Darwin chewed his lip and squeezed through the frenzied crowd, past drunk men at the bar who guzzled their drinks, and around the piano player who began Chopin’s Funeral March in earnest, her head down, eyes closed.
He finally found Lucy crouched beneath a serving table and helped her up.
“Follow me,” he said, as he took her hand and guided her against the tide of terrified revelers, past the balcony doors, which were filled with smoke and flashing luminescence. They hurried toward the servants’ stairs. He put his hand around her waist and led her down the serpentine steps, down seven floors, pausing on the ground level as he heard screams from the foyer and the sound of pottery shattering.
“It’s not safe out there,” he said, unsure if she could hear him. Then he led her down two more flights, through a long hallway, past the cellar and into the boiler room.
“What are we doing down here?” Lucy asked, catching her breath.
“If the Tramp is that close we’re safer below ground,” Darwin looked around the dimly lit room, which was a cave of load-bearing columns, metal pipes, clanking pistons, and machinery that ran the length of the high, joisted ceiling. An enormous boiler, the size of a locomotive engine, dominated the center of the room, radiating heat. “This place is built like the Airship Kentucky.”
“But the poison vapors outside, the comet dust,” Lucy said. “Won’t that come through the doors, the cracks in the walls… ?”
“This way.” Darwin cut her off and led her inside the large coal bin. He climbed a pile of black rock and closed the coal chute, then he scrambled down and closed the heavy iron coal bin doors, sealing out light and smoke and the terrifying world above. He remembered that gas masks used filters lined with crushed charcoal. This room might filter out the toxic fumes, he hoped, as they sat down and huddled into the pile. He felt her hip, smelled her perfume mixed with sweat amid the smoky coal. He brushed her bare leg for a moment before he found her fingers laced between his.
The room was pitch black.
“This… this can’t be happening,” Lucy whispered. “I didn’t believe it…”
Darwin didn’t answer. He held her hand and listened, straining to hear something, anything above the pounding of his heart and his worried breathing. He heard what sounded like sirens in the distance and the muffled cries of people shouting. He couldn’t quite accept that the world was ending, but he recognized fear when he saw it, when he felt it.
“Darling, Daring… Dying.” Lucy sniffled. “I don’t want to die… want to die…”
“We’re not dead yet.” Darwin tried to talk about something—anything—to fill the silence, the dread of not knowing. “You know, my last name is Qi. It’s sometimes a lucky name because in Chinese it means life, or breath, or air—that’s a good omen, right? Though it’s kind of a funny thing too because in the mission home where I grew up, they told me the Chinese fable about the Qi Dynasty. They were the most backward of all people because they worried about anything and everything. The Qi literally thought the sky was falling—like Chicken Little. And now look at us. The sky is falling.”
As the sirens faded, the world grew quiet. He heard her breathing soften. He felt it proper to let go of her hand but he didn’t want to. He held on tighter.
“I’m not laughing,” she said. And then she did, just a little.
“See,” he said. “The end of the world’s not so bad. All we need is that cup of pearl tea, with lemon.” He squeezed her hand. “Quickly, tell me about your family.”
She sneezed twice from the coal dust and Darwin blessed her out of social habit, though he didn’t practice any such primitive religion.
“What family?” she said as the coal settled beneath them. Her voice echoed in the hollow steel chamber. “My parents came down from Vancouver to work in the copper mines. My father contracted green lung from the dust and couldn’t work. I was the youngest of seven mouths to feed so they sold me—put me in service, just like you—until I’m eighteen, just like you. I haven’t seen them in years. They’re probably dead now, or will be soon.”
Darwin understood the same sadness. The same bitter loneliness. He imagined suffering through the end of the world, only to be the last two survivors.
She patted his arm. “You can be my family.”
He mulled that over—the good and bad. Lucy had hinted, smiled, flirted, and nearly broken the rules to catch his eye. Part of him had known this all along and a part of him (the doubting, insecure part) had half-pretended to be oblivious—better to be wrong in his apprehension than right in her possible rejection. Where does that leave them now?
Family. Darwin thought. Like husband and wife, or kissing cousins?
Before he could ask, he startled at the clanging of the fire bell in the distance—the same alarm he’d pulled earlier—but this time he heard three sharp rings.
Then silence.
“Thank goodness,” Darwin whispered. “We’re in luck.” He helped Lucy to her feet and opened the creaking, groaning, coal room doors. “That beautiful sound was the all-clear signal. We just might live to see the morning after all.”
“You’re sure?” She hesitated. “Is it really safe?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
They took turns dusting each other off in the shadowy darkness—turning, smiling, laughing, and gently touching. He took her hand and boldly kissed it once, then wiped off the coal dust where his lips had been.
Why not? he thought as he paused, grateful for catastrophe. Then he let go.
As they stepped into the corridor, they squinted at Mr. Elliot and a custodian who Darwin didn’t recognize. Each of them carried a matchless flashlight. The majordomo bit down on his pipe and grunted, “Jeezus and Mary! I had better never catch you two down here again in this state of… aloneness.” He pointed to the stairwell. “Clean yourself up and get back to your stations—hurry along now. The show is over but the party will continue as planned and you still have guests to serve.”
“But… the Tramp… ,” Lucy protested.
“What Tramp? Get upstairs,” Mr. Elliot barked. “Now!”
They hurried along the servants’ stairwell, then waved goodbye as they split up to go change into new liveries on their respective floors. Darwin, though, couldn’t wait to abate his curiosity. He peeked into the octagonal-shaped lobby where a host of guests were collecting themselves and waiters were offering everyone free cocktails and comet pills. He wandered from the stairwell out the front door and down the steps to the circular porte-cochére where three police motorcars were parked and a patrol of mounted officers clip-clopped by in the cold, brisk Seattle night. Darwin’s mouth fell open as he looked above the smoke that had settled in the Italian garden; he saw a fire engine, ladder extended, pumping water into the trees that were still ablaze. Above that queer spectacle floated a massive airship; a hot air balloon half the size of the hotel, hovered above the seventh floor balcony. Below the basket was an enormous wooden platform, still smoking, sparking, glowing with fireworks and a neon contraption that read DRINK REAL OLYMPIA BEER from the CLAUSSEN SWEENEY BREWING COMPANY. Darwin heard police officers with bullhorns shouting at the aeronauts to come down and face charges for public nuisance and disturbing the peace.