Breath of Earth Read online

  “With a fantasy.”

  The reality: he would have smothered her in her cot.

  That cruelty had always been there. He hadn’t willingly slaughtered whole cities, but even so, there was poison in his blood. Was that same poison in her? She thought she could confront Mr. Thornton and make him talk. If Cy hadn’t been there—if Papa hadn’t bludgeoned him with his power—would she have gone through with it?

  “Did you . . .” Cy hesitated.

  “What?”

  “The question is a mite personal.”

  She had enough strength to raise her head to look over her shoulder at him. His face had been scrubbed clean but for soft red swirls on his forehead. “Cy. You’ve seen me in a wide variety of inappropriate situations this week. Ask.”

  “Did you feel any urge to do . . . to do what he asked?”

  Ingrid looked down at the smooth facets of the kermanite. She could see some of her reflection in its clarity—her skin smeared with red, as if with battle paint.

  “No,” she said softly. “Maybe I should have. Maybe it’d be better for the world if I killed myself. It’s selfish to live, when so many people can suffer because of it.”

  “I’ve questioned the same thing myself.” His fingers curled around hers. “Our minds are weapons, and so long as we have a choice—”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? If someone like Ambassador Blum gets hold of us, we have no choice.”

  “Miss Ingrid, if it comes down to that, the best choice might be to jump.” Cy’s voice was level. “But until then, we live.”

  The way he said her name made her shiver in a whole different way. “I . . . I’d like to clean up a little more. If I could.”

  “Can you sit up?”

  Ingrid did.

  He moistened a towel at the tap. Ingrid scrubbed her face and hair as best she could. It wasn’t a bath, but it felt wonderful to get that horrid stiffness off her skin.

  “Do you need anything else?” he asked.

  “A favor, if you could come down here.”

  Cy immediately dropped to his knees beside her. “Yes?”

  Ingrid grabbed his head with both hands and kissed him. There was nothing gentle about how their lips met. They pressed together, sloppy with passion. Off balance, she was suddenly reminded of how weak she was, and tipped forward. He caught her full body against his and cupped her waist with both hands.

  Cy kissed back. Oh goodness, did he kiss back. His lips massaged hers, his bristled skin scraping hers in a way that set her nerves pleasantly alight. Ingrid moaned. She wanted this. She wanted him. She wanted to know she was alive and he was alive and people they loved were still alive and that, by God, there was hope in the world.

  His hand worked up to cup her jaw and cheek. His callused fingers teased back an aggravating strand of hair. The heat deep in her pelvis had nothing to do with energy or earthquakes and everything to do with him.

  Cy came up for air, his breath rattling. “Kisses like that will make a gentleman forget himself.”

  “Sometimes, maybe it’s nice to forget,” she whispered.

  His lips quirked in a smile. “Maybe. But forgetting right now might be a bad thing, as we’re hovering.”

  “I suppose an airship crash would disrupt the moment.”

  “There’s also the fact you need time to recover. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m taking advantage.”

  Ingrid arched an eyebrow. “I see. So that’s how things will need to proceed.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Chivalry is good and fine, but it’s clear to me that when we’re on the ground and we’re not near death again, I need to take advantage of you.” She pressed a hand to his chest. It kept her from flopping over, but she also just plain wanted to place a hand there.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and he adjusted his glasses.

  “You were saying you need to pilot this craft before we crash and die?” she asked.

  “Oh. Yes. I should.” He eased himself back from her, slowly, giving her time to balance on the wall instead. The cockpit was about five feet away, just through a doorway. Sunlight reflected on the gauges. This airship was designed in a dark color scheme—cherrywood, steel, black matting on the floor—and stank of cigar smoke and blood. Ingrid crawled a few feet to see if she could get more water on her own, and through another doorway, she spied a hand draping to the floor.

  It was Miss Rossi. She was unconscious, her jaw slack and face bloody. Cy had her strapped down in a bunk, and not straps like a harness; no, he’d found a coil of bloodied rope and had her trussed up like a calf. The rope had likely restrained Papa in a similar fashion.

  “Ah. I see you found our other passenger.” Cy stood over Miss Rossi and Ingrid.

  “What are we going to do with her?” asked Ingrid. Dark possibilities danced through her mind and she forced them away.

  “See about getting her a doctor. Find out what she’ll say about these rebels and their plans. I imagine she’d rather talk to us than to an Ambassador.”

  “Maybe.” Ingrid stared at Miss Rossi and shook her head. “You know what’s funny? She did all of this to get a photograph of the Hidden One, and then she never even got to see it.”

  The Palmetto Bug was not moored in the churchyard. Cy circled the vicinity, frowning, while Ingrid huddled in the copilot’s seat. Miss Rossi was still unconscious. Ingrid had downed two imported digestive biscuits and more water, but she was still shaky. Her body had vacillated between healthy and deathly ill too much over the past day. After this, it was clear she couldn’t bounce back again. She needed to recover for a week, just as she would from a bout of influenza.

  They were on their fifth low pass over the church when Lee emerged from the trees. He motioned them to a field across the way, and Cy landed there. He did so gently, but the jolt still jarred through Ingrid’s aching body.

  “Stay here,” Cy said, a hand glancing her shoulder. The airship’s engines wound down with a piercingly high whine. She nodded. Pride was all well and good, but she had a strong hunch that any attempt to stand would end up with her drooling on the floor.

  “I was panicked when I saw this ship circling overhead!” Lee’s voice carried up through the open hatch. “I watched through the trees and finally saw you piloting. Where’s Ingrid?”

  “Here,” she managed to call, voice hoarse. Lee bounded down the hallway and launched himself against her in a brief, tight hug. Painful as it was, she didn’t rear back.

  “Christ. You’ve wasted away in the past hour.” Lee stepped away, frowning.

  Ingrid rubbed her arms, suddenly self-conscious. She looked at Cy, but his gaze escaped hers, slippery as a seal.

  “And that,” said Cy, “goes on the list of things you should never, ever say to a lady under any circumstances.”

  Lee looked abashed. “I was just surprised, that’s all. But you’re both alive, and less bloody. What happened? I was going to head to the chasm, but Fenris said it went against my role as a hostage.”

  “Where’s our airship?” asked Cy.

  “There’s a mechanic down the road. Some farm boys came over and hauled the airship down there. Fenris is doing the repairs in their barn. It doesn’t involve deflating, so he says we should be ready to go in an hour. Which is good because the mechanic isn’t happy about how Fenris has taken over the place.”

  “No. Fenris doesn’t readily make friends.” Cy cringed. “Ingrid, what did you tell the officers at that police station about the attack plans you overheard?”

  “That something was set to happen at dawn at Mussel Rock, caused by Thuggees. They didn’t listen. They were all too eager to blame Mr. Sakaguchi.”

  “Maybe the A-and-A did listen. They could have done a flyover. Or they might follow up on leads on local Thuggees. They might know to look for this ship.” He glanced around the control car. “We need to clean out the craft as best we can, squeeze their valuables into the Bug. We might find out more about their
plot. There’s additional empty kermanite, too. We can sell off some energized crystals in the next port.”

  “Like pirates,” murmured Ingrid.

  “Yes, like pirates.” Cy didn’t say that unkindly. “I’m sorry, Miss Ingrid, but from now on, you’re living beneath the law. Lee, does that mechanic have room to keep this airship undercover?”

  Lee nodded. Even with his face bruised, he looked so strangely normal in contrast to them; he looked like he did every day when he sauntered into Mr. Sakaguchi’s study—his white button-up shirt partially untucked, his too-big beige trousers puffing out where they tucked into his boots. He even had a new yellow patch on his arm. “There’s another empty barn I happened to see.”

  “Good. Maybe this local repairman’ll be the sort who’ll accept the donation of an almost new ground lander for scavenging, and stay quiet about us for at least a few hours more. We’ve already drawn too much attention here, and that crack in the earth will get people talking, even if the Hidden One is hiding again.”

  “What about Mr. Thornton?” she asked.

  “I took care of him.”

  Ingrid was rather in awe of how casual he was about all of this.

  “Thornton.” Lee shook his head in disbelief as he turned toward the hall. “Tell me all the details later. I’ll run back and tell Fenris you’re coming over and—”

  “That’s the last thing you’ll do,” said Cy.

  He stopped in the doorway. “What?”

  “Lee, I know you’ve been beaten and abused in San Francisco, where they’re actually accustomed to the sight of your eyes and skin. You’re the enemy, essentially enslaved, but you’re useful there. That’s not so elsewhere.” Cy frowned as his fingers tapped on the wooden chair arm.

  “The Chinese were fleeing Chinatown,” Ingrid whispered.

  “What about them?” asked Lee.

  “You said the big tongs were leaving a few days ago. Mr. Thornton worked in Chinatown. He used Chinese explosives in the auxiliary. I bet he hinted to the tongs that something was going to happen. If your smaller tong noticed others leaving, other people did, too.”

  Cy’s mouth tightened. “He set them up to take the blame for the auxiliary explosion, and for the earthquake, too. They look guilty because they knew to leave.”

  “The bastard framed us.” Lee’s bruises flushed with anger. “But most of Chinatown didn’t know. Most of them stayed. I saw when we flew over. It burned. All of it burned.” He looked away, too overcome to speak.

  San Francisco had wanted to be rid of Chinatown for years; wish granted. Ingrid blinked rapidly to hold back tears. It was likely that any remaining Chinese enclaves in America would be attacked in retribution.

  “Lee,” she whispered. “Where was your uncle going?”

  “I was supposed to go with them, so I don’t know exactly. They . . . don’t like to tell me much. I worked with a Japanese warden, after all. North is my guess. Portland, Seattle, Vancouver.”

  All places that were seismically active, where Ingrid could siphon more energy and cause more damage, too. It was a risk they had to take.

  Cy nodded to Ingrid. “Same way we’d head if we want to find Mr. Roosevelt.”

  “Wait. Mr. Roosevelt? But—he’s an Ambassador, even if he was Mr. Sakaguchi’s friend. Can we trust him?”

  “Does he know who you are?” Ingrid asked.

  “It’s . . . been implied. He’s seen me. Asked about me. But it’s never been stated outright.”

  “Plausible deniability,” muttered Cy.

  Ingrid pressed a hand to her cheek. “Mr. Sakaguchi said to go to Mr. Roosevelt, but now . . . I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. If I was just risking myself, that’d be bad enough. Cy, Roosevelt thinks soldiering is the highest calling besides being an angel for God Almighty. If he knew you were a deserter—”

  “All of us have chips down.” His expression was resolute. “Our one certainty is we need to skedaddle from here. If you don’t mind, Lee, kindly close up the hatch. We’ll fly right to this machinist and get this craft undercover.” Cy adjusted some toggles. Engine noise rumbled through the floor. Lee closed the door with a loud clang.

  “After that?” Ingrid asked, softening her voice so she barely heard herself above the noise. She rested a hand on Cy’s knuckles. He stared down at it, suddenly reluctant to meet her eyes. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if he had heard her.

  “Fenris’ll fix up the Bug right as rain and we’ll fly out. We need to stop in a sizable port, very soon, and get Miss Rossi to a doctor. After that . . .” Cy’s brown eyes met hers. There was heat in his gaze, the sort of heat she wanted more of.

  She nodded and stroked the soft skin of his hand. “We’ll see what we find in the north?”

  He nodded. “We’ll see.”

  The airship lifted off with a lurch and a roar. The view panned over a valley still tinted in faint blue. Beyond that, horrible black smoke smothered the southern sky.

  The craft rotated until it faced north, and away. Verdant hills rolled down to the pristine flatness of Tomales Bay. It looked so beautiful and perfect, and so wrong after everything else she’d seen that day. Ingrid breathed in the lingering stench of smoke and blood and closed her eyes.

  For the first time in her life, she didn’t crave a connection with the earth below.

  Author’s Note

  The world of Breath of Earth, grim as it is, has basis in historical truth.

  Japan’s actions in World War II are well documented, and their motivations for those atrocities stretch back well over a century. Sato Nobuhiro, who died in 1850, called for Japan to form a “world empire.” “The ignorant masses of this corrupt age, having been informed of the vastness of China and India on the one hand, while seeing on the other the smallness of their heavenly land [Japan] and the weakness of its power, have been convulsed with laughter when they heard my arguments for unification of the world, telling me that I lack a sense of proportion. They have no awareness that heaven has ordained our country to command all nations.”

  As a native Californian, I knew that Chinese immigrants were treated poorly, but it was a subject largely ignored in school textbooks and in local histories. My research for this series has forced me to confront the racist history of my state—even my hometown of Hanford—in a direct way.

  Chinese laborers, who first ventured to California as part of the Gold Rush, came to be regarded as heathen pests who stole Americans jobs. In the 1890s, Chinese really were forced to carry photo identification cards as part of the Geary Act. The Chinese fought against it in the courts, calling it the “Dog Tag Law.” Throughout the western United States, they were subject to harassment, abuse, and outright murder. Justice was not served. The epithets used in Breath of Earth are genuine and horrid.

  I incorporated many details of the actual San Francisco earthquake on April 18, 1906. Enrico Caruso famously sang in the opera Carmen the night before the disaster. Cattle really did rampage through the streets in the aftermath of the quake. Mussel Rock is near the epicenter and Olema is where an incredible chasm opened in the earth. The true number of dead from the earthquake and fire will never be known, as the authorities who released the figures after the fact severely downplayed the scope of the disaster.

  Other historical elements are altered significantly. Emperor Qixiang may be better known as the Tongzhi Emperor, the name given to him after his death in 1875. There was no declaration of equality between the Manchu and Han peoples. The Qing Dynasty is remembered as ruthless, corrupt, and extravagant. During the nineteenth century alone, tens of millions of people were estimated to have died as a result of rebellions within China.

  One of the signature elements of Manchu rule is the queue style of haircut, also called the bing, which is presented in Breath of Earth as a sign of rebellion. In reality, it was a mandatory sign of loyalty to the Manchu Dynasty, and a man’s failure to wear a bing was cause for execution.

  Some historical and cultural chan
ges in Breath of Earth are deliberate. Others are the result of ignorance; I humbly beg your apology for any inaccuracies and omissions.

  Research for this series is an ongoing process. I have used many online resources, as well as these books:

  San Francisco Around 1906

  Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 by Dan Kurzman

  1906: A Novel by James Dalessandro

  McTeague: A Story of San Francisco by Frank Norris

  The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase

  Early Twentieth-Century America (General)

  Sears Roebuck and Co. Fall 1900 Catalog (reproduction)

  How to Shoot a Revolver: A Simple and Easy Method for Becoming an Expert Revolver Shot by Colonel William Preble Hall (with thanks to Walter P. and Donna for the gift!)

  Earthquakes and Things That Go Boom

  Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester

  A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 by Simon Winchester

  Legends of the Earth: Their Geologic Origins by Dorothy B. Vitaliano

  China, Its Mythology, and Chinese in America

  Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans by Jean Pfaelzer

  Swallowing Clouds: Two Millennia of Chinese Tradition, Folklore, and History Hidden in the Language of Food by A. Zee

  Boxers & Saints by Gene Luen Yang

  Samfow: The San Joaquin Chinese Legacy by Sylvia Sun Minnick

  Hatchet Men: The Story of the Tong Wars in San Francisco’s Chinatown by Richard H. Dillon

  Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Lihui Yang and Deming An with Jessica Anderson Turner

  Sweet Cakes, Long Journey: The Chinatowns of Portland, Oregon by Marie Rose Wong

  In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China by Michael Meyer

  The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China by Caleb Carr

  The Art of War by Sun Tzu

  Japan and Its Mythology