~ Slingshot ~
A/N: As Samwise Gamgee said, "Well, I'm back." No matter how much other writing I have on my plate, that darn wardrobe door keeps tilting open. Aedan has been much more forbearing than his father about waiting to tell his story, so let's see where it (and he) takes me. This book is dedicated to the immense patience of the readers who have been asking me for more since I finished Shadow in the Silverwood. Welcome back, Narnians.
1 - A Parting And A Meeting
London, England
1910
Maira Singh found her wayward charge at an unlit lamppost. The structure had not been lit in ages due to a broken ladder arm. Her little brother Farhan, the wayward charge in question, was swinging from the broken arm's remaining half. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"Having fun," the boy responded. "Ain't like the lamplighters are using it." Small for his age, Farhan could scramble about the streets of west London unregarded. And a good thing, too. If the constable saw him, he'd haul Farhan down by his foot.
She sighed. "If Father sees you, he'll send you to the workhouses himself, and save the constable the trouble."
Farhan knew an empty threat when he heard one. Neither Maira nor their father would let the constable do any such thing. The constable probably wouldn't, anyway, come to that. Farhan charmed people as if it were magic. Sweets from the candy shop, a hoop and stick from the toymaker, and once a whole goose from the butcher. Farhan hung from the remaining half an arm with a gleeful smile missing a tooth. His feather weight wasn't nearly enough to snap the bar.
Maira gave the sky a long-suffering look, then grabbed Farhan's foot herself. "Come down, little squirrel."
He swung out of her grasp, then landed lightly on the cobbles. "You worry too much."
"And you worry too little," she scolded. "Supper's waiting. Let's go home."
Home was a tiny rented room by the docks. Father was a sailor, and his last voyage was profitable enough to afford them a space above a cobbler's shop. The shopkeeper had noted Farhan's nimble hands and given him a job as an apprentice. Maira helped earn income by stitching belts and shoes for the cobbler while they waited for Father to return from a long day's work. It put food in their mouths …
… but it wasn't living.
Maira knew there must be more. Father shared stories of his travels with them in the evenings before bed, of far-flung places with strange customs and spiced air. Places with heat that shimmered in the air like a living thing, unlike the smoky damp of London. She longed to see some of those things too, but from sunup to sundown, all she ever knew was the inside of a sooty shop, the smell of leather dyes, and pricked fingers when the stitching needle missed its mark.
Would it have been different, easier, if Mother had lived? Maira had been told her mother was a great beauty, sweet and kind. She'd borne Farhan and then quietly slipped out of the world due to a difficult childbirth. Maira knew her father missed their mother every day, that all the song and joy had gone from him the day his wife had passed away. It was a love that gave Maira a formless ache even now.
There was no time for love, any more than there was time to see what lay beyond that ocean horizon. The sea beckoned her always … but the business of life drew too much of her time to allow for the luxury of living.
She shepherded Farhan along the cobbled street, dodging carriages that rushed past even at this late hour. Being a daughter, sister, cobbler's assistant, and stand-in mother was enough to be going on with.
But oh, how she wished she were free to race to that horizon and see it for herself. To experience the rush of ocean water in her ears that the pools in the park could never hope to imitate.
"What's that?" Farhan demanded into her reverie.
Maira looked up in time to see Farhan darting into the cobbled street after something shiny that lay on the stones.
At the same time, she heard a clatter, growing louder.
Another carriage.
"Farhan, wait!"
Farhan bent to grasp the thing in the street. He straightened up, waving his closed fist with a triumphant smile.
And then, the carriage was there. Maira saw the wheel of the carriage buckle, saw Farhan disappear underneath it, but heard none of it under her scream.
She staggered backward, too riveted by the horror in front of her to see the open pit behind her, dug for the storage cellar of some building. She toppled backward over the edge. Her head struck stone, and everything went black.
- # -
She woke to the sound of carriages—again—and cringed into a ball. The very motion brought a stabbing pain in her head, and Maira moaned and put a hand to her hair. The pain only sharpened. She gasped and drew away fingers covered with blood. The sight of blood punched a memory threw her.
Farhan.
She whimpered, and tears stung her eyes.
It was still full dark. Weak light trickled into the cobblestone pit into which she'd fallen. She'd struck her head against the far wall. A wooden structure leaned against the wall, bracing it in preparation for the addition of more stones. She scrambled up the structure to the street.
No carriage. Not even a broken wheel. No Farhan. Where had they taken him?
She raced to the cobbler's shop to find it empty. Father was away—working late—and the cobbler had gone to his mother in the country for the next two days. A rare couple of days off, which she'd have spent with Farhan racing paper boats in the park or haunting the shops to let him pore over the new toys. Pain spread through her again.
I have to tell Father what's happened.
She winced at the thought. How could she tell Father, who was already missing their mother, that little Farhan was dead? It would break Father's heart completely. How could she even face him with this news?
No. She must find Farhan, wherever they'd taken him.
London had never seemed so enormous, so faceless.
She ran back to the street, hardly knowing what to look for, hoping by chance there would be some sign of the the broken carriage or someone, anyone, who had seen what happened.
All she found at the end of the road was a lonely peddler's cart with a figure in tattered robes sitting on a crude stool beside it.
"Hello?" she called.
"Closer, child," he responded. "I am somewhat deaf."
She approached cautiously. The streets of London weren't entirely safe at night, but the figure sat in a pool of lamplight. She stayed several steps back, eyes on the shadows thrown by the corners of the buildings nearby.
"You are looking for someone," the voice said.
"Yes."
"And you wish to summon him."
What strange words. "Y-Yes."
The figure rose to its feet. Tall, she noted. Disturbingly tall, and not at all as old as his voice had sounded, by the smooth, almost floating motion he made as he stood. "And you are looking for a way to do it."
"Yes." London was just too big. Farhan could be anywhere. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see under the figure's hood. "Who are you?"
He slid the hood back to reveal a terribly scarred face with coppery-brown skin and dark, fathomless eyes. When he smiled, his gleaming teeth shone impossibly white. "My name is Rajan."
She flicked her gaze to the peddler's cart. "I should go."
"I can help you," Rajan said, "if you help me."
Maira drifted back a step. "Help you how?"
"Simple, really. A trifling thing. A few words."
Her skin prickled. She retreated another step.
He slid closer, the sleeve of his robe raised as if he were holding something out. "I wish no harm to you."
Had she heard an inflection, a tiny emphasis on you?
No, no, you need to find Father and sort this out, she thought.
"A wish," he said. "That's all."
"A wish?" She frowned, puzzling at this stranger.
"I have one wish left to grant, and you may have it if you say exactly the words I tell you. And take this." His brown hand slid out from the sleeve, and she caught the gleam of a gold-colored bracelet on his wrist. Far too expensive for a peddler. In his palm was a short length of braided fiber, yellowish-brown. Binding it was another tiny circlet of gold, an earring, perhaps. Maira had never seen such wealth in one hand at one time.
"What is that?"
"A talisman. Of sorts," he said.
She reached out. His palm was warm, shockingly warm. She examined the braid in the lamplight. Hair, sandy blond. The circlet was indeed an earring. She knew peddlers carried certain oddities, but this?
"You are injured," he said. His tone carried no sympathy. The peddler reached toward her. She winced back, but he merely touched her forehead. And the sting was gone.
"How…?"
He drew back his hand, his fingertips now painted with her blood. He examined the reddish stain impassively.
Something about this, about all of this, wasn't right. Maira's skin rippled with gooseflesh. "No," she said finally, and she prepared to take another step back.
The stranger moved like lightning. He touched his bloody fingertips to his lips, then clasped her hand in an iron grip until their joined palms crushed the little braid between them. "I wish to switch them and summon him," Rajan said in her voice.
In her voice.
Maira choked and tried to pull away. A wind howled through the alley, stinging her skin and forcing her to shut her eyes. She cried out in alarm.
And then the wind was gone.
Maira opened her eyes. No cart. No peddler. Nothing remained in the road but herself and the braided hair in her palm.
The air was all too quiet now, and the back of her neck prickled.
What had the stranger done? What had she done?
