Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

Jason could see that Louise was thinking about objecting to this; Ruth was, in her plan, brushing Louise aside. But from the way that Louise kept glancing down at that letter and the other ones still in their stack, Jason could tell that she was maybe more curious about what was going on with M. Dulac and Germaine Frost than she was about what was going on in the quarantine. So when she finally sighed and acquiesced, Jason was not surprised.

“Splendid!” said Ruth, standing abruptly. “Then we shall be off.”

She disappeared into the dark for a moment, and before Jason could follow far, returned with a lantern and a hatchet, the second of which she handed to Jason. “It’s not a six-gun,” she said, “but it’s better than nought.”

Louise shook her head absently, as she leaned over the first of the letters from M. Dulac, and Jason and Ruth slipped out into the night.

§

They could not have been more than ten paces from the door when Ruth stopped, put a hand on Jason’s neck and touched his lips with hers. This kiss lasted longer than the other two, and when they parted, she sighed. “I think that I’m no longer afraid,” she said. “Of kissing, that is. Are you still frightened of the quarantine?”

Jason was, but he didn’t say so. Ruth laid her palm on his chest and looked up at him. The moon was past full, and low in the sky, and it filtered into a silvered filigree through the branches and leaves of the apple trees. She was smiling, mouth open. He couldn’t see her teeth.

“Your heart is thundering,” she said. “You are still afraid.”

Jason lifted her hand from his chest and stepped back. He was afraid. But it was not the quarantine that made him so.

It was that vision of Ruth Harper, small as a doll, mouth filled with sharp teeth and eyes black and mischievous. It was a mad fear; he knew that, but it was a true one—like she was some terrible Gorgon. He could not keep looking at her, but he couldn’t look away.

“May I help, Jason?” She closed the distance and took his hand. “Think of the first time we met. Do you remember? On the train?”

“Sure,” he said. “Although we didn’t meet on the train. It was after.”

“That is when we spoke. We saw each other some time before. I’ve been thinking on that, all this long evening. It was remarkable, don’t you think? That the two of us should, amid all those other passengers, lock our gazes across a rail platform?”

“I didn’t know our gazes locked,” said Jason, and Ruth laughed.

Jason swallowed. Ruth took his hand, opened the fingers and placed it against her cheek. Jason found her birthmark with his thumb, ran his finger along it. She lifted her chin and moved it so she nuzzled his hand, and that was all it took: the panic that had run up and down his back gave way to something finer.

“And here we are,” she said, “mere days later, off on a grand adventure—at one another’s side.”

“That’s something,” agreed Jason.

“Something,” she murmured. “Hmmph. I will tell you what it is, Jason Thistledown. It is fate.”

She peeled Jason’s fingers from her cheek. “Fate,” she said, “has seen us this far. It helped me overcome my terror at your touch. It helped us, through the good fortune of that mystery in your aunt’s bag, it distracted Louise from our adventure so we might have a few hours alone before you must leave. Now, let it help you.” She intertwined her fingers with his, and twisted so they were alongside each other.

“Come,” she said, leading the way along a path. “I know a way past father’s guard. Let’s be on our way.”

They headed into the orchard, along a row and then they turned and went along another, and it wasn’t long before he was entirely turned around and lost. He hoped that Ruth was not trusting entirely to fate to see them through the orchard and had some idea where they were going. Jason had read enough of the Bulfinch’s to know that not all fate was the helpful kind.

Before he could worry too much about that, they stepped out from the trees and back into moonlight. There was a rail fence in front of them, and past that, a gentle slope leading down to some back gardens, and then to a row of what Jason pegged for worker houses.

Ruth set the lantern on the ground and hoisted herself up on the fence so that she straddled it. Jason followed her over.

They headed down a footpath between beds of vegetables. Jason moved low to the ground and Ruth copied him, and kept up with him when he sprinted for the road. It was only there that Jason took a good look down the slope to the town, and noticed the lights.

Ruth stopped short beside him, huffing and clutching her lantern. “Oh my,” she said. “That is queer.”