the portraits on the wall. Her house was excessive by the standards of the West Lands, but Wychwood did not have a portrait gallery. “All this is from fishing?”
“A fleet of fishing boats and a canning factory,” he said. “Food production was unreliable in the first years of the colony. Seafood was vital for the colony’s survival.”
“Yes, I read the same history book about the famine during the first winter,” she said.
The colony had intended to use some type of machine to produce or preserve food—the accounts were unclear.
The machines fell into an all-too-common information hole.
Knowledge of how the machines functioned was generally understood, therefore no one mentioned the specifics of it.
Then the Nexus surge broke the machines, resulting in a famine, and two generations later, no one knew anything about the magic food machines.
“If your family made so much money from fish, why does the house look?—”
She stopped herself from finishing the completely insulting question.
“Why does the house look like it’s about to fall down?
Because of the storms. They were wildly destructive and took several lives.
” Anthony held up a hand, index finger and thumb extended.
He pointed to the fold of skin where his thumb joined his hand.
“Imagine this is the Wilde estuary. Here is Wilmouth, nice and protected.”
Now he moved to his index finger, pointing to the nailbed. “Here is Saltwick. Exposed. The weather patterns were unstable after the terraforming. No one expected such intense storms.”
“Industry moved to Wilmouth, leaving poor Saltwick to molder,” she said.
“Wilmouth is a better transportation hub. The town managed to hang on but eventually declined. It was inevitable.” He paused, then asked, “How did your family make its money?”
“Real estate investment.”
The ruffed fins at his throat went back, as if surprised. “Not bounties?”
“Like you, my family’s fortune extends back to the first years of the colony,” she said. “When monsters became a thing and it was apparent my great-great-and-so-ons were resistant, they were given a huge plot of land to protect the railroad construction.”
Now he frowned. “It was already built. Partially.”
“Yes, but it was built for maglev, some tech that no longer worked. It needed to be converted and random beast attacks weren’t good for productivity,” she said.
“Or morale.”
Another joke. That was four by her count.
“We sold off parcels and that plot of land became Sweetwater Point. All that’s left of the original allotment is Wychwood House.” She had not been exaggerating when she said her family had always been in Sweetwater.
After the gallery, they wandered through various dusty and abandoned rooms: library, parlor, morning room, the study, the surprising collection of antique weapons in the study, the billiards room, music room, and the dining room.
Upstairs were the bedrooms, each given a color and all carrying the theme of decayed elegance.
Anthony looked bashful when they reached the nursery.
“Ducks. How refreshing,” she said. The decor was a pleasant change from monstrous fish people.
“I don’t think the lady of the house particularly cared how the nanny decorated. My mother certainly didn’t,” he replied.
Downstairs was the kitchen, scullery, and all the pieces that kept a great house running. This part of the house was in good repair and not a speck of dust. Below that were the cellars and?—
“Tunnels?” Nina asked in disbelief. The dank, heavy smell was strong here.
Perhaps it was simply the smell of the ocean.
She spent her life on a fairly dry prairie and was unused to the amount of humidity in the air.
Her hair found it most disagreeable as well, if the frizzing curls around her face were any indication.
“Tunnels,” Anthony repeated, his face half in shadow. The lantern did a poor job of illuminating the cellars but was excellent at creating a dreadful sense of atmosphere. “They lead to a cove. Before you ask, yes. It was likely used for smuggling.”
“Smuggling fish.”
“Smuggling the types of things people smuggle.”
“Cheese.”
She couldn’t be certain, but she thought he smiled. Must be a trick of the light.
“Now, on to the crypt,” he announced, heading up the stairs and forcing Nina to hurry if she didn’t want to be left alone in the dark.
The family crypt was in the center of an overgrown garden. Anthony tramped across the grass in his buckskin trousers and boots. Nina lifted the hem of her dress and stepped carefully to avoid brambles. The frock might not be to her taste, but it was borrowed and she would not ruin it.
“Is that rain?” she asked. The sun hid behind a dismal gray and the air felt sticky.
“A storm is coming.”
“One of those terrible storms you mentioned?” Storms on the prairie were dramatic lines of dark clouds that rolled across the sky, a clear demarcation between sunshine and rain and thunder.
One could see them coming from miles away and the strength of the cold wind blowing indicated how long you had to seek shelter.
This damp gray sky was something she was unfamiliar with.
“I do not know,” Anthony answered, which she appreciated much more than false assurances that all would be well.
At the center of the garden, surrounded by hedges, was a mausoleum.
The white stone had great green streaks from the copper roof.
The black wrought iron doors were in good repair and fresh flowers adorned the entrance.
It almost seemed redundant to mention the embellishment on the doors.
Two finfolk stood back -to -back, life-sized sentinels cast in iron to stand over the family’s dead.
Anthony stood at the entrance, hands folded behind his back, no doubt ready to launch into his next lecture about sourcing the marble or how many craftsmen died in its construction.
“Enough is enough,” Nina said, waving a hand at the wrought iron door. “This is the family crypt? This?”
“Yes?”
“This entire house is crawling with these creatures, and you never once thought hmm, I wonder what that’s about ? Honestly, Pearson, your lack of curiosity is staggering.”
His face darkened. There was more color in his body, perhaps from the humidity in the air. “My nanny did not think it appropriate for a child to play by the mausoleum, so no.”
“It’s not just here. It’s the wallpaper. The door knocker. On every mantle. It’s carved in the headboard in the room the maid gave me. It’s impossible to miss. How can you not feel all those eyes watching you?”