Happy Holidays

The Saturnalia is our cue for a little holiday break: we'll be back after the first of the year with new adventures as we return to Paris and the alchemist Maggiormente and his Venetian lion Eduardo, as well as some new and potentially explosive adventures with propellants. We're happy to announce that the previous serial The Mangrove Legacy is now available at Amazon. Join Lizzie and Alice for their adventures with kidnappers, cheese, improving books, pirates, disguises and at least one improving book. Enjoy your holidays whether they include Hogmanay or the Epiphany or something else entirely.

5.9

"I bet the damn bird wants some brandy," Helen's father said with something approaching friendliness in his voice.

Helen rubbed the raven's chest feathers to reassure it, but Tuppence remained agitated. Her clicks and croaks demonstrated her displeasure as she ruffled her feathers repeatedly.

"What the devil is the matter with the bird?" Her father's words sounded more harsh than his voice. The brandy had certainly mellowed his mood.

"Papa, that's medicinal. I think you should save some of the brandy for an emergency."

He gaped at her. "If being consumed by a cloud of starlings isn't an emergency, I'd like to know what does qualify."

"Certainly fire or an explosion," Helen retorted.

"As long as we're clear on the issue." Her father harrumphed. "Here, give some brandy to that damned bird and calm her down."

"She doesn't need or want spirits, Papa. She's distressed about the starlings."

"As am I." He took another swig and stared down Helen's disapproval. "Wait, she's distressed in what way? She's not pitying those little blighters, is she?"

"No, Papa. She was in even more danger than we were."

"How so?"

Helen smoothed the shiny black feathers on Tuppence's head. "Have you never seen a flock of starlings go after a crow? They might well have turned on her, had they not been flummoxed by the unexpected meeting with the ship."

"So she pulled up sticks and legged it—or should I say, took wing—for her own safety. Pity she couldn't have warned us sooner."

"She tried, Papa." The raven croaked more quietly now.

"Well, what disaster shall we face next?" Helen's father at last put the brand away, but he seemed to have retained its cheery effects well enough.

"It depends upon the weather along the coast," Helen admitted. "However, I suspect that the rest of our journey may prove free of disasters and even drama.

"I see nothing but blue skies ahead," Romano added from his seat at the controls.

"I don't know that I would trust such an assessment," Helen's father said, but he lounged idly in his chair, seemingly unconcerned for the moment.

As predicted however, the remainder of the flight proved to be without incident. The day continued fine, clouding over once or twice but there was never so much as a drop of rain discernable. Even the winds were gentle and mostly helping to ease the ship's passage rather than fighting against it.

"I think I'd rather have a disaster," Rochester grumbled after awaking from an unexpected nap.

"Papa, don’t say that." Helen scribbled in her log book, trying to recall the important details of the murmuration, searching vainly for clues to its formation in hopes that they could avoid such an experience next time.

This is what it meant to be a pioneer, Helen reflected, paving the way and recording history as it unfolded. A sense of awe filled her. It was an awesome responsibility.

Her father interrupted her thoughts. "I am finding air travel to be rather tedious."

"Papa, can't you enjoy the landscape?"

He folded his arms. "When I look over the side of the gondola I start to feel dizzy."

"Well, don't look directly down, as that will happen. Look out across the way."

"There ought to be some kind of entertainment to while away the hours."

"We could try fitting a quartet into the gondola next time," Helen said, closing her log with a sigh.  "But I suspect we would find things a trifle crowded if we did so."

"I have a better plan."

His smile had a devious turn to it, so Helen assumed the worst. "Dare I ask?"

"I think sheep's or pig's bladders, filled with something noxious—"

"Aren't the original items already noxious enough?"

"You've never had haggis. Then we wait until we're passing over a small village and go low enough that we can bung them at the people passing below."

"Papa, I am doing my best to make air travel respectable."

"You’re no fun anymore," he said, laughing heartily.

5.8

 Helen looked quickly around the gondola but could see no sign of her raven. A pain stabbed her heart. She had had the bird since childhood, ever since she had found the fledgling had tumbled beneath the towers of the old house.

With Thompson, the head groom, they had been able to return the small heap of feathers to the nest high in the blackened ruins, but the bird had remembered the girl's kindness and often flew down near her as she gamboled among the fallen stones and timbers.

Over time, the friendship grew apace and Tuppence began to follow her around and finally all the way home. While she would often fly away for days at a time in her younger years, the raven always returned. Eventually, she would not part from Helen for more than an few hours. The two had an unusual bond.

Helen's father had named the creature whose croaking often seemed aimed at his grumbles. He didn't see why the bird should offer its two pennies to every conversation, but after the outburst, the name stuck and Helen became more curious about the bird's language.

The mood of her speech she found simple enough to parse. The raven's animated body language also contributed to her understanding. Helen learned to appreciate the different croaks and click, whistles and whatnot. Amusingly the bird had learned to make a noise uncannily like her father clearing his throat, which irked him more than anything.

Gradually she had discovered that Tuppence understood her better than she imagined, responding to questions and performing small tasks like finding her horse in the meadow and a good shelter for them both when they were caught out on the moors in a sudden gale.

"A hundred years ago," Helen's father found it amusing to claim, "They would have hanged you for a witch."

There were some in the town who regarded the pair of them with something approaching suspicion. It irked Helen who knew the close friendship between the two of them relied on careful observation and repetition of patterns.

All very scientific!

But this ought to have been an indication of the further path she followed. There were those who continued to think flying machines were unnatural, who considered the very idea of human flight to be some horrifying kind of hubris.

Encountering these reactions, Helen had often been inclined—uncharacteristically—to agree with her father that the world had more than its required share of ignorant and small-minded people.

Unlike her father, however, she generally thought that they could be won over. Helen's hope was that pioneers of flight like herself (and, grudgingly she thought, also the Lintons) would make the idea not only acceptable but popular and one day flying in a dirigible would be no more unusual than riding a horse.

In fact, it would be far superior as ships could carry a much greater number of passengers than any horse-drawn vehicle. The whole of the future could open up before them with new opportunities for travel around the world!

Of course they would have to sort out little things like flocks of birds sharing the airways, too. Surely that was the nature of exploration.

But where was Tuppence?

Signor Romano occupied himself with brushing the little bodies and feathers away from the console. "Everything seems to be in perfect working order, signorina."

"Excellent, excellent," Helen said teetering across the gondola as a gust of colder air jostled the ship. "Have you seen Tuppence?"

"No, signorina."

"Papa, I don't suppose—"

"One of the damn things is in my pocket!" Her father threw the offending creature out of his hand. They were all surprised to see the little black shape unfurl its wings and swoop out from under the curves of the ship and disappear in the wake of its colleagues.

"I hope to never see another starling." Her father harrumphed as if to put an end to the issue. He looked a bit shaken however, and Helen thought something bracing might help.

"There's some brandy in the medicine kit," she said and her father flung the cover back immediately and grabbed the bottle by the neck. "Papa!"

He ignored her protest and drank a swig from the bottle's neck. "Best thing."

"Papa, that's enough."

"You want some?"

"No, Papa. Signore?" Romano shook his head and continued to clean feathers from the dials. "Well, I can't imagine what has happened—"

A familiar croak reached the gondola and Helen turned with a smile. "Tuppence!" The raven sailed in and perched on Helen's chair, shaking itself and clicking loudly.

5.7

The cloud of starlings engulfed the airship. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands in the murmuration, darting through space, swooping and diving through the air, but they had not expected to meet such a large object in their path.

The three humans instinctively ducked and wrapped their arms around their heads. A cacophony filled their ears.

The wings were disturbing somehow as they brushed their hair and limbs. The eerie feeling of feathers whispered against them, sometimes augmented by the thump of small bodies as the birds misjudged the path.

The worst had to be the beaks. The tiny little beaks were pointy and hard. One seldom gave thought to the fate of the caterpillars and moths who met their grisly end between the starling's mandibles, but it must indeed be gruesome, Helen couldn't help thinking.

She attempted to make her way toward where she thought her father had been sitting. Her progress remained slow. It proved difficult to know for certain what direction she was heading.

"Papa!" she cried.

No sound came but the cacophony of the starlings. Helen continued with determination, one arm over her eyes to protect them, the other outstretched, feeling for something solid.

The horrible racket! Helen recalled watching the black pools of starlings pulsing overhead as she stared up from the moors as a child. They were rare inland, usually only seen in the warmest months. Helen had never imagined being in the centre of that maelstrom.

She took another step and thought she had just heard a promising sound through the unceasing din. Moving carefully she thrust her hand into the storm.

From everywhere, tiny beaks and feet scratched her skin and feathers ruffled against her clothes. There was something unsettling about it. Unintentionally Helen began to dredge up from her memory some lines about a starling.

Who had written the lines? A German composer, she seemed to recall. Was it Mozart perhaps?

Hier ruht ein lieber Narr,

Ein Vogel Staar…

As she staggered through the cloudy cacophony, Helen tried to remember how the rest of the poem went. Snatches of words bubbled up as she fought her way across the gondola, rhyming pairs but not their context. Todes bitter Schmerz, which she was quite certain rhymed with Herz but there was not much more welling up from the memory banks now.

Her distracting ruminations gave way when she caught a shouted and incoherent phrase that had to be her father's voice. "Papa!" she cried once more, struggling forward further.

All at once a hand gripped hers and pulled her toward him. Father and daughter embraced with relief.

"These devil birds will put us all in our graves!" He shouted even though their heads were very close together.

"They don't mean to do it, Papa. We're the interlopers here in the sky."

"Damnation! You didn't warn me there'd be such perilous effects."

Helen winced from a particularly sharp beak blow to her head. "Honestly, Papa, I had not anticipated this sort of quandary."

"You should have planned better," his voice rasped in her ear as he flailed one arm helpless against the horde.

"Papa, the odds of this kind of happening were miniscule—"

"So you did calculate the risks?"

Helen sighed and tried to ascertain whether it was just hope or if the sound of the murmuration were beginning to lessen. "At least now we have a new problem to solve based on actual experience."

"The problem could be solved by staying out of the sky!" her father barked.

She ignored him. "Listen! I think the worst of the flock has begun to pass."

The racket assaulting their ears continued, but it did seem to be growing somewhat less. Helen lifted her head from her father's chest and made a quick reconnoiter of the gondola. The swift black shapes continued to flit through, but it had become possible to see individual birds rather than just the black mass of bodies. A few unfortunates lay on the floor of the gondola. She hoped some of them were merely stunned from having run into the sides and the equipment.

Helen cocked her head anxiously, but the engine continued to hum on with blissful regularity. She sighed. That was a relief. But another though occurred that had her glancing quickly around the ship.

"Tuppence!"

5.6

The clear fresh air in the ascent invigorated Helen. She found a special thrill in lifting into the clouds. As the world fell away beneath them and the clouds drew closer, her heart swelled with an immense feeling of freedom.

"When do we eat?"

Her father's words jarred her from the pleasant reverie. "Papa, we've barely begun to ascend."

"My hunger is not dependent upon height."

Helen raised her eyebrow at him. "I merely meant that we have barely begun our journey, so if we eat now we will be eating food meant for later."

Her father huffed. "You have a conveniently ordered anatomy. I did not breakfast yet, so I want some food."

Tuppence croaked and flapped her wings. "Look, even your bird agrees with me."

Helen looked back and forth between the two of them. "I begin to suspect a conspiracy."

"A little nibble of something would not go amiss, signora," Romano called back from the controls.

Helen sighed. "Well, we have a variety of edibles in the hamper." She crossed over and flipped open the top of the wicker basket. "Cheese and bread all right with everyone?"

They enjoyed a simple meal as they passed over the moors toward the coast and the weather continued fair.

"We're lucky we don't have to sail over Whitby again," her father remarked as he threw a little bit of crust toward Tuppence who caught it in her beak and settled over on top of a crate to devour it.

"I'm sure it would be fine, Papa," Helen said.

"Are we stopping in Grimsby?" Her father pointed at her with a finger that had a little butter anointing its tip. "I have never gone to Grimsby but once and I found it full of Liverpudlians for some reason. I am not certain that is always the case."

"Papa, we need to get down to Dover tonight if at all possible."

"What about Hull?"

"Signorina," the pilot called from the front of the gondola. "What is that?"

Romano pointed toward the morning's skyline. Helen narrowed her eyes to look into the rising sun. A large cloud drifted in a rather strange manner ahead of them. Its movements puzzled her.

"I thought your bird said the day was clear," her father said with a clear note of triumph in his voice before he popped another bit of cheese into his mouth.

"It is clear," Helen muttered, her eyes fixed on the growing dark shape. There was something familiar about it.

Her father had finally turned his attention to the mystery before them. "Are we near one of the industrial centers? Are there mills here?"

"No, Papa."

The cloud grew darker and began to twist and revolve in the air. The shapes of it became almost mesmerizing, Helen thought, as they mutated against the pale blue of the early morning sky.

"Signorna, shall we descend?" The pilot's voice carried a note of alarm.

Helen considered for a moment. "No, let’s stay on course. Perhaps the cloud will go around us or we will simply pass through without harm. Surely it's—"

She cocked her head. An audible sound began to make its way toward them, melding with the hum of the airship's motor.

"I don't much like the look of this," her father said. He glared off into the distance as if he could will the cloud away.

The cloud suddenly spiraled into a funnel shape then swirled again to form an oblong. The feeling of familiarity grew in the back of Helen's mind but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was the growing sound that pricked her memory. The racket had begun to drown out the motor's murmur.

That was it! "It's a mumuration," Helen exalted.

"A what?" Her father and Signor Romano spoke in unison.

Helen laughed and opened her mouth to explain, but suddenly the cloud was upon them. The black shape exploded before them and they were engulfed by the dark masses of loudly chattering little beings.

"What the devil!" her father shouted as they were immersed in the murmuration.

5.5

"Buon giorno, signorina," Romano said cheerfully as Helen and her father climbed aboard.

"How's your arm?" Helen asked, frowning at the sling on her pilot's arm.

"This? This is nothing." Romano waved away her concern. "The physician, he wanted me to take precautions. It is well wrapped. I have little pain."

"And your head?"

The Italian raised his cap to show her the bandage wrapped around his head. "Nearly healed completely, signorina. No real damage." He grinned as he dropped the cap down once more. "My head is quite hard, like most of my country men."

Helen laughed. "I am relieved to hear it."

"Shall I tie myself in?" Helen's father interrupted their exchange as he lounged in the chair Helen had indicated.

Helen raised an eyebrow at him. "It's not strictly necessary. If we hit some turbulent weather, you may be more inclined to make use of it."

"Shall we ascend?" the pilot asked, seating himself at the controls.

Helen Looked around the gondola and nodded. "Yes, we're ready."

With a little bit of a shudder, the engine powered up and the flaps lifted, until the ship began to rise. Helen waved to the young groom, whose face bore a look of fear yet as Belial snorted in his face. Nonetheless the young man dutifully raised his hand in a farewell gesture.

A flurry of black feathers ruffled into the gondola. Helen's father cried out and waved his arms at the interloper.

"It's only Tuppence," Helen soothed.

"I wasn't scared," Rochester said gruffly.

"Of course not, papa."

Helen inclined her head toward the raven. "Any news?"

The black bird croaked and ruffled her wings, then stepped a few paces along the length of the trunk on which she had perched.

"Well, I suppose it's just as well that we're getting an early start," Helen said, nodding.

Her father exhaled noisily. "You can't claim that damn bird has anything intelligent to say." The two adversaries glared at one another.

"Papa, I rely completely on Tuppence's weather reports." Helen looked off to the west. "If she says there are storms coming in from the west, I know well enough to trust her advice."

Her father craned his head around as they rose higher into the grey sky. "I don't see anything."

The raven croaked again, but it sounded suspiciously like laughter. Helen smiled. "Of course not, it's a good way off yet."

Her father stared at the bird, who took his look as a challenge and hopped toward him, flexing her wings. "I don't like the way that bird looks at me."

"Look, Papa! There's mother waving, do see." Helen leaned over the side of the gondola, waving vigorously at her mother and Mrs. Hitchock who both stood in the garden looking up.

Her father gave over glaring at Tuppence to glance down at his home. "They look so very small." His voice sounded somewhat less sure than normal.

Helen looked over at his ravaged face and saw a hint of sadness there. He had not left Thornfield for some time. Despite his constant grousing, she couldn't help wondering if it were a bit difficult for him. "Look, Mother's smiling up at you. She's going to miss you so much."

Her words had the desired effect. His face transformed into its usual grumpiness. "Women, always trying to keep you tied to the hearth. About time I had some adventure." His eyes however betrayed a gentleness that belied his harsh words.

"We shall have wonderful adventures, Papa. And quite possibly make history."

"History?" Her father cocked an eyebrow at her. "History! You didn't say anything about making history. I'm not sure I want to be written down in some dusty old books."

Helen laughed. "Whether you wish it or no, Papa, you may find yourself in its midst, if our alchemist comes through with his discoveries."

"That mountebank?" Her father shook his head. "Damned unlikely I think."

"We shall see, Papa." Helen waved one final farewell and then turned to her pilot. "Let's get on to that horizon, signor!"

A Wee Holiday

Your humble narrator has become lost in the mists of Scotland but will return shortly...