A Snowflake at Midnight Read online

  He’d missed her by minutes.

  The library was deserted, but the teapot was still warm. A Lucifer lamp flickered, and a fire burned low in the grate. A half-eaten biscuit rested on a plate. An abandoned fountain pen leaked ink onto a notebook page.

  Bracken frowned.

  Never before had Miss Brown revealed an inclination toward chaos. Tidy and meticulous with her grooming, her words and her work, the disarray spread before him spoke of a hastily abandoned project but gave no indication of where she might have gone. Not that it mattered. She would be back to set things straight, lest her supervisor discover her late-night foolishness.

  There would be time to break any bad habits later.

  Bracken stepped back, surveying the scene before him. It appeared Miss Brown had spent a cozy evening before the fireplace, reading an ancient manuscript while taking notes and sipping tea. Given the disordered piles of moldering, old books stacked upon nearby tables, she’d gone to some length to locate that singular, leather-bound volume.

  Keen to assess its value, he opened the cover and flipped through a few pages. And rolled his eyes. Old English. What possible use were such texts in a facility dedicated to advancing the medical sciences?

  Closing the book, he shoved it aside, turning his attention to a familiar brown notebook, curious as to what brought her to the Lister Institute on Christmas Eve. He’d seen Miss Brown and Lockwood passing it back and forth between them, conferring over its contents, scribbling notes, and generally acting as if it was a classified document.

  A tryst with the gardener would explain her absence.

  Steam gathered beneath his collar. He’d give her a chance to explain her whereabouts. Perhaps her actions had an innocent explanation. For her sake, he dearly hoped so.

  Nonetheless, such forays must stop. No wife of his would ever be caught traversing the streets of London alone in the dead of night.

  Not that her father had seemed particularly receptive to the idea of marrying off his daughter to prevent such antics.

  “The choice is hers.” Her sire’s voice had been gruff, rather than gracious.

  Not even the sight of an heirloom ring or the recitation of a generous marriage settlement inclined the man toward more solicitous behavior. At least, given the glimpse Bracken caught of a lesion beneath the old gasbag’s mask, there was little chance his soon-to-be father-in-law would exert a long-term influence upon his daughter. A happy thought.

  In a room conjured by an air bandit’s drunken fantasy, Bracken had prepared to press his suit, but their conversation was interrupted by the onslaught of far too many boys—all over-tired, loud and sticky. In hopes of speaking with Miss Brown herself, he’d allowed the collective lot to drag him upstairs to the parlor for the annual lighting of the Yule log, a quaint pagan tradition rarely observed in more enlightened communities.

  While there had at least been a tree, Miss Brown herself was pointedly absent.

  “A stomach complaint,” her sister apologized.

  “We’re not supposed to lie, Mama,” one of the older boys piped up, turning to Bracken. “I saw her leave from the window.”

  “Something about a book,” another boy added.

  “Now, now,” the child’s mother chided, flushed with embarrassment. “Our guest doesn’t need to be told such things.”

  But he did. A gentleman had a right to know everything about the woman he planned to marry, and this was a facet of her character which required closer examination. Leaving the house at night unattended was improper at best. A wife ought not exhibit such independence. Was it a trait that could be corrected? Or would he need to resort to stronger actions such as those which had been applied to the problem of Dr. Wilson?

  Taking his leave, he’d returned to the Lister Institute. He and Miss Brown needed to have a private conversation about their future.

  While he waited, he’d take the opportunity to inspect the contents of this notebook. Miss Brown and Lockwood were up to something. And he’d know precisely what before her return.

  Chapter Seven

  The wind had picked up since she’d arrived at Lister, and the cold had acquired a sharp bite, creeping beneath the cuffs of her sleeves and slipping around the hem of her skirts to nip at wrists and ankles. But the bright red muffler Ash had wound about her neck kept her warm in more ways than one. As did the excitement of a late-night excursion.

  More than one person’s head had turned, confusion and curiosity at the sickle in her hand making them blink and question their eyesight. She’d tipped her head up to catch Ash’s gaze and smiled, though it was very unladylike to enjoy such appreciative stares that set her pulse fluttering.

  They turned a corner, walking into a headwind that plucked and tore at her hat, ripping it free from its hat pin and sending it skittering down the street.

  “Oh!” she cried.

  Ash lunged on her behalf but was too late. The hat landed in a gutter. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind.” She slid her arm through his. She refused to mourn its loss. “Casualties are to be expected during important expeditions. It’ll feel more like an adventure with the wind blowing through my hair.” A few locks had torn loose, though not enough to diminish any appearance of respectability.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “So long as it’s the only casualty.”

  “It’s but a clockwork squirrel.” Yet her words held a forced confidence, and the look that crossed Ash’s face let doubt slip into her question. “How menacing can it be?”

  “Wait until you see the contraption.”

  “Is it known to attack people?” A frisson of unease wound itself about her chest, ready to squeeze tight.

  His lips twisted. “Not yet.”

  She frowned. “If the gypsies set the contraption to guard the tree, might they know something of the mistletoe’s healing properties that we do not?”

  “Entirely possible,” Ash replied. “Though the old woman, the gypsy healer Nadya who pointed us at the amatiflora, has disappeared. Her people will only say she’s ‘gone traveling’. Rather unfortunate. Our project could benefit from her expertise.”

  “Well,” Evie processed this new information, “I’ll not have you take any unnecessary risks.”

  If they needed to delay their strange harvest, they could return tomorrow with assistance. What mattered most was the safety of the man at her side who had stolen her heart. It was a rare man who would be willing to scale an oak tree on Christmas Eve as the midnight hour approached, all to chase down a rare ingredient suggested by an unknown healer from a tradition that lay centuries in the past.

  Perhaps even longer. Druids had passed along their knowledge via an oral tradition, and only a few Romans had recorded their practices—and that with an outsider’s eye. Her mind drifted back to Brea’s proposed treatment involving three of the sacred trees. The druids believed the oak tree sacred and used mistletoe to concoct an elixir—other ingredients unknown—that was thought to be a cure-all. Was it possible they’d stumbled onto some ancient wisdom? Aether, she hoped so. On its own, mistletoe could be poisonous if consumed in large enough quantities. But the ancient cure was only for topical usage.

  Her mood deflated at the thought of Papa floating away, perhaps never to return. During her childhood, every time he left on a long voyage, he’d made much of his last days on shore, dragging her, her sister and her mum about London, splurging on treats such as hair ribbons, new shoes, and ices at Gunther’s. Not until she was older had she realized why there was such sadness in her mother’s eyes whenever an airship was set to lift away.

  Yet Papa’s floating career had lifted them within society, providing their family with all the comforts they could want, save a cure for the lesion upon his face. If her years at Girton College, if her knowledge of Old English could save him, there was little she wouldn’t do to place this new chance for a cure in his hands.

  They hurried across a street, and the tops of Hyde Park’s trees came into view. Almos
t there. They weaved through a dwindling straggle of shoppers, past costermongers hawking the last of their wares, hoping to sell a few more meat pies, holly wreaths, oranges—

  “Nuts!” A young man with a tray suspended from his neck shouted. “Roasted chestnuts!”

  She tugged them to a halt. “Wait.” Evie pulled off her mitten and shoved her hand beneath her coat. Working the knot of her purse, she pulled out a coin and dropped it into his waiting palm.

  Ash’s eyebrows rose. “For the—er—squirrel?”

  If the peddler thought it odd that a young couple proposed to feed the city’s wildlife as the hour approached midnight, he gave no indication as he shoved a paper bag of hot chestnuts into her hands.

  “Potential ammunition to distract the creature. Besides, they smell so good. Mmm.” She breathed in the nutty scent, then plucked one free and offered it to Ash. “A shame to waste them all on a creature that doesn’t possess taste buds.”

  His lips parted, then caught at her fingers as she slipped the chestnut into his mouth, giving their tips a quick nip. A rush of heat rippled over her. Blazes, but he was good with his mouth. The moment they were back inside Lister, she intended to invite another one of his bone-melting kisses.

  Ash grinned, as if reading her mind, but gave none of his own thoughts away with his reply. “I thought you were operating under the assumption that the clockwork squirrel, having wound down on a holiday that few would observe with a jaunt into the park, would be frozen motionless?”

  “And rendered harmless,” she maintained. “After all, who would be out this night tending such a creature?”

  “Have you not heard that the Queen granted a small band of Romanichal gypsies permission to spend the winter in Kensington Gardens?”

  “She did?”

  He nodded. “In remembrance of the losses they suffered and to thank them for disclosing the nature and location of the amatiflora.”

  “That was kind.” It did, however, alter her perception of the likelihood of encountering an active clockwork contraption, a particularly well-developed talent within the gypsy community. If designed and built by the skilled Roma, they would do well to not underestimate the creature’s potential abilities. She tightened her grip upon both the scythe and the sack of chestnuts. “If Mengri is on duty, I’ll do my best to keep him occupied.”

  A hush fell over them as they crossed into the park and moved away from street traffic. Only a few people wandered in the park at this hour, their forms distant—and nonthreatening—shadows. Not that it would do to drop her guard.

  Gravel crunched beneath their boots. Wind whistled through bare branches. Birds rustled inside trimmed shrubbery. Wildness, carefully cultivated and controlled.

  A row of lampposts cast alternating patterns of light and dark as they followed the walkway leading to The Druid Oak. At last it rose before them, branches reaching into the midnight sky where a few leaves still clung heroically. At its base, peanut shells littered the ground, tossed there by those who’d visited the tree in search of an afternoon’s diversion.

  She stepped closer. A meshwork of tiny claw marks scarred the bark. Her stomach tightened. Proof that something with sharp toe-tips did indeed frequent this trunk. But why set a guard upon the tree? Who else in London would go through the trouble of harvesting mistletoe from an oak tree when so many bundles were easily purchased in shops or readily harvested from more accessible apple trees?

  “Mengri?” She clicked her tongue and tossed a chestnut into the branches. Thud. It bounced off a limb and dropped to the ground. “Are you there?” She threw another. Thunk. And another. Thwack. “See? No sharp-toothed clockwork creature to speak of.” The knot loosened in her stomach. Perhaps she’d been right. Its mechanisms had wound down, though her supposition was based on no more than a hunch and a prayer. Good. She hoped damp had seeped into the squirrel’s joints and frozen them solid.

  “Let’s hope so.” Ash shrugged off his coiled rope, unhooked a bioluminescent torch and shook it to life. He cast its light into the branches.

  Over thirty feet above them, suspended from a branch, hung a tangled ball of forked stems bearing leaves and white berries. Out of reach for most. Precious few Londoners had grown up in the countryside, and far fewer made a habit of climbing tall trees, especially into adulthood. None but adventurers, scientists and gardeners who trimmed trees for a landowner. A long ladder and a pole saw might manage it, but such maneuvering would be difficult in the dark of night. Climbing was quicker and easier.

  “There,” he pointed. “Do you see it?”

  Arms crossed and rubbing her shoulders against the rising cold, Evie tipped her head back. “I do.”

  Aether, he loved seeing his scarf wrapped about her neck. The warm, protective feeling it engendered went beyond wanting to peel it away, to kiss the soft skin of her neck, though it certainly included such thoughts.

  The sooner they retrieved the mistletoe, the sooner they could return to Lister… and visit his greenhouse where it was warm, snug and private. Where he might lead her down a garden path in hopes of more than a few kisses.

  “You want the whole thing?” He handed Evie the torch. The plant looked to have about three years of growth. If he gathered most, but not quite all, it would regenerate.

  She nodded. “I’d rather not return.”

  A sentiment with which he agreed.

  Wrapping the rope into a throwing bundle, Ash tossed the mass high into the air, over the second lowest branch some fifteen feet from the ground. He gave the climbing rope a sharp tug, pulling it taut into the crux between branch and trunk and tied it about his waist. He hooked the hand scythe to his belt, checked his harness, then clipped and knotted it to a second rope. Wrapping his fists about the rope, he gave a great yank and planted the soles of his boots against the bark. Hand over hand, he began to walk up the trunk of the tree.

  Below, Evie circled about the great oak’s base, her head cocked, listening for trouble.

  “Do we have a problem?” he called.

  “For a moment I thought I heard—”

  Clack.

  “That!” she called. “Did you—”

  Clack. Clack.

  “Yes.” He pulled harder and walked faster.

  Clack. Clack. Clack.

  “Ash!” Evie pointed the blue-white light of the torch into the branches. “It’s above you!”

  He saw the red eyes first. Two tiny glowing embers set in a silver face topped by two wire-tufted ears. Its teeth weren’t long, but they did look sharp. The bioluminescent light highlighted teethed-gears, pistoned legs, and a bottle-brush wire tail. Its maker, possessed of an odd humor, had fitted the clockwork creature with a tiny waistcoat, complete with miniature brass buttons. Added entertainment for those who made the pilgrimage to visit the tree?

  “I see him.” Tugging on the rope, he advanced two steps.

  Scratch. Scrabble. Scratch. On tiny needle toes, it scrambled off the branch and spiraled around the trunk, drawing eye level. Mengri opened his glinting metal mouth and began to make a strange, chiding noise that scraped along Ash’s nerves. “Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit.”

  “That’s a warning,” Evie called. “Be careful.”

  An annoying contraption. He resumed his assent. Once he reached a branch, he could swipe at the creature with the sickle, knock loose a few springs. How sturdy could it be?

  Over and over the clockwork squirrel screamed at him. Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit. Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit.

  It bunched up its jointed, metal body and sprang from the trunk, landing on Ash’s boot. The thick leather protected his ankles from Mengri’s sharp, needle-like toes, but this was no mere toy. Ash tried to kick it free, but the squirrel held tight, rearing back to sink its incisors through the wool of Ash’s trousers and deep into the skin of his leg.

  “Aaarrrh!” Ash dropped backward as pain loosened his grip on the rope.

  The squirrel leapt away. Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit.

  �
��Ash! Are you all right?”

  Not exactly. “I’m fine,” he called, yanking harder, climbing faster, wanting to reach that first branch before the next attack.

  “Mengri!” Evie called from beneath. Thunk. A chestnut hurled past into the branches.

  But the squirrel was not deterred. Not in the least. It attacked again, landing on Ash’s shoulder and sinking its teeth into his ear. “Ow!” Blood trickled down the side of his neck. He swatted the creature away. But it didn’t go far. It leapt onto Ash’s head. Sharp pinpricks of pain dug into his scalp.

  Thunk. Thunk. Chestnuts, now defensive missiles, flew past. But Evie’s aim was awful and the squirrel fast.

  Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit. The creature leapt away.

  Ash reached his branch and pulled himself onto it. Sitting some fifteen feet in the air, he tied a security line to another branch above his head. Falling from this height was unlikely to kill him, but it would do significant damage. He glanced upward at the ball of mistletoe. Taking a header from thirty feet would, however, ensure his death.

  “He.” Thunk. “Won’t.” Thunk. “Quit!” Thunk.

  Screech. Chit. Chit. Chit. Overhead, Mengri scurried along the branch and sank his gleaming teeth into Ash’s hand.

  Cursing, he yanked his arm away, teetering for a moment upon the thick limb.

  Determined. Destructive. And, should Ash lose his grip, quite possibly deadly.

  The higher he climbed, the narrower the branches would become, and Ash could not afford to battle a mechanical squirrel the whole way up.

  He unhooked the scythe and beckoned Mengri closer, prepared to slash at the clockwork demon. “Come here closer, rodent. I’d like nothing more at this moment than to remove your head, you evil little creature.”

  Ash swung the scythe, but missed.

  Mengri vaulted back to the trunk, screeching, a horrible, high-pitched tone. Soon Ash’s eardrums would begin to bleed.

  “Come down!” Evie called. “We’ll contact the botany department at Kew Gardens. They must know of another tree.”