By: Lillabeth B.
As Lady Hermione Everlark and
Madeline Hinny, daughter of the Crowned Tawny's cook, turned a corner,
they saw a gleaming silver spiral staircase that lead up to the ceiling, and to
a bronze trapdoor with a golden handle. "That leads up to the Observation Deck?"
Lady Everlark asked Maddie.
"That's right," the servant
girl responded in her trademark cockney accent. "It's right between your
room and the command center. But Hermy," she continued, grabbing the Lady
by the hand, "There's a strong wind up there. Be careful, okay?"
"Oh, Maddie," Hermione responded,
grasping Maddie's other hand with hers, "I'm always careful." And
with that, she released Ms. Hinny's hands, gathered her skirts in her palms,
and hurried toward the staircase.
As
she ascended the staircase, she transferred the skirt she held in her right
hand to her left, and grasped the iron handle with her now-free hand. She took
a deep breath and continued up the staircase, one step at a time, watching
Maddie become farther and farther away. At last she reached the trapdoor, and,
bracing herself, she pushed it open and walked through.
It
felt as though she had been hit by a two-ton bull. The wind slapped her cheeks,
pulled her hair, and pushed her against the frozen black steel railing. Then,
as suddenly as it started, it stopped. It was a most curious sensation; it was
as though the wind was just outside her reach, stinging her skin with the close
proximity, but no matter how far she stretched her arm, she couldn't reach it.
It was as if the wind had created a sort of bodysuit around her, though she
knew this wasn't possible.
"How
curious," she said to herself.
"You should see it from
here!" a voice yelled at her, and it was then that Hermy realized she
wasn't alone.
There
was a man on the other side of the Observation Deck. He was strapped into a
leather harness, which was in turn hooked onto the railing.
The man was tall, thin, and bony as a twig.
His chin was dotted with stubble and the few wisps of white hair that poked out
of his brown leather newsboy cap were tossed back and forth by the wind. A thin
smile decorated his face, and his small eyes crinkled with pleasure. He wore
tall black combat boots, black dress pants with several patches sewn onto them,
and a faded, worn dark blue Air Navy uniform jacket with so many badges and
awards sewn above his breast pocket that many overlapped.
"The
winds have accepted you, child," he said.
"You
are the captain of this grand, majestic vessel, I assume?" Lady Everlark
asked formally, curtseying low, though her hand still wrapped around the
railing, just to be safe.
The
captain waved it away. "Oh, cut the small talk. You're not built to be all
fancy-schmancy, and you know it."
This
gave Hermione pause. He was right, of course, and she'd known this all her
life, but even her father hadn't realized this. So how did the captain know?
"Your
mother was like you, a bird that longed to be free," he began, answering
her unspoken question. "Your father met her flying on this ship. She was a
wild, spirited beauty, our resident tinkerer and my apprentice. She stole his
heart, and he stole hers. They were two lovebirds ready to fly off."
"But
they didn't," Hermy said with dread, sure she could guess what happened
next. "Indeed. The Duke's a bit more of groundhog, really," the
captain responded, chuckling a little. "He wanted her to settle down in
his mansion, have kids, be ladylike and prim and, well, grounded." He
shook his head. "It was never going to happen."
"How
did she get away?" Hermione asked. The captain looked out at the sky.
"Now this, I don't know," he admitted. "One day she never came
back. I heard she was gone by word of mouth. Quite embarrassing for your
father, really, but at least he still had her beautiful daughter, Hermione
Harriet." He gave Hermy a meaningful look, then turned back to the sky.
The
Lady looked around too, and saw that the Observation Deck was actually quite
grand. It was round and about the size of her bedroom. The floor was light
birch hardwood, dusted with flakes of ice, and every other post of the railing
rose up to twice the captain's height, ending in a point. The black metal
gleamed in the light of dawn.
"The
crown of the Crowned Tawny," the captain joked, and Hermy walked
over to join him as easily as if she were on solid ground. She looked down and
saw the green and brown patchwork quilt of earth whizzing by, and getting
smaller and smaller by the second. "We're rising in altitude," he
told her. "There's a right speedy wind blowing up there, and we want to
catch it so as to get quickly to the palace.”
From
their perch, Hermione could see that the Observation Deck rested right on top
of the Tawny's head, and its ears poked up right to the left and right
of herself and the captain, perking up and curling as though it were alive. She
reached out to feel the ear closest to her, the one on the right, and as she
stroked it, the ear curled up and warmed. Hermy gasped.
"It's alive!" The captain
raised an eyebrow. "You're the first to discover that since your
mother!"
Hermy
suddenly remembered the painting in her room. "Speaking of my mother, did
you put that portrait of my mother in my bedroom?" The captain's eyes
widened a bit in surprise.
"How did you know it was your
mother?"
The daughter stared at the horizon.
"I'm not quite sure. I just felt it with a sense deeper than my bones.”
A
look of curiosity passed over Hermione's face. "I don't believe I ever
caught your name," she said. The captain let out a cackle.
"My dear Miss Everlark, I don't
believe I threw it!" And they both looked back out at the sky with smiles
on their faces.
Lady
Everlark didn't believe anyone could persuade her to leave. The sky was a light
blue, and the rising sun tinted the clouds pink. She could see the horizon, a
bluish-white line in the distance, and she felt as though the entire world was
spread about before her. With the sky reflected in her eyes and the wind in her
hair, she could sense a change within her, from lady to bird. Oddly, it didn't
worry or even surprise her. She wouldn't go back for the world.
As
she stared into the heavens, Hermy spied a large white bird, with
bronze-colored wings and a long white tail. "What sort of bird is
that?" she asked, pointing. "I didn't know birds flew at this
altitude." The captain stared at the bird with wide eyes, and a look of intense
worry crossed his face.
"They don't," he
whispered. "Hermione... They don't!"
The
bird flew behind a cloud, but though it was gone from their sight, it was not
gone from their minds. The captain was on a brainstorming rampage. "Birds
die at this altitude! They can't breathe! It must be genetically or
mechanically enhanced! Or maybe it's a mechanical bird disguised as a normal
one! Or a human disguised as a bird! Or a bird-human hybrid! Or maybe…"
But
the captain was unable to finish, for as they both stared at the sky, the
clouds parted before them like gates to a kingdom, and what they saw through
these gates would shape the future of humanity itself. A field of white fluff
spread out below them, and resting on it were small structures of white fluff,
with triangular roofs and walls rising up to meet them, built of small white
blocks. There was a little church with a steeple in the center of the little
town, and a little ways off light gray clouds formed and a little ways off from
that rose a wall of darker clouds; and beyond that, there was a great fortress
of storm clouds, with spires twirling through the blue, reaching for the sun.
Walking through houses, going about their daily business, were figures of white
fluff, doing their jobs in their city in the sky.
A
city of clouds.
What will Hermione and her friends find in
the city of clouds? Find out in chapter 4 of The Unexpected Radical Adventures of Lady Hermione Everlark and Her
Abnormally Small and Consistently Quirky Crew.
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