The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(62)

Lin poured the water into the teapot and flipped two cups; their gold rims shone in the glow from the fire. She didn’t bother with the saucers. As the tea steeped, she glanced up at me with her dark eyes, so like mine. There was a sharpness in them, as though she was trying to add me up. She dropped her gaze as she filled the cups; fragrant steam purled in the candlelight. Then she sat back, resting the other hand across her belly. “Sit?”

I sank into the chair opposite her; it was so soft, it made my body ache. I took my cup and held it close to my chest. “Thanks.”

For a moment there was silence. She lowered her eyes again, giving me the courtesy of indirect scrutiny. “Are you up early?” she said delicately. “Or late?”

To my own surprise, I blushed. Had she thought Kash and I had been together all night? She’d been raised in the nineteenth century—but in an opium den, and despite Slate’s commitment to her, I knew they’d never had a chance to marry. What would she think of the way my father had raised me? And should it matter? “It’s hard to sleep with everything going on,” I said, deliberately vague. “You?”

“I’ve missed too much already.” She tilted her own cup and took a delicate sip, watching me over the rim. “Tell me about Kashmir.”

I bristled. “I don’t want to talk about Kashmir.” There was an edge in my voice. I thought she would push back, but she only nodded a little.

“That’s all I need to know.”

Still, I frowned. “Did Slate say something about him?”

“Only his name.” She tilted her head. “But I saw the way he looked at you last night.”

“And how was that?”

“Like nothing else is real.” At her words, my heart ached, but her smile deepened, just a touch. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”

“You’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t.”

“Of course not. Let’s talk about something else,” she suggested. And then she waited, watching me.

Clutching the cup in my hand, I shifted in my chair. It was very difficult to look at her, and I did not know what else to say. Still, I wanted her to talk. I wanted to listen to her voice. “What happened?” I said finally, as though to the tea. “After you . . . after I was born?”

She was still for a long moment, but I couldn’t lift my eyes to see her face, to try to see what she was thinking. “I held you as long as I could,” she said at last. “When Joss told me a doctor had arrived, I knew something was wrong. Then for a while . . . nothing.”

“Nothing?” I frowned. “Where did you meet Crowhurst?”

“He was the doctor.”

I almost spilled my tea. “What?”

“He came in and gave me medicine.”

“Penicillin?”

She only shrugged. “I drank it. It must have helped. But for a while . . . time disappeared. One moment there, the next, here. I lost so much and I didn’t even know it, not until I woke.” There was a quaver in her voice, a hitch in her breath; I was close enough to hear her swallow. “That was yesterday morning.”

“Yesterday?” I looked at her then—really looked—taking in the slowness of her motions, the careful way she held herself. Still recovering, a new mother—and I, her daughter, already sixteen. As much as I’d lost, hadn’t she lost the same things? Then I blinked. “What day was it, do you know? When you . . . when I—”

“Nineteenth of January, of course I do.” Her dark brows swept down. “Why?”

A stinging sensation arced across the back of my mouth, like I’d swallowed a jellyfish. I cleared my throat. “I just . . . never knew my birthday before.”

Politely, she took another sip, waiting for me to collect myself. Then her eyes flicked toward the full cup in my hands. “You don’t drink tea.”

“I like coffee.”

“Your father does too.” She leaned back and sighed. “But tea reminds me of home.”

“Of Hawaii?”

“Of the shop.”

“You mean the opium den.”

“Yes.” No matter how I tried, she was unruffled; it was disconcerting—so different from the captain. “Joss always said tea tasted like truth. Bitter comfort. We would shape the tar and drink tea, always tea.” She smiled at the memory. “Sometimes the patrons would ask me to read the leaves. and I would have to make something up. Only good fortunes for our customers.”

A flicker of hope popped to life like a struck match. “Did Joss invent fortunes too?”

Her smile fell, and the spark guttered out. She sighed again, and the steam over her tea wavered. “On the rare occasions she told fortunes, it was always the truth. I never let her tell mine.”

I nodded; I knew. Joss had told me that much. “Would you have done things differently? If you’d known what would happen?”

“Done what differently? Not fallen in love?” She laughed, a low, round sound. “Some people think life lasts longer when lived without joy, but I think it only feels that way. I have always tried to make the most of the time I have. Joss told me that, when I was very young.”

I squinted, trying to imagine it. “That doesn’t sound like her.”