The Delta Pearl — Refresh
Saturday, July 4, 2020
[image error]Composite of altered free images Unsplash & Wikipedia by Teagan R. Geneviene
Happy Independence Day to all my chuckaboos in the USA! Welcome back to the riverbank, everyone. In one way it’s hard to believe The Delta Pearl first left the docks on July 27, 2019 for this serialized rewrite of my novel. On the other hand, I feel it’s been part of my life forever.
Reader visits are usually markedly down during this weekend of the year. Plus, considering how many new “passengers” (that’d be you, my chuckaboos) have gotten aboard, along with where we are in the story… it’s time for a refresher before we get back on the river. I’m pointing you to some of the past episodes that play an important part in the new episode that I will post next weekend.
Here goes. All aboard!
[image error]Delta Pearl Composite of Pixaby images by Teagan R. Geneviene
We met Émeraude when she was a child, just before she became part of the Delta Pearl’s crew. Back then she was Emerald Perlezenn.
The first time I saw the Delta Pearl, I was eight years old. I wondered if the legends were true, because my grandfather died three days before. I asked Moma if Peepaw had seen the riverboat. Maybe seeing it had “marked him” like folks said. I didn’t see what was wrong with the question, but apparently something was. It made her so angry she threatened to give me an anointing.
Émeraude’s life was terrible before the Delta Pearl. After the prologue, the story picked up shortly before her sixteenth birthday.
Of course, I wanted an answer to my unspoken question ― just as I wanted to know his age and origins. However, the question to which I most wanted an answer about the Dealer was not the number of his years. What I wanted to know was whether or not he was in fact a man at all.
We greeted all the passengers, including Dr. Victor Elam, Randall and Eliza Needleman, and Benjamin Dundas. You’ve seen all of them recently.
The Harveys (who have thankfully been kicked off the riverboat) were also among the passengers. There was also a pair you may have forgotten — a young governess and her charge. You might want to remind yourself about them. There’s also a bit about the mysterious portrait in this chapter.
Then, of course, the events of Émeraude’s ill fated sixteenth birthday are directly related to next week’s chapter.
Summertime is busy, even during the “locked down” year of 2020. So, I’ll leave the most recent new chapter below, for anyone who may have missed it. Here’s a link to the one before that as well, Chapter 38 — Tangle.
All aboard!
The Delta Pearl
Chapter 39 — Rise
[image error]Pixabay image altered by Teagan R Geneviene
Shouting voices rose up from beneath me. I’m not sure if it was the voices that woke me or the pain in my shoulder and head. The world around me shifted and drew close.
Stars danced before my eyes. My ears rang like a ship’s bell. Although my head hurt, it was not as bad as my shoulder. I cried out when I moved it.
As my vision cleared, I looked upward ― it felt like I was rising. Light glinted dully from a gray metal ball. It drooped from a cord, to which it was attached. Several of them dangled above me.
“That’s what hit me,” I muttered as consciousness returned. “Lead weights. It’s a net! But where did it come from?” I exclaimed.
The weight that knocked me on the head must have been a glancing blow, else I would have been unconscious longer. I didn’t think I had been out more than a moment. I moved my shoulder gingerly. I dreaded to see the bruise that would soon be there.
Shouts intruded on my dazed thoughts. I looked down toward the voices. Regardless of how I came to be in the predicament, I was scooped inside a net. It was being drawn up to who knew where or what.
Already I was higher than Victor T. Elam could reach. I saw him on the ground, jumping, trying to grab hold of the net. It was mere inches beyond his grasp.
Jet Fischer stepped out of the library, summoned by the commotion. Shock painted his expression when he looked up toward me. His gaze seemed to travel up beyond me. From his different vantage point, I wondered if he saw something the others could not see.
The librarian ran back inside. A moment later he emerged carrying an odd shape by a strap. He hurried to the edge of the stairs, but he was farther away than anyone.
A bright flash hit my eyes, a reflection. Amid the chaos, I thought I glimpsed a pair of brass wings. However, the bright spot flew back toward the docks.
Onyx? I wondered, but the clockwork owl never traveled far from the Delta Pearl.
As suddenly as the bright wings appeared, the owl darted away. I heard the high-low-high emergency klaxon from the Delta Pearl, and knew that drew him. Any crew within hearing of that horn were to return to the riverboat immediately. My heart lurched. Not only was I trapped, but there was trouble aboard my home!
Then something tugged at my knotted mesh prison. I saw the handle of Eliza’s parasol hooked through the net. Unfortunately, the net still rose. In seconds Eliza dangled above the ground.
Victor wrapped his arms around Eliza’s legs, in effort to keep both of us from being pulled away. That caused my prison to lurch wildly.
[image error]Foggy River Bridge by Dan Antion 2016 (tomfoolery by Teagan R. Geneviene)
Randall Needleman had been on the curb, beside the Clarence carriage, ready to help his wife climb into it. If I had been captured a minute later, he and Eliza would both have been inside the coach. As it was, Randall was a step away from the horses when he saw the young inventor and his wife, both struggling to prevent the net from pulling me up into the sooty cloud.
Jet gave a shrill whistle as he waved the odd shape he carried. Randall turned toward the librarian. Jet pointed up at the brown cloud and then jiggled the thing he held. Randall nodded his understanding. Jet swung the object by its strap and then threw it hard. The roundish shape hurtled toward Needleman, who caught it with one hand. To my astonishment, he strapped it over his face.
A breathing apparatus? I remembered fireman who was a passenger, years before. He saved the life of a wealthy man who gifted him passage on the riverboat. The fireman told us that fire departments were using “Neally’s Smoke Excluding Mask.” He described how the mask had a small bag of water that was suspended by a neck strap. Connected to the water bag were two sponge filters that were kept wet when the bag was squeezed. Air was drawn through the filters to the mouthpiece in the face mask.
For an instant I wondered what they could be thinking. Then I realized that I squinted to see through the haze. The air around me was had gotten smutty. I coughed.
Acting quickly, Randall hopped onto the back of one of the horses. Standing there gave him enough height that he was able to launch himself from the horse and grab hold of the net.
“Let go, Eliza! It’s getting too high,” he called down to his wife.
I heard Eliza groan out the word “No!” as she fought to keep her grip on the parasol. However, with Victor’s weight pulling her down she was not able to hold onto it.
Yes, Eliza was several feet into the air. Although Victor, whose arms were around her knees, was not at a dangerous distance above the ground. When Eliza lost her hold, they both tumbled to the earth, unharmed.
Or that is, with the exception of Eliza’s broad feathered chapeau. It was dislodged when Victor grabbed onto her legs. The lovely hat floated safely to the ground just a moment before Victor and Eliza tumbled earthward. Victor landed squarely on the hat, and Eliza landed on him.
I coughed incessantly as I was drawn up closer to the noxious brown cloud. I remembered how sick the Captain had been after he went into such a cloud when it descended on the riverboat during my sweet sixteen party.
I choked off a scream when a monstrous face with two big eyes and a long snout popped up beside me. Then it laughed and I knew the voice. It was a gas mask.
“Lean back, Émeraude. Make sure I don’t nick you,” Randall instructed as he clutched the net with one hand.
He held a long switchblade in his other hand. The knife gleamed sharply. Randall began to slice the tough fibers of the mesh.
As Randal worked the blade to cut the net, I heard a clicking sound just above me.
“The scarab!” I whispered as the clockwork beetle scrabbled down the netting toward me.
The green scarab stopped to hide several inches above my head. It dropped a small papyrus scroll, which landed in the ruffles of my neckline. I tucked the scroll farther inside my gown so I wouldn’t lose it, just as Randall pushed his torso inside the net.
Randall saw that I held my shoulder protectively. He nodded as if he understood it was injured. He removed the freakish looking mask and put it over my face, quickly tightening the strap.
“Put your good arm around my neck,” he told me and then he put an arm around my waste.
Randall pressed a button, which retracted the knife. He quickly put it inside his waistcoat. He reached outside the net to retrieve the parasol.
“Don’t look down,” he warned.
[image error]Dan Antion’s River confluence photo, tomfoolery by Teagan R. Geneviene
Of course, that’s precisely what I did. I gasped seeing how high above the ground we were. We had also drifted out beside the river. There was no guarantee we would land in the water. From my vantagepoint, I thought we were almost as likely to plummet to the hard earth. Falling from such a height, even if we did hit the river, that would not be a gentle landing by any means.
“You’re as bad as my dear wife,” he said with a chuckle. “Didn’t I tell you not to look? Don’t worry. I’m a good swimmer,” he added, but his claim was small comfort.
An instant later Randall pulled me free of the net. Far below, I could see the shapes of people running in our direction.
Then we both fell.
***
End Chapter 39
***
Whether or not it is a holiday for you, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Everyone is welcome to leave a random “steam era” appropriate thing. Be well, be happy, my chuckaboos.
This serial is made possible in spite of (not because of) the deplorable lack of Internet service from TDS Telecom. They are even worse than the government about claiming no problem exists in the face of failure. TDS Telecom meets every complaint and service call by saying they find no problem. Their technicians come to my home and refuse to do any work or replace equipment, even when their offsite managers have instructed them to do so. They brought equipment that they openly state does not work properly. My letters, emails, and tweets go unanswered. Dear readers, please do not comment here in response to this paragraph. Just be aware of my awful experience with this so called provider.
T his is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 and 2020 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
All images are either the property of the author or provided by free sources, unless stated otherwise.
