The Stranger from Yesterday

Chapter 9 of "A Shattering of Souls", book 4 of The Môrdreigiau Chronicles

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The story began in A Grail for Eidothea and continued with A River Trembles and A Sword for Wellington. It now concludes with A Shattering of Souls. New here? This is a Regency-set fantasy romance adventure with shapeshifting sea dragons, where our cast search for Arthurian treasures to save the world from ecological collapse. Save this post, go subscribe (you’ll get the first two seasons in an e-book) and then have a binge read of the rest. You deserve it.

A little reminder that sources will be listed in bold. There are dates included as well, as I have needed to go back and forth in time to pick up the threads of someone’s part in this story due to the fact that we have multiple journals in play this time around.

What happened last week: Odd things started occurring on the Acheron: lights failing, the rudder breaking. The non-Gifted crew think the ship is haunted. Dr. Corinne Pelletier used her healing gift on Luned to repair what everyone thinks is Luned’s disorder. Luned sees the sea creature again. Its red and gold scales are a big clue. The Acheron encountered a plague ship, that starts sinking while they are on board. We see Luned’s other gift (scrying human souls being the first) in action: she connects to other Gifted and shares that Gift energy with another.

From “Upon Our Seas, In Our Skies”:

Mr. Marsh’s mind gave Luned’s a rough nudge. “We’re done.”

She reeled, her grip on his shoulders loosening. She disengaged from his mind, and unwound the gift-energy braids, allowing them to return to their respective owners. With a groan, she opened her eyes, blinking at the glare of the sea’s surface through the porthole. “You did it.” She grinned at Marsh.

Her knees gave way. Captain Ballard caught her before she sprawled. She sagged against his solid chest, eyelids fluttering.

Dr. Pelletier scanned her with her glowing hands. “She spent too much of herself. She needs rest.“

The captain gathered up the limp lieutenant in his arms. “I will take her on deck. Mr. Marsh, can you see to the disposal of damaged cargo? I will be down shortly to deal with the hull breach.”

“I could take her, sir,” Mr. Steward offered.

“No need. I have her now.” The captain carried her out.

Once free of the close quarters of belowdecks, he lowered the lieutenant to lean against the mainmast.

“Captain?” The female lieutenant blinked up at his close, peering face.

He leaned back, resting on his heel. “Good, you are awake. Rest here. The next two weeks will be busy enough for all of us.” He rose, climbing down the steep stairs to the lower decks.

From Luned Murray’s Journal:

11^th February, 1819

We returned from our patrol, arriving in Aberystwyth. Dr. Cobham waited pier side.

I grimaced. Every one of us had been investigated by him, with his assistant Miss Hinchcliffe having the ability to read our minds and tell whether or not we spoke the truth.

“Miss Murray, you are on medical leave for the next week. Walk with me to my office.” An agreeable man, with grey lightening his brown hair, Dr. Cobham sent a sympathetic smile my way.

“A week!” exclaimed Captain Ballard. “We cannot be grounded for so long.”

“And you will not be. I am sure you can manage without her. Other crews lack one with her skills.”

I did not care to go, but I had no choice, not if I hoped to return to the Acheron.

We strolled to the end of the pier and through the narrow streets of Aberystwyth. “Hallucinations, lieutenant? Tell me about them.”

I glanced at him, biting my lower lip.

“You will tell me again tomorrow when we meet in my rooms. I merely wish to get a feel for what we are dealing with.”

“I think another Gifted somehow latched onto my abilities.”

“Interesting. What makes you so sure?”

“I did some research. Mr. Steward did also. The stories matched what I saw.” I relayed the folktale.

The doctor scratched at his beard. “And this has not happened before, or since?”

I hesitated too long.

“There was something.” Dr. Cobham missed nothing.

“On our last patrol, I saw a dragon in the water. I know there is no such thing. They are just stories meant to strike fear into green sailors.”

“What did he look like?”

“It could have been female?”

“Was it?”

I shrugged. “How would I know? It was long and slender, like a serpent. Covered in red scales and a lot of long scars. It had the head of a lion.” I had no idea of a lion’s true appearance but I had seen sketches.

We paused at an intersection. A large building overshadowed us. Three storeys high, its plain red brick facade belied the horrors to be found inside. It had become the Company’s centre for testing Gifteds.

Dr. Cobham sketched a bow. “I need to check in on a few of our new potential Gifteds. A room waits for you in the dormitory. I trust you will find your way to it.”

I blinked. “I am not confined to quarters?”

“Not yet. These visions of yours have not changed your core gift. You seek still to help and have not harmed another soul. Yet. Miss Hinchcliffe will collect you from your dorm around mid-morning tomorrow.” He crossed the street, disappearing into the company’s building.

I could not face the dormitories and all those memories. Not yet. I turned back toward the ocean. Tucked behind a fine row of townhouses, built in the previous century, the Company building towered over them. A steep descent to the beach lay beyond the houses.

I needed a clear head. Fresh air would help better than Dr. Cobham’s theories and medicines.

My boots slipped a little in the sand. My skirt hem dragged. I shook them free, holding them up until I completed my descent to the seashore.

The beach alternated with sand and small smooth black stones. It curved steeply down to the water. A wide berm of dark pebbles slanted at the high tide line. I tucked my coat and skirts under me as I sat on the stones. The daylight began to fade over the Irish Sea, casting golden ripples across the wave tops.

I really did not want to be re-examined. The idea of it set me shivering.

Steps crunched across the sand and stone. Trousered legs blocked my view. I looked up and squealed, falling back.

Instead of his face, a dragon’s head, red-scaled with black hair floated in the air. Just like the one I had seen at Dover Pier.

“Are you well, miss—?” Silhouetted by the sun, the dragon faded and a normal human head replaced it.

I sat up, slapping my hands free of sand. “Are you angling for an introduction, sir?”

He retreated a step, his booted foot sliding. “Not at all. A woman should not be alone like this.”

I tapped my badge, the letters ADC beneath a crown. “I can handle myself.”

His gaze swept over me. Uninvited, he sat beside me. I turned to glare at him, but my breath caught.

Perhaps the setting sun caused it, but his skin glowed like warmed gold. His kind, weary hazel-brown eyes held gold flecks. Small lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. His black hair had been pulled back into a short queue.

If my heart had not already been won by Julian Ballard, this gorgeous man could have been my undoing. As it was, I swallowed my interest and faced the sea, which for once, was a far safer prospect.

“When you saw me, what did you see?” He spoke in a calm matter of fact manner. He turned, catching my admiring gaze.

I schooled my features to blankness. “I do not know what you mean.”

“You saw something. You looked shocked…” His hazel eyes scoured my face. “Your eyes turned … golden.”

His hesitation relieved my fear. “Golden? Not from the sunset? My eyes are blue.” I squinted at him. “Have you a Gift?”

He regarded me with a gentle calm. “They were the colour of mine.”

I raised a brow. “Your eyes are brown, hazel at best.” To mention the flecks of gold meant revealing I enjoyed his visage.

“Ah yes, I forgot.” He blinked. His irises oscillated, spun, until they shone warm gold with flecks of brown.

I reared away, my hand sinking into the sand. “How—what—?”

He blinked again and the eyes returned to a normal brown. “I felt I could trust you with this secret.”

“You do not even know my name,” I protested.

His lips curved in an apologetic smile. “Lieutenant Luned Murray.” He spoke with utter confidence.

“Miss Murray.” I rose, hitching my skirts away from my booted feet and staggered back, putting distance between me and this stranger. “Who are you? How do you know me?”

He looked up from his seat on the beach. The light began to fail, a last brightness before twilight. He spoke in a soft, quiet voice. “What did you see, Luned Murray?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

He clasped hands around his knees. It had to be a calculated move to make himself as small and as harmless as possible. His broad shadows made that impossible.

And his hands. Long-fingered, they looked strong instead of delicate.

He uttered a light, dry cough, startling me out of my reverie. He smiled, gazing out at the waves, giving me time to recover my equilibrium. I appreciated that. “When you were young, did you live near the sea?”

I frowned at the odd question. “I lived by a lake.”

He sighed, his shoulders curling inward. “I see. Perhaps I was mistaken, Lieutenant Murray.”

“Miss,” I corrected. “The lake fed into the sea.”

He smiled, bringing light to his eyes. That was the fading sun, I told myself. Nothing strange about that at all. “I thought I had been mistaken again.”

He rose, dusting off his rear. He gazed out at the sea. “You will be told that what you see is not real, that you must learn the difference between vision and reality, but I am here to tell you that your visions are real and are glimpses into another world.” His smile grew strained. “I know this well.”

He turned and walked up the beach, toward the terraces.

I followed, out of necessity, for soon it would be too dark to see. “How do you know this?”

He kept walking, until we stood under a lit street lamp. The lamplighter crossed the street. “Lieutenant, you may be the answer I seek, but I don’t know if I can trust you yet. I don’t know how deep the Company has hooked you.”

“There is no other life for me.” I stared at him, at the way the street lamp cast odd shadows across his face. “Because of who I am.”

He drew closer. I held my ground. He searched me out by lamplight as I did him. “What if there is,” he quietly offered. “What if you did have a choice?”

My heart thundered. “I do?”

“You’ll have questions. You can ask them the next time.”

“There will be a next time?” I tried to recover my equilibrium. “I doubt it.”

He grinned. A quick flash and it was gone. “When you need answers, come and find me at the Crown.”

I nodded, not having the heart to tell him that once Dr. Cobham determined my ailment, I would either return to my ship, or be retrained. Failing those, my future meant incarceration an asylum for those with useless or dangerous gifts. If this strange man had another option for me, I could not see it.

A day of endless questions. Unable to dissemble, thanks to Miss Hinchcliffe’s presence, I spoke the truth, but answered the questions asked, no more.

Dr. Cobham set down his quill. “It seems possible this is a new gift, for you would have seen monsters or ghosts before now. You already have two, Miss Murray. A third is exceedingly rare.”

I shuddered. Not all survived the rigorous testing and training in the early days of the Company. By the time I’d been betrayed, their techniques had moderated somewhat. “Maybe it really was supernatural? Although others did not see him, there are stories about him.”

“Perhaps, perhaps. This evening, go to Penparcau with Miss Hinchcliffe. There’s a hill fort nearby and the area is rife with strange sightings. Report back to me tomorrow.”

In the darkest corner I could find, I sank into a chair at Crown Inn, setting down a tankard of warm beer. Some of it sloshed over the rim.

I buried my shaking hands into my lap. I had not seen anything strange that night but Miss Hinchcliffe had. I failed even to see a white mist, but offshore, the waters sparkled in the moonlight. They broke with a splash. I squinted, thinking it might be a dolphin, but the waters soon calmed.

That in itself had not scared me — I had seen the glow of red and gold weaving in a sinuous pattern beneath the waves. Miss Hinchcliffe gibbered about some headless dog and did not notice. She practically dragged me back into town and took to her bed.

Perhaps I had seen the sparkle of algae caught in the current, but the shape seemed far too specific.

I drank deeply, wiping my mouth with the back of my ungloved hand. I had dragons too much on my mind.

I just hoped that tomorrow Dr. Cobham would ask only about the the invisible dog and not anything else.

The stranger from yesterday settled into the chair next to me, mug in hand. “Bad day?” His fingers curled around the handle but he did not drink.

“Go away.” I gritted my teeth.

His fingers tapped against the pewter. “I would like to but there are some unsavoury sorts looking your way.”

“I can handle them.” I scanned the tavern, saw the usual leering wretches.

“I also said you could find me here when you were ready for answers.”

True enough. Plenty of drinking establishments existed in Aberystwyth, a port town. “You found me,” I pointed out.

He seem disinclined to move. After a brief silence, he said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I near snorted out beer from my nose. I wheezed, swallowing the acridity of my affronted nasal passages. “I have not, as it happens,” I told him. “Have you been following me?”

He leant back, the chair creaking.

His reticence gave me my answer. “You have,” I murmured, peering at him. “Who are you?”

He shifted forward, leaning close. “I am known as Thomas Wareham.” His shoulders hunched and he peered at me, his expression guarded.

I kept my tone light, although my insides tightened. “Known? That is not your real name?”

His gold-flecked hazel eyes regarded me. “That will do for now.”

I pushed back my chair. “No. It will not do, Mr. Wareham, or whoever you are.”

He reached forward, his hand resting on my forearm. “I don’t know if you’re ready to hear the truth.”

I shook off his hand. “I am about to lose my place in the only family I have ever known since—” I took a shuddering breath. “Whatever it is you are seeking, Mr. Whoever, I do not want to hear.”

“It’s about people’s gifts.” I almost missed hearing him speak over the raw sound of my chair shoving further back.

“I do not wish to join your religion or cult either.” I drained the last of my beer and stalked off.

12^th February, 1819

I told them I did not see the ghost. Miss Hinchcliffe confirmed it, but it does not resolve my sudden unreliability. I am allowed back to the Acheron, but my instincts, my gift, have been shackled by fear.

I wish I knew why I had seen sea serpents. Why the lights flickered onboard. What would happen to me if my senses could no longer be trusted?

Dr. Pelletier’s Ship’s Log has been updated. See how the Talavera crew fared.

Dr. Pelletier's Ship's Log

We have another new character today. Thoughts? Comments? Oh, and I did look up ghost stories in Aberystwyth! It seems there are more than a few! Share below or join the Chat!

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