You'll see several of these interludes along the way. I'm using them mostly as exercises to give a little insight into the characters. The first few focus on Laura, but there will be some later for other characters.

Interlude One: Go You There, Beyond the Ranges

"'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges –
'Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!'"
– Rudyard Kipling, "The Explorer"

June 22, 1934

Tomorrow, Laura would be on her way to India, and she did not want to be excited.

To remind her of what she was leaving behind, after dinner, she went up to the master bedroom to say goodbye to her father.

He slept, lost in the fitful dreams of the cancerous pain that never released his body. Dr. Bartholomew had prescribed morphine for him, but some days, nothing helped. He moved in and out of lucidity, and on good days, he could sit up and enjoy conversations with his family.

Today was not one of his good days. He stirred not at all as she pulled over the chair from the corner writing desk and sat down in it next to the bed. She didn't want to wake him, and she didn't know if he would ever wake again. More than anything else, the thought of him dying in her absence disturbed her. She knew she might be saying goodbye to him for the last time.

She took his limp right hand into hers, showing no reaction to the now familiar clammy touch. On the other side of his body was the empty space where his left arm should have been. He'd worn a false limb since 1915, but Dr. Bartholomew had suggested removing it while he remained in bed-rest. He didn't need it anyway.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," she said to him. "I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be happy, because I can't trust Denham and Beaufort. But it's Bombay. I'm going home."

His eyelids fluttered but did not open. She didn't know what else to say to him, so she told him about the plans they had been making for the trip to India.

The filming would not be done in Bombay. The city was an island metropolis – Denham fondly called it the New York of India – and Beaufort naturally wanted jungle for the serial. Laura had suggested going to Matheran, one of the hill stations in the mountains around Bombay. The population favored Indians over Europeans, and tourism would be low because of the monsoon season. Beaufort took to the idea immediately; within two days, he'd used his connections to rent a large bungalow for the crew.

Laura had expected a larger crew. The two other Society men were Major Windridge, a portly old soldier with gin blossoms, and MacNamara, a balding little hump of a man who doubled as Denham's sound recordist. Apparently, he had been the connection between Beaufort and Denham. Both men had the looks of armchair hunters, and neither of them looked like cinema material, serial or otherwise. She supposed Beaufort – tall, muscular, and handsome in the cultured manner of New York businessmen – would be the focus of the camera.

Also joining them was Beaufort's niece, a British-born girl named Bridget Elmund. Laura had not yet met her, but Robert assured her that the girl was young and fresh and quite excited about the whole thing. This did not put Laura at ease. Neither did the presence of Denham's current assistant, a ratty-looking young man who went by the name Culpeper. He looked more like a con-man than a director's assistant.

And that was it, the whole of Denham's crew. He hadn't even a cameraman, insisting that he wanted to do all the shooting personally. This was not unusual – Denham's best work was done by his own hand – but he usually had a man on hand to take on some of the burden. Laura knew that Herb Cooper had died on Skull Island, an unfortunate loss indeed. Maybe nobody wanted to be his replacement.

The whole set-up made her nervous, and she had her doubts that Beaufort's interest in the serial went any deeper than his own love for the hunt. He couldn't seriously expect to make much money off a serial driven by such a limited amount of manpower.

But that was not her problem. Beaufort had enough money; he could throw it away on whatever pleased him. She'd get her check whether Beaufort got his payoff or not.

"The money's good," she told Sir Walter. "Mom and Alice won't have to worry about starving, and if Dr. Bartholomew decides you need an operation, they'll be able to afford it. I'll be gone a long time though."

Her voice broke, and she was suddenly aware that her eyes stung with unshed tears. Her vision blurred as she tried to stop them, but nothing could hold them back. They slid from the corners of her eyes, finding different tracks down her face until her cheeks felt cold and crusted. She leaned forward, rubbing her father's hand against her damp chin, and she let the sobs come. She couldn't remember the last time she had cried so freely.

It took her several minutes to get it all out, and she had to let go of Sir Walter's hand to find a handkerchief folded on the table next to his bed. She wiped her eyes and cheeks before taking care of her nose and picking up his hand again.

"Don't die," she said. "Don't die without me."

In the back of her mind, she recognized how foolish the request was. She asked it of him because she thought she could keep him alive just by being near him – that his strength would drain away the longer she remained from him. For so long, she had been his crutch, carrying the burden for him, whether it be the physical weight of his rifle or the mental weight of keeping his family alive. She understood that he would die with or without her.

But she didn't care. She just didn't care.

He coughed, and his lips moved with dusty whisperings. She put her hands on his thin shoulders and leaned down over him, trying to make out the words.

"Something lost," he muttered, and his thick tongue ran over his cracked lips. He writhed weakly under her hands, his face contorting into a grimace.

"What's lost?" she asked.

"Beyond the Ranges. Something lost –."

His eyes opened, and for the first time in many days, Laura saw clarity in them. He gazed at her, and his hand gripped her wrist, stronger than it had been in years. The intensity in his face startled her, and she tried to pull away; he held her in place, fingers digging into her skin.

"Over yonder," he said, and his eyes never left hers. "Go you there!"

"What?" she said. He actually scared her; the crazy light in his eyes – brown eyes that looked so like her own – didn't belong there. She tried to pry his fingers off her wrist, but he gripped her so tight she feared he might break something. "I don't – lie down, you'll hurt yourself."

"Go you there!" he shouted, and then he fell back against his pillow, his energy spent. His eyes closed, and his breathing slowed.

Laura stared at him, amazed at how quick the madness had come and gone from him. She wondered if she had imagined it.

But the marks of his fingers on her wrist stood out in thick, red lines, and the next morning, bruises had appeared. Though they faded, the soreness remained for several days. For the first half of their journey on the Juliette, Laura could look at her hand and feel again the vice-like grip of a hand that for weeks had been unable to hold a spoon.

And at night, while drifting to sleep with the rocking of the boat, she would hear the echo of his voice and the fierce demand he had made of her.

And she wondered what it was he wanted her to find.