Markers
Painful truths are realized, milestones achieved, and comfort given. ––– Maer.
Miss Katherine is finally rescued, although I weren’t no help in that, really. Ain’t my element. Not much cross-trading to be done among all the barmy Set worshippers. Can’t figure out why anyone would want to worship Set, anyway. Bast seems much nicer. Although she seems to favor the uppers too. Stinkin’ powers, all the same, no matter where you are.
Evie looked down at the journal page and frowned slightly, her eyes crinkling in disapproval. She understood why reading was important. She had always known that information could be traded like jink. But until meeting Miss Josephine, she had never been in any sort of place where any keeper she’d run into was something on the scribble. But now? She had to be able to read to get to a lot of the good stuff. So yeah, she understood why she needed to learn to read. But why did she need to know how to write?
She frowned again at what she had put on the page. Stupid and pointless, really. Who in the nine hells would want to read that drivel? And that was why she didn’t understand why Miss Josephine was so insistent on Evie learning how to write. Evie didn’t have anything to say worth writing down. But Miss Josephine wanted it, so here Evie was, stuck in the cabin of Alexi’s ship, writing down her thoughts. She gripped her quill awkwardly, still wanting to hold it like a pick rather than a pen.
Now that we’re done, I guess we’ll be heading back to London. Kind of a shame, really. I really liked getting to see all these new places. I mean, people live up on their roofs here. Made for some challenging night crawling. And it is so different from the City. It’d feel weird, going back, getting back to putting coinage away for her house.
A queasy feeling went through her stomach at that last sentence. She had put off thinking about it. Easy enough with Miss Katherine and Miss Flora being bagged and parceled like that by those barmies. But now that was all said and done. No more distractions. She was now forced to think about how she had felt when Alexi had let her run that mansion of his. Everything she had thought she wanted. Except she hadn’t wanted it.
I wanted to want it, by all the bloody coins in the BofE, I wanted to want it, Evie thought. But she couldn’t make herself do it. And it left her feeling all ugly and squirmy inside. Like her mum was looking down on her and frowning. Her mum had wanted that house. Why couldn’t Evie want it anymore?
Well, that’s bleeding obvious, Eglantine Varney, piped up that sharp inner voice. You’ve lost your focus. And who was responsible for that, hmmm?
Josephine, thought Evie. Ever since Evie failed that dip, everything had changed. She had thought it might have been for the good, but anything good shouldn’t make her feel like she did now. If she didn’t have the house, then what was to keep Evie from forgetting the way her mum stood in the morning light, the dust motes circling around her like one of God’s own halos?
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Who was Josephine to take her mother from her? She didn’t have no right! She stood there fuming, the thoughts bubbling in her brain box and her grip on the quill getting tighter and tighter. Finally the quill snapped and Evie let loose a low guttural growl.
Josephine owed her and it was time Evie made sure she knew that.
The pieces of quill still in her hand, she padded out of her cabin, unable to be loud even in anger. She stalked her way to Josephine’s cabin door and banged on it with the quill pen fist, causing a couple of feathers to scatter into the cabin hallway.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 1868
The Odyssey
Nile River, Egypt
Late Evening
There was a banging at Josephine's cabin door and from outside, Evie's voice, both loud and guttural, with a catlike growl underneath it. "Miss Josephine, you ain't giving Alexi the slippery slide right now, are you? We gotta talk about what's owed!" A short pause. "If he's there, you send him away!"
Josephine woke at the first pound of Evie's fist and by the end of Evie's shouting, she'd crossed the room and pulled her door open. Scanning the corridor behind the catgirl for trouble, Josephine said, her voice still husky from sleep, "What's wrong?"
Evie strode right past Josephine into her room and then turned back towards her, dropping the quill pieces in front of Josephine angrily. "You got me all writing and changing me and I don't want what I want no more. And you're to blame, so you owe." Evie, to her horror, could feel a couple of tears welling up in her eyes as she talked, but she wasn't going to let no sentiment get in the way of what was important. "You owe me a marker, or else I might forget."
Josephine closed her door softly, lest she wake anyone the noise hadn't already, and gathered her composure before turning around. When you ask such an open-ended question, Josephine, you'd better be prepared for the answer. She was aware she stood in nothing but a thin lawn nightshirt and step-ins in deference to the heat upon laying down and now the night air had grown chill, raising gooseflesh on her limbs. Not the best of armor for battle, but so be it. She schooled her expression to calm neutrality and turned around.
"I am sorry, Evie. I never did ask you what you truly wanted," she said with genuine regret. "I presumed and I shouldn't have. So what did you want, that you do not now? If I can, I will help you get it back if you wish. It is the least can do."
"I can't want what I don't want no more, miss," Evie said almost pleadingly, the anger seeping out of her voice. "The house ain't no good to me no more. So I want a marker in the sixes for her. All she's got now is ashes and soot, and it ain't no good remembering her that way. "
It took her a second to parse her partner's reply, but 'sixes' cemented it for her. Her mother. Ashes and soot? Killed by fire, then. God, Father, how do I handle this? But for once, her father's voice lay silent in her head. She was on her own. And right now, I'm losing my partner, my... Even in the privacy of her thoughts, Josephine did not dare utter it: my girl. As this moment proved, losing her would hurt too much. Josephine pushed off her door and sat on her bed. "If that is what you want, then that is what we'll do. Tell me how big, how high, and where, and I will make it happen."
"Someplace nice, where she can see something pretty." The tears were now flowing regularly. She was supposed to be angry but all Evie felt was just a bone deep sadness. She hadn't cried like this since...well, since the night her mum had died. She tried to push the tears back in, and wiped a few away with the back of her hand, the salty tears making her fur all wet and sticky. "And it should say, Sarah Varney: Beloved Mother to Eglantine." And with that, she threw herself into Josephine's arms, not tough street girl Evie right now, but rather little 8 year old Eglantine who desperately wanted her mother back to hold her.
"Oh, Evie…," Josephine breathed, holding her tight. How many times had Josephine cried alone in her bed after her mother died, lonely and miserable, too afraid to show her father her tears lest he be repulsed and leave her truly alone? Those days and months she'd shoved her hurt down during the day where no one could see and let it out only at night when no one would know. As she'd needed then, she gave to Evie now, holding her and rocking her, whispering words of comfort. She lavished on Evie the tenderness she herself had craved and dared not ask for. And as she succored Evie, the heavy stone of her own grief cracked and crumbled and fell away. Tears flowed then and Josephine silently wept and let her mother go.
The tears seemed endless and Evie couldn't seem to make herself stop shaking. But she felt Josephine's warmth and clung to it until she could get the soddin' stream of tears under control. When she could find her voice, she spoke muffled into Josephine's shoulder, not trusting herself to look up yet. "I'm sorry, Miss Josephine, for going and disturbing you in the middle of when you're sleeping." Powers only knew what kind of addlepated fool Miss Josephine thought Evie to be. Some kind of equal partner you are, Eglantine Varney, that little inner voice chimed in. Bawling and crying for your mum like a little girl? She needs someone to depend on, not someone to take care of.
"It's all right, Evie," Josephine said, sniffing wetly and caring not a whit if the girl heard it. Sometimes grief required a witness so the heart could heal. "You did the right thing. Forgive me if it is presumptuous of me to say it, but I would hate to think your mother would rather you remained miserable and hurting rather than turn to your friends for comfort. No mother would want that for her child. No friend or partner would either."
Truer words, Jo, or so the saying goes. You should have done this sooner. Her father's voice was back in her head, much to her relief, and Josephine hugged Evie harder.
"So it's okay to get her a marker, then?" Evie pulled away a little, sniffling a little as the last of the tears dried.. "I ain't upper or even middle and never going to be." Getting snubbed by Bast had only proved to Evie what she had already known. "And if you're lower, you don't get nothing to remember you by. I don't want to forget her. I want my mum to be remembered." I want to be remembered, she thought to herself fiercely.
"Absolutely okay." Josephine eased back and gripped Evie's hands tightly. "We will get that marker for her and we will put it someplace nice and people will see it and know she was loved by someone special. As for the rest … You may be right as to class, Evie, but there is nothing—and I mean nothing—that says you cannot do something memorable. If you are willing to step outside class as society defines it, there is nothing you can't do. All you need is the will to do it. I'm proof of that and I'm not done yet. I've barely gotten started."
"I wish you could've met her, miss," Evie said quietly as she positioned herself on the bed next to Josephine. "I think you would've liked her."
There was a long quiet pause while Evie thought about her mother, how about the way she'd every so often find money for jam and make her bread with jam right as the sun was about to rise. Evie missed her, missed having someone who loved her without concern for anything else. Then she looked over at Josephine and thought about how she had let Evie bawl all over her for no particular reason. Maybe she wasn't as far away as she thought. Then another thought crossed her mind and her eyes narrowed a little as she glared a little at the woman who had become a mentor, partner, and friend to her.
"You ain't allowed to call me Eglantine though," she said firmly.
Ma fille chérie ... Josephine's mother whispered. Mein teures Mädchen. My dear girl. Josephine closed her eyes and silently whispered back, And now I know why, Mama.
"I understand, Evie, and it's entirely right I shouldn't." She paused and went on. "Is there something you'd rather I did call you?"
The last thing she wanted at this juncture, the very last, was to undo everything with a careless word.
"You can keep calling me Evie, Miss Josephine. It's a good name. I grabbed it and made it my own." Her name, Evie thought to herself, might have been the first thing she ever nipped for herself.
E.V. Short for Eglantine Varney. Quick and efficient, just like the girl herself. Right down to the sharp points. And none too revealing of the details.
"Fair enough. In return, would you mind terribly when we're in private if you dropped the 'Miss' and just called me Jo? Whenever I hear "Miss Josephine" I have to suppress the urge to look around for a disapproving governess, only to remember it's supposed to be me."
It was hard being vulnerable when one would rather be reserved and self-sufficient. Josephine sensed that Evie was still wary of letting anyone close to her heart, of trusting anyone with it. Josephine hoped a little levity might help her get through it, until she could stand on her own again. God knows, I've done often enough myself.
"I can try that, Jo," Evie said cautiously. It felt strange coming out of her mouth, like it was a ball with sharp points that she was trying to spit out. She supposed she'd get used to it. "Can I still call Miss Katherine the same thing? Not that it'll matter much anyway. Those babies will keep her busy before too long." She didn't sound bitter as she said it and she didn't feel it either. It was just the way of things. Strays only got loved when there wasn't someone real to give that love to. That was true in her part of town and she couldn't imagine how it would be any different with the uppers either. As long as Miss J...Jo didn't let Alexi get her pregnant, then Evie'd still have someone. And even if Jo did, not like Evie couldn't handle being by herself. She had a lot of practice, after all.
"Yes. You and Katherine can decide which name is best. That's between you and her, just like 'Jo' is between you and me." Evie had paid her precious emotional coin tonight and it was only fair that Josephine return it. Her voice was soft when she said, "My father used to call me that and I confess, I've missed it."
"How old were you when he died?" Evie was a good listener and Jo (it was getting easier already) talked about her pop the same way Evie talked about her mum. Piles of love that had no place to go.
"I was sixteen. I was nearly an adult then, but I'd already lost my mother when I was nine." Josephine met Evie's green eyes, dilated now in the moonlit dimness of the cabin, and spared nothing. "I loved my father and he was all I had left."
"I'm sorry." And Evie relying on instinct (it was what she did best, after all), leaned forward and hugged Jo, trying to give back what she had been given.
Understanding flickered between them, recognition of heartbreak and hardships endured and overcome. It was a rare gift and Josephine shook in Evie's arms as it sank in.
Evie just held Josephine tightly for a couple of minutes, softly rubbing Josephine's back. It felt a little strange being the one to comfort someone else...but it didn't feel bad. Then, in a completely casual tone, almost as if from out of nowhere as if nothing had happened, Evie remarked, "I ain't familiar with God like Mister Ezekiel seems to be. God probably don't smile much at those of us who walk the criss-cross path." Probably something to do with one of those commandments, she thought wryly.
"But maybe he made sure I failed that dip that day, miss. Cause it seems like He might have had plans for the two of us." Then she grasped Josephine's hands in hers. "Until the road ends?"
When Evie stroked her back, in a gesture so reminiscent of her mother, Josephine nearly broke but managed to keep herself together. Evie was strong, she knew, but needed Josephine to be stronger. Enough. Back in the harness, Jo. Even so, Josephine melted and let the girl hold her a moment more, then sniffed and straightened at Evie's words.
"Until the road ends, Evie," Josephine promised. "Until it ends, and God willing, beyond."
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