The Unwinding House and Other Stories

by Jared Millet

  “Miss Perrilloux!” In my impropriety I ran after her. She slammed the door to her room before I had gone two strides, but it was a sound behind me that froze me in my tracks – that of two pistols being cocked.

  I turned carefully. Both of the dogsbodies in the hall, the one that had followed me and the one that I’d repaired, had raised their left arms and pointed them at me. Gun barrels protruded from panels therein.

  Marcus poked his head around the first of them.

  “Mr. Cotton,” he said, “pardon my saying so, but you better walk back this way real slow.”

  ~

  A month later a letter arrived, penned in an exacting hand.

  Dear Mr. Cotton,

  Thank you for your commendable service. The house reports that the malfunctioning automaton is now performing satisfactorily. In response to your telegram, I agree that my household would benefit from the addition of a more recent model. Please deliver one to my estate as soon as is convenient. I expect nothing less than the finest your company has to offer, but I prefer that its motive core be left blank. My accountant will handle payment.

  Sincerely,

  Jean-Baptiste Perrilloux

  I set aside all other projects and assembled the Model Nine as quickly as I could. I was eager to return to Knockwood in the hopes of finding an excuse to examine Mr. Perrilloux’s difference engine. I’d checked the patent index at Tulane University and found no files registered under “Perrilloux” or any listings for devices like the metal motive cylinder I’d seen inside the broken Model Eight.

  Marcus met me at the Sotile boat landing. Since the Nine’s motive core was blank, it couldn’t walk on its own. We carried it in a stretcher and laid it in the back of a wagon like an invalid, all while drawing the attention of a small crowd.

  It was two o’clock when we reached the estate. We made for the shade as quickly as we could. It had not rained for days and what moisture there was seemed to steam from the ground. The doors to the house stood open and a pair of dogsbodies waited inside.

  “Good afternoon,” sang Mirielle’s voice from the bowels of the mansion. “Mr. Despre, Mr. Cotton, if you would be so kind, please lay the new manservant across the threshold.”

  We did as asked. Mirielle watched from atop the main staircase. I took off my hat.

  “Good afternoon, miss. I’m sorry I startled you last time.”

  She smiled like a porcelain doll.

  “Not at all. I reacted foolishly. Please come in and have some tea.” She gestured to the parlor and I went inside. I wondered if she meant to join me in person, or if she would do so by mechanical proxy.

  The room was free of dust, but it felt as if it was rarely used. I sat so that I could watch the dogsbodies at work in the hallway. They knelt over their newly fashioned kinsman, and for all the world it appeared as if they were groping it like blind men. Marcus guided their hands until they gained purchase on the new automaton’s chassis. Then they lifted it in unison and carried it out of sight. Marcus tipped his hat and stepped outside.

  It was not long before a Model Seven dressed as a housemaid entered the sitting room with a tea set. It poured two cups, then daintily picked one up and presented it to me in a clockwork ballet that was all the more astonishing because I knew exactly how complicated such a display was to perform. I took the cup and nodded in thanks.

  “She’s marvelous, isn’t she?” said Mirielle from the doorway. “I call her Josephine. Sugar?”

  I would have said “no,” but I wanted to see how the dogsbody would react.

  “Yes, please.”

  The lady of the house tapped her toe twice on a floorboard. “Josephine” spun around, picked up a sugar cube, and proffered it for my cup.

  “Amazing,” I said. “Did your father script all of your dogsbodies’ actions himself?”

  Mirielle walked along the opposite wall. It wasn’t lost on me that she was keeping as far away as she could.

  “Not directly,” she said. “He built the engine that runs the house, and it controls the automatons from a set of general guidelines.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him. I feel as if I could learn as much from him in a single conversation as I did during all my years at college. Will he be returning from his travels soon?”

  “I hope so.” She ran her hand along the sill and glanced out the window at the empty estate. “It’s not that I’m lonely, and I’m quite well protected.”

  “As I discovered.”

  She gave me her first true smile.

  “Yes, I suppose you did. But I do miss him. He writes every week and promises to hurry back, but something always keeps him away.”

  “I don’t mean to impose,” I said, picking my words carefully, “but I’m concerned as to what might happen should the difference engine malfunction. Would you permit me to examine it, so I might see it in working order?”

  There was an accusation in the look she gave me.

  “I’m no fool, Mr. Cotton. Father’s designs are worth a lot of money. I’ve had enough trouble with Northern swindlers trying to steal the house from under me. Why should I trust you not to attempt the same with its treasure?”

  She’d seen right through to my basest desires. My face flushed and I tried to cover for myself.

  “Miss Perrilloux,” I said, “I appreciate your concern, but I’m a technician, not an inventor. It’s my business to know how machinery works so that I can put it back together when it falls apart. That’s my only concern, and since your estate is so dependent on machines, it would be in your best interest to have a capable pair of hands on retainer should anything go amiss.”

  She didn’t answer at first. I wondered if I’d been too bold.

  “Very well,” she said. “I’ll allow it, but I’ll also wire Father immediately that I’ve done so. That way, if his designs should suddenly appear on the market, he will know who is to blame.”

  ~

  Mirielle and “Josephine” followed me up the stairs, though at a distance. Two more automatons waited at the top. Both were soldiers. Both were undoubtedly armed.

  Mirielle slipped around me using a dogsbody for cover and walked down the hall to the left, where she shifted one of the paintings and pressed a button hidden behind it. When she did, a panel in the ceiling swung open and a ladder unfolded from above.

  As I climbed into the attic, I wondered at what I was doing. Did I really think I could fathom the workings a difference engine if I couldn’t even understand Mr. Perrilloux’s dogsbody modifications? Would I be able to glean enough of its design even to service it, let alone duplicate it as Mirielle rightly feared?

  The attic was dark, but a bulb came to life when I was halfway up the ladder. I poked my head through the opening and beheld a chamber of gleaming clockwork such as I had never seen. Rows upon rows of brass pistons fired to a cadence as complex as rain on a roof. Gears of polished steel churned like watermills in an invisible current. Spider-webs of copper laced the room, the electric lifeblood of the house coursing through them.

  In the corner of the attic was a tidy little office. It held a desk and chair, a typewriter, a cupful of quills, and a stoppered pot of ink. On a shelf above the desk was a row of hand-bound journals. My mouth began to water. Surely those must include Mr. Perrilloux’s notes, his research, his most secret designs. I took another step upward.

  In another part of the attic I spied a workbench that, because of what lay there, reminded me of an operating table. On it, the Model Nine I’d delivered lay prone with its back panel open. As I watched, several jointed arms reached from the ceiling and gently removed the wax cylinder at its heart, no doubt to replace it with one of metal.

  I was in awe. To the layman, all computing machines seem as magic, but this was so far beyond the state of modern science that even I, who am familiar with such things, was struck mute.

  I climbed higher and placed my hand on a floorboard for support. That must have been the trigger. The surgical arms whirled upward
like those of an agitated spider and another piece of equipment dropped from above.

  A Gatling gun.

  I ducked and leapt off the ladder just as the gun let loose its first round. Bullets tore through planks where my body had been a moment before. I twisted my ankle when I landed and rolled to escape the weapon’s line of fire.

  I rolled in the direction of Mirielle. Both her guardians stepped forward and raised their arms. The hidden gun barrels sprang forth from within. In that instant, I realized there would be no warning shot. I had outstayed the house’s welcome and it was about to have done with me.

  “No!” Mirielle threw herself in front of her protectors and shielded me with her body.

  Apparently that stayed my execution. I gasped for breath. My heart beat so heavily that I barely noticed the stabbing pain in my ankle.

  “Miss Mirielle, I don’t think–”

  “This is no time for chivalry. I’m in no danger, and as long as you stay behind me neither are you.”

  It was true. As their Creator had yet to grant his servants eyes, the house could only “see” us by sensing our weight on the floor. If protecting the lady was its principal directive, then it could not risk assaulting me if doing so might also cause injury to her.

  “Let’s head for the door,” she said. “Step only where I step. That is, if you wish to live long enough to earn your retainer.”

  Marching in unison like a pair of dogsbodies ourselves, Mirielle and I walked down the stairs and out to the foyer. I did not let myself limp out of fear of betraying myself to the engine. When we reached the front door, I worried that the house might open fire should I continue without Miri’s protection.

  I needn’t have feared. In her father’s absence, Mirielle was master. She pressed a sequence of buttons on the entry panel, then motioned that it was safe to go outside.

  “Mr. Cotton,” she said, “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. Your father is understandably protective of his creations. It’s my good fortune that he’s even more protective of you.”

  “It’s not often that a lady gets to rescue a gentleman in distress. I hope that you’re still willing to remain in my service despite this incident.”

  Sanity told me to never come back, but my hunger for another look at that engine was too strong.

  “I am at your beck and call,” I said with a bow.

  Miri grinned. “Next time, I promise the house will behave.”

  ~

  When next I came to Knockwood, it was not by invitation.

  The Great Storm struck on the 19th of August, disabling every power and telegraph line in New Orleans. While the river poured over the levee, it was all we at Capek & Lang could do to move our equipment to our shop’s upper floor and pray that the hurricane wouldn’t bring the building down. Even as the storm reached its peak, I found myself fretting about Mirielle, alone in her house and dependent on machines that surely wouldn’t function once the power went out.

  Thanks to luck and the grace of God, our workshop lost only its roof. There was nothing to be done until the flood subsided, so I borrowed funds from the company vault and bribed the captain of a surviving steamboat to deposit me near Knockwood on his way to Baton Rouge.

  The landing at Sotile was completely destroyed, so the captain sent me to shore in a dinghy. Before heading to the plantation, I first sought out Marcus in the hope that he’d already seen to Mirielle’s safety.

  I was horrified at what I found. The Despres’ home had been flattened. Its sides had caved in and pieces of its roof were scattered everywhere. There was a mound in the midst of the rubble that marked the location of Mrs. Despre’s iron stove.

  The rest of Sotile was in the same condition. The storm had struck with such ferocity that it left nothing standing save the church, which had been saved by its stone walls. It was there I found Marcus along with the other survivors. Before I could even ask about his family, he grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Mr. Cotton! Thank God you’ve come!”

  “What’s the matter? Did something happen to Miss Perrilloux?”

  “I don’t rightly know. It’s that house. It’s gone crazy.”

  “Crazy? What, do you mean it’s still running?”

  Marcus nodded. “But the dogsbodies been acting funny ever since the last you were here. After the storm, I went down there to check and those damn things shot at me!”

  My head spun. “What about Miri? Did you see her?”

  “Couldn’t get close enough. I hope she ain’t hurt, but we hadn’t brought her anything to eat since Sunday afternoon.”

  “Is your family all right?” I asked. “Can you come with me or do you need to see to them?”

  “They’re fine. I sent ‘em to my uncle’s.”

  “Come on, then. We can’t waste any time.”

  Marcus’s horses, turned loose before the storm, had yet to return. The road to Knockwood was still under water, so we trekked cross-country on a path that Marcus told me had once been used by runaway slaves. After several hours it brought us to the cane fields behind the Perrilloux estate.

  The main house survived, though most of the outlying buildings hadn’t. Mr. Perrilloux had evidently learned the lessons of prior hurricanes and built his home accordingly. Most of the shingles were gone, but underneath was a roof of solid metal. Siding had been ripped away, revealing the stout cypress framework that held the building in place. All of the windows had been shattered or cracked, leaving empty maws of jagged glass that waited to tear at anyone who climbed through.

  As soon as we came close, I called out for Miri. There was no answer. We circled the house, Marcus and I, shouting her name repeatedly. The doors had been blown off their hinges and a lone dogsbody stood guard. I almost ran inside, but Marcus stopped me.

  “Soon as I set foot on the first step,” he said, “that fellow started shooting. I don’t know how many bullets he’s got, but I’ll bet he’s reloaded since then.”

  The blind automaton stared grimly ahead. I tried to think of another way in. Because the house was built on posts, even the lowest windows were higher off the ground than I could reach on my own. With Marcus’s assistance, however, I imagined I could scale the wall and climb in.

  “We can try,” he said. “I can’t think of anything better.”

  “But I don’t understand how the house can still be operating. Where is it getting its power?”

  “I can tell you that,” said Marcus. “Mr. Perrilloux put a couple of vats in one of the back rooms. Said they were batteries, and if the power went out they could run the house for weeks.”

  I ground my teeth. Foresight is a blessing, but damn the man for thinking so far ahead.

  “If only the telegraphs were working,” I said, “we could contact him in England. He probably has a failsafe code we can use to shut it down.”

  Marcus hung his head.

  “About that, sir...” He spoke like a truant schoolboy. “There won’t be no wiring Mr. Perrilloux.”

  “What do you mean? Has something happened to him?”

  “You might say that.” Marcus glanced at an upper window, and it struck me that he was struggling with the need to break a confidence. “Mr. Perrilloux ain’t in England, sir. He ain’t never been.” He pointed to a grove south of the house. “He’s buried in a clearing yonder. He passed last Christmas Eve.”

  It all came to me then. I had never suspected, yet it made perfect sense. A wealthy father dying suddenly, his unmarried daughter left to fend for herself. The charade of her father’s “trip abroad.” Her fear of strangers coming to steal what was hers, and a retinue of mechanical servants to cater her every whim.

  Or did they? I thought about how she’d protected me during my last visit. Did the house truly answer to her, or did it still follow the directives of the hand that had set it in motion? With horror I realized it was very much the ghost of the late Mr. Perrilloux with whom we’d have to contend.

  I w
ished I knew more about the house’s layout. Even if we broke into the first floor, the stairs would become a shooting gallery. Should we somehow make it to the hall above, there was the Gatling gun in the attic. Looking at the empty windows, I wondered what other defenses lay hidden.

  “Marcus,” I said, “is there a servant’s entrance?” The house had no visible doors except for those in front.

  “At one time, sir,” he said, pointing to the mansion’s north face. “When Mr. Perrilloux added that wing, the servant’s door became part of the interior.”

  An addition to the building – a weak point in the structure? I wondered if the storm might have damaged the house’s defenses at the join between the two sections. If so, the master engine might now be partially blind. Could we be so lucky?

  I went to the north wall. The crawlspace below the house was tall enough to crouch under, but the ground beneath the house was a mire. The wooden skirting that protected the underside from intrusion had been sufficiently loosened by the storm for Marcus and me to pull it aside.

  The underbelly of the house was festooned with what appeared to be piano wire. It was so wondrous that for a moment I forgot my purpose. Each step on a board above must have made a particular wire sing, sending a vibration through the network that funneled to the engine above. If I could find and disable a crucial nexus in the lattice, the house would be rendered blind.

  Alas, the forward-thinking Mr. Perrilloux had enclosed what I sought behind a shield of iron. I considered cutting the cables one by one, but the wire-shears in my toolkit weren’t big enough for the task.

  There were two regions of the crawlspace that were not crossed by wire, but both were likewise protected by metal plates. One was the pump that fed water into the building. The other plates shielded what may have been the house’s batteries.

  I examined the seam between the older house and the northern addition. It was easy enough to find. Most of the wires had survived intact, but a handful had snapped. In that section at least, the house was partially impaired. Would it be enough?