Mr. Kinnersley perked up in a manner that suggested an excited bird. “Have you an interest in electrical fire?”
“I do,” I said.
He clapped and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, the wonders. Oh, the possibilities. Do you know, I have used electrical fire to shock chickens back to life?”
“Truly?” I said.
Phineas snorted. “Chickens you first rendered unconscious with the same electrical fire, if I am not mistaken.”
Mr. Kinnersley ignored him. “Perhaps I’ll show you a Leyden jar, Billy. Once we’re in the air.”
“Mind you’re careful, now,” my father said.
Mr. Kinnersley flapped his hand. “Yes, yes, of course. You needn’t worry, John.”
That did not seem to appease my father. He stared at Mr. Kinnersley a moment longer before turning to Mr. Colden. “Which desk is ours?”
“You mean yours.” Mr. Colden put his hand on my shoulder. “Billy shall stake out his own territory.”
“My own desk?” I asked.
“Mr. Kinnersley said he had no use for one,” Mr. Colden said. “So I think his should be yours.”
Pride lent me boldness. “Which one?”
“That one.” Mr. Colden pointed to a smaller desk against the mast.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I shall put it to good use.”
“I trust you shall,” Mr. Colden said.
I retrieved my crate from the stack, as did my father and his fellow Society members, and we each unpacked and set up our equipment. My desk had a single drawer in which I stowed my bundle of quills and penknife, as well as my ink. I left my paper on the desk, ready to be drawn upon.
After the members of the Society had each arranged their desks to their satisfaction and shelved their books in the ship’s library, we went further aft to the galley. There we found our store of provisions, to which we had all contributed, as well as a fine meal laid out.
“Gentlemen.” Mr. Franklin spread his arms over the table. “Having seen the victuals on which you will subsist for the next few months, I took both pity and the liberty of providing this last meal before your departure tonight. Please, eat.”
We sat and passed the dishes around: a roasted haunch of venison; wild turkey; meat pies of pork with a faint flavor of spice; pickles; and sauerkraut. I drank milk and cider, while my father and the others drank beer and wine. For dessert we had custard, tarts, and gingerbread. The galley warmed and the walls closed in, filled with laughter and charged with excitement.
I looked around the room and noticed a door downship of the galley. “What’s in there?”
“That is my cabin,” Mr. Kinnersley said, “which I shall show you at another time.”
I nodded and went back to my plate. But my attention kept returning to the door, and I found myself imagining a world of electrical fire beyond it.
A few moments later, a young, slender man came into the galley. He surveyed the table quickly, but did not sit. “The ship is readied,” he said.
“Thank you, William,” Mr. Colden said. “Billy, this is Mr. Faries, our Mechanician, and the mind responsible for building the de Terzi.”
I stood and extended my hand. Mr. Faries had a darting, cold handshake. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” I said. “The ship is incredible.”
He bowed his head.
Mr. Franklin wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Eat, Mr. Faries, eat.”
Mr. Faries looked at the table again, sighed, and sat. The portions he dished for himself were small.
“I bade farewell to Jane at the house this morning,” Mr. Colden said to the room. “It was difficult. She was sorely disappointed that I wouldn’t let her come.”
This morning? My father and I had seen her at the warehouse that afternoon….
“It was the right decision,” Phineas said.
“And what about you, John?” Mr. Franklin asked. “Is everything in order with your family and farm?”
“James will see to things while we’re away.”
“Excellent.”
Next to me, Mr. Faries quietly poked at his food. The man intrigued me, and I leaned toward him. “What of your family, sir?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. He stared at his plate. “A fever took my wife from this earth two and a half years ago.”
“Oh.” Shame flustered me. “I — I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …”
He shook his head. “Do not trouble yourself for it, Billy.”
“A man your age needs a wife,” Mr. Godfrey said. “When do you think that you will take another?”
A sad smile graced Mr. Faries’s lips, but before he could answer, Mr. Franklin said, “Any sea captain will tell you that when the woman in your life is a ship, there can be room for only one. And the de Terzi is a very fine woman.”
Mr. Faries nodded and seemed content to let Mr. Franklin’s answer be his. But I could see that even with his aeroship he was lonely and sad.
The conversation around the table turned to politics and business, complaints about taxes and tariffs, worries over the Iroquois League and their alliances.
“You should all know,” Mr. Franklin said. “We have been asked to make an inspection of the trading post at the Forks of the Ohio River.”
“Why is that?” Phineas asked.
“Because it is arguably the most strategic point of land in all of the Ohio Country.”
“Will we be landing?” Phineas asked.
“Yes, Phineas, for a day perhaps.”
Phineas nodded.
Whatever external luminescence the mirrors were sending below deck faded with the evening, and before we had finished the meal, we had to light the lanterns. But the lenses still reflected and made efficient use of the yellow oil-light, gilding everything below.
After we had all eaten our fill, Mr. Franklin passed around a bottle of brandy.
He stood. “Gentlemen, I regret that I must bid you farewell. But I leave you with a few words, the somberness of which I trust you shall forgive. For it seems inevitable to me that somewhere in the very near future, a conflict will erupt between England and France, very likely a war, fought on our soil.”
War. The word chilled me and, it seemed, the room.
“Perhaps it will begin in the Ohio Country. Perhaps elsewhere. But in the coming conflagration, our colonies and our people are the ones who will burn, unless you succeed in your quest. To find the Kingdom of Madoc is to find our salvation in the wilderness. To find Madoc is to find ourselves.” From his pocket he pulled out a drawing and held it up. My drawing of the snake. “Remember that you go not only to save Pennsylvania but also to save what these colonies might one day become if we unite.”
Then he held his glass out over the table. The members of the Society all rose and did the same, forming a ring of crystal at the center. I extended my cup of cider and joined them.
“To you,” Mr. Franklin said. “Philosophers and patriots and brave men all. It is my privilege to league with you. May the winds fill your sails, let the storms flee before you, and may you find what you seek in your journey across this land.”
Glasses clinked and were drained.
“And now,” Mr. Franklin said. “It is time for this historic expedition to get under way.”
Up on the open deck of the aeroship, the warehouse yawned around and above us, an endless black void. Mr. Franklin shook hands with each of the philosophers and then mine.
“You’re going out into the wild, Billy,” he said. “It can change a man. Make certain it does so for the better.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Franklin took a lantern from Mr. Colden and crossed the deck. “I’ll open the roof!”
I turned to my father. “Open the roof?”
Mr. Franklin’s flickering light bobbed down the ramp and then along the floor of the warehouse. It came to rest at a distant point, and a moment later I heard a far-off clang. Then a loud ratcheting sound chewed up the silence on all sides of the ship, f
ollowed by the squeal of metal and the groan of wood overhead. There was a deep and hollow rushing of air, like a breath over the lip of a bottle, and the void above split open. And as the gap widened, revealing stars and ribbons of argent clouds, the cold light of the night sky rushed in.
“Extinguish the lanterns,” Mr. Colden said. “Mr. Faries, when you are ready, raise the de Terzi.”
The moment had come.
Mr. Faries went to a broad podium at the helm that stood next to the ship’s wheel. “Would you like to see, Billy?”
“Yes, thank you.” I rushed to stand next to him, my heart pounding. The podium bore a series of levers, dials, and gauges, as well as a compass, barometer, and whirling speculum.
“Prepare for sphere evacuation!” Mr. Faries called to the ship, and then to me, “I’m letting the air out to create the vacuum.”
He cranked a wheel, and a roaring hiss emanated from somewhere in the bowels of the ship. I leaned to look over the rail and saw a cloud of wind-stirred dust churning under us. And then the deck shifted beneath my feet. The whole vessel shifted.
“Prepare for elevation!” Mr. Faries said.
And then I felt the shift in my stomach, a lurch and a lift in my gut, and the scaffolding began to fall away by degrees. First by inches, then by feet, and I realized it wasn’t falling, but we were rising past it. We were floating in the air, with nothing but air between us and the earth we crawled upon. We continued to rise up through the warehouse, among the rafters, and then out of the open roof.
Philadelphia spread out around us, gray peaks, black streets, and here and there a glowing window. We hovered at what I guessed to be the height of a great cedar tree, or a clock tower, looking down on a world I recognized but had never seen from such an angle.
“Clear?” Mr. Faries asked.
I noticed the dark shapes of two men running through the street below us. I remembered the earlier sensation of being followed. The spies at our farm.
Mr. Colden said, “Clear.”
My father came to stand behind me, both of his hands on my shoulders. “You will enjoy this,” he said.
I was about to point out the two men to him, but then —
“Prepare for flight!” Mr. Faries threw a lever.
The hiss of air increased beneath us, and the de Terzi heaved and leaped straight upward. I nearly lost my footing, but my father held on to me. The wind tossed my hair and stung my eyes as we rose and rose and rose. The city receded and shrank, until it looked more like a charcoal map of a city than a city itself. And there was the Schuylkill River, from this distance an inky trickle, and somewhere along its bank was my father’s tiny farm and tiny garden. My new bird-sight awed me into silence, the men in the street, forgotten.
Mr. Faries switched another lever, and the hissing ceased. The ship slowed her ascent and came to a stop, hanging in midair. My father released me.
“Thrilling,” he said.
Mr. Faries looked around, nodded to himself, and said to me, “We never completely empty the air from the spheres.”
“What would happen if you did?” I asked.
“We’d keep rising.”
I looked up. Even though the distant earth below looked utterly changed, the moon and the stars appeared no closer, nor different. “How far would we rise?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Faries said.
“Until our wings melted,” Mr. Godfrey said. “So to speak.”
“How high are we?” I asked.
Mr. Faries checked the barometer. “Based on air pressure, I estimate our elevation at two thousand feet.”
I swallowed. What would it be like to fall from such a height? How long would it take to hit the ground? I looked down at the earth again, feeling sick to my stomach, and I noticed the geography had changed. It seemed Philadelphia had moved. Or …
“Is the de Terzi moving?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Faries said. “The spheres present a large surface area for the wind to push against. But once we raise the sails, we’ll have control over the direction and speed.”
“Speaking of which,” Mr. Colden said. “Now that we’re in the air, I believe it’s time we get under way.”
Mr. Faries nodded. “Phineas! Prepare for sail deployment!”
He triggered a switch and cranked a wheel. As he did so, sails to the fore and aft began to climb and stretch up their masts.
My father watched them. “Ingenious.”
“Indeed. Our ship can be manned by a much smaller crew than would otherwise be needed.” Mr. Colden took hold of the ship’s wheel with both hands. “Mr. Faries has also shown me his designs for a water elevator and a carriage that moves under its own propulsion. Without a horse! I advised that he patent them with haste.”
The sails had almost reached their full height, the wind whipping and billowing them as Phineas manned the lines and the de Terzi lurched forward.
“She also has a reserve sail, but we hope we won’t ever need to use it. Heading, Mr. Faries?” Mr. Colden asked.
Mr. Faries looked at his compass. “Fifteen degrees to starboard.”
“Fifteen degrees to starboard!” Mr. Colden called. He turned the wheel, and the de Terzi tipped and swung to the right. “Everything is controlled from this helm. Even the direction of the sails.”
Mr. Faries, watching the compass, held up his hand. “Let go and haul.”
“Let go and haul!” Mr. Colden called, righting the wheel.
Phineas trimmed the sails, and the aeroship steadied her course. Within moments we had picked up speed. And we continued to accelerate as the world rolled by beneath us. We were flying.
“You sound like a proper captain, Cadwallader,” my father said. “With a proper crew.”
Mr. Colden chortled. “I’m glad you find our little show convincing.”
My father tapped my shoulder. “I want to show you something,” he said, and led me upship along the starboard side.
I waited until we were out of earshot and then said, “Father, may I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“Why is Mr. Colden the one leading this expedition?”
“Who would you rather see in charge of it?”
I thought it was obvious. “Well. You.”
He looked up at the spheres. “We all have our separate gifts, Billy. Sometimes it can be difficult to avoid envy and accept what is ours. Mr. Colden is a much more natural leader of men than I. As is Mr. Franklin. But I am content to support them, for I have my garden, and I am proud of its renown.”
He then went to the rail. He pointed. “Speaking of my garden, though you can’t see it, it’s right down there. Your brothers and sisters will be asleep by now.”
“And Mother,” I said.
He was silent a moment. “I’m afraid she finds it difficult to sleep when I’m gone.” He shook his head. “So that is the Schuylkill River, and that over there is the Wissahickon feeding into it.”
Hearing the name Wissahickon reminded me of a story I’d once heard from my brother Moses.
I turned to my father. “Didn’t someone throw a magic rock into the Schuylkill River somewhere?”
“You’re thinking of Johannes Kelpius. And as the story goes, it was the philosopher’s stone, which supposedly grants eternal life.”
“Truly?”
“Kelpius was a monk, a magician, a madman, or perhaps all three, depending on who tells the story. He led a group of mystics up north near Germantown. It’s said they dabbled in forbidden occult practices, and that as he was dying, Kelpius had one of his followers throw a box containing the philosopher’s stone into the Schuylkill where it meets the Wissahickon Creek.”
“Oh.” I peered down at the black, secretive water, imagining a lost box resting somewhere at the bottom. But then something about the story started nagging at my wonder. “Wait. If he really had the philosopher’s stone, then why was he dying? And why would he throw it away? Wouldn’t it have made him live forever?”
/> My father chuckled. “You see the problem with such stories.”
And then the river was just a river once again. I looked back out over the surface of the earth, at the rivers winding without appearing to move. At the mountainous horizon reclining to the west. From up here, the world looked ever at rest. My earlier unease began to fade, and in its place I felt a nameless and tranquil joy.
“This aeroship will change the world,” my father said. “I think perhaps it already has.”
Someone called to us. “John, Billy.”
We turned to see Mr. Colden striding up the deck.
“It’s nearly midnight,” he said. “Mr. Faries and Mr. Godfrey will finish the first watch. Then, if it’s agreeable, John, you and Phineas will have the middle watch. I thought Billy could join me for the morning watch.”
“A fine plan,” my father said. “But if I’m to be up in a matter of hours, I’d best get some sleep. You, too, Billy.”
Sleep? How could they expect me to sleep?
But I followed my father below deck to our quarters, where we found Mr. Kinnersley already snoring in his berth. My father rolled into his bunk, and I slouched into my hammock, put my hands behind my head, and stared up at the ceiling.
I closed my eyes and tried to feel the sky beyond the hull of the ship. I imagined myself at Mr. Faries’s podium and I let the rest of the air out of the spheres. The ship rose higher, and kept rising until the earth disappeared from view, and I was floating in an infinite space. I felt that I could become lost in such vastness, and before long, all the work and exhilaration of the day caught up with me and pulled me down into sleep.
Mr. Colden woke me. “Billy, it is time.”
I sat up in my hammock, feeling as though I’d just fallen into it. My father’s bunk was empty, as was Phineas’s, but Mr. Faries lay sleeping in his. Next to Mr. Kinnersley, Mr. Godfrey reclined serenely on his back nearby, eyes closed, his arms folded across his chest, and I hadn’t noticed any of them coming or going.
I yawned. “Yes, sir.”
I followed Mr. Colden up through the hatch onto the weather deck. The air was colder, and to the east the sky had lost its stars and bore a slightly lighter shade of blue. We had long ago left Philadelphia behind, and the earth below now looked completely foreign. I shivered a little as we crossed to the helm.