Tunnels 03, Freefall

she finished spreading the blankets on the bed. Once Will had put Elliott down, Martha sat beside the girl. She undid the rope binding her broken arm to her chest, and very carefully laid it out.
    "She's taken a bad knock," she said as she examined Elliott's head. Turning her attention to the broken arm, Martha was burbling on to herself the whole time, and Will could only understand the odd snatch of what she was saying. "No, not a pretty sight," Martha commented, then inspected Elliott's hand, peering closely at the ends of her fingers. "But the circulation is still there. Good."
    "Do you know how to fix her arm?" Will said. "Can you put a splint on it or something?"
    Martha mumbled, but didn't look up as she laid a hand on Elliott's forehead, and then nodded, as if relieved. "No fever."
    She made sure Elliott was in a comfortable position by arranging the pillows under her head, then went over to the window. She stared at something for several seconds before speaking. "I need a cup of tea."
    "Tea?" Will said in disbelief.
    But back in the main room as the kettle boiled, Martha really did have something which appeared to be tea, which she spooned into a blackened kettle from a battered tin caddy. And she also had sugar, coffee and a startling range of spices in square wooden boxes in a cupboard by the hearth.
    They took their tea in chipped porcelain cups over to the table, and sat in the wheelback chairs arranged around it. In the center of the table was a life-sized bust of a boy, which seemed to have been carved from a section of one of the old beams. The boy was smiling serenely as he looked skywards. And by the bust was a smaller maquette of two figures, an adult and a young child hand-in-hand. It hadn't been finished and there were a couple of chisels and a little heap of shavings on the table by it. As Will studied it, he realized the larger of the two figures could have been Martha.
    The new log on the fire began to burn, long red flames licking up from its underside. Their glow mingled with the yellow light of the oil lanterns in the room.
    "It's nice here," Chester said as all three of them watched Bartleby make straight for the threadbare rug in front of the fire. Extending his claws, he pushed one paw then the other into the rug, over and over, pumping and kneading it as his massive shoulder blades seesawed under his hairless skin. Then, purring at an impossibly loud volume, he finally flopped down onto the rug. He rolled over on his back, and stretched himself full length with a cavernous yawn.
    "Bart's happy. He's found his place," Will said, grinning.
    It was so reminiscent of the time Will had first seen the colossal cat at the Jerome house in the Colony that he was strangely moved. It almost felt to Will as though he was home again. As he glanced at Chester, he could see his friend too had forgotten all his worries for the moment. There was something so domestic and familiar about the situation they found themselves in, as if the boys were visiting an aunt, particularly with the taste of sugared tea in their mouths -- even if it lacked milk.
    "Where did all this stuff in this room come from?" Will ventured. "Was it really a ship?"
    Martha nodded. "Most of it was here already, by Nathaniel salvaged some more from a galleon in one of the Seven Sisters," she replied.
    "I thought it was a galleon," Will said, nodding. "But do you know how it got there?"
    Martha shook her head, not looking at either of them. She cleared her throat so loudly it made Chester sit up in his chair, then she blew her nose on her sleeve again.
    "Can you take us to it?" Will said, determined to find out as much as he could about what was down here.
    "Nathaniel found other vessels, too. He would go off for weeks on end and come back with all manner of items, and then work on them here. He was so clever with his hands. All the materials for our barricade were salvaged from a metal ship."
    Will frowned at Chester, mouthing the words, 'metal ship?' , but now didn't seem the right time to inquire further -- there was something more pressing he needed to find out.
    "And Nathaniel," Will asked. "Where is he now?"
    Martha groaned with the effort of getting out of the chair. She waddled over to an oil lantern and lifted it down from its hook, then beckoned the boys to follow her. She paused on the porch to glance down at the various flower beds, and, putting her head back, inhaled deeply through her nose. Will sniffed too, catching not