The Twisting (11 page)

chapter tWELVE

Even with Mr. Shearing
dragging her forward, Annmar slowed in the thick magical barrier. Then her hand fell free of the sticky sensation. Thinning air traveled along the arm he held.

What did she need to do?
Because your home is here, within Wellspring’s fences, you’re protected,
Mary Clare had said.

Her face broke through. “I don’t want to leave,” she blurted, and the sensation of something snapping into place around her sounded with a
pop.
Annmar jolted to a stop.

Mr. Shearing walked on, his pull bending her double. “Come along now,” he spat. “You’ll love the possibilities of this power. More money and opportunity simply fall into your lap. We’ll make a splendid team, with the shop for you, exclusive advertising for me. And on the side, trials runs to get your engine running smoothly—”

“Don’t see any engines around here, mister.”

Daeryn. Annmar’s gaze jerked up, and as Mr. Shearing also pivoted, Daeryn darted past them and stepped in close behind the panting Mr. Shearing.
Thank heavens.

Scarlet spread across Mr. Shearing’s surprised face.

“Kindly release the lady,” Daeryn drawled, his face darkening to the same brown of his hair…which was now decidedly shorter. Fur length.

Mr. Shearing’s grasp fell away. Her body wanted to fling itself to Daeryn’s side, but she settled for stepping back, with room to spare, onto Mistress Gere’s land.

Mr. Shearing’s features shifted to annoyed, his jaw set. Then Daeryn prodded the businessman’s back with something, and he stilled.

“Right, that’s what you feel, a new development in Basin weapons.” Daeryn’s voice held a steely edge. “Now let’s take a little walk.”

Daeryn had a stunner against Mr. Shearing’s back. Annmar pressed her lips tight, willing her hands to stay at her sides, rather than clutch her belly while she stared into Mr. Shearing’s eyes.

“The offer still stands,” he hissed.

Behind him, Daeryn’s eyes narrowed to mere slits while his face flipped between polecat brown and livid red. The shoulders of Mr. Shearing’s suit lifted with the nose of the stunner. “So does mine.”

Mr. Shearing moved several feet beyond the pillars, with Daeryn following, then he stopped and looked back at her. “I’m catching the afternoon train. Come with me. Make tonight your new start in life.”

“I have a new start in life. Here.” Annmar’s hand flew to her mouth. Had she said that?

Daeryn’s eyes widened, and Mr. Shearing looked back at the farm. She did the same. The old farmhouse stood proudly, but with missing slates across the roof. The rutted gravel drive would never be smooth and the whitewashed bunkhouse needed a coat of paint. In the farmhouse yard, a few chickens scratched and murmured, the faint smell of them drifting on the breeze.

Mr. Shearing snorted. “You can’t be serious.”

All it took was someone else’s doubt, and Annmar knew for certain. She didn’t want to go back to Derby. Mother was dead. Her job with Mrs. Rennet was stifling. The growing borough was dirty, with stale air and noisy machines. The drafting shop…the shop was just as Polly had said, mother’s dream, not hers. She’d lived Mother’s dream of a life in Derby, but that had ended. And whatever caused Mother to flee from Blighted Basin had to be long gone. Annmar was a different person, her own person.

She slapped her hands to her hips, ready to give Mr. Shearing that piece of her mind in the edged voice Polly had coached her to use. Before she could, a woman in a gray dress ran along the orchard trees at the fence line. Patrice! Over the branches swooped a large brown bird. It tucked its rounded wings and dived straight for them. Mr. Shearing ducked, but Daeryn nodded to the bird that cried like a cat, so Annmar stood her ground. She crossed her arms and lifted her chin when saying, “I
am
serious. This is my home.”

The bird flew on, and Daeryn cast her a look of approval before butting the nose of the stunner to Mr. Shearing’s linen coat. “Listen to the lady. She knows what she wants.” His shoulders rode high and tight, telling her how nervous he was to be holding the pseudo firearm.

Yet he was determined. Daeryn marched Mr. Shearing toward town more briskly than she’d ever witnessed the businessman move.

Annmar plunged into motion, skirting toward the farmhouse inside the split-rail boundary fence running parallel to the kitchen. A sudden urge to giggle overcame her, then turned to a half sob. She dashed the backs of her hands to her cheeks. She’d accepted the protection of Mistress Gere’s barrier just in time to avoid being carried off a second time. Had the farm owner’s Knack prevented Paet from taking her? What would have happened if she hadn’t been at the farm? A kick to a man’s weak area might have loosened his hold enough for her to find help. She would have fought Mr. Shearing with all she had, little that it was. Jac had said she fought like a girl. She’d never match Jac’s strength, but surely the wolf girl had other techniques to suggest.

“My precious child!” a woman called.

Annmar whirled. Patrice beckoned from the branches of the nearest orchard tree. She ran into the tree nymph’s arms, and when Patrice hugged her, limb-tips caressed Annmar’s shoulders.

“There, there,” Patrice murmured, her voice a rustle of leaves. “You’re safe.”

After a moment, she held Annmar at arm’s length. Instead of the willowy woman, a robust one studied her. She billowed, not because of a breeze, but within herself, and her body seemed to swell. Patrice’s dress swirled out into a cloak of camouflaging leaves around the two of them, and she wrapped Annmar with a firm limb and drew her farther into the trees.

“You dear girl! An assailant on top of what you suffered. I’ve felt most poorly that I didn’t hear your cries that night and come to your aid. But you are unhurt, my friend?”

Annmar nodded.

“Good, you are strong. You’re thriving here. The right nutrients, clean water, fresh air. Such a difference from that confused sapling who appeared on our hill just a quarter moon ago.”

Annmar looked at her in surprise. Patrice had been watching her then?

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Patrice laughed, a sound as light as a breeze. “I feel it in my roots. This is good ground for you. Your system is responding, awakening. Do you not feel it?” She stroked a circle at Annmar’s collarbone and pressed while staring deep into her eyes.

Annmar’s gaze locked on to the tree woman’s dark red irises, the color of peach pits. In their depths, a network of cerulean blue threads rose. Suddenly, a warm sensation erupted beneath Patrice’s steady pressure. Exciting and comforting, the feeling sparked to Annmar’s fingertips, her toes, the tips of her ears. Not only did she feel it, Annmar
saw
the blue luminated within her.

“You do,” Patrice murmured. “Your awareness is growing. Your body is coming alive. Let it. Take your time. Do not rush your enjoyment of getting to know yourself. The bud of your talent is only opening.”

She lifted her hand, breaking the trance with a light pat, and pulled Annmar close. “You have much to learn as you grow into yourself, my human friend.”

Leaning into the woman, Annmar touched her fingertips to the spot below her left collarbone and stretched her mind back to regain the place inside her. This was like a starter switch for her Knack, what the jam and other special Wellspring foods did, only inside herself. And now, if she reached—

Screech!

Annmar’s eyelids flew open. There, above the branches, circled the brown bird with its wings tilted in a shallow V.

Patrice laughed. “Our friends search for you.”

“But I don’t know—oh.” The bird of prey’s hooked beak flickered with the face of the quiet black man often with Wyatt and Famil. “Gunther. One of the day guards.”

“The buzzard has good eyes.” Patrice gestured down the hill to where Rivley ran back and forth between trees, then she lifted the folds of her dress from Annmar.

They stood deep within the orchard grove, Annmar huddled up against the trunk of a tree. The breeze picked at her loose hair as Patrice kissed each of her cheeks. “I will leave you to their watch.” She backed away.

“Thank you,” Annmar whispered. Patrice dissolved into a weave of branches, and Annmar turned to the pounding feet.

Rivley spotted her and dashed up. “I ran to help before Gunther completely got out what was happening,” he said. “Daeryn and the machinery man…fought?”

“Not exactly, but Daeryn is escorting him into town.”

“Congenially?”

“Uh, with the stunner.”

Rivley’s face paled under his freckles. “No. Mistress Gere—the fool!”

He pivoted to go, but Annmar lunged and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Rivley, no, he’s not. It’s because Mr. Shearing made unwelcome advances to me…and tried to make me leave with him.”

“Mr.—you mean Mr. Shining?” He stared down at her, his amber eyes the only feature that remained steady—to her—while his face twitched between feathers and skin. “Are you saying you’ve been attacked again? By this Shining fellow?” He waved his hand. “What does he want with you? Who is he?”

A laugh hiccupped from her. So Mr. Shearing had a different name to go with his different clothing in Blighted Basin.

He tentatively reached a hand to her shoulder. “Do you need to sit down?”

No. She was strong, like Patrice had said, and no longer confused about her place. She knew what she wanted—for her work, for her home and for her person, right down to the detail of whose chest she’d rather seek consolation against.

She drew a breath and smiled at Rivley. “He was a client I did advertising work for in Derby. In fact, I believe he hired the ropens to kidnap me.” She pointed to the back of her own hand. “Mr. Shearing has a scar like the man in the carriage that night. Today, he was most reluctant to leave without me, but I didn’t want to go, so Mistress Gere’s barrier protected me. Then Daeryn arrived to escort Mr. Shearing away.”

Rivley cocked a brow. “Yesss,” he said with a hint of deep-throated hissing.

Oh, no. Had he sensed there was more? Annmar met his gaze with purposefulness. Rivley dropped his hand from her arm and moved it to rub his left shoulder in a contemplative way. After a moment, he nodded. He took her elbow and guided her among the low tree limbs. Once in the farmyard, she couldn’t help peering back beyond the gate pillars, willing Daeryn to reappear on the road to town.

Rivley said, “Daeryn might be hatching a nest of trouble, running Mistress Gere’s supplier off before the machines are delivered.”

Annmar’s hand flew to her mouth. “She bought machines from Shearing Enterprises?”

Rivley frowned. “You mean Shining Farm Implements.”

Chapter THIRTEEN

Annmar’s stomach roiled.
Was what Rivley said true? Wellspring was buying from Mr. Shearing? No matter what name he was using, the news hit her worse than when the man himself had touched her.

“You know him as someone different?” asked Rivley.

“Mr. Shearing is an agricultural magnate. Shearing Enterprises is the largest manufacturer of farm machinery in Derbyshire. He’s taken over managing operations on all the small farms around Derby and has his sights on every acre of land north to the Peaks District.” And now Mr. Shearing was in Blighted Basin. She hoped Mistress Gere hadn’t taken a
loan
. A shiver coursed Annmar’s spine. “Where is Mistress Gere?”

Rivley jerked his head toward Wellspring’s lower storage sheds, down a gentle slope. “She interrupted some machinery oiling Master Brightwell and I were doing to tell about her meeting with Mister Whatever He Calls Himself.”

Annmar started down the hill.

Rivley fell into step beside her, saying, “I think she should hear everything you know about this man and how he tried to make you leave with him.”

Oh, no, not
everything
. Annmar stopped, looking back at the house. Mistress Gere had to know the truth before she became entangled in the Shearing Enterprises net, but Annmar didn’t want to reveal her personal problems to her new employer or co-workers. Hopefully, Daeryn would keep what he’d seen secret until she talked to him. “Can you tell her I’d like to speak with her? I’ll wait in the kitchen with Mary Clare.”

“Mary Clare is in town.” Rivley averted his gaze and in a flat tone said, “Her day off. She didn’t tell you?”

Mary Clare must have gone home with her mother. Annmar started to ask Rivley why, but something about the set of his jaw made her change her mind.

“Dae would kill me if I let you out of my sight. Come along. He’ll find you soon enough.” Rivley gestured her forward, but she didn’t move.

“Mistress Gere needs to know about Shearing Enterprises’ business practices, but I should like to tell her about my…issues with Mr. Shearing in my own time. Now that I understand how to remain protected inside Wellspring’s barriers, I’ll be fine.”
Dash it all.
Staying within the property boundaries meant Mr. Shearing had made her a prisoner here.

No, he wouldn’t. She’d find some other way to—

“Are you all right?” Rivley asked.

All this could be managed—even going about the Basin—with a little thought and time. She would do this. “Yes,” she said firmly.

“Very well. Keep the personal parts for later,” Rivley said, “as long as Wellspring stays out of trouble.”

If Mistress Gere had signed with Mr. Shearing’s Shining Farm Implements, Wellspring might be lost already. They walked to the far side of the last whitewashed building, where Rivley took her elbow again. He steadied her while they skirted some discarded engine parts and rounded the corner of a shed.

“Back here is where we store the—”

“Harvester,” they said simultaneously. Their gazes met, Rivley’s every bit as surprised as hers probably was.

Annmar nodded to the enormous machine parked between the buildings. “Don’t tell me Master Brightwell is the inventor of the Hopeless Harvester.”

With a frown, Rivley glanced toward the elderly man, who was deep in conversation not ten yards away with a group including Mistress Gere, Mr. Hortens and a handful of growers. Rivley stopped and in an undertone hissed, “The
All-Sorts
Harvester works just fine. Won last year’s
Innovator Guild’s Mastermind Award. Those Outsiders don’t know machinery.”

A nervous laugh erupted from her, half from what she’d just weathered with one of those inventors, half from Rivley’s uncharacteristic shortness. “And Derbyshire mechanics say the same about engines over the rest of England. The breakdown of those Harvesters was the talk of the borough last fall.”

“It was bad luck all three sold to incompetent operators.”

Annmar crossed her arms. “Those farmers were trying to support a business besides Shearing Enterprises. It failed. A pity, because come spring Mr. Manning and the other farmers had to go over to Shearing’s model farm method.”

“Not because of Master Brightwell.” Hair rising in feathered tufts, Rivley jabbed a finger toward the man. “He refunded their monies. Unfortunately, after that he could only afford to transport back one of the machines.”

Rivley was far more worked up than she’d ever seen him. Annmar wanted to get things back to neutral ground again, positive if she could. “And it works?”

“It will as soon as the tank is filled.” He nodded to two grower boys maneuvering the end of a long pipe from a water tank on wheels to the Harvester. A coal cart sat nearby, and the boiler had been started.

“But the recognition by the eyes?” Annmar asked.

“We reset the optics to recognize the pests and adjusted the pincers early this morning—say?” Rivley peered down at her, again in a not-so-friendly way. “How do you know about the optics?”

She checked to make sure no one was near enough to hear. “I worked for Rennet’s Renditions, the advertising business hired by Shearing Enterprises. I executed the drawings for their counter press campaign against H. B. Machine Works, which must be Master Brightwell’s business. Did the bad press hurt him?”

Rivley stared for a moment, then, to her surprise, he laughed. “Bad press? To put Master Brightwell out of business? They didn’t understand he isn’t in business. Not in the traditional sense. He refunded the money so as not to waste time away from the next invention he’d gone on to.”

“And left two repairable machines to rust on Manning’s fallow fields?”

Rivley shrugged. “Master Brightwell has a unique view of business compared to most of us. Like
none
. Besides, they’re oiled well enough one or two seasons outdoors won’t hurt.” He eyed her. “Can you keep this quiet? No one else knows those machines’ Outside history, and we need to keep up the morale at this point.”

“I can, if you keep my part in discrediting the machine quiet.”

The hair crowning his head fluffed, pushed by the tips of feathers. “Does that mean you’ll be keeping information about this Shining or Shearing bloke from Mistress Gere?”

She shook her head. “I want to see us beat these pests with as little, or no, involvement from Mr. Shearing as possible.”

“Deal.” They shook on it, and Rivley escorted her up to the Harvester. The telescoping legs angled out in six directions from the two-story machine that could straddle four crop rows. Several younger boys climbed over it like acrobats, wiping away dirt and applying oil to the joints, directed, surprise of surprises, by Henry, who a week ago had forgotten to oil his assigned machine.

The head grower, Mr. Hortens, was the skinny man in the straw hat, but the other people… She touched her collarbone as Patrice had shown her and drew up her Knack.

The other half dozen shimmered in and out of their bodies so fast she couldn’t get a good view, just a sense. They were plants of various types, leafy ones and berry bushes.

By the time she’d finished her inspection, Rivley was escorting Mistress Gere, Master Brightwell and Mr. Hortens over to her side. “You need to hear Annmar’s information on the equipment supplier,” he said.

All eyes turned to her, and Mistress Gere nodded for her to speak.

Annmar began carefully. “I know the man selling the equipment. Outside, he goes by the name Mr. Shearing. His business, Shearing Enterprises, retained my employer, Mrs. Rennet.” Master Brightwell’s frown deepened. When she’d first arrived, he’d said he didn’t want the competition to know about his inventions, so surely he felt the same about others’ secrets. She’d like to keep his respect, but this was important. “Did he offer you a loan?”

Mistress Gere put up a hand. “I purchased three machines, all I could afford without taking his generous offer of a loan. He’s filling orders from other farms. I didn’t want to miss out.”

The knot in Annmar’s stomach loosened. “Saying he has a limited supply is a sales technique, but it might also be true in the current circumstances.”

Master Brightwell put up a finger. “And the loans he’s able to make? This is a standard practice by a large establishment, but you don’t like it in this case?”

“A loan guarantees he’ll service the machines, since he maintains partial ownership, but the waits are long. However, if you are one of his model farms, your service is prioritized.” Annmar stuffed her hands into her trouser pockets. “I spent hours at the factory drawing various machines and watched both the loan farmers and the model farm clients come through. The loan farmers claimed their machines ran into problems more often than they should. The model clients didn’t, but they have no control over their land. Shearing Enterprises determines their crops and schedules.”

Mr. Hortens whipped off his hat. “That’s plain daft. What might be right for one piece of land isn’t good for another. Then there’s the rain and keeping ahead of pests—”

Mistress Gere put a hand on his arm. “We’ll not be giving up our choices. I see how this works now. Of course he’s putting their service first. To keep
his
operations running smoothly. He reviewed joining the model option, but in a more positive light. Fewer burdens for the owner, fewer decisions.”

Annmar nodded. “He’d like you to take a loan, then decide that joining the model plan is best.”

Mistress Gere nodded slowly, casting her gaze around the gathered group. “During his sales pitch, I was sorely tempted. However, it goes against my business practices to go into debt, so I didn’t allow him to persuade me. I only purchased non-refundable machinery, all he offered, citing demand in the Basin.”

To persuade her?
Annmar glanced at her hand. Is that what Mr. Shearing tried?
But before Annmar could ask more, Master Brightwell swung to her again.

“Is his non-refundable policy also common?” he asked.

“It’s not,” she said. “Shearing’s stands by their product. In all our advertising, they claim if you don’t like it, they’ll take it back, for a limited time. I have no idea if Mr. Shining’s policies in the Basin are different.”

Mistress Gere tapped a finger to her chin. “He’s relatively new to offering machinery here, just the past few years. But from what you say, he’s well established Outside.”

“He is Derby’s most successful tradesman, considered a magnate in our borough. His model farms are taking over agriculture in Derbyshire.”

“It’s unusual for Basin dwellers to leave,” Mistress Gere said slowly, “and even more so for them to do it under an alias. I shall make inquiries.”

Annmar had seen no sign of a plant or animal shifter on him. “Are you sure he’s from Blighted Basin and not an Outsider?”

She gave a firm nod. “He couldn’t get in otherwise.”

Master Brightwell leaned toward Annmar. “How did you know he’d just made an arrangement with Constance?”

“I…ran into him. In the farmyard as he was leaving.”

Mistress Gere put a hand on the inventor’s shoulder. “Horatio, clearly the girl’s not spying for him. She’s come to us.” The lady shifted her gaze to Annmar. “Though you worked for him, it doesn’t sound like this meeting was congenial.”

Annmar threw a glance at Rivley. “It wasn’t. Mr. Shearing is rather upset I left Mrs. Rennet’s employ. He had wished to retain me exclusively for his advertising. He told me his talent is narrower and he’d like to expand beyond people who grow their own food.”

“Ah, more than inventing farm implements, then?” Mistress Gere nodded. “He recognizes your Knack can help him. But you came here instead?”

Annmar wasn’t quite sure Mr. Shearing had meant just equipment, but was unsure how to explain it. “Believe me, your position was the better choice. Mr. Shearing’s conditions for employment were less than ideal.”

Mistress Gere’s eyes narrowed. “This is the gentleman whom Mary Clare told me of? A situation you’d rather not accept?”

No, Mary Clare had
not
… If that got out, Annmar could never work with society clients…
Mercy
. She should be upset with Mary Clare and her social misstep. But it didn’t matter anymore.

Annmar nodded.

Mistress Gere frowned. “The machines are to arrive on this afternoon’s train. Guaranteed delivery. Will he follow through?”

“You’ve paid his price,” Annmar said, “and you’re on the schedule. Mr. Shearing wouldn’t default on a written agreement—he never did with Rennet’s Renditions, just
bent
them as far as he could. Although…”

“What?” Mistress Gere asked.

Would he dare? Annmar clutched her rib cage to quell the sinking of her stomach. “Now that he knows I’m working here… He was rather angry when he left.”

“What could he do?” Rivley asked. “Sabotage the machines?”

Master Brightwell smiled. “Not a problem for us, is it, Mr. Slipwing?”

“Will these machines truly rid us of our pests in three days?” Mr. Hortens asked.

“If Mr. Shearing promised three days,” Annmar said, “it will be three days. I can say that in his favor.”