The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber Page B

would unite two thriving cities with distinctly different identities but perhaps similar obsessions.
    The skyline of Manhattan was growing like a brick-and-mortar weed, ever vertically, ever uptown, like a sprawling cobblestone flower over which thousands of ship insects docked and buzzed, dipping into its jagged petals and sailing off again along the choppy harbor currents.
    Clara broke the silence. “It’s my fault they died.”
    Franklin shook his head. “You can’t think like that.”
    â€œI’ve been trying to convince myself that the government, if it wanted to safeguard its leaders, would have come to this eventually. But Eterna was my idea. I am responsible, at least in part. The child in me wants to hide. But if I do, we may find things stolen out from under us.”
    They boarded the steam ferry, jostling for a place near the captain’s cabin so they wouldn’t be pressed shoulder to shoulder. Franklin didn’t like to be by the edge and wasn’t terribly fond of ships. Clara stared down at the churning East River currents while Franklin looked at the masts of passing ships that cluttered one of the world’s busiest harbors.
    â€œMiss Templeton,” he began carefully, about to pose the age-old question she wouldn’t answer. “Will you tell me?”
    Her nostrils flared. “Really?” she said through clenched teeth. “ Now, Franklin?”
    â€œYou promised that when it was truly important, you’d tell me how you found me in that mental ward years ago. The team is dead and I don’t understand,” Franklin insisted. “All the research we’ve compiled and still, little to nothing makes sense, I’m at a breaking point—”
    â€œWhat I know of you won’t solve life’s confusion,” she countered bitterly, “and the team will still be dead!”
    â€œMaybe it doesn’t matter to you how you found me,” Franklin murmured, tapping his walking stick nervously on the wooden deck, “but it matters to me.”
    â€œOf course it matters how I find the important people in my life!” Clara snapped. She sighed, lowering her voice when ferry passengers in plumes, ribbons, and top hats turned toward her agitated tone. “But often telling them kills something inside me, some mystery I’ve kept alive.”
    â€œYou like the mystery,” Franklin argued. “I don’t.”
    The haunted look bloomed on her face again; Franklin hated seeing it, for it made her seem a thousand years old. She had an air of gravity far beyond her years, much like her guardian the senator; it unnerved him when displayed so plainly.
    â€œYou’ll learn to enjoy mystery one day, Franklin,” Clara murmured. “Treasure it, even. When there’s mystery, you might still be wrong. I’ve been right about too many sad things.”
    â€œYour mysteries changed my life for the better and I yearn to know why,” he pleaded. “Out of all the people who need help in this world, why me?”
    â€œYou still feel you don’t deserve it,” Clara said sadly. “Because of your brother.”
    Franklin looked away and shrugged. “I doubt Ed would’ve wanted me to feel guilty.”
    Clara looked around her with a heavy sigh. “And on a ship, no less,” she muttered, and took a deep breath. “There’s a recurring dream where you’re always in a storm, on a ship, dangling from a rope, and you’re afraid no one can hear you screaming?”
    Franklin’s eyes widened. “Yes, how did you—”
    â€œThink for a moment about the ship. Do you remember a flag?”
    â€œYes. White,” Franklin said excitedly. “With yellow. A crest. Yellow fleur-de-lis?”
    â€œThe standard of the King of France.” Clara stared at him and he could feel her piercing gaze even from behind tinted glass. “You were the bosun on that ship and