The Glass Falcon
Page 9
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February 1887 – Alexandria, Egypt
Cooling evening air washed over Cleo as she stood on the hospital balcony that overlooked the harbor. She tried to count the ships that were docked, but her thoughts kept straying to her arms, to the way she could no longer feel anything from the elbow down, at least not as she had once done.
She looked down at the metal fingers resting against the balcony’s stucco edge, and did not dare move them. How could she? Were they even a part of her? She held her breath, watching the sunset light slant over the delicate metal work; she had never seen anything like it, not anything that wasn’t an actual machine. Something like this, attached to a person… How could it be?
She could not reconcile what she saw and what she sensed. She remembered the impact of the statue and the way her arms had buckled under its immense weight. The next thing she could recall was this room and the way the evening sun illuminated the pale ceiling into brightest gold. She recalled the weight of another person against the bed and the way she could not move; cocooned, she had called it. Wrapped, tight like a mummy might have been. Submerged?
It was this last memory she could not discern. It made no logical sense, beyond the helplessness she must have known; perhaps her mind had likened this to being held underwater, for in such a circumstance, she would also find herself unable to move.
The next memory was full wakefulness, with these arms that were not her arms at all. Machines. Extraordinary ma—
“Miss Barclay?”
If there had been a knock on the door—and surely there had been, knowing the doctor as she had come to—she had not heard it. She glanced from the balcony to find Doctor Peregrine Fairbrass standing just inside the door, looking her direction. He was as ever, tidy and sharp, though his face carried a certain exhaustion to it. His collar was still neatly buttoned, his golden beard brushed into order. Cleo could not say how old he was for certain, for the weariness in his eyes cloaked all else. Neither did she know how many patients he had here, for she had not ventured far from her room. She didn’t want to establish a relationship with anyone here, not when…
She looked from the doctor, to her arms.
“May I come in?” Fairbrass asked.
Cleo nodded, because she had questions, and even if she didn’t know how to ask them, perhaps the doctor’s presence would help. He closed the door behind him and joined her at the balcony, where he placed her file upon the ledge between them.
“It’s good to see you out of bed,” he said, “as I had wondered if you and the mattress were going to merge into one entity.” His mouth moved in a smile, but Cleo’s did not.
“There was—” She tried to ask, but the words rushed out of her and clogged her throat. She looked again to the ships, watching as one pulled away from its mooring, sailing for the mouth of the harbor. “No saving them?”
She did not look at the doctor but caught the dip of his head from the corner of her eye. Saw the way he scrubbed a hand over his beard and destroyed its tidy nature. He said nothing for a long while, content to watch the ship with her; it did not occur to her until then that answering her questions might be just as difficult as asking them.
“When I arrived on scene,” Fairbrass said, “you were…”
There was another long silence, the light in the sky fading by degrees before he continued.
“I don’t believe any doctor would question—”
But she wasn’t a doctor, and he exhaled, understanding this, too.
“I had never seen anything like it,” he said. Here, his voice took on an edge of honesty Cleo had not yet heard from him. While she was certain he had been honest in their prior conversations about treatment and outlook, she had never heard the emotional side of the experience from him. And how could he not be just as emotional as she? She could not imagine putting a person back together after such an accident.
“The statue was immense and there was simply no way to salvage your arms,” he continued softly. “Maybe in the future, such a thing will be possible, but this…” He reached toward her fine metal fingers, but drew back before touching one. “This was the best I could do, and even this is experimental.” His brow creased with a frown. “How are you? Has the nausea passed?”
“Yes, on that front I am improving,” Cleo said.
She had no time to consider what happened next; Fairbrass reached into his pocket, withdrew an orange, and lobbed it toward her. Instinct took over; rather than get hit in the face with the fruit, her hands came up. The intricate gears and levers did their work, fingers closing effortlessly around the orange. She could not quite appreciate its skin or yet judge the pressure required to hold it; one finger pressed too deeply, sending an explosion of sweet orange juice into the air between them.
“I believe that if you lean more toward instinct,” Fairbrass said, “you are going to be just fine. ‘Just fine’ is, by definition, wholly and forever inadequate, as you will never be what you remember being only a month ago.” Fairbrass opened her file and made a careful note upon the page, then looked back at her. There was another long moment of silence, the call of loons from the water carrying to them. “I was faced with two choices, Miss Barclay: allow you to perish in that catacomb, or take the action I did. I regret what I was compelled to do within the scope of that action, but if these mechanical arms come to serve you and allow you to lead the life you would have, I will have done my job.”
Cleo eased her hold on the orange, but did not release it. She could perceive its weight within the cage of the metal fingers, if not the juice that ran down one of them. It dripped a steady, fragrant puddle onto the balcony.
“I don’t question why you did what you did, only that…such thought was given.” There were tears in her eyes and she lifted a hand to brush them way, before she realized she could not. She turned away from him, so he would not see. “Agent Auberon was there?”
There came the rustle of a handkerchief and when this was offered, she plucked it from his grasp neatly between two metal fingers. She managed to both set the orange down and dab her eyes dry, though not before having a good cry within the shelter of the handkerchief.
“He remained the entire time,” Fairbrass answered. “Your entire team…they refused to leave you, didn’t even care for exploring the catacomb as we hoisted you out.” He took the handkerchief back when she offered it, then said, “If you have questions about such things, I suggest you write him, Miss Barclay.”
This suggestion was pointed and with the way her breath caught in her throat, Cleo thought she had been tossed off the balcony’s high edge. Having fallen into a catacomb beneath Alexandria, she suspected she knew what the outcome of such a thing would be.
“Doctor, I cannot possibly…” She lifted her hands and stared at them; they were alien just then, and she had no idea how she might come to hold a pen and put words to page.
But Fairbrass only smiled at her and gathered his files. He nodded, looking at her hands with appreciation. There was no question he had done fine work, and yet.
“I am certain it will take you time, but you can consider it part of your healing.” With this, he strode toward the door. “You can’t remain here forever, Miss Barclay. Hospitals are for healing, and then leaving.”
With this, he left the room and closed the door firmly behind him. With a snarl, Cleo grabbed the orange from the balcony’s ledge and lobbed it into the street below. Her shoulder screamed in pain, but she grit her teeth.
“Healing and then leaving,” she said, watching the ship slip free of the harbor at last. “Healing…and then leaving.”
* * *
The Honey Mummy is coming, March 2016!
apokrupha.com/the-honey-mummy
The Honey Mummy
A mummy bound in honey.
An auction of archaic wonders.
An immortal link to the past.
Beneath the streets of Alexandria, Agent Cleo Barclay stumbled into a catacomb that chang
ed her life. Her arms were taken, transfigured, and something remarkable was revealed–something that will stir an ancient life from the ashes of history.
A serpentine sarcophagus holds clues to Cleo’s past and future. She enlists Eleanor Folley and Virgil Mallory to collect the artifact at auction, to unravel its mysteries and her own. When the sarcophagus falls into the hands of an enigmatic Egyptologist, they find themselves participants in his diabolical pursuits.
Drawn to Alexandria by their friend–and the temptations of a newly discovered ring–Folley and Mallory will be challenged as never before.
apokrupha.com/the-honey-mummy
The Glass Falcon
Adventures of Folley and Mallory
I.
II.
III.
IV.
VI.
Acknowledgements
Biography
Preview of The Honey Mummy
The Honey Mummy